russia invades georgia, in a few days doing 10,000x worse evil than georgia did with all the american support it could ever have, for all the reasons georgians want
to fight bandits in their own soil
oh, i'm sorry, does that propaganda sound different from your propaganda?
for reasons of russian imperialism that has been going in the caucasus for centuries russia invaded
and...
drum roll please...
you want to criticize the usa for that
amazing
russia crushes a tiny neighbor it has crushed many times before... and you want to criticize the usa?!
amazing, dumbfounding, the way you think
i can't even fathom how your mind works
its like some sort of all consuming obsession. did you date the usa and it dumped you or something? where does this monstruous blinding obsession come from?
"We need a multi-polar world"
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
russia just invaded a tiny neighbor. welcome to the multi-polar world you want. so, now that we have this mutli-polar world, do you stop obsessing about the usa now? (snicker)
probably not. weird stalkers never give up, no matter what reality says
tiny countries emit tiny amounts of evil. large ones emit large amounts of evil
of course switzerland didn't invade iraq, switzerland is too tiny. that doesn't mean that were switzerland a huge country, it wouldn't do some evil blunder of its own. every single country of enough size has a pretty solid track record of doing evil
so switzerland looks like a saint compared to the usa not because the swiss are saints, but because the swiss aren't allowed to prove they are just as human and prone to failure as americans are. the swiss are too tiny to show they can fail just as bad as the usa
"nothing is ever that simple, especially when you throw politics into the mix"
so stop making simple prejudicial assumptions about what i am saying
"your politically charged rhetoric is in-line with that of isolationists"
what you mean by "in-line" is "i've never thought about the issues enough to make a discernment between energy policy and foreign policy"
stop prejudicing me. read what i say. judge me on what i actually say. anything else is prejudice on your part and fails your own litmus test outlined in the comment you just made
you've merely indicated that the connections of petrodollars to antiwestern jingoism, russian neoimperialism, and saudi wahhabism is from a subsection of the piechart, not the whole piechart
what canada does with its slice of the pie is, god bless canada, nothing like what russia, venezuela, or saudia arabia does with their slices. this is to the eternal credit of canada. it isn't a destruction of my argument about what happens to the other slices of the pie
i'm not going to pretend the usa doesn't like chavez. i'm also not going to pretend the usa doesn't meddle in the internal affairs of caribbean countries. and i'm also not going to pretend gw bush is anything but a retard, and i'd like to see him out of office just as much as chavez
so you owe it to me to stop pretending the usa is the only country in the world that does dirty tricks, you have to stop pretending chavez doesn't fund the farc, you have to stop pretending that every crime you can lay at the doorstep of washington dc does not also fall at the doorstep of caracas
the crazy part is you saying that american involvement is the deciding factor. americna involvement is a tiny minor nondecisive factor. i mean, what about the europeans? what do they want? how are they invovled? how about other countries afraid of russia in the russian sphere: ukraine, poland: how about what they want, what they are doing in georgia?
i think more important factors in the situation in georgia now is:
1. what georgians want to do 2. resurgent russian imperialism
its as if i told you that all of the problems the usa has with cuba is the fault of russia because the ussr tried to move some missiles there. woudl you believe that? of course the ussr mattered in cuba, of course the ussr was involved. but to say that that ussr involvement was the deciding factor, and completely ignore what cubans want, and completely ignore the history of the usa's involvement in cuba and the caribbean imperialistically, is completely insane
likewise, you want us to ignore what georgians want, and you want us to ignore centuries of russian imperialism in the caucasus
really? what are you smoking? can i have some?
if the usa disappeared into a giant lake tomorrow, and all americans disappeared off the face of the earth, and every mention of the usa in history was scorched from the history books and everyone's mind, what would happen in georgia?
you believe georgians would be in love with russia? you believe russia would smile benevolently on a free caucasus region?
do you believe that? no? then why do you believe anythign americans do is the deciding factor about what happens in the caucasus?
georgians would still be thumbing their nose at russia, because they do that because georgians dislike imperial russia. it has nothing to do with the usa. meanwhile, russia would still be a resurgent imperialist force in the caucasus because of new oil money and a desire to not seem weak anymore after the collapse of the ussr. that has nothing to do with the usa. get it?
