Jefferson most assuredly rejected Christianity. The closest description you can make was that he was a Deist. Mind you, an 18th century Deist and a 20th century Deist like Einstein are going to have somewhat different views, but anyone who says Jefferson was any kind of Christian knows dick about Jefferson.
Jefferson rejected the divinity of Jesus Christ, but considered him a religious leader teacher worthy of following, in the mold of Moses or Abraham. He wasn't a conventional Christian by any means, but indeed identified himself as Christian and as a believer in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
"In some of the delightful conversations with you in the evenings of 1798-99, and which served as an anodyne to the afflictions of the crisis through which our country was then laboring, the Christian religion was sometimes our topic; and I then promised you that one day or other I would give you my views of it. They are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others, ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other.
Sorry, this is just a myth. The founding fathers were deists, as secular as you could be in their day.
Sorry, this is just a myth. Deism, by definition, doesn't believe in a god that interferes in human affairs, i.e. providence. None of the Founding Fathers were deists. Jefferson and Franklin very much believed in providence, and prayed often. Most of the rest of the founders belonged to a denomination of one kind or another. You can have unconventional religious beliefs (Washington was an Episcopalian that doubted some doctrines, and Jefferson was a philosophical Unitarian that attended several churches, Trinitarian included), but that doesn't make you a Deist. None of the founders were on record as believing in an uncaring watchmaker.
The United States wasn't founded as a "Christian Nation" in the same sense that Iran is an Islamic Nation... meaning that clerical and civil law were one and the same... but to argue that there wasn't a strong religious influence on the founding of the United States is just sticking your head in the sand.
The whole U.S. is established on the idea of God and religion. It's everywhere in the U.S. culture.
Partly true. The Founding Fathers had three primary influences: Traditional religion and the moral codes it gave us, the Enlightenment, and "Western Civilization", i.e. the collective history and tradition that started with Greek thought, went to Roman government, and ultimately English common law. It would seem that you don't think the first two influences should or even could meld together. But they do, and they have for hundreds of years.
That fact alone tells that U.S. has never been about, or seek to know, science. Science tends to look at the world in terms of numbers, technology and confirmed facts. Religion tends to tell the world has been made by some imaginary person in the sky, tells you to pray towards said imaginary person and completely disregards science in favor of what someone wrote on paper 1500-2000 years ago. They are not compatible.
This comes off as a bitter rant. The US has never been about science? Really? We invested ourselves in the quest for knowledge and technical progress from our first days. And faith and science are perfectly compatible in their own spheres: faith is about cosmic meaning and purpose, science is about cosmic workings. You may not like it or accept it, but the vast majority of us are just fine with that.
I don't get the opposition to hunting non-endangered whales. The whales being hunted(mostly minke whales), are nowhere near endangered, so why is there just so much opposition to the whaling?
Because the Save-The-Whales crowd won the PR war a long time ago. Whales are animals, nothing more. But groups like Greenpeace (very smartly, I might add) have fudged that fact with fluff about whales being nearly as smart as humans, having their own language, etc, when there's really no evidence of the sort. Some animals are smarter than others, but in the end, they're just animals. Either there here for our use or they aren't. If a species of whale isn't endangered, then there's no more moral qualms about killing it than that cow you're enjoying between two buns and and some cheese.
I think instead of dancing around the whole "Scientific Whaling" farce, the Japanese and Swedes and Norwegians should just tell the world "Look, they taste good and their hides are useful and they're just animals. We're going to keep hunting and eating and using them. If you don't like that, go pound sand".
Occam's Razor can be used with sufficient enough certainty to show that there is no Santa and that the gifts are bought by the parents (or somebody else), and the fact that it says "made in China" only confirms this theory.
... if USA didn't ditched the Space Shuttle program too soon...
Of course they did. Yeah, the Shuttles were expensive. But you do not replace a platform until you have a replacement ready to go. A real replacement, not pie in the sky stuff like the Orion program.
The reality is, it would be too expensive to refurbish existing shuttles. We'd be better off just building new ones in that case. But either we have to come up with a new rocket soon, or try something like bundling several Titan rockets together. Because it's not terribly bright to leave the fate of our heavy lift needs in the hands of Russia.
