"a similar project on our power infrastructure (especially if they could build a fibre network alongside) would pay off just as handsomely."
Furthermore, as long as it wasn't just for wind power, this is something that both parties could get behind. A truly large scale national infrastructure improvement project, with a more robust national grid connecting to new or improved coal plants, nuclear plants, hydro, solar facilities, and wind farms (and any other viable sources we could use), something like this would probably get support from virtually all our political sectors, save the ultra-small government faction, which doesn't have much real power anyway.
Wolfenstien: Enemy Territory surpassed Doom II as my all time favorite game. I still find it more enjoyable than even newer games, like Doom III and it's spinoffs. The fact that these guys started as amateurs is amazing.
"And who decides what the line is between "criminals" who get a day in court and "terrorists" who you feel should be shot on sight? You? George Bush? Whoever has the gun?"
That's an outstanding, and important question. I'm a strong supporter of military action against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, but you bring up a damn good point.
The short version of my argument for non-uniformed combatants at war with the US is one of citizenship. US Citizenship, or lack of, should be a prime factor. While that doesn't necessarily save US terrorists from a death sentence, it should get them their day in a civilian court. Timothy McVeigh tried to bring down the Federal Government via organized terrorist action, and he got a trial. Bill Ayers' Weatherman bombing of the Pentagon got him a trial. He got away with it (in fact, he brags about having gotten away with it), but that's a risk you take going to trial, because they're citizens. Now, the law has always been somewhat different for US Citizens engaged in military action against their own country, so we're still in some strange territory here even if the combatant is a citizen... and I don't have all the answers here.
But I'm convinced of one thing; under no circumstances should a non-uniformed, non-citizen combatant get a civil court trial, especially if captured overseas. The Geneva Convention says shoot them on the field upon capture, and I've begun to think that's actually a pretty good idea. Offer a military tribunal if they'll surrender in the field, with the assurance that they wont be hung, provided they haven't taken part in an atrocity of some sort, and agree to work with intelligence agents in efforts to capture and defeat their comrades.
"I'm not sure the ipod will ever catch on. No wireless, less storage than a nomad - lame."
Taco's statement has become somewhat infamous, but I have to defend him on this one. He was essentially right (and these words are being typed on a Mac). Simplicity and elegance in function are virtues... lack of meaningful features are not. As such, I've never owned an iPod, as I think it's ridiculous not to put a simple FM receiver and a built in Mic for quick voice recording in modern MP3 players.
When compared to their competitors... Creative's players, Sandisk's Sansa players... hell, even the Zune in some cases... the iPod simply isn't a very good value, unless being part of the crowd appeals more to you than price and features.
One could wonder whether the project was set up to adress terrorism OR it was setup to generate media-attention ?
I work at an airport, in administration, and trust me when I say this has very little to do with dark political conspiracies, and a lot to do with the government's haste to show they were "doing something" after 9/11. This project was quickly rushed into service, and has been widely reviled by airports and airport police departments across the country. And other similar measures... the current background check process for giving access to secured areas, and the very creation of TSA itself, were all measures to reassure the public that something was getting done. The problem is that government enterprises like these tend to become bipartisan boondoggles, with every state and major city wanting a piece of the political and funding action these things entail. Federal agencies tend to become monsters that need to justify their own existence by constant growth. TSA in particular is quickly becoming a large federal law enforcement agency, not just a baggage security team. When they were first set up, several of their nascent teams moved and basically tried to take control of several airports... I know of one major southern airport where they simply showed up one day, declared that a series of offices now belonged to them, and when the airport director came down to see what was going on, they tried to have him arrested by his own police force for "violating federal facilities". Anyone that works with AAAE members (airport execs group) knows what incident I'm talking about.
Did you know that TSA will now be issued police-like blue uniforms, with metal badges, just like cops? Airport police and the metropolitan police departments that supplement them just looooove that, and there's the inevitable talk of actually giving said TSA agents firearms. Unlike some other police departments, TSA agents are being encouraged to wear their uniforms and badges in their spare time, in order to enhance the agency's "visibility" to the public. There are already jokes that TSA SWAT teams are inevitable at airports. The problem is, the laughter doesn't last very long when we realize that the way things are going, that might not be a joke so much as a prediction of the future.