switzerland is most definitely involved on the world stage in partisan ways. think about where all the bad guys in the world store their money. think about swiss drug policy's effect on drug trafficking. think about swiss immigration policy as it affects migrants. etc., etc., etc. you just don't notice these bad things because switzerland is tiny
also the usa does actually do good on the world stage. china and russia do good too on the world stage. but the good any of them do doesn't get as much press attention
and the european union throws its weight around too, and will throw it around more: its just a matter of size. the only countries that look good in comparison to the usa/ china/ russia are the tiny ones. and they do evil things too, but the countries are tiny, so the evil they do is tiny too, and so you don't notice it
not being involved on the world stage is an impossibility for a country the size of the usa (or china or russia). actually not being involved on the world stage is an impossibility for any country. you can't hide an elephant in a dorm room
because if we had 10x the amount of reactors we have today, but they used breeder technology instead, we would have waste that:
1. would be the same in quantity (breeder reactors consume 10x more fuel) 2. would last 200 years instead of 10,000 years 3. would give off less radiation 4. would give off less damaging types of radiation
so you could throw it in a hole and forget about it, because in 200 years it wouldn't be waste anymore
meanwhile, loading any nuclear waste for jettison into space is:
1. many orders of magnitude more expensive than putting it in a hole 2. if there is an accident, you are irradiating a large part of the atmosphere, whether breeder reactor waste or old style waste
even with a very low risk of #2 happening, no risk at all (from burying it) is still superior
yes, i agree with you. i used the shorthand term SUV with the implicit implication that i was talking about an internal combustion engine SUV. as frankly, when you talk about SUV, 99.999999% of them are ICE SUVs
now if every suburban soccer mom in the country had 4 trucks in their driveway: an electric power supersize hummer, an electric power big wheel chevy tahoe, and an electric power lincoln navigator, i would support that 100%
because i don't have a problem with the SUV, i have a problem with the ICE SUV. which, when you talk SUV today in shorthand terminology, that is what is naturally implied
throughout the last 15 years, after the fall of the soviet empire, europe has increasingly plotted its own course, away from washington dc. this is natural: europe didn't need the usa anymore, the soviet threat was dead
now what do we see? we see a neoimperialist russia invading an outpost of european style liberalism on the black sea, and shutting down oil pipelines that fuel your car and heat your house
so naturally, we shall see europe huddling up against the usa again in the near future
for example had bush invaded iraq in 2008 instead of 2003, after the resurgence of russia, rather than before, you would see france, germany, etc., dutifully falling in line and supporting that with troops, rather than vocally distancing themselves. why? because suddenly EUROPE NEEDS THE USA AGAIN
so yes, arrogance is a bitch. the arrogance in your words is suddenly expensive: you need america suddenly again
so be prepared to grow beet red in the facwe and throw food at your television. because what you will see there is merkel offering obama or mccain shoulder rubs, and sarkozy renaming french fries freedom fries: kowtowing to the next american president in ways you dislike, stifling all voices in your country that run antiamerican
europe has to do that again. its 1988 again, in geopolitical terms
so yes, arrogance is a bitch. you can't afford european arrogance anymore;-)
but staying involved by funding imperialism and terrorism with american petrodollars is not the way to do it
as for talk radio, i never listen to it. if you have a problem with the way someone thinks, you have to address what they actually think, rather than writing them off as a stereotype that actually has nothing to do with the person
when you implicate the usa in all of the problems in the world, you lay responsibility for cleaning up the world at the feet of the usa by inference
in other words, those like you who seem to find a creative line of reasoning for blaming washington dc for everything in the world are actually more guilty than american neocon warhawks for putting the usa in iraq, or georgia. that's because, if you will recall, the usa is directly and 100% reponsible for saddam hussein (so the braindead kneejerk thinking goes). or, as you say above "In fact, the current conflict in Georgia is a direct result of American meddling in their affairs"
meanwhile, if you wish the usa to butt out of places in the world you would rather it not be involved in, then what you want to do is lay responsibility for things in the world at the feet of other players. yes, *gasp*, there are other world powers in the world. and yes, *gasp* they do evil meddling things outside their borders too. amazing huh?
there are more countries in the world than the usa. it is a big world, you should get out and see it some time. this lesson applies to those obsessed with the usa as the blame for every problem in the world more than any other ideologue partisan out there
blame implies responsibility. responsibility furthers involvement. therefore, your rhetoric, your words above, guarantees the usa remain involved in georgia, your words and your thinking guarantees the usa remain in places it doesn't belong more than the rhetoric of the most hardcore neocon warhawk in washington dc
that's a fact. understand why, and grow the fuck up and develop a more nuanced understanding of the world and its many peoples. its not an american playground. at least the world is not an american playground except in one place: your mind and the minds of braindead one dimensional partisans like yourself
people who think like you are the reason why the usa is overextended in the world. your rationale expects them to be involved. you can't even conceive of a world where the usa has its fingers in every little event. you can't establish a line of cause and effect that does not somehow creatively meander its way back to washington dc. that the usa is involved in places it doesn't belong is a bedrock principle of the way you think. to imagine a world functioning with other players besides washington dc> to you this is science fiction
pathetic, puerile, low iq stupidity: what is happening in georgia right now is the fault of the usa
i always wondered at the status quo of nuclear power in canada
in the usa the rightful resurgence of new nuclear power technology is held in check by NIMBYs and a public opinion based on the failures of 1960s era nuclear tech (silkwood, three mile island, the china syndrome, etc... it just isn't like that anymore)
in canada is public opinion and NIMBYs a major influence too?