Unfortunately, when it comes to space tech, a lot of otherwise intelligent people never seem to be able get beyond that mentality, despite the Cold War having been over for a generation. Not that mindless nationalism is limited to space, of course, but it's one of the major hot buttons.
The article had not one whit of pro-USA rah rah. You pulled that out of your own ass, apparently just to take the opportunity to trash the US. We get it... America Bad. Why don't you just put it in your sig to save yourself the typing?
Its never about who has the better plane but who has more money to pay off the military.
Or, here in Non-Conspiracy Theory World, it's about real life factors. Such as: in the case of the YF-22 vs YF-23 flyoff, USAF chose the 22 because it was deemed to be more maneuverable in combat above supersonic speeds... a prime goal of the ATF (Advanced Tactical Fighter) program. The 23 was deemed to be faster and stealthier, but significantly less maneuverable in high speed operating envelopes. Additionally, USAF's relationship with Northrop had soured on the B-2 project. Northrop had, fair or unfair, gained a reputation for being behind schedule and over budget. Lockheed had turned out the F-117 ahead of time and under budget. At the time, considering that USAF was going into a post-Cold War budget era, the ability to deliver hardware on time and on price was considered important.
Look into the upgrades and fixes grumman was going to make to the f-14d's . THe f-14d's were better then the super hornets that replaced them . Nevermind the upgrades that would have cut maintenance in HALF , which is the excuse given for retiring the planes in the first place.
Grumman also showed plans for a new version of the f-14 that had much of the features of the raptor (besides the stealth portion). Yet they went with the super hornets.
Again, let's look at real world reasons. Cheney canceled the Super Tomcat because even with the upgrades you mentioned, maintenance costs would far and away still have been greater than any other current or projected platform. The doomed A-12 project was ongoing at the time, and it was thought that the "flying dorito" might be able to do both fleet air defense and strike, all in a stealthy platform. The Tomcat wasn't considered because, as Dick Cheney put it when he canceled the program, "Underneath, it's still 1960's technology". I loved the Tomcat and worked with them in the Navy, but I cannot emphasize enough how many man hours and dollars it took to keep it up in the air. Yeah, the Super Tom would in some ways have been more capable than the Super Hornet, but the later is far more economical. And those costs add up.
I just don't get why this is Apple's fault. There are plenty of companies that outsource to Foxconn
When you see some obnoxious eco-warrior driving a Prius, you are allowed to mock them and point out that they could have bought a lighter, more fuel efficient car and paid a third less. If you see some smug urban prat driving an SUV soft-roader you can likewise point and laugh. Apple users are "Apple Users", not just people who use Apple. They aren't buying the product, they are buying the image and mythology. Mocking that mythology, and dirtying that image, is not just fair game, it's almost mandatory. Notice how quickly and automatically you bit at the bait? That's why you're fair game.
The whole Apple "true believer" thing is a bit overhyped. Plenty of users of Apple product don't care. It's especially more true with people that got into Apple products with the Mac, i.e. before the ubiquitous iPhone came along. Most iPhone users could give a crap less about the cult. They just think the phone is cool. Same with iPod users. Me, I use a Mac because I really like OS X. I'd use the OS on generic hardware if I could (though I do agree that Apple hardware is usually artful and attractive and is part of Apple's policy of a "total user experience", which is a great philosophy in and of itself). I have a Mac Mini (and an eMac before that), but I don't own an iPod or iPhone, and I see right through the reality distortion field, thanks. I've even been *gasp* pretty critical of Steve Jobs.
In sum, not all Apple users are in the Cult of Apple. There are those people that are true believers and being in the Cult is a whole identity thing with them (if you see that Apple logo decal in the rear window of a car...), and even those that are Apple users because its a style thing, similar to wearing all the right clothes and driving the right car and shopping in the right places, etc).
If you really want a pretentiousness singularity to form and devour everything, get a Macbook Pro user that drives a Prius to park in a place that has a university, Whole Foods, independent bookstore, and a Starbucks all nearby.