"I'm no Microsoft fanboy or anything, but I've been pretty impressed with Silverlight."
There's this bullshite meme here on dotslash that supposes Microsoft does nothing right. But while they've had their legendary failures(who hasn't? Hello, Apple Newton), we don't give them enough credit for what they do right. For all it's instability, Windows 95 was a lot of fun, and 98 was a pretty good game platform. Windows 2000 was a very good OS with what has become an almost cult following. Face it, once the first service pack arrived, Windows XP was pretty fast, pretty stable, and pretty useful. Their servers since 2000 have been very popular with the enterprise, and those people just love Sharepoint, all for good reasons. They're great products. Office got it's foot in the door because of the OS monopoly, but it eventually beat out Wordperfect because it became better than Wordperfect.
They made good games even before they bought Bungie, and just about everyone can agree that their hardware is top notch. It ought not to be a Karma sin here to give them credit when they actually earn it.
This is an indirect form of age discrimination because older folks are more likely to have families.
Subsidized child care and similar benefits reward parents at the expense of other employees. It's hardly "age discrimination" to do less of it.
Well, if you as an employer value experience on the job over youth, you could argue that it's more important to subsidize those older workers with kids than it is to pay young childless newbies more.
Unless of course, you're one of those companies that want to chase out older, expensive workers, in favor of youngsters you can hire cheap, burn out, and begin the process again.
"Seriously? "Women should abandon their careers to beome housewives" gets modded +5? WTF is wrong with this website?"
Well, obviously we'll have to do something about that "differing opinions" stuff here. Can't have any of that. Thanks for pointing it out; the management will take care of it.
And now a question for you; what do you think about the legions of women that have decided that, well, yes they'd prefer to give up their careers because they consider raising their children job Numero Uno? Since we've been 3 decades into the sexual revolution now, many women have decided that they can't have it all, at least not in any meaningful sense. Is there something wrong with them?
Why in blazes should people who don't have kids, or who responsibly make arrangements for them to be cared for (such as *gasp* having Mom stay home and actually raise them), have to pay in the form of a lower salary for yours?
And a reduction in this silly benefit that you shouldn't have in the first place is age discrimination against you?
My wife is a stay at home mom. We made the decision to forgo a second income for the benefits of actually raising our kids at home, at least at very young ages. We never wanted to be one of those couples that had a child, and then had it in some form of third-party care two months later for career's sake. I very much sympathize with what you're arguing.
However, this is the Bay Area we're talking about, a place that's become notorious for being both child-unfriendly, and a mecca for young, single, childless workers with high skill. In that kind of atmosphere, a top company wanting top talent should consider on-site childcare as a perk if they want to keep these studs past age 30 or so. Sooner or later, nature calls, and most of them marry and start families. Google, for all its fame in supplying wild perks, is actually wise in supplying this one. They don't have to, but they have been smart in doing so. Top companies supply top perks if they want to stay top companies. You'll never see Goldman Sachs, Mercedes Benz, or Harvard cheaping out on their benefits.
That said, if there's any truth to the quote the NY Times attributes to Sergey Brin ("no sympathy for the parents, and that he was tired of Googlers who felt entitled to perks like bottled water and M&Ms), then it sounds like something is indeed turning sour at Google. It seems like every hot company that skyrockets eventually has to come back to Earth hard. If this is indeed happening at Google, perks will soon be the least of their problems.
"Common defense means just that, the French and the Germans have zero intention of declaring war on Russia."
No one in NATO has any interest in "declaring war on Russia", despite what you' may have been reading in Daily Kos. But if France and Germany (or anyone else in the alliance) aren't willing to actually fight when a member is attacked, then they shouldn't be in it at all. Just become Switzerland, declare neutrality, and be done with it. Maybe Putin will even let you have a little extra gas if you're nice to him.
"So either McCain was being stupid when he proposed letting Georgia join"
Or maybe he was defending NATO's highest ideals. Ideals that you seem to piss all over in your race to defend Putin.
"We recognized the independence of Kosovo on the basis that the local population had the right to decide that they would not be part of Serbia any more."