i know it is downright worse in great britain. NIMBYs and morons in the public there rule the day
only france and japan seem to have gotten nuclear tech right (that is, they rely on it a lot more than we do, and therefore don't fund wahhabism, antiwestern jingoism, and russian neoimperialism as much as we do)
if you shoot heroin, you really do support the taliban and al qaeda. especially if you shoot heroin in europe
its funny, but the only positive effects the taliban had in afghanistan while they were in power was they utterly destroyed the opium trade there (the ONLY positive effect. blowing up ancient buddhas, beheading prostitutes and adulterers and prodiving a safe haven for bin laden and his jolly crew was their real achievements.)
before 9/11/01, american drug officials would fly over opium growing regions in afghanistan and be mind boggled at how there just was no opium anywhere. the taliban completely razed the poppy fields and issued death pronouncements on anyone who would grow poppies
so apparently, murderous religous fundamentalism is the way to win the war on drugs. "stop growing opium or we'll kill you" seems to weigh heavier in the minds of poor farmers than easy money i guess
but please note how shallow the taliban's religious convictions are: they got to power in afghanistan in the first place by relying on opium growing funds, and now that they are out of power again, they are relying on the poppy fields again
there's no religious fundamentalist like a hypocritical religious fundamentalist (well actually, that's doubly true, as all religious fundamentalists are hypocrites)
1. Chavez in Venezuela to support anti-American jingoism 2. Putin in Russia to support Russian Neoimperialism such as in Georgia 3. Bin Laden via Saudi Wahhabism, the ultra-fundamentalist form of Saudi Islam that gives rise to treating women like cattle, nonSunnis like subhumans, and Islamic terrorism in its myriad forms wherever such groups are supported by conservative Arabic funds
the American government doesn't seem to think getting off foreign oil is as much a priority as the American people think it is. The priorities of the American government conflates dependency on foreign oil with other foreign problems that, if they examined many problems around the world more carefully, they would see that it is the American people and their SUVs that fund those problems in the first place. this complacency is partly our own fault, for not hammering our leaders on this issue hard enough. likewise, you can complain to GM about building SUVs instead of electric cars, but we as Americans buy SUVs instead (until quite recently)
we need electric cars supported by a new wave of modern nuclear power plants. of course there are better sources of electricity than nuclear, but most of these are boutique and cannot scale like nuclear can. this includes wind and solar. but i don't really care to champion nuclear that much as i care about the need to get off foreign oil, any way possible. so please, invest in solar and wind as well, let us find new ways for nonnuclear tech to scale
modern nuclear via pebble bed reactors just does not go chernobyl, and via breeder reactors waste in lifespan and quantity is dramatically reduced (1/10th quantity of waste, a few centuries instead of 10,000 years of radioactivity, and lower radiation levels of safer forms of radiation). breeder reactors also dramatically increasing energy yeild, and allow us to use thorium as well as uranium. security concerns are real with nuclear technology, but if we spent 1/1000th of the amount of money and lives we spend securing our petroleum in iraq on securing breeder reactors instead (they make plutonium, that's the danger with breeder reactors), we would still be many orders of magnitude safer than our current status quo of funding terrorism and russian imperialism and anti-american jingoism like we do now. of course even thorium will run out in a century or two, but if we haven't mastered fusion technology by then, we are doomed anyways, or would have found a way to scale wind and solar by then
zero reliance on foreign petroleum by 2025. whoever enunciates that idea the loudest amongst a range of candidates in any contest before you, elect them to Senator/ President/ Congressman/ Dogcatcher
if petrodollars were to dry up on the international stage, many of the intransigent problems that all peoples of the world face today, not just Americans face, would dry up as well
thems the facts. get with it America
no more foreign petrodollars. stop feeding your damn SUVs
that the appeal of that is very different from the appeal of watching a guy run?
or watching a guy run souped up on drugs?
right?