The true report is even funnier, that he died from mental and physical exhaustion from his dedication to improving the country. Can't make that stuff up.
We keep thinking that all people desire democracy and western style freedom. But that's not always the case. Decades of brainwashing works. Norks adored that guy, and his father before him, because the whole system in NK was designed to ensure that.
Taking a brutal dictator seriously is exactly the wrong approach. I'd rather remember him as a supporting character in a lowbrow puppet comedy. I won't bother to post the YouTube link, since there's already two or three up here.
The guy had a fanatical army and a nuke program. And he was constantly attacking his neighbor to the south. Remember the shelling of the South Korean island? The sinking of their warship? Kim Jong ll regularly had people from the south kidnapped.
To say "Aww, just ignore him and he'll go away" is pretty silly.
I think he was really cool guy too. Too bad because I was planning on visiting North Korea and now these news kinda ruin my trip. Interesting to see what happens next year there tho, maybe it's still worth the trip.
Any sufficiently advanced idiocy is indistinguishable from trolling. (and vice versa)
He may or may not have been trolling/joking, but just a short while ago, a spokesman for the Communist Part USA said... with a straight face.. that North Korea was a great place for a vacation. So I don't know, maybe the CPUSA staff have a Slashdot account.
Best of luck arguing, on slashdot, that the US isn't the best at anything and everything. If you say that (for example) Cuba has a good healthcare system, eveyone will just start with the "go and live in Stalinist Russia where you'ld be happy" posts, as though no other country does anything right.
Oh please. It's usually closer to the opposite of your case: how the US sucks and is the cause of the world's problems. We have bad health care, we're a theocracy, etc etc. There's not a lot of Rah Rah for America here. Be honest.
China is a perfect example. They're slowly going towards free speech, but they can't make that change overnight. It would cause turmoil in the country. You have to remember that most Chinese actually positively agree about limiting free speech. Since China is a democratic country, shouldn't they be able to decide it themselves, without US trying to manipulate?
One, free speech isn't coming to China... not quickly or slowly. It ain't coming at all. Second, when did China become a democratic country? I must have missed this, as it's still officially a one-party state.
Why go to that horrible socialist country when you could go to the capitalist paradise that is Haiti?
This is one of the silliest things I've ever seen posted on Slashdot. Calling Haiti a "capitalist paradise" is a lie, and a blatant one at that. Even calling Haiti a "Laissez Faire" country is a lie. Haiti isn't in a state of decay and anarchy because of capitalism. They're in a state of decay and anarchy because they have a history of corrupt dictators and recently had a natural disaster that pretty much destroyed everything. Free people and free markets depend upon a small number of laws protecting property rights and individual freedoms. Countries like Haiti either don't have them or simply ignore them. Calling Haiti a capitalist paradise (or Somalia, the other stupid-yet-false example that often floats around the web) is like saying that Detroit is a model city.
Right.... except that it isn't hard at all to find that different people have interpreted it differently.
And they'd be wrong in that interpretation. Look, either agree with it or don't. But to say that a religious text really means "down" when the word "up" appears is disingenuous. It says what it says and the text and the meaning are pretty clear, and always have been. Embrace it or rip it, but don't weasel it.
The US has more aircraft carriers than the rest of the entire world combined. China's one ancient soviet carrier is nothing.
The point of this carrier isn't to challenge the US carrier fleet. The point of this carrier is to learn how to build and operate carriers. Once they do that, China will start building much larger and more capable carriers and in greater numbers, while the US Navy is trimming it's fleet. If I was Taiwanese, I'd be nervous.
China's aircraft carrier sounds like pretty old tech. Our aircraft carriers are the most advanced in the world, with nuclear power and now electromagnetic launchers. At something like $5 billion apiece, they aren't cheap. Maybe we can get back some of those dollars we've sent to China by selling them a fleet of our new Reagan-class aircraft carriers.