I will be the first to argue to you that Kosovo was a massive mistake on our part, and I put the blame squarely at the feet of George W Bush. What he did was either open the door for every postage stamp territory in Europe to declare independence... Wales, Catalonia, Sicily, northern Greece; or if we don't let the Basques and every other minority in Europe declare independence, we end up looking like hypocrites that pushed Kosovo just to say "screw you" to Serbia one more time. I believe the invasion of Georgia was direct payback for Kosovo. That doesn't make it right, but I recognize it for what it really is.
"We should now recognize the exact same principle in Georgia. "
Actually, we should just own up to it and say "Kosovo was a mistake", but that's not going to happen.
"But Putin is certainly not an existential threat to the west or to any western government. There is not going to be a Russian invasion of Poland or Slovakia. "
History repeats itself, and disagrees with you. Russia invades its surrounding states when they think they can get away with it. And in the case of Georgia, they judged the limp-spines of Western Europe perfectly.
"Now we could embark on another wingnut fantasy exercise in wishful foreign policy. I don't think that we can risk ayet more neo-con naivety."
NATO's "wingnut philosophy" was created and implemented by Democrats, thanks. Furthermore, it was built on ideas that went back to that famous Republican, Woodrow Wilson... oh wait.
Georgia never agreed to let those territories split, and Russia still has no moral superiority on this, or they would have let Chechnya go a long time ago. They did this just to poke NATO in the eye... and to test them. Consider that test a failure for the alliance. They don't give a shit about the Ossetians any more than you do. That's a convenient excuse. The idea of collective security for free nations isn't a "wingnut fantasy" unless you're one of those Kissenger "realpolitik" types. Russia doesn't have a damned thing to fear from having nations on its border in NATO... unless they were planning on making vassal states of those nations.
This is guaranteed; leave those countries like Georgia out there alone, and sooner or later, Russia will swallow them up, and take it as a sign of western weakness that they were allowed to do so.
"You overlook the fact that the reason Georgia was not allowed to join NATO was precisely the fact that they had an existing border dispute with Russia."
Then NATO has become a farce administered by cowards. The whole idea was to keep free European nations free by guaranteeing collective security. Attack one, and the rest attack you in return.
If you're going to leave the nations you labored to set free for 50 years to the wolves in Moscow, then just quit pretending, and end NATO. Either live up to its purpose, or tell the EU "You're on your own now, good luck with that Putin guy".
"In no way does the word imply consent of anyone except for the two people doing the sharing. If I share my cookies with you, does that imply Nabisco's consent?"
You have the total right to that cookie. You can do whatever you want with it. You do NOT have total rights to that song... the copyright stays with the band or whoever they sold it to. There's a significant difference.
And sharing does imply permission. If you take something from someone without their permission, or give something you're not authorized to give to someone, that's not sharing.
I don't care what you think of copyright laws (and this includes the guy who posted the story and used the term)... it's not file "sharing". Sharing implies the consent of the copyright holder. I'm pretty sure the copyright holder didn't authorize you to distribute the work to 10,000 of your closest friends on Limewire. Calling it "sharing" is weasel words, and worse, it's hypocritical. If we find out a company using GNU software is violating the GPL (which is, face it, copyright), we lose our damn minds here. But when we say "file sharing" when talking about copyright piracy, it's somehow different. What would you say if Linksys used GPL software, violated the license, and then declared it "fair use"? I mean, who could argue against the words "fair use"? Fair use sounds as friendly as... file sharing.
When record breaking cold temperatures are touted as evidence of "global warming", what do you think?
And I thought the flat earthers were persistent in their beliefs!
Part of my problem is that when they roll out the symptoms of global climate change, it seems indistinguishable to normal climate. And worse, global warming will cause floods... but also drought. Record heat... but also record cold.
When Katrina hit, Al Gore touted it as an example of the consequences of climate damage. We were told that global warming would spawn record numbers of hurricanes. But when we had fewer hurricanes than normal... you got it, that's a consequence of global warming too.
Global warming seems to be a field where you can have your cake and eat it too.
"Show me one warmer's scare charts that predicted we would COOL DOWN for a decade. Every chart I have ever seen showed ever increasing temps until we all DIE."
More than that, where are those rising oceans?
And didn't these people tell us at the beginning of spring that we could have had an iceless-arctic this summer? Did we even come close to an iceless arctic this summer?