i'm glad you love the thrill of ICE engineering and that translates for you into watching an exciting indy500 race
but you do realize that not everyone shares that specific thrill with you, nor does that thrill directly translate into what makes baseball, or cycling, or the olympics attractive to others.; you do understand that, right?
to take this observation a step further, say we had two olympics:
1. where people were allowed to dope any way they wanted 2. where people were not allowed to dope at all, enforced by testing, etc.: basically the status quo today
question: which olympics would be more watched? which would be more appealing to people? which would win in viewership, advertiser sponsorship, athlete participation, etc.
well, why do people ever watch sports? what is the connection between the viewer and the spectacle before them?
it is the thrill of human achievement, being they are human as well. that basic empathy. but if instead they are watching the thrill of bioengineering, that will of course appeal to someone, somewhere, such as yourself, but far, far less people. the thrill of HUMAN achievement is not the same as the thrill of CHEMICAL achievement
advertisers, who spend their entire professional careers identifying what appeals to people and what doesn't, of course will fall in line and support the nondoped olympics
and finally, the athletes, given the choice between potentially life-shortening, body corroding drugs and competing without that, will compete in the nondoping olypics as well. oh of crouse, there are always the minority who will be pressured by evil govts or their own craven desire to win under any circumstances, who will give themselves cancer or destroy their ability to have children by doping themselves with toxic brews, but this minority of people are not the deciding factor here
they are just the cheaters. whose faulty decision making processes should not drive the debate here, even though it is driving the entire subject matter of this thread and the author of the story we are posting under
these people are to be identified and excluded from competition. the entire competition itself should not be destroyed for the sake of those who would win by doing that which destroys the fundamental appeal of the sport in the first place
the idea of any sport is to marvel in human strength, endurance, dexderity, etc.
but if athletes are artifically doped, you destroy interest in sports
because now they are artificial: they don't represent great feats of human endurance, strength, dexderity, etc., they represent great feats in biochemical research
in other words, if you allow athletes to take performance enhancers, you destroy the fundamental appeal of sports in the first place. the public simply won't be interested anymore, because they won't see themselves in the human thrill. it won't BE a human thrill anymore, it will be a technological achievement
so if you want to destroy sports, if you want smaller audiences and tv ratings for baseball, cycling, the olympics, etc., then allow doping
meanwhile, if you want sports to be compelling spectacles that people want to partake of, then you do your damnedest to keep doping out of athletes. of course this is difficult and an ongoing costly arms race, and there will always be those who try to cheat. that's the price you pay for keeping sports interesting. meanwhile, relax your standards about what athletes can dope with, and you will find that interest level in sports will wane. you've destroyed the fundamental human interest factor
let me be perfectly clear: distrust of government is the mark of a healthy society
i repeat: distrust of government is the mark of a healthy society
have i made myself crystal clear?
meanwhile, rabid kneejerk hobbling distrust is the mark of someone with a personality disorder
you can distrust TOO MUCH just as much as you can trust too much. got that?
you are correct, it is 100% possible to trust too much. but it is also possible to distrust too much. it's a balance
so when you see someone who is trying to balance trust and distrust, you are not allowed to accuse them of trusting to much, simply because they do not share with you your impoverished level of distrust. your distrust is on the far end of the specturm. it is not healthy. of course, there are those on the far end of too much trust too. they are unhealthy too. i view them, and you, with incredulity
but don't mind me, right? i'm obviously a blind fooled sheeple. you've got it all figured out from your basement and your vast collection of intartube links. i should trust your fantasy life based on b-grade hollywood movies as superior to dem evil gubmints
baaaaah
baaaaah
i just posted this link 3 days ago
on
Digitizing Rare Vinyl
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
in the thread on the tragedy of the anticommons, but it seems even more relevant to this topic
Capone: The songs selections here are inspired at times. I really liked the Gordon Lightfoot song "Beautiful."
