"The incredible lack of intelligence these current numbers show is of complete failure to realize this amount of money used on removing real world problems and improving the general social environment the people of this world live in, would result in a massively reduced motive to go to war. and perhaps even eliminate any need for war should all other countries instead spend their defence budgets on such improvements."
Ah, the old "social spending will end war and terrorism" canard. Too bad that reality has shot it full of holes.
You think social spending will stop Islamist terrorism? Really? Especially considering that every Islamist terrorist attack against the west has been conducted by middle class or wealthy Muslims? These people aren't attacking us because of lack of clean water or trade. They're attacking us because their religion tells them to. All of the social spending in the world isn't going to stop them.
What about wars between nation-states? Russia has perhaps more natural wealth than any country in the world. It hasnt' stopped them from trying to push their neighbors around. Ask the Georgians how peaceful the Russians are with all of their oil and gas and mineral wealth.
War will be here as long as humans will be here. Social spending will not change that one whit.
Let's see, what things might have happened in the last decade which demanded a growth in our intelligence spending?
Man, I can't think of *anything*. I guess that means that total spending approaching $10 Billion is completely unreasonable.
Look, I'm pretty right wing, but even with the two wars and Al Qaeda still trying to run ops against us, there's no excuse for the current state of our intelligence community. Do you realize just how big and bloated it is? Have you seen the Wikipedia page for the U.S. Intelligence Community? Do you see how many different agencies there are? It seems like every single organ of the government has its own intel department, some of them very large. And many of these agencies... for example the military branches and the State Department... are often working against each other. The way Intel has grown has been monstrous and counterproductive. And it's just way too damn big. Intelligence, to be effective, cannot be too big or too expansive. So recognizing that we had so many agencies, what did we do? Cut them down? Eliminate and consolidate some of them? No, we added yet another layer of bureaucracy with the "Director of National Intelligence", the idea being that he'd be a central clearinghouse and authority for all US Intel. But guess what... we had that already. Wasn't the "Director of Central Intelligence" supposed to have that job? I mean the very nature of the, duh, Central Intelligence Agency was to be that central clearinghouse for all US intel. Again, we just added more bureaucracy.
Have a good look at that list. We should probably eliminate or consolidate two-thirds of those organizations. Why in the holy hell do we need a separate national reconnaissance office and national geospatial intel agency outside of CIA? Why does the State Department need an intel org? Just have diplomats write observational reports and forward them to CIA.
Bottom line, just like every other branch of government, intelligence has gotten too huge, expensive, and bloated to effectively do its job.
"I am shocked to learn that executives from these tech companies live in a place where each public school-day DOESN'T begin with school prayer, a mandatory salute to the Confederate flag, shooting practice, and a discussion of why America would elect a satan-worshiping negro marxist as President."
Uh, I live there, went to high school and college there, and none of my days in public school ever began with a prayer or a salute to the Confederate flag. It always began with a pledge of allegiance to the stars and stripes.
If you were trying to be funny, you failed. If you were trying to paint a picture of the state, you failed miserably.
""Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands."" - Judge Learned Hand
I consider Fox News to be the funniest of all TV channels. The players who consider themselves to be right wing conservatives are a trove of idiocy. Many of their personalities are living proof that abortions need to be legal.
Yeah, they're a trove of idiocy, which is why they're beating all of their competitors. Oh, that's right, you think the citizenry is idiotic. Well, it's all a wash for you then, isn't it? Tell you what. You keep laughing at them, and they'll keep winning the ratings race and making money hand over fist. I'm sure that's a trade they'll take.
before turbines came along, there simply were no large helicopters, only the tiny two-seaters. Now, we have helicopters that can pick up electric transmission line towers and set them in place, or are used in logging in roadless forests. No helicopter with a piston engine could lift that kind of weight. Power-to-weight ratio is easily the most important feature of turbines.