$5 billion? The Ford Class is expected to hit $15 billion apiece. Which is why the Navy is planning to stretch carrier construction from 5 year cycles to 8 or even 9 year cycles. They simply can't afford as many at those costs. The DDG-1000 may be $7 billion dollars apiece for a destroyer. The F-35 is now as expensive as the F-22, with much less capability. We're pricing ourselves out of a Navy with any significant numbers of ships.
Oh please tell me you aren't serious. That sexist "wives should submit to their husbands" is a bullshit view fostered during a time when a male-dominated society was prevalent. Christianity needs to grow up (and yes I say that as a Christian myself) and learn to live in this century. These views that so many of the faith hold from centuries ago are the main reason that we are so hated now in the world. Do you want that? I don't.
Christianity is a religion, not a buffet. The whole idea is that it's a faith based on eternal truths revealed by Jesus of Nazareth. It's not a trendy club. The rules aren't supposed to change with the ages to fit trends and fashions. If you don't believe in those rules, then abandon the religion. But to insist that Christianity "get with it" is the worst kind of trendy relativism. If the man is who he said he is, then why would the truth of his teachings change? Either he is what he claimed to be, or he is not. Make your decision to follow Christianity based on that and that alone. But to think you can "modernize" what is supposed to be ageless truths (according to the Bible) doesn't say much about your faith.
As for FB, my bet is still that it goes the way of MySpace before too long.
Google+ says "I wish".
Love him or hate him, Zuckerberg is the closest thing to a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or Larry Ellison right now, a visionary, domineering personality with a lot of insight about technology possibilities and a keen business sense. Facebook isn't going anywhere. If anything, like the companies those other men started, it'll probably only grow and buy up other companies to expand its reach.
Yeah, but despite being created to pay for the Civil War, and then being found unconstitutional, they tossed in the 16th amendment to keep the IRS going. Wonder how long it will be before a TSA amendment is passed. "For the good of the Homeland and Security unto the people under its care..."
You don't need amendments anymore. You'll never see another amendment to the Constitution again, because all you need are some judges that will rule your way. Changing the Constitution is hard, and it was supposed to be hard. It's much easier to get some judges to declare that up really means down. This is the danger of the whole "living Constitution" idea. If the Constitution is as pliable as putty, then it's really just a matter of whose hands the putty is in.
COBOL is a good language for what it's intended for... business software... but Comp Sci people didn't like it because it wasn't "elegant", which is pretty much an argument of style, anyway. I liked COBOL just fine in college, and it made sense for its intended purpose. I find that most of the people that mock COBOL have never coded in it. It's a solid language, well-liked by those that use it. If you're a programmer and you don't like it, well, then I'd advise not taking a job programming it. Plenty of other C/C++/Java, etc jobs out there.
Well it was SUPPOSED to be a joke for those that know history. GM did bring out a diesel car and fucked it up so bad it left a bad taste in consumers' mouth. Which is a large reason Americans don't want diesel cars.
I constantly have to put up with "Can you get up to high way speeds", "How do you get around in the winter", etc.
Ah, I see. And I understand. My family had one of those craptastic GM diesels (specifically, the Oldsmobile 98 with the 350 V8). When I drove it, it did indeed feel and act like a badly-tuned big rig.
And theres precedence for your argument. In world war II Germany made a few outstanding tanks (panthers? I can't remember) that took so much work and money to build that they could only make a few, and hence were overrun by cheap british tanks in massive numbers. Like they really got owned.
Specifically, the Tiger Tank was in many ways the Rolls Royce of tanks, but it was engineered like a fine sports car instead of a tank for a dirty, grimy battlefield, and so wasn't terribly reliable. And it was so expensive and complicated to build that during the entire war, under 1400 were made. And for the King Tiger, the follow on, less than 500 were made. The Soviets churned out over 84 thousand T-34's. We built nearly 50K M4 Shermans.
An old military saying goes "quantity has a quality all its own", and there's an influential school of thought among WWII historians that we didn't beat the Axis with superior weapons, but with superior production lines.
Slashdot Mirror
Jefferson most assuredly rejected Christianity. The closest description you can make was that he was a Deist. Mind you, an 18th century Deist and a 20th century Deist like Einstein are going to have somewhat different views, but anyone who says Jefferson was any kind of Christian knows dick about Jefferson.