V.G.: Thank you. The amount of time I spent choosing the music of the film would be unbelievable to you. The funny thing is, when it's not right, you spend all your time playing songs for people saying, "What do you think of this one? How about this one? How about this one?" You're dying, when you're on that level. When you hit it, it's so obvious and you immediately get a desperate feeling that says, "How am I going to get the rights? Are they going to fuck me on the rights to this song?" And guess who are the worst people in the movie business. The licensing people. They are most miserable, mean, selfish, insensitive, regressive, unproductive on the planet earth. You don't know what it's like to feel so strong about something and not have a budget to make that go away. It's not like I was looking to get some Paul McCartney song for my movie; I'm talking about esoteric music. Some of the music in the film didn't even exist, I had to rebuild the original master tapes that had decomposed. I had to re-bake the tape stock, the emulsion on the tape had peeling off. I'm the only person in the world who would salvage this particular recording because I had an original three-track machine and I knew how to bake that type of Ampex tape. The tape would have disappeared in two more years, and it's highly spliced. Then to be ballbusted for a year and a half on the licensing on that music. We talk about how long it took for me to get the film out after Cannes was because the film wasn't ready due to negative problems. I wanted to use this technique to blow up the negative in a new way. That's why I waited so long to finish the film. But it turns out that I would have had to wait seven, eight months anyway was the releases for the music. If you were dealing with the musician directly, you wouldn't have these problems. It's the people representing these artists that kill the process. I realize if you want to use the Beatles song "Revolution" to sell eyeglasses, I understand the exploitation of that. I understand that I'm using culturally significant relics to manipulate people into attaching those to my product. But if I'm using a rare piece of music by and unknown artist, not to brag, but the people whose music I use in my films sell way more records than they were selling before they were in my film. Proof of it is, the Italian artist who did this one jazz piece in my movie had sold 600 copies worldwide before my movie. Before my film was released just on the announcement that they were included people tracked down the music, and they sold something like 6,000 more copies. Why you're treated like you're exploiting this music makes no sense. If they're going to make a tough deal for you, just be up front about it. But this sort of, "We don't have time for you. What do you want?" stringing along is nonsense. And I'm the producer on THE BROWN BUNNY. I didn't have a music supervisor. I did the licensing for BUFFALO 66 and THE BROWN BUNNY. And of all my memories of making the film, that's my most painful memories.
bottom line: revive old media, bring renewed attention AND SALES to a long forgotten artist and piece of music, and expect the corporate intellectual property assholes to punish you for effort
suggests the actions of a loan deranged scientist as more likely than some sort of conspiracy
it always amazes me how the same people that talk of the federal government in terms of utter incompetence in one sentence, the next sentence they are suggesting a multiorganizational airtight conspiracy has been meticulously arranged
motive? right! warhawks hellbent on invading iraq... zzz
warhawks DO exist. but most everything that happens in the realm of tricky manipulation is usually due to the individual initiative of individual warhawks. not some sort of grand poobah conspiracy of warhawk cabals, or whatever. this is called paranoid schizophrenia, not intelligent insight
i think some people have been watching too many steven seagal movies. real life is far more mundane than your fantasy life suggests, i'm sorry about that
but don't mind me, i'm obviously an agent of the illuminati, come to cast aspersions on armchair intelligence anaylsts and their cutting insights
oops! gotta go, someone's chatting about the vince foster suicide cover up on an obscure message board... gotta cover that up... brb
that there is no value in partial invisibility. even with all of the weaknesses you point out, this tech is still very useful to exactly the kind of people who would most be interested in it: military applications
Slashdot Mirror
russia invades georgia, in a few days doing 10,000x worse evil than georgia did with all the american support it could ever have, for all the reasons georgians want
to fight bandits in their own soil
oh, i'm sorry, does that propaganda sound different from your propaganda?
for reasons of russian imperialism that has been going in the caucasus for centuries russia invaded
and...
drum roll please...
you want to criticize the usa for that
amazing
russia crushes a tiny neighbor it has crushed many times before... and you want to criticize the usa?!
amazing, dumbfounding, the way you think
i can't even fathom how your mind works
its like some sort of all consuming obsession. did you date the usa and it dumped you or something? where does this monstruous blinding obsession come from?
"We need a multi-polar world"
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
russia just invaded a tiny neighbor. welcome to the multi-polar world you want. so, now that we have this mutli-polar world, do you stop obsessing about the usa now? (snicker)
probably not. weird stalkers never give up, no matter what reality says
tiny countries emit tiny amounts of evil. large ones emit large amounts of evil
of course switzerland didn't invade iraq, switzerland is too tiny. that doesn't mean that were switzerland a huge country, it wouldn't do some evil blunder of its own. every single country of enough size has a pretty solid track record of doing evil
so switzerland looks like a saint compared to the usa not because the swiss are saints, but because the swiss aren't allowed to prove they are just as human and prone to failure as americans are. the swiss are too tiny to show they can fail just as bad as the usa
"nothing is ever that simple, especially when you throw politics into the mix"
so stop making simple prejudicial assumptions about what i am saying
"your politically charged rhetoric is in-line with that of isolationists"
what you mean by "in-line" is "i've never thought about the issues enough to make a discernment between energy policy and foreign policy"
stop prejudicing me. read what i say. judge me on what i actually say. anything else is prejudice on your part and fails your own litmus test outlined in the comment you just made
you've merely indicated that the connections of petrodollars to antiwestern jingoism, russian neoimperialism, and saudi wahhabism is from a subsection of the piechart, not the whole piechart
what canada does with its slice of the pie is, god bless canada, nothing like what russia, venezuela, or saudia arabia does with their slices. this is to the eternal credit of canada. it isn't a destruction of my argument about what happens to the other slices of the pie
what about all the free venezuelan oil that goes into the usa to support anti-bush venezuelan policies?