One, you're exaggerating the weakness of piston helicopters. We most certainly DID have piston powered choppers that "carried more than two people". As far back as 1949, we had radial engined choppers like the H-19 that could carry up to 12 troops. Modern choppers like the UH-60 can carry only two more, for up to 14. Yes, with their twin turboshafts they can carry three times the weight that the H-19 could with it's single 600 hp radial. But that radial used a hell of a lot less fuel doing much of the same job that modern Blackhawks do. The improved version of the H-19... the H-34 Choctaw... had double the horsepower, and could carry just 3K lbs less than a modern Blackhawk... and again, used a hell of a lot less fuel. Even if fuel were still cheap, in military usage, fuel supplies... and thus fuel econony... is an important issue. I'd argue that it was unecessary to go to an all turbine helicopter force. Unless you need huge cargo capacity, the only time turbine engines make a difference is in very high altitude areas of operation like Afghanistan. In most other places, if you simply want to move a dozen troops from point A to point B, a radial H-34 would still do the job at a much more frugal cost-per-hour. And the Navy has the same issue with their ships... if it isn't nuclear, pretty soon, it's going to be powered by a gas turbine... even big heavies like oilers and amphibious transports. Unless you need the electrical power from turbines for things like the Aegis radar system... which the big uglies don't have... you're using a lot more fuel with gas turbines than you are with the older oil fired boilers (or even big commercial marine diesels, for that matter).
More than mathematics or alchemy or anything else, he greatest love was theology. He spend more time writing about religion than any other subject. He was a non-Trinitarian Christian, probably Arian in his theology, a position I'm somewhat sympathetic to. He had to keep this quiet during his life... there were serious consequences in Britain at the time for dissenting from Anglican doctrine... but he wrote effusively on religion and professed his deep love and awe for God and his works. Newton wouldn't be very sympathetic to Stephen Hawking's "no need for a God" reasoning:
"
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
Modern scientists would largely consider his beliefs an embarrassment, but I admire the man a great deal. He was the very picture of a full life, mentally, physically, and spiritually. He accomplished more and blazed more trails than most of us will ever dream of doing. He was a polymath that did everything from improving the state of telescopes to serving in Parliament.
I'm on the right wing of the political spectrum, and I agree with you. Jefferson said that the American Revolution wasn't fought so that we could live under a different despotism. Doing this without a warrant goes too far, and it's a blatant violation of both the spirit and letter of the Constitution. And if judges can't recognize that, then perhaps it's time to give the tree of liberty a drink. Either the Constitution means what it says, or it doesn't. And if judges and politicians can ignore it with impunity, then perhaps it's time to start over.
Uh...actually, if anything, the bible proves free will doesn't exist either. god's supposed omnipotence makes free will an impossibility.
If someone already knows what you are going to do, how is it a choice?
God's knowledge of the future doesn't mean lack of free will on your part. It's your choices... an omnipotent god can see your future without interfering in those choices.
Based on what, besides your paranoid conspiracy theories? The photographer wasn't an FBI agent, he essentially took a free lance job from them. And this tape doesn't necessarily prove that HE was the shooter, just that someone fired 38 caliber bullets before the National Guard opened fire.
People here keep assuming that it was some federal conspiracy, when it's more likely it was the work of some radical students. This WAS the era of the SDS and Weathermen, after all. It's not like there weren't any students that were willing to, oh, kill people to achieve their political objectives.
Is that an ideal that's especially resonant with the Chinese culture for some reason?
No, it's something that is resonant with people that want to suppress speech. Look at recent articles and you will see similar lame excuses (ie. stopping terror, child porn, copyright protection) for allowing the NSA/FBI/etc to spy on citizens or try to take down their computers.