Jefferson rejected the divinity of Jesus Christ, but considered him a religious leader teacher worthy of following, in the mold of Moses or Abraham. He wasn't a conventional Christian by any means, but indeed identified himself as Christian and as a believer in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
"In some of the delightful conversations with you in the evenings of 1798-99, and which served as an anodyne to the afflictions of the crisis through which our country was then laboring, the Christian religion was sometimes our topic; and I then promised you that one day or other I would give you my views of it. They are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others, ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other.
- Letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, 21 April 1803
Sorry, this is just a myth. The founding fathers were deists, as secular as you could be in their day.
Sorry, this is just a myth. Deism, by definition, doesn't believe in a god that interferes in human affairs, i.e. providence. None of the Founding Fathers were deists. Jefferson and Franklin very much believed in providence, and prayed often. Most of the rest of the founders belonged to a denomination of one kind or another. You can have unconventional religious beliefs (Washington was an Episcopalian that doubted some doctrines, and Jefferson was a philosophical Unitarian that attended several churches, Trinitarian included), but that doesn't make you a Deist. None of the founders were on record as believing in an uncaring watchmaker.
The United States wasn't founded as a "Christian Nation" in the same sense that Iran is an Islamic Nation... meaning that clerical and civil law were one and the same... but to argue that there wasn't a strong religious influence on the founding of the United States is just sticking your head in the sand.
The whole U.S. is established on the idea of God and religion. It's everywhere in the U.S. culture.
Partly true. The Founding Fathers had three primary influences: Traditional religion and the moral codes it gave us, the Enlightenment, and "Western Civilization", i.e. the collective history and tradition that started with Greek thought, went to Roman government, and ultimately English common law. It would seem that you don't think the first two influences should or even could meld together. But they do, and they have for hundreds of years.
That fact alone tells that U.S. has never been about, or seek to know, science. Science tends to look at the world in terms of numbers, technology and confirmed facts. Religion tends to tell the world has been made by some imaginary person in the sky, tells you to pray towards said imaginary person and completely disregards science in favor of what someone wrote on paper 1500-2000 years ago. They are not compatible.
This comes off as a bitter rant. The US has never been about science? Really? We invested ourselves in the quest for knowledge and technical progress from our first days. And faith and science are perfectly compatible in their own spheres: faith is about cosmic meaning and purpose, science is about cosmic workings. You may not like it or accept it, but the vast majority of us are just fine with that.
I don't get the opposition to hunting non-endangered whales. The whales being hunted(mostly minke whales), are nowhere near endangered, so why is there just so much opposition to the whaling?
Because the Save-The-Whales crowd won the PR war a long time ago. Whales are animals, nothing more. But groups like Greenpeace (very smartly, I might add) have fudged that fact with fluff about whales being nearly as smart as humans, having their own language, etc, when there's really no evidence of the sort. Some animals are smarter than others, but in the end, they're just animals. Either there here for our use or they aren't. If a species of whale isn't endangered, then there's no more moral qualms about killing it than that cow you're enjoying between two buns and and some cheese.
I think instead of dancing around the whole "Scientific Whaling" farce, the Japanese and Swedes and Norwegians should just tell the world "Look, they taste good and their hides are useful and they're just animals. We're going to keep hunting and eating and using them. If you don't like that, go pound sand".
Occam's Razor can be used with sufficient enough certainty to show that there is no Santa and that the gifts are bought by the parents (or somebody else), and the fact that it says "made in China" only confirms this theory.
Oh joy. Scrooge has a Slashdot account.
... if USA didn't ditched the Space Shuttle program too soon...
Of course they did. Yeah, the Shuttles were expensive. But you do not replace a platform until you have a replacement ready to go. A real replacement, not pie in the sky stuff like the Orion program.
The reality is, it would be too expensive to refurbish existing shuttles. We'd be better off just building new ones in that case. But either we have to come up with a new rocket soon, or try something like bundling several Titan rockets together. Because it's not terribly bright to leave the fate of our heavy lift needs in the hands of Russia.