"It is amazing how few people realize how much of our society still uses steam. You forgot geothermal, and some forms of solar plants."
Yup. Back when I was in the Navy, and I got to my first ship, a nuclear carrier, I thought nuclear power was this gee-whiz technology; if you don't know any better, you'd be inclined to think that "nuclear power" is turning those propellers... via protons, electrons, ray-guns, something sci-fi like that. When a nuke machinist mate explained how it really worked, I was kind of shocked. Basically, all we had was a steam engine, where the heat came from a reactor instead of coal. Same process, just a different heating fuel. Since those days two decades ago, I've become fascinated by just how much "advanced technology" that we use is really nothing more than barely improved methods our ancestors used. Jet engines? Nothing more than prop engines with the fans on the inside and some ignited fuel in the exhaust. Ultra-modern rifles like M-16A4's and AUG and the L86? Working from the same priciples as rifles hundreds of years old. Hell, car engines are noting but a hunk of iron with a series of explosions in them.
Technology most of the time is really nothing more than a machine that takes advantage of some principle of nature, and is often very, very simple at it's core.
Dinosaurs are extinct. IBM mainframes are more like alligators or crocodiles or sharks... mostly unchanged from, and still closely related to, it's dinosaur-era ancestors, but still alive because it's so effective at what it does. Like those animals, mainframes still are the undisputed ruler of their part of the kingdom.
When we're old... hell, when we're dead... we'll likely still have something like Slashdot, with people saying "the mainframe will die any day now".
Nonsense. If the U.S. doesn't have a history of meddling in middle eastern affairs, there is no 9/11. This is the explanation given by the terrorists. What reason is there to lie?
Because the truth is even worse. It's not so much American "meddling", as you put it, that's got a burr up their ass... it's American culture. Our movies, TV shows, music, and fashion are "corrupting" their youth. Just like culture competes with religion here, it's competing with Islam for hearts and minds there. And they don't like the competition.
We could pull every single military unit and embassy out of the Middle East tomorrow, and in ten years they'll still hate our guts, because their own people will still be clamoring for the products of our culture.
If China wins more gold medals in the current Olympics, won't they be "PREEMINENT" as well? Once China's economy is bigger than ours, will China suffer terrorist attacks?
One, as a matter of fact, they already are. China's been in a low level war with Muslim militants for, oh, hundred's of years now. They're still fighting the descendants of those original rebels in their arid northwestern provinces. And since the 90's, those rebels have stepped up attacks on Chinese forces.
To the larger question of influence worldwide, if China's culture surpasses ours, will these militant Muslims attack them? You betcha. It'll be the same deal... fighting Chinese culture for the hearts and minds of Muslims. That's a never ending battle for Jihadists.
There will be no homosexuals in Iran because the government will send them all into orbit without means to get back down alive.
Well, the Koran does call for homosexuals to be taken to the top of the highest point available, and thrown from it to their deaths. Before that's always been a bridge or building or mountain. But now that you mention it, Iran can bring Sharia into the space age.
""This sorry piece of crap is proof positive of American stupidity"
Stupidity? Despite it's larger size, 8 track caught on for what were then good reasons. For one, you're understating the sound quality issues with early cassettes. They were crap for sound quality, and and early cassette players were notorious for unreliability.
By the time cassettes caught up in terms of reliability and quality, there was a huge market of existing 8 track tapes and players, and for its time, people were fine with them. You sound like Sony, berating "Stupid Americans" for not switching to the "obviously superior" Beta standard. And you're just as wrong as they are for the same reasons; why should we have gone out and spent millions of dollars to replace what was then a satisfactory standard? 8 track had everything we wanted at the time.
Look, I hated 8 tracks, because you couldn't fast forward or reverse very well (I liked LP's the best as a kid, because if you wanted to fast forward or reverse, you got up and moved the needle... voila). But it wasn't American Stupidity because consumers wanted the quality of reel-to-reel tape in a portable setting without the hassle and mess of reel to reel. 8 track gave them that. Cassettes initially did not.
Slashdot Mirror
"a similar project on our power infrastructure (especially if they could build a fibre network alongside) would pay off just as handsomely."