Actually, the idea DOES resonante with the Chinese, for cultural reasons that go back centuries. Confucianism held sway in China throughout much of their history, and that philosophy puts a high value on deference to the authorities, be it the Emporor or your local official. And what replaced it in the 20th century... Maoist communism... went from deference of authority to virtual enslavement of it. Chinese culture has never known an ethos of personal freedom the way the West understands it. And lest you think that improved living conditions and the presence of a market has changed anything, keep in mind that when Jackie Chan gave a speech to a major business group in Hong Kong, he got a standing ovation when he said that too much freedom in China was a bad thing, and that the government needed to maintain order and tranquility. One of the reasons that NY Times pundit Thomas Friedman admires the Chinese so much is that they have the benefits of a market economy, while having a government with total authority... easier to "get things done" that way, you see.
If the DoD budget was trimmed even by half (which is still too bloody much spending) and the monies redirected toward, infrastructure, education, health, technology research, etc.. Inside of a very few short years we'd be looking at realizing a Utopian society.
First of all, no, we wouldn't. Because Utopias don't... can't... exist. This is why Sir Thomas More chose Utopia as the name of his impossible society. In Greek, it means "nowhere".
Second, whether or not you realize it, you just laid out exactly why Utopia is impossible. You say we should cut defense spending (and even being a lifelong hawk I agree with that), but then you proceed to lay out all the wonderful things the government should do with that money. And that's the problem. That's YOUR vision. Never once did you think "just let people keep the money they earned, and find their own happiness". Utopias fail because they're always someone else's vision of what's good for us... and the "rest of us" have different ideas, thanks.
"Undoing the damage he did to civil liberties and the environment alone will take years."
Exactly what damage did he do to the environment? Civil Liberties? He certainly gets the blame for TSA, but that little monstrosity was enthusiastically supported by Democrats, moreso even than Bush's own party.
"And yes, Europe's politics are better than America's. Much better. And yes, it's not just because they're Left, but because they're less authoritarian."
Would this be the same "non-authoritarian Europe" that just banned Burqas in France, that has a mass-surveillance state in the UK, and bans firearm ownership in much of the continent? The same Europe where the EU has not only allowed but directedauthorities to gather and save the communications data of European citizens for an indefinite amount of time? THAT Europe? Authoritarianism with good intentions and a velvet glove is still authoritarianism.
The fact that they called themselves socialist doesn't mean they were, they were fascists
Exactly! Most people who claim Nazis were socialists because they called themselves socialists should be informed that the coalition of Marxists, Anarchists, Syndicalists, and Liberals who fought together in the Spanish Civil War called themselves...Republicans!
Except that both national socialism and fascism are merely mutated branches of "normal" socialism. In both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, the economy was pretty much completely directed by the government. The only difference between the Soviet Union and the Axis powers was that the Axis allowed citizens to still own property as long as they were loyal to the state. Ultimately, all industry still had to be at the service of the state if you wanted to keep your company. Virtually all German industrialists were members of the Nazi party, because if they weren't, they didn't stay in business. Same thing with Italy.
Trotsky was hated by Stalin... but that didn't make him any less of a Communist. Same thing for Hitler. He had a different form of socialism than the Soviets, but it was a form of socialism nonetheless. And Mussolini's evolution from mainline socialism was even more apparent. He began as a member of the socialist party. He simply figured he could do all-powerful government even better if he tweaked the model some.
A happy day for freedom-loving Marylanders and Americans in general.
But a sad loss for power tripping pigs.
Pigs. Cute. How very 70's revolutionary of you. Are you wearing bellbottoms, or do you always talk like some dumbass caricature of the Weathermen?
I think this ruling is fantastic, because I think it properly rolls back police power. But I also think that people that consider cops "pigs" are morons. There are good cops and bad cops, and there are far more of the former than the later. I'm a staunch advocate of minimal government and self defense, and I've even gone to court to (successfully) fight a traffic ticket, but I'd hate to live in a society without police.
As an electrician, one can make (under ideal circumstances) around $40/hr. As long ago as 1999 (not sure how true this is 10 years on) I heard that a *nix admin could make as much as $80/hr (under ideal circumstances).