i'm not going to pretend the usa doesn't like chavez. i'm also not going to pretend the usa doesn't meddle in the internal affairs of caribbean countries. and i'm also not going to pretend gw bush is anything but a retard, and i'd like to see him out of office just as much as chavez
so you owe it to me to stop pretending the usa is the only country in the world that does dirty tricks, you have to stop pretending chavez doesn't fund the farc, you have to stop pretending that every crime you can lay at the doorstep of washington dc does not also fall at the doorstep of caracas
do we have an understanding?
i never said it wasn't
the crazy part is you saying that american involvement is the deciding factor. americna involvement is a tiny minor nondecisive factor. i mean, what about the europeans? what do they want? how are they invovled? how about other countries afraid of russia in the russian sphere: ukraine, poland: how about what they want, what they are doing in georgia?
i think more important factors in the situation in georgia now is:
1. what georgians want to do
2. resurgent russian imperialism
its as if i told you that all of the problems the usa has with cuba is the fault of russia because the ussr tried to move some missiles there. woudl you believe that? of course the ussr mattered in cuba, of course the ussr was involved. but to say that that ussr involvement was the deciding factor, and completely ignore what cubans want, and completely ignore the history of the usa's involvement in cuba and the caribbean imperialistically, is completely insane
likewise, you want us to ignore what georgians want, and you want us to ignore centuries of russian imperialism in the caucasus
really? what are you smoking? can i have some?
if the usa disappeared into a giant lake tomorrow, and all americans disappeared off the face of the earth, and every mention of the usa in history was scorched from the history books and everyone's mind, what would happen in georgia?
you believe georgians would be in love with russia? you believe russia would smile benevolently on a free caucasus region?
do you believe that? no? then why do you believe anythign americans do is the deciding factor about what happens in the caucasus?
georgians would still be thumbing their nose at russia, because they do that because georgians dislike imperial russia. it has nothing to do with the usa. meanwhile, russia would still be a resurgent imperialist force in the caucasus because of new oil money and a desire to not seem weak anymore after the collapse of the ussr. that has nothing to do with the usa. get it?
switzerland is most definitely involved on the world stage in partisan ways. think about where all the bad guys in the world store their money. think about swiss drug policy's effect on drug trafficking. think about swiss immigration policy as it affects migrants. etc., etc., etc. you just don't notice these bad things because switzerland is tiny
also the usa does actually do good on the world stage. china and russia do good too on the world stage. but the good any of them do doesn't get as much press attention
and the european union throws its weight around too, and will throw it around more: its just a matter of size. the only countries that look good in comparison to the usa/ china/ russia are the tiny ones. and they do evil things too, but the countries are tiny, so the evil they do is tiny too, and so you don't notice it
not being involved on the world stage is an impossibility for a country the size of the usa (or china or russia). actually not being involved on the world stage is an impossibility for any country. you can't hide an elephant in a dorm room
because if we had 10x the amount of reactors we have today, but they used breeder technology instead, we would have waste that:
1. would be the same in quantity (breeder reactors consume 10x more fuel)
2. would last 200 years instead of 10,000 years
3. would give off less radiation
4. would give off less damaging types of radiation
so you could throw it in a hole and forget about it, because in 200 years it wouldn't be waste anymore
meanwhile, loading any nuclear waste for jettison into space is:
1. many orders of magnitude more expensive than putting it in a hole
2. if there is an accident, you are irradiating a large part of the atmosphere, whether breeder reactor waste or old style waste
even with a very low risk of #2 happening, no risk at all (from burying it) is still superior
yes, i agree with you. i used the shorthand term SUV with the implicit implication that i was talking about an internal combustion engine SUV. as frankly, when you talk about SUV, 99.999999% of them are ICE SUVs
now if every suburban soccer mom in the country had 4 trucks in their driveway: an electric power supersize hummer, an electric power big wheel chevy tahoe, and an electric power lincoln navigator, i would support that 100%
because i don't have a problem with the SUV, i have a problem with the ICE SUV. which, when you talk SUV today in shorthand terminology, that is what is naturally implied
yes, arrogance is expensive, isn't it?