Furthermore, as long as it wasn't just for wind power, this is something that both parties could get behind. A truly large scale national infrastructure improvement project, with a more robust national grid connecting to new or improved coal plants, nuclear plants, hydro, solar facilities, and wind farms (and any other viable sources we could use), something like this would probably get support from virtually all our political sectors, save the ultra-small government faction, which doesn't have much real power anyway.
When I submitted the article, the title had "NY Times" in it. The editors changed it; for brevity, space, or whatever reason they felt necessary.
Wolfenstien: Enemy Territory surpassed Doom II as my all time favorite game. I still find it more enjoyable than even newer games, like Doom III and it's spinoffs. The fact that these guys started as amateurs is amazing.
"And who decides what the line is between "criminals" who get a day in court and "terrorists" who you feel should be shot on sight? You? George Bush? Whoever has the gun?"
That's an outstanding, and important question. I'm a strong supporter of military action against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, but you bring up a damn good point.
The short version of my argument for non-uniformed combatants at war with the US is one of citizenship. US Citizenship, or lack of, should be a prime factor. While that doesn't necessarily save US terrorists from a death sentence, it should get them their day in a civilian court. Timothy McVeigh tried to bring down the Federal Government via organized terrorist action, and he got a trial. Bill Ayers' Weatherman bombing of the Pentagon got him a trial. He got away with it (in fact, he brags about having gotten away with it), but that's a risk you take going to trial, because they're citizens. Now, the law has always been somewhat different for US Citizens engaged in military action against their own country, so we're still in some strange territory here even if the combatant is a citizen... and I don't have all the answers here.
But I'm convinced of one thing; under no circumstances should a non-uniformed, non-citizen combatant get a civil court trial, especially if captured overseas. The Geneva Convention says shoot them on the field upon capture, and I've begun to think that's actually a pretty good idea. Offer a military tribunal if they'll surrender in the field, with the assurance that they wont be hung, provided they haven't taken part in an atrocity of some sort, and agree to work with intelligence agents in efforts to capture and defeat their comrades.
"I'm not sure the ipod will ever catch on. No wireless, less storage than a nomad - lame."
Taco's statement has become somewhat infamous, but I have to defend him on this one. He was essentially right (and these words are being typed on a Mac). Simplicity and elegance in function are virtues... lack of meaningful features are not. As such, I've never owned an iPod, as I think it's ridiculous not to put a simple FM receiver and a built in Mic for quick voice recording in modern MP3 players.
When compared to their competitors... Creative's players, Sandisk's Sansa players... hell, even the Zune in some cases... the iPod simply isn't a very good value, unless being part of the crowd appeals more to you than price and features.
One could wonder whether the project was set up to adress terrorism OR it was setup to generate media-attention ?
I work at an airport, in administration, and trust me when I say this has very little to do with dark political conspiracies, and a lot to do with the government's haste to show they were "doing something" after 9/11. This project was quickly rushed into service, and has been widely reviled by airports and airport police departments across the country. And other similar measures... the current background check process for giving access to secured areas, and the very creation of TSA itself, were all measures to reassure the public that something was getting done. The problem is that government enterprises like these tend to become bipartisan boondoggles, with every state and major city wanting a piece of the political and funding action these things entail. Federal agencies tend to become monsters that need to justify their own existence by constant growth. TSA in particular is quickly becoming a large federal law enforcement agency, not just a baggage security team. When they were first set up, several of their nascent teams moved and basically tried to take control of several airports... I know of one major southern airport where they simply showed up one day, declared that a series of offices now belonged to them, and when the airport director came down to see what was going on, they tried to have him arrested by his own police force for "violating federal facilities". Anyone that works with AAAE members (airport execs group) knows what incident I'm talking about.
Did you know that TSA will now be issued police-like blue uniforms, with metal badges, just like cops? Airport police and the metropolitan police departments that supplement them just looooove that, and there's the inevitable talk of actually giving said TSA agents firearms. Unlike some other police departments, TSA agents are being encouraged to wear their uniforms and badges in their spare time, in order to enhance the agency's "visibility" to the public. There are already jokes that TSA SWAT teams are inevitable at airports. The problem is, the laughter doesn't last very long when we realize that the way things are going, that might not be a joke so much as a prediction of the future.
"I'm no Microsoft fanboy or anything, but I've been pretty impressed with Silverlight."