You can thank the Internet for that change. Before the net came, IT was a highly profitable field, where all that specialized knowledge could make you a lot of money. But now you can find some guy in India or the Philipines with similar knowledge, and since all IT runs on the Internet now, he'll do that work for you at a fraction of a cost. All of that helpful remote management software that SysAdmins thought was so great because it let them work from home? It also lets "Peggy" work from Bangalore or Manila or Kiev. So like it or not, IT is now a commodity technology and a common, commodity skill field, no more important in entry level work than clerks or administrative assistants.
In fact, they have better job security. You can't outsource a file clerk or a plumber or a truck driver to India.
Bottom line, "Information wants to be free" and "the network is the computer" came back to bite the very people singing that song in the ass. In many places, an experienced plumber makes more money and has more job security than an experienced SysAdmin. IT is essentially a maintenance or janitorial job with higher technology now.
In terms of natural resources, Japan is practically void of anything valuable. Lucky for the Japanese, China is still pissed over that whole "Rape of Nanking" deal.
China is one of the oldest civilizations on Earth, and at one time had perhaps the most powerful. And yet, after their golden age, they withered and spent the rest of history being what we would call a Third World Country. Only now are they finally ready for world power status again.
Contrast them against Japan, who only a little more than a century ago, was a dirt poor, backwards country that had to be literally forced at the barrel of a gun to open their doors to the world. By the 1930's... scant decades away... they became one of the most powerful industrialized countries in the world, creating a war machine that conquered a huge part of the globe in just a few years.
And then we nuked them. They went from world power, to shambles, a conquered country with two radioactive wastes where cities had been. And in less than three decades after that, they became one of the wealthiest and most technologically advanced countries on the planet... again... arguably more powerful economically than they were at the hight of their military might.
They did all this... twice... in the span of a single century, with no natural resources to speak of, save one: the Japanese people themselves.
I'd prefer Stallman's outspoken extremism vs the quiet extremism that corporations would place us under if no one spoke up.
I prefer neither of them. Stallman is as much of an extremist as the people and companies that he's fighting. I don't want a world without copyright of any kind OR draconian copyright laws. I want reasonable protection for content providers as well as reasonable fair use laws. I will not accept that my only recourse is to take Stallman's revolutionary position, or the position of companies that tell me I don't own the software or music that I buy.
The whole "digital rights" scene increasingly reminds me of the Spanish Civil War, where people were pressed to pick a side. But the sides were Fascists vs. Communists. I don't want to pick either side, thank you very much. They both suck.
What will always be a mystery to me is why Apple picked NeXT over BeOS, especially since Be was basically written by a bunch of Apple vets that wanted to write the next great GUI system. It had everything they wanted... protected memory, code for multiple processors, etc. And everyone I've known thats used Be has told me it was by far the fastest multimedia platform of its day, far outpacing the performance of NeXT systems.
Don't get me wrong... NeXT was intriguing, and I'm an OS X user, and love it. But at the time, Be was basically ready to go. Either Be's management couldn't sell food to starving people, or Steve Jobs must have put on one hell of a reality distortion field show when he met with Apple. As a parent poster mentioned, it took fully 3 years to turn NeXT into something Apple users would want.
I think neither the MPAA nor Aiplex really care about about their websites getting knocked down; if anything, it gives them more publicity and lets them generate additional FUD about the dreaded "pirates".
Exactly. Congrats to all of the idiots out there that just gave the MPAA a very public example of "computer terrorists". Nice going.
Slashdot Mirror
"The incredible lack of intelligence these current numbers show is of complete failure to realize this amount of money used on removing real world problems and improving the general social environment the people of this world live in, would result in a massively reduced motive to go to war. and perhaps even eliminate any need for war should all other countries instead spend their defence budgets on such improvements."
Ah, the old "social spending will end war and terrorism" canard. Too bad that reality has shot it full of holes.
You think social spending will stop Islamist terrorism? Really? Especially considering that every Islamist terrorist attack against the west has been conducted by middle class or wealthy Muslims? These people aren't attacking us because of lack of clean water or trade. They're attacking us because their religion tells them to. All of the social spending in the world isn't going to stop them.