throughout the last 15 years, after the fall of the soviet empire, europe has increasingly plotted its own course, away from washington dc. this is natural: europe didn't need the usa anymore, the soviet threat was dead
now what do we see? we see a neoimperialist russia invading an outpost of european style liberalism on the black sea, and shutting down oil pipelines that fuel your car and heat your house
so naturally, we shall see europe huddling up against the usa again in the near future
for example had bush invaded iraq in 2008 instead of 2003, after the resurgence of russia, rather than before, you would see france, germany, etc., dutifully falling in line and supporting that with troops, rather than vocally distancing themselves. why? because suddenly EUROPE NEEDS THE USA AGAIN
so yes, arrogance is a bitch. the arrogance in your words is suddenly expensive: you need america suddenly again
so be prepared to grow beet red in the facwe and throw food at your television. because what you will see there is merkel offering obama or mccain shoulder rubs, and sarkozy renaming french fries freedom fries: kowtowing to the next american president in ways you dislike, stifling all voices in your country that run antiamerican
europe has to do that again. its 1988 again, in geopolitical terms
so yes, arrogance is a bitch. you can't afford european arrogance anymore ;-)
hugs and kisses, your american poppa
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
the usa should stay involved on the world stage
but staying involved by funding imperialism and terrorism with american petrodollars is not the way to do it
as for talk radio, i never listen to it. if you have a problem with the way someone thinks, you have to address what they actually think, rather than writing them off as a stereotype that actually has nothing to do with the person
when you implicate the usa in all of the problems in the world, you lay responsibility for cleaning up the world at the feet of the usa by inference
in other words, those like you who seem to find a creative line of reasoning for blaming washington dc for everything in the world are actually more guilty than american neocon warhawks for putting the usa in iraq, or georgia. that's because, if you will recall, the usa is directly and 100% reponsible for saddam hussein (so the braindead kneejerk thinking goes). or, as you say above "In fact, the current conflict in Georgia is a direct result of American meddling in their affairs"
meanwhile, if you wish the usa to butt out of places in the world you would rather it not be involved in, then what you want to do is lay responsibility for things in the world at the feet of other players. yes, *gasp*, there are other world powers in the world. and yes, *gasp* they do evil meddling things outside their borders too. amazing huh?
there are more countries in the world than the usa. it is a big world, you should get out and see it some time. this lesson applies to those obsessed with the usa as the blame for every problem in the world more than any other ideologue partisan out there
blame implies responsibility. responsibility furthers involvement. therefore, your rhetoric, your words above, guarantees the usa remain involved in georgia, your words and your thinking guarantees the usa remain in places it doesn't belong more than the rhetoric of the most hardcore neocon warhawk in washington dc
that's a fact. understand why, and grow the fuck up and develop a more nuanced understanding of the world and its many peoples. its not an american playground. at least the world is not an american playground except in one place: your mind and the minds of braindead one dimensional partisans like yourself
people who think like you are the reason why the usa is overextended in the world. your rationale expects them to be involved. you can't even conceive of a world where the usa has its fingers in every little event. you can't establish a line of cause and effect that does not somehow creatively meander its way back to washington dc. that the usa is involved in places it doesn't belong is a bedrock principle of the way you think. to imagine a world functioning with other players besides washington dc> to you this is science fiction
pathetic, puerile, low iq stupidity: what is happening in georgia right now is the fault of the usa
hilarious
i always wondered at the status quo of nuclear power in canada
in the usa the rightful resurgence of new nuclear power technology is held in check by NIMBYs and a public opinion based on the failures of 1960s era nuclear tech (silkwood, three mile island, the china syndrome, etc... it just isn't like that anymore)
in canada is public opinion and NIMBYs a major influence too?
i know it is downright worse in great britain. NIMBYs and morons in the public there rule the day
only france and japan seem to have gotten nuclear tech right (that is, they rely on it a lot more than we do, and therefore don't fund wahhabism, antiwestern jingoism, and russian neoimperialism as much as we do)
if you shoot heroin, you really do support the taliban and al qaeda. especially if you shoot heroin in europe
its funny, but the only positive effects the taliban had in afghanistan while they were in power was they utterly destroyed the opium trade there (the ONLY positive effect. blowing up ancient buddhas, beheading prostitutes and adulterers and prodiving a safe haven for bin laden and his jolly crew was their real achievements.)