There's this bullshite meme here on dotslash that supposes Microsoft does nothing right. But while they've had their legendary failures(who hasn't? Hello, Apple Newton), we don't give them enough credit for what they do right. For all it's instability, Windows 95 was a lot of fun, and 98 was a pretty good game platform. Windows 2000 was a very good OS with what has become an almost cult following. Face it, once the first service pack arrived, Windows XP was pretty fast, pretty stable, and pretty useful. Their servers since 2000 have been very popular with the enterprise, and those people just love Sharepoint, all for good reasons. They're great products. Office got it's foot in the door because of the OS monopoly, but it eventually beat out Wordperfect because it became better than Wordperfect.
They made good games even before they bought Bungie, and just about everyone can agree that their hardware is top notch. It ought not to be a Karma sin here to give them credit when they actually earn it.
Subsidized child care and similar benefits reward parents at the expense of other employees. It's hardly "age discrimination" to do less of it.
Well, if you as an employer value experience on the job over youth, you could argue that it's more important to subsidize those older workers with kids than it is to pay young childless newbies more.
Unless of course, you're one of those companies that want to chase out older, expensive workers, in favor of youngsters you can hire cheap, burn out, and begin the process again.
"Seriously? "Women should abandon their careers to beome housewives" gets modded +5? WTF is wrong with this website?"
Well, obviously we'll have to do something about that "differing opinions" stuff here. Can't have any of that. Thanks for pointing it out; the management will take care of it.
And now a question for you; what do you think about the legions of women that have decided that, well, yes they'd prefer to give up their careers because they consider raising their children job Numero Uno? Since we've been 3 decades into the sexual revolution now, many women have decided that they can't have it all, at least not in any meaningful sense. Is there something wrong with them?
Why in blazes should people who don't have kids, or who responsibly make arrangements for them to be cared for (such as *gasp* having Mom stay home and actually raise them), have to pay in the form of a lower salary for yours?
And a reduction in this silly benefit that you shouldn't have in the first place is age discrimination against you?
My wife is a stay at home mom. We made the decision to forgo a second income for the benefits of actually raising our kids at home, at least at very young ages. We never wanted to be one of those couples that had a child, and then had it in some form of third-party care two months later for career's sake. I very much sympathize with what you're arguing.
However, this is the Bay Area we're talking about, a place that's become notorious for being both child-unfriendly, and a mecca for young, single, childless workers with high skill. In that kind of atmosphere, a top company wanting top talent should consider on-site childcare as a perk if they want to keep these studs past age 30 or so. Sooner or later, nature calls, and most of them marry and start families. Google, for all its fame in supplying wild perks, is actually wise in supplying this one. They don't have to, but they have been smart in doing so. Top companies supply top perks if they want to stay top companies. You'll never see Goldman Sachs, Mercedes Benz, or Harvard cheaping out on their benefits.
That said, if there's any truth to the quote the NY Times attributes to Sergey Brin ("no sympathy for the parents, and that he was tired of Googlers who felt entitled to perks like bottled water and M&Ms), then it sounds like something is indeed turning sour at Google. It seems like every hot company that skyrockets eventually has to come back to Earth hard. If this is indeed happening at Google, perks will soon be the least of their problems.
"Common defense means just that, the French and the Germans have zero intention of declaring war on Russia."
No one in NATO has any interest in "declaring war on Russia", despite what you' may have been reading in Daily Kos. But if France and Germany (or anyone else in the alliance) aren't willing to actually fight when a member is attacked, then they shouldn't be in it at all. Just become Switzerland, declare neutrality, and be done with it. Maybe Putin will even let you have a little extra gas if you're nice to him.
"So either McCain was being stupid when he proposed letting Georgia join"
Or maybe he was defending NATO's highest ideals. Ideals that you seem to piss all over in your race to defend Putin.
"So, you're saying that if I stole the cookies and then split them with you, then its not sharing?"
No, it's not. YOU are distributing stolen merchandise.
"We recognized the independence of Kosovo on the basis that the local population had the right to decide that they would not be part of Serbia any more."