What about wars between nation-states? Russia has perhaps more natural wealth than any country in the world. It hasnt' stopped them from trying to push their neighbors around. Ask the Georgians how peaceful the Russians are with all of their oil and gas and mineral wealth.
War will be here as long as humans will be here. Social spending will not change that one whit.
Let's see, what things might have happened in the last decade which demanded a growth in our intelligence spending?
Man, I can't think of *anything*. I guess that means that total spending approaching $10 Billion is completely unreasonable.
Look, I'm pretty right wing, but even with the two wars and Al Qaeda still trying to run ops against us, there's no excuse for the current state of our intelligence community. Do you realize just how big and bloated it is? Have you seen the Wikipedia page for the U.S. Intelligence Community? Do you see how many different agencies there are? It seems like every single organ of the government has its own intel department, some of them very large. And many of these agencies... for example the military branches and the State Department... are often working against each other. The way Intel has grown has been monstrous and counterproductive. And it's just way too damn big. Intelligence, to be effective, cannot be too big or too expansive. So recognizing that we had so many agencies, what did we do? Cut them down? Eliminate and consolidate some of them? No, we added yet another layer of bureaucracy with the "Director of National Intelligence", the idea being that he'd be a central clearinghouse and authority for all US Intel. But guess what... we had that already. Wasn't the "Director of Central Intelligence" supposed to have that job? I mean the very nature of the, duh, Central Intelligence Agency was to be that central clearinghouse for all US intel. Again, we just added more bureaucracy.
Have a good look at that list. We should probably eliminate or consolidate two-thirds of those organizations. Why in the holy hell do we need a separate national reconnaissance office and national geospatial intel agency outside of CIA? Why does the State Department need an intel org? Just have diplomats write observational reports and forward them to CIA.
Bottom line, just like every other branch of government, intelligence has gotten too huge, expensive, and bloated to effectively do its job.
Who was she talking to? (considering the lack of cell-phone towers)
Ugh.
Well obviously, it's not a cellphone, but a communicator. She's talking to her starship in orbit. Duh.
"I am shocked to learn that executives from these tech companies live in a place where each public school-day DOESN'T begin with school prayer, a mandatory salute to the Confederate flag, shooting practice, and a discussion of why America would elect a satan-worshiping negro marxist as President."
Uh, I live there, went to high school and college there, and none of my days in public school ever began with a prayer or a salute to the Confederate flag. It always began with a pledge of allegiance to the stars and stripes.
If you were trying to be funny, you failed. If you were trying to paint a picture of the state, you failed miserably.
The US tax code relatively speaking, is jam-packed with tax breaks.
So lower the corporate rates AND close the loopholes. Doing one will give you leverage to do the other, and everyone wins something.
""Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as
possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the
treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes.
Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister
in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone
does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any
public duty to pay more than the law demands."" - Judge Learned Hand
Of course, if we'd reign in corporate taxes, we'd bring a lot of capital back home. The US has one of the highest rates of corporate taxes in the world, trailing only Japan and Cameroon. Even France... bastion of Euro-Socialism Lite... has a lower top corporate tax.
I consider Fox News to be the funniest of all TV channels. The players who consider themselves to be right wing conservatives are a trove of idiocy. Many of their personalities are living proof that abortions need to be legal.
Yeah, they're a trove of idiocy, which is why they're beating all of their competitors. Oh, that's right, you think the citizenry is idiotic. Well, it's all a wash for you then, isn't it? Tell you what. You keep laughing at them, and they'll keep winning the ratings race and making money hand over fist. I'm sure that's a trade they'll take.
before turbines came along, there simply were no large helicopters, only the tiny two-seaters. Now, we have helicopters that can pick up electric transmission line towers and set them in place, or are used in logging in roadless forests. No helicopter with a piston engine could lift that kind of weight. Power-to-weight ratio is easily the most important feature of turbines.