America good! Russia bad! U-S-A! U-S-A!
Unfortunately, when it comes to space tech, a lot of otherwise intelligent people never seem to be able get beyond that mentality, despite the Cold War having been over for a generation. Not that mindless nationalism is limited to space, of course, but it's one of the major hot buttons.
The article had not one whit of pro-USA rah rah. You pulled that out of your own ass, apparently just to take the opportunity to trash the US. We get it... America Bad. Why don't you just put it in your sig to save yourself the typing?
Its never about who has the better plane but who has more money to pay off the military.
Or, here in Non-Conspiracy Theory World, it's about real life factors. Such as: in the case of the YF-22 vs YF-23 flyoff, USAF chose the 22 because it was deemed to be more maneuverable in combat above supersonic speeds... a prime goal of the ATF (Advanced Tactical Fighter) program. The 23 was deemed to be faster and stealthier, but significantly less maneuverable in high speed operating envelopes. Additionally, USAF's relationship with Northrop had soured on the B-2 project. Northrop had, fair or unfair, gained a reputation for being behind schedule and over budget. Lockheed had turned out the F-117 ahead of time and under budget. At the time, considering that USAF was going into a post-Cold War budget era, the ability to deliver hardware on time and on price was considered important.
Look into the upgrades and fixes grumman was going to make to the f-14d's . THe f-14d's were better then the super hornets that replaced them . Nevermind the upgrades that would have cut maintenance in HALF , which is the excuse given for retiring the planes in the first place.
Grumman also showed plans for a new version of the f-14 that had much of the features of the raptor (besides the stealth portion). Yet they went with the super hornets.
Again, let's look at real world reasons. Cheney canceled the Super Tomcat because even with the upgrades you mentioned, maintenance costs would far and away still have been greater than any other current or projected platform. The doomed A-12 project was ongoing at the time, and it was thought that the "flying dorito" might be able to do both fleet air defense and strike, all in a stealthy platform. The Tomcat wasn't considered because, as Dick Cheney put it when he canceled the program, "Underneath, it's still 1960's technology". I loved the Tomcat and worked with them in the Navy, but I cannot emphasize enough how many man hours and dollars it took to keep it up in the air. Yeah, the Super Tom would in some ways have been more capable than the Super Hornet, but the later is far more economical. And those costs add up.
I just don't get why this is Apple's fault. There are plenty of companies that outsource to Foxconn
When you see some obnoxious eco-warrior driving a Prius, you are allowed to mock them and point out that they could have bought a lighter, more fuel efficient car and paid a third less. If you see some smug urban prat driving an SUV soft-roader you can likewise point and laugh. Apple users are "Apple Users", not just people who use Apple. They aren't buying the product, they are buying the image and mythology. Mocking that mythology, and dirtying that image, is not just fair game, it's almost mandatory. Notice how quickly and automatically you bit at the bait? That's why you're fair game.
The whole Apple "true believer" thing is a bit overhyped. Plenty of users of Apple product don't care. It's especially more true with people that got into Apple products with the Mac, i.e. before the ubiquitous iPhone came along. Most iPhone users could give a crap less about the cult. They just think the phone is cool. Same with iPod users. Me, I use a Mac because I really like OS X. I'd use the OS on generic hardware if I could (though I do agree that Apple hardware is usually artful and attractive and is part of Apple's policy of a "total user experience", which is a great philosophy in and of itself). I have a Mac Mini (and an eMac before that), but I don't own an iPod or iPhone, and I see right through the reality distortion field, thanks. I've even been *gasp* pretty critical of Steve Jobs.
In sum, not all Apple users are in the Cult of Apple. There are those people that are true believers and being in the Cult is a whole identity thing with them (if you see that Apple logo decal in the rear window of a car...), and even those that are Apple users because its a style thing, similar to wearing all the right clothes and driving the right car and shopping in the right places, etc).
If you really want a pretentiousness singularity to form and devour everything, get a Macbook Pro user that drives a Prius to park in a place that has a university, Whole Foods, independent bookstore, and a Starbucks all nearby.