I will be the first to argue to you that Kosovo was a massive mistake on our part, and I put the blame squarely at the feet of George W Bush. What he did was either open the door for every postage stamp territory in Europe to declare independence... Wales, Catalonia, Sicily, northern Greece; or if we don't let the Basques and every other minority in Europe declare independence, we end up looking like hypocrites that pushed Kosovo just to say "screw you" to Serbia one more time. I believe the invasion of Georgia was direct payback for Kosovo. That doesn't make it right, but I recognize it for what it really is.
"We should now recognize the exact same principle in Georgia. "
Actually, we should just own up to it and say "Kosovo was a mistake", but that's not going to happen.
"But Putin is certainly not an existential threat to the west or to any western government. There is not going to be a Russian invasion of Poland or Slovakia. "
History repeats itself, and disagrees with you. Russia invades its surrounding states when they think they can get away with it. And in the case of Georgia, they judged the limp-spines of Western Europe perfectly.
"Now we could embark on another wingnut fantasy exercise in wishful foreign policy. I don't think that we can risk ayet more neo-con naivety."
NATO's "wingnut philosophy" was created and implemented by Democrats, thanks. Furthermore, it was built on ideas that went back to that famous Republican, Woodrow Wilson... oh wait.
Georgia never agreed to let those territories split, and Russia still has no moral superiority on this, or they would have let Chechnya go a long time ago. They did this just to poke NATO in the eye... and to test them. Consider that test a failure for the alliance. They don't give a shit about the Ossetians any more than you do. That's a convenient excuse. The idea of collective security for free nations isn't a "wingnut fantasy" unless you're one of those Kissenger "realpolitik" types. Russia doesn't have a damned thing to fear from having nations on its border in NATO... unless they were planning on making vassal states of those nations.
This is guaranteed; leave those countries like Georgia out there alone, and sooner or later, Russia will swallow them up, and take it as a sign of western weakness that they were allowed to do so.
"You overlook the fact that the reason Georgia was not allowed to join NATO was precisely the fact that they had an existing border dispute with Russia."
Then NATO has become a farce administered by cowards. The whole idea was to keep free European nations free by guaranteeing collective security. Attack one, and the rest attack you in return.
If you're going to leave the nations you labored to set free for 50 years to the wolves in Moscow, then just quit pretending, and end NATO. Either live up to its purpose, or tell the EU "You're on your own now, good luck with that Putin guy".
"In no way does the word imply consent of anyone except for the two people doing the sharing. If I share my cookies with you, does that imply Nabisco's consent?"
You have the total right to that cookie. You can do whatever you want with it. You do NOT have total rights to that song... the copyright stays with the band or whoever they sold it to. There's a significant difference.
And sharing does imply permission. If you take something from someone without their permission, or give something you're not authorized to give to someone, that's not sharing.
In a way, we have been hitting them with a digital tea party... it's gone under different names over the years... Napster, Kazaa, Limewire.
However, it's not like our motives were exactly pure...
I don't care what you think of copyright laws (and this includes the guy who posted the story and used the term)... it's not file "sharing". Sharing implies the consent of the copyright holder. I'm pretty sure the copyright holder didn't authorize you to distribute the work to 10,000 of your closest friends on Limewire. Calling it "sharing" is weasel words, and worse, it's hypocritical. If we find out a company using GNU software is violating the GPL (which is, face it, copyright), we lose our damn minds here. But when we say "file sharing" when talking about copyright piracy, it's somehow different. What would you say if Linksys used GPL software, violated the license, and then declared it "fair use"? I mean, who could argue against the words "fair use"? Fair use sounds as friendly as... file sharing.
"The last ice age was before the start of the Holocene, over 11,000 years ago. Not, as you claim the "late 19th centure[sic].""
Uhh, the Little Ice Age ended in the late 19th century.
When record breaking cold temperatures are touted as evidence of "global warming", what do you think?
And I thought the flat earthers were persistent in their beliefs!
Part of my problem is that when they roll out the symptoms of global climate change, it seems indistinguishable to normal climate. And worse, global warming will cause floods... but also drought. Record heat... but also record cold.
When Katrina hit, Al Gore touted it as an example of the consequences of climate damage. We were told that global warming would spawn record numbers of hurricanes. But when we had fewer hurricanes than normal... you got it, that's a consequence of global warming too.
Global warming seems to be a field where you can have your cake and eat it too.
"Show me one warmer's scare charts that predicted we would COOL DOWN for a decade. Every chart I have ever seen showed ever increasing temps until we all DIE."