One, you're exaggerating the weakness of piston helicopters. We most certainly DID have piston powered choppers that "carried more than two people". As far back as 1949, we had radial engined choppers like the H-19 that could carry up to 12 troops. Modern choppers like the UH-60 can carry only two more, for up to 14. Yes, with their twin turboshafts they can carry three times the weight that the H-19 could with it's single 600 hp radial. But that radial used a hell of a lot less fuel doing much of the same job that modern Blackhawks do. The improved version of the H-19... the H-34 Choctaw... had double the horsepower, and could carry just 3K lbs less than a modern Blackhawk... and again, used a hell of a lot less fuel. Even if fuel were still cheap, in military usage, fuel supplies... and thus fuel econony... is an important issue. I'd argue that it was unecessary to go to an all turbine helicopter force. Unless you need huge cargo capacity, the only time turbine engines make a difference is in very high altitude areas of operation like Afghanistan. In most other places, if you simply want to move a dozen troops from point A to point B, a radial H-34 would still do the job at a much more frugal cost-per-hour. And the Navy has the same issue with their ships... if it isn't nuclear, pretty soon, it's going to be powered by a gas turbine... even big heavies like oilers and amphibious transports. Unless you need the electrical power from turbines for things like the Aegis radar system... which the big uglies don't have... you're using a lot more fuel with gas turbines than you are with the older oil fired boilers (or even big commercial marine diesels, for that matter).
More than mathematics or alchemy or anything else, he greatest love was theology. He spend more time writing about religion than any other subject. He was a non-Trinitarian Christian, probably Arian in his theology, a position I'm somewhat sympathetic to. He had to keep this quiet during his life... there were serious consequences in Britain at the time for dissenting from Anglican doctrine... but he wrote effusively on religion and professed his deep love and awe for God and his works. Newton wouldn't be very sympathetic to Stephen Hawking's "no need for a God" reasoning:
"
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
Modern scientists would largely consider his beliefs an embarrassment, but I admire the man a great deal. He was the very picture of a full life, mentally, physically, and spiritually. He accomplished more and blazed more trails than most of us will ever dream of doing. He was a polymath that did everything from improving the state of telescopes to serving in Parliament.
and get it to the supreme court.
if they say this is legal, burn it down.
simple really.
I'm on the right wing of the political spectrum, and I agree with you. Jefferson said that the American Revolution wasn't fought so that we could live under a different despotism. Doing this without a warrant goes too far, and it's a blatant violation of both the spirit and letter of the Constitution. And if judges can't recognize that, then perhaps it's time to give the tree of liberty a drink. Either the Constitution means what it says, or it doesn't. And if judges and politicians can ignore it with impunity, then perhaps it's time to start over.
Uh...actually, if anything, the bible proves free will doesn't exist either. god's supposed omnipotence makes free will an impossibility.
If someone already knows what you are going to do, how is it a choice?
God's knowledge of the future doesn't mean lack of free will on your part. It's your choices... an omnipotent god can see your future without interfering in those choices.
First off, with that reply, it's no wonder you posted AC. It was truly cowardly.
Second, when it came to "hippie protestors" in the 60's, they were often joined by fellow protestors whose intent wasn't quite so peaceful..
Looks like the FBI fired first.
Based on what, besides your paranoid conspiracy theories? The photographer wasn't an FBI agent, he essentially took a free lance job from them. And this tape doesn't necessarily prove that HE was the shooter, just that someone fired 38 caliber bullets before the National Guard opened fire.
People here keep assuming that it was some federal conspiracy, when it's more likely it was the work of some radical students. This WAS the era of the SDS and Weathermen, after all. It's not like there weren't any students that were willing to, oh, kill people to achieve their political objectives.
Is that an ideal that's especially resonant with the Chinese culture for some reason?
No, it's something that is resonant with people that want to suppress speech. Look at recent articles and you will see similar lame excuses (ie. stopping terror, child porn, copyright protection) for allowing the NSA/FBI/etc to spy on citizens or try to take down their computers.