The true report is even funnier, that he died from mental and physical exhaustion from his dedication to improving the country. Can't make that stuff up.
And North Koreans believe it. There's a book anyone concerned with North Korea should read: The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters.
We keep thinking that all people desire democracy and western style freedom. But that's not always the case. Decades of brainwashing works. Norks adored that guy, and his father before him, because the whole system in NK was designed to ensure that.
Taking a brutal dictator seriously is exactly the wrong approach. I'd rather remember him as a supporting character in a lowbrow puppet comedy. I won't bother to post the YouTube link, since there's already two or three up here.
The guy had a fanatical army and a nuke program. And he was constantly attacking his neighbor to the south. Remember the shelling of the South Korean island? The sinking of their warship? Kim Jong ll regularly had people from the south kidnapped.
To say "Aww, just ignore him and he'll go away" is pretty silly.
I think he was really cool guy too. Too bad because I was planning on visiting North Korea and now these news kinda ruin my trip. Interesting to see what happens next year there tho, maybe it's still worth the trip.
Any sufficiently advanced idiocy is indistinguishable from trolling. (and vice versa)
He may or may not have been trolling/joking, but just a short while ago, a spokesman for the Communist Part USA said... with a straight face.. that North Korea was a great place for a vacation. So I don't know, maybe the CPUSA staff have a Slashdot account.
Best of luck arguing, on slashdot, that the US isn't the best at anything and everything. If you say that (for example) Cuba has a good healthcare system, eveyone will just start with the "go and live in Stalinist Russia where you'ld be happy" posts, as though no other country does anything right.
Oh please. It's usually closer to the opposite of your case: how the US sucks and is the cause of the world's problems. We have bad health care, we're a theocracy, etc etc. There's not a lot of Rah Rah for America here. Be honest.
China is a perfect example. They're slowly going towards free speech, but they can't make that change overnight. It would cause turmoil in the country. You have to remember that most Chinese actually positively agree about limiting free speech. Since China is a democratic country, shouldn't they be able to decide it themselves, without US trying to manipulate?
One, free speech isn't coming to China... not quickly or slowly. It ain't coming at all. Second, when did China become a democratic country? I must have missed this, as it's still officially a one-party state.
Why go to that horrible socialist country when you could go to the capitalist paradise that is Haiti?
This is one of the silliest things I've ever seen posted on Slashdot. Calling Haiti a "capitalist paradise" is a lie, and a blatant one at that. Even calling Haiti a "Laissez Faire" country is a lie. Haiti isn't in a state of decay and anarchy because of capitalism. They're in a state of decay and anarchy because they have a history of corrupt dictators and recently had a natural disaster that pretty much destroyed everything. Free people and free markets depend upon a small number of laws protecting property rights and individual freedoms. Countries like Haiti either don't have them or simply ignore them. Calling Haiti a capitalist paradise (or Somalia, the other stupid-yet-false example that often floats around the web) is like saying that Detroit is a model city.
Right.... except that it isn't hard at all to find that different people have interpreted it differently.
And they'd be wrong in that interpretation. Look, either agree with it or don't. But to say that a religious text really means "down" when the word "up" appears is disingenuous. It says what it says and the text and the meaning are pretty clear, and always have been. Embrace it or rip it, but don't weasel it.
The US has more aircraft carriers than the rest of the entire world combined. China's one ancient soviet carrier is nothing.
The point of this carrier isn't to challenge the US carrier fleet. The point of this carrier is to learn how to build and operate carriers. Once they do that, China will start building much larger and more capable carriers and in greater numbers, while the US Navy is trimming it's fleet. If I was Taiwanese, I'd be nervous.
China's aircraft carrier sounds like pretty old tech. Our aircraft carriers are the most advanced in the world, with nuclear power and now electromagnetic launchers. At something like $5 billion apiece, they aren't cheap. Maybe we can get back some of those dollars we've sent to China by selling them a fleet of our new Reagan-class aircraft carriers.