More than that, where are those rising oceans?
And didn't these people tell us at the beginning of spring that we could have had an iceless-arctic this summer? Did we even come close to an iceless arctic this summer?
"It is amazing how few people realize how much of our society still uses steam. You forgot geothermal, and some forms of solar plants."
Yup. Back when I was in the Navy, and I got to my first ship, a nuclear carrier, I thought nuclear power was this gee-whiz technology; if you don't know any better, you'd be inclined to think that "nuclear power" is turning those propellers... via protons, electrons, ray-guns, something sci-fi like that. When a nuke machinist mate explained how it really worked, I was kind of shocked. Basically, all we had was a steam engine, where the heat came from a reactor instead of coal. Same process, just a different heating fuel. Since those days two decades ago, I've become fascinated by just how much "advanced technology" that we use is really nothing more than barely improved methods our ancestors used. Jet engines? Nothing more than prop engines with the fans on the inside and some ignited fuel in the exhaust. Ultra-modern rifles like M-16A4's and AUG and the L86? Working from the same priciples as rifles hundreds of years old. Hell, car engines are noting but a hunk of iron with a series of explosions in them.
Technology most of the time is really nothing more than a machine that takes advantage of some principle of nature, and is often very, very simple at it's core.
Dinosaurs are extinct. IBM mainframes are more like alligators or crocodiles or sharks... mostly unchanged from, and still closely related to, it's dinosaur-era ancestors, but still alive because it's so effective at what it does. Like those animals, mainframes still are the undisputed ruler of their part of the kingdom.
When we're old... hell, when we're dead... we'll likely still have something like Slashdot, with people saying "the mainframe will die any day now".
Nonsense. If the U.S. doesn't have a history of meddling in middle eastern affairs, there is no 9/11. This is the explanation given by the terrorists. What reason is there to lie?
Because the truth is even worse. It's not so much American "meddling", as you put it, that's got a burr up their ass... it's American culture. Our movies, TV shows, music, and fashion are "corrupting" their youth. Just like culture competes with religion here, it's competing with Islam for hearts and minds there. And they don't like the competition.
We could pull every single military unit and embassy out of the Middle East tomorrow, and in ten years they'll still hate our guts, because their own people will still be clamoring for the products of our culture.
If China wins more gold medals in the current Olympics, won't they be "PREEMINENT" as well? Once China's economy is bigger than ours, will China suffer terrorist attacks?
One, as a matter of fact, they already are. China's been in a low level war with Muslim militants for, oh, hundred's of years now. They're still fighting the descendants of those original rebels in their arid northwestern provinces. And since the 90's, those rebels have stepped up attacks on Chinese forces.
To the larger question of influence worldwide, if China's culture surpasses ours, will these militant Muslims attack them? You betcha. It'll be the same deal... fighting Chinese culture for the hearts and minds of Muslims. That's a never ending battle for Jihadists.
There will be no homosexuals in Iran because the government will send them all into orbit without means to get back down alive.
Well, the Koran does call for homosexuals to be taken to the top of the highest point available, and thrown from it to their deaths. Before that's always been a bridge or building or mountain. But now that you mention it, Iran can bring Sharia into the space age.
""This sorry piece of crap is proof positive of American stupidity"
Stupidity? Despite it's larger size, 8 track caught on for what were then good reasons. For one, you're understating the sound quality issues with early cassettes. They were crap for sound quality, and and early cassette players were notorious for unreliability.
By the time cassettes caught up in terms of reliability and quality, there was a huge market of existing 8 track tapes and players, and for its time, people were fine with them. You sound like Sony, berating "Stupid Americans" for not switching to the "obviously superior" Beta standard. And you're just as wrong as they are for the same reasons; why should we have gone out and spent millions of dollars to replace what was then a satisfactory standard? 8 track had everything we wanted at the time.
Look, I hated 8 tracks, because you couldn't fast forward or reverse very well (I liked LP's the best as a kid, because if you wanted to fast forward or reverse, you got up and moved the needle... voila). But it wasn't American Stupidity because consumers wanted the quality of reel-to-reel tape in a portable setting without the hassle and mess of reel to reel. 8 track gave them that. Cassettes initially did not.