Actually, the idea DOES resonante with the Chinese, for cultural reasons that go back centuries. Confucianism held sway in China throughout much of their history, and that philosophy puts a high value on deference to the authorities, be it the Emporor or your local official. And what replaced it in the 20th century... Maoist communism... went from deference of authority to virtual enslavement of it. Chinese culture has never known an ethos of personal freedom the way the West understands it. And lest you think that improved living conditions and the presence of a market has changed anything, keep in mind that when Jackie Chan gave a speech to a major business group in Hong Kong, he got a standing ovation when he said that too much freedom in China was a bad thing, and that the government needed to maintain order and tranquility. One of the reasons that NY Times pundit Thomas Friedman admires the Chinese so much is that they have the benefits of a market economy, while having a government with total authority... easier to "get things done" that way, you see.
If the DoD budget was trimmed even by half (which is still too bloody much spending) and the monies redirected toward, infrastructure, education, health, technology research, etc.. Inside of a very few short years we'd be looking at realizing a Utopian society.
First of all, no, we wouldn't. Because Utopias don't... can't... exist. This is why Sir Thomas More chose Utopia as the name of his impossible society. In Greek, it means "nowhere".
Second, whether or not you realize it, you just laid out exactly why Utopia is impossible. You say we should cut defense spending (and even being a lifelong hawk I agree with that), but then you proceed to lay out all the wonderful things the government should do with that money. And that's the problem. That's YOUR vision. Never once did you think "just let people keep the money they earned, and find their own happiness". Utopias fail because they're always someone else's vision of what's good for us... and the "rest of us" have different ideas, thanks.
"Undoing the damage he did to civil liberties and the environment alone will take years."
Exactly what damage did he do to the environment? Civil Liberties? He certainly gets the blame for TSA, but that little monstrosity was enthusiastically supported by Democrats, moreso even than Bush's own party.
Because it certainly isn't any Europe in reality.
"And yes, Europe's politics are better than America's. Much better. And yes, it's not just because they're Left, but because they're less authoritarian."
Would this be the same "non-authoritarian Europe" that just banned Burqas in France, that has a mass-surveillance state in the UK, and bans firearm ownership in much of the continent? The same Europe where the EU has not only allowed but directedauthorities to gather and save the communications data of European citizens for an indefinite amount of time? THAT Europe? Authoritarianism with good intentions and a velvet glove is still authoritarianism.
The fact that they called themselves socialist doesn't mean they were, they were fascists
Exactly! Most people who claim Nazis were socialists because they called themselves socialists should be informed that the coalition of Marxists, Anarchists, Syndicalists, and Liberals who fought together in the Spanish Civil War called themselves...Republicans!
Except that both national socialism and fascism are merely mutated branches of "normal" socialism. In both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, the economy was pretty much completely directed by the government. The only difference between the Soviet Union and the Axis powers was that the Axis allowed citizens to still own property as long as they were loyal to the state. Ultimately, all industry still had to be at the service of the state if you wanted to keep your company. Virtually all German industrialists were members of the Nazi party, because if they weren't, they didn't stay in business. Same thing with Italy.
Trotsky was hated by Stalin... but that didn't make him any less of a Communist. Same thing for Hitler. He had a different form of socialism than the Soviets, but it was a form of socialism nonetheless. And Mussolini's evolution from mainline socialism was even more apparent. He began as a member of the socialist party. He simply figured he could do all-powerful government even better if he tweaked the model some.
A happy day for freedom-loving Marylanders and Americans in general.
But a sad loss for power tripping pigs.
Pigs. Cute. How very 70's revolutionary of you. Are you wearing bellbottoms, or do you always talk like some dumbass caricature of the Weathermen?
I think this ruling is fantastic, because I think it properly rolls back police power. But I also think that people that consider cops "pigs" are morons. There are good cops and bad cops, and there are far more of the former than the later. I'm a staunch advocate of minimal government and self defense, and I've even gone to court to (successfully) fight a traffic ticket, but I'd hate to live in a society without police.