$5 billion? The Ford Class is expected to hit $15 billion apiece. Which is why the Navy is planning to stretch carrier construction from 5 year cycles to 8 or even 9 year cycles. They simply can't afford as many at those costs. The DDG-1000 may be $7 billion dollars apiece for a destroyer. The F-35 is now as expensive as the F-22, with much less capability. We're pricing ourselves out of a Navy with any significant numbers of ships.
Oh please tell me you aren't serious. That sexist "wives should submit to their husbands" is a bullshit view fostered during a time when a male-dominated society was prevalent. Christianity needs to grow up (and yes I say that as a Christian myself) and learn to live in this century. These views that so many of the faith hold from centuries ago are the main reason that we are so hated now in the world. Do you want that? I don't.
Christianity is a religion, not a buffet. The whole idea is that it's a faith based on eternal truths revealed by Jesus of Nazareth. It's not a trendy club. The rules aren't supposed to change with the ages to fit trends and fashions. If you don't believe in those rules, then abandon the religion. But to insist that Christianity "get with it" is the worst kind of trendy relativism. If the man is who he said he is, then why would the truth of his teachings change? Either he is what he claimed to be, or he is not. Make your decision to follow Christianity based on that and that alone. But to think you can "modernize" what is supposed to be ageless truths (according to the Bible) doesn't say much about your faith.
As for FB, my bet is still that it goes the way of MySpace before too long.
Google+ says "I wish".
Love him or hate him, Zuckerberg is the closest thing to a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or Larry Ellison right now, a visionary, domineering personality with a lot of insight about technology possibilities and a keen business sense. Facebook isn't going anywhere. If anything, like the companies those other men started, it'll probably only grow and buy up other companies to expand its reach.
Yeah, but despite being created to pay for the Civil War, and then being found unconstitutional, they tossed in the 16th amendment to keep the IRS going. Wonder how long it will be before a TSA amendment is passed. "For the good of the Homeland and Security unto the people under its care..."
You don't need amendments anymore. You'll never see another amendment to the Constitution again, because all you need are some judges that will rule your way. Changing the Constitution is hard, and it was supposed to be hard. It's much easier to get some judges to declare that up really means down. This is the danger of the whole "living Constitution" idea. If the Constitution is as pliable as putty, then it's really just a matter of whose hands the putty is in.
COBOL is a good language for what it's intended for... business software... but Comp Sci people didn't like it because it wasn't "elegant", which is pretty much an argument of style, anyway. I liked COBOL just fine in college, and it made sense for its intended purpose. I find that most of the people that mock COBOL have never coded in it. It's a solid language, well-liked by those that use it. If you're a programmer and you don't like it, well, then I'd advise not taking a job programming it. Plenty of other C/C++/Java, etc jobs out there.
BTW "quantity has a quality of its own" I beleive came from a high ranking Soviet general in WWII.
It's popularly attributed to Stalin, but almost certainly pre-dates him by many years. I first heard it, ironically, from a US Army general.
Well it was SUPPOSED to be a joke for those that know history. GM did bring out a diesel car and fucked it up so bad it left a bad taste in consumers' mouth. Which is a large reason Americans don't want diesel cars.
I constantly have to put up with "Can you get up to high way speeds", "How do you get around in the winter", etc.
Ah, I see. And I understand. My family had one of those craptastic GM diesels (specifically, the Oldsmobile 98 with the 350 V8). When I drove it, it did indeed feel and act like a badly-tuned big rig.
And theres precedence for your argument. In world war II Germany made a few outstanding tanks (panthers? I can't remember) that took so much work and money to build that they could only make a few, and hence were overrun by cheap british tanks in massive numbers. Like they really got owned.
Specifically, the Tiger Tank was in many ways the Rolls Royce of tanks, but it was engineered like a fine sports car instead of a tank for a dirty, grimy battlefield, and so wasn't terribly reliable. And it was so expensive and complicated to build that during the entire war, under 1400 were made. And for the King Tiger, the follow on, less than 500 were made. The Soviets churned out over 84 thousand T-34's. We built nearly 50K M4 Shermans.
An old military saying goes "quantity has a quality all its own", and there's an influential school of thought among WWII historians that we didn't beat the Axis with superior weapons, but with superior production lines.