As an electrician, one can make (under ideal circumstances) around $40/hr. As long ago as 1999 (not sure how true this is 10 years on) I heard that a *nix admin could make as much as $80/hr (under ideal circumstances).
You can thank the Internet for that change. Before the net came, IT was a highly profitable field, where all that specialized knowledge could make you a lot of money. But now you can find some guy in India or the Philipines with similar knowledge, and since all IT runs on the Internet now, he'll do that work for you at a fraction of a cost. All of that helpful remote management software that SysAdmins thought was so great because it let them work from home? It also lets "Peggy" work from Bangalore or Manila or Kiev. So like it or not, IT is now a commodity technology and a common, commodity skill field, no more important in entry level work than clerks or administrative assistants.
In fact, they have better job security. You can't outsource a file clerk or a plumber or a truck driver to India.
Bottom line, "Information wants to be free" and "the network is the computer" came back to bite the very people singing that song in the ass. In many places, an experienced plumber makes more money and has more job security than an experienced SysAdmin. IT is essentially a maintenance or janitorial job with higher technology now.
In terms of natural resources, Japan is practically void of anything valuable. Lucky for the Japanese, China is still pissed over that whole "Rape of Nanking" deal.
China is one of the oldest civilizations on Earth, and at one time had perhaps the most powerful. And yet, after their golden age, they withered and spent the rest of history being what we would call a Third World Country. Only now are they finally ready for world power status again.
Contrast them against Japan, who only a little more than a century ago, was a dirt poor, backwards country that had to be literally forced at the barrel of a gun to open their doors to the world. By the 1930's... scant decades away... they became one of the most powerful industrialized countries in the world, creating a war machine that conquered a huge part of the globe in just a few years.
And then we nuked them. They went from world power, to shambles, a conquered country with two radioactive wastes where cities had been. And in less than three decades after that, they became one of the wealthiest and most technologically advanced countries on the planet... again... arguably more powerful economically than they were at the hight of their military might.
They did all this... twice... in the span of a single century, with no natural resources to speak of, save one: the Japanese people themselves.
I wouldn't count Japan out just yet.
I'd prefer Stallman's outspoken extremism vs the quiet extremism that corporations would place us under if no one spoke up.
I prefer neither of them. Stallman is as much of an extremist as the people and companies that he's fighting. I don't want a world without copyright of any kind OR draconian copyright laws. I want reasonable protection for content providers as well as reasonable fair use laws. I will not accept that my only recourse is to take Stallman's revolutionary position, or the position of companies that tell me I don't own the software or music that I buy.
The whole "digital rights" scene increasingly reminds me of the Spanish Civil War, where people were pressed to pick a side. But the sides were Fascists vs. Communists. I don't want to pick either side, thank you very much. They both suck.
It was because Jean Louis Gassee (sp?) was a tremendous douche who wanted way too much cash for his OS.
Didn't Apple end up paying more for NeXT than Be was asking?
What will always be a mystery to me is why Apple picked NeXT over BeOS, especially since Be was basically written by a bunch of Apple vets that wanted to write the next great GUI system. It had everything they wanted... protected memory, code for multiple processors, etc. And everyone I've known thats used Be has told me it was by far the fastest multimedia platform of its day, far outpacing the performance of NeXT systems.
Don't get me wrong... NeXT was intriguing, and I'm an OS X user, and love it. But at the time, Be was basically ready to go. Either Be's management couldn't sell food to starving people, or Steve Jobs must have put on one hell of a reality distortion field show when he met with Apple. As a parent poster mentioned, it took fully 3 years to turn NeXT into something Apple users would want.
I think neither the MPAA nor Aiplex really care about about their websites getting knocked down; if anything, it gives them more publicity and lets them generate additional FUD about the dreaded "pirates".
Exactly. Congrats to all of the idiots out there that just gave the MPAA a very public example of "computer terrorists". Nice going.