before 9/11/01, american drug officials would fly over opium growing regions in afghanistan and be mind boggled at how there just was no opium anywhere. the taliban completely razed the poppy fields and issued death pronouncements on anyone who would grow poppies
so apparently, murderous religous fundamentalism is the way to win the war on drugs. "stop growing opium or we'll kill you" seems to weigh heavier in the minds of poor farmers than easy money i guess
but please note how shallow the taliban's religious convictions are: they got to power in afghanistan in the first place by relying on opium growing funds, and now that they are out of power again, they are relying on the poppy fields again
there's no religious fundamentalist like a hypocritical religious fundamentalist (well actually, that's doubly true, as all religious fundamentalists are hypocrites)
all Canadians: athletes, actors, comedians, newscasters, etc., who achieve some sort of fame wind up moving south of the border. this includes Gretzky
so please, train better Canadian Hockey players. so we can hire them ;-)
your cash goes to:
1. Chavez in Venezuela to support anti-American jingoism
2. Putin in Russia to support Russian Neoimperialism such as in Georgia
3. Bin Laden via Saudi Wahhabism, the ultra-fundamentalist form of Saudi Islam that gives rise to treating women like cattle, nonSunnis like subhumans, and Islamic terrorism in its myriad forms wherever such groups are supported by conservative Arabic funds
the American government doesn't seem to think getting off foreign oil is as much a priority as the American people think it is. The priorities of the American government conflates dependency on foreign oil with other foreign problems that, if they examined many problems around the world more carefully, they would see that it is the American people and their SUVs that fund those problems in the first place. this complacency is partly our own fault, for not hammering our leaders on this issue hard enough. likewise, you can complain to GM about building SUVs instead of electric cars, but we as Americans buy SUVs instead (until quite recently)
we need electric cars supported by a new wave of modern nuclear power plants. of course there are better sources of electricity than nuclear, but most of these are boutique and cannot scale like nuclear can. this includes wind and solar. but i don't really care to champion nuclear that much as i care about the need to get off foreign oil, any way possible. so please, invest in solar and wind as well, let us find new ways for nonnuclear tech to scale
modern nuclear via pebble bed reactors just does not go chernobyl, and via breeder reactors waste in lifespan and quantity is dramatically reduced (1/10th quantity of waste, a few centuries instead of 10,000 years of radioactivity, and lower radiation levels of safer forms of radiation). breeder reactors also dramatically increasing energy yeild, and allow us to use thorium as well as uranium. security concerns are real with nuclear technology, but if we spent 1/1000th of the amount of money and lives we spend securing our petroleum in iraq on securing breeder reactors instead (they make plutonium, that's the danger with breeder reactors), we would still be many orders of magnitude safer than our current status quo of funding terrorism and russian imperialism and anti-american jingoism like we do now. of course even thorium will run out in a century or two, but if we haven't mastered fusion technology by then, we are doomed anyways, or would have found a way to scale wind and solar by then
zero reliance on foreign petroleum by 2025. whoever enunciates that idea the loudest amongst a range of candidates in any contest before you, elect them to Senator/ President/ Congressman/ Dogcatcher
if petrodollars were to dry up on the international stage, many of the intransigent problems that all peoples of the world face today, not just Americans face, would dry up as well
thems the facts. get with it America
no more foreign petrodollars. stop feeding your damn SUVs
that the appeal of that is very different from the appeal of watching a guy run?
or watching a guy run souped up on drugs?
right?
i'm glad you love the thrill of ICE engineering and that translates for you into watching an exciting indy500 race
but you do realize that not everyone shares that specific thrill with you, nor does that thrill directly translate into what makes baseball, or cycling, or the olympics attractive to others.; you do understand that, right?
to take this observation a step further, say we had two olympics:
1. where people were allowed to dope any way they wanted
2. where people were not allowed to dope at all, enforced by testing, etc.: basically the status quo today
question: which olympics would be more watched? which would be more appealing to people? which would win in viewership, advertiser sponsorship, athlete participation, etc.
well, why do people ever watch sports? what is the connection between the viewer and the spectacle before them?
it is the thrill of human achievement, being they are human as well. that basic empathy. but if instead they are watching the thrill of bioengineering, that will of course appeal to someone, somewhere, such as yourself, but far, far less people. the thrill of HUMAN achievement is not the same as the thrill of CHEMICAL achievement
advertisers, who spend their entire professional careers identifying what appeals to people and what doesn't, of course will fall in line and support the nondoped olympics
and finally, the athletes, given the choice between potentially life-shortening, body corroding drugs and competing without that, will compete in the nondoping olypics as well. oh of crouse, there are always the minority who will be pressured by evil govts or their own craven desire to win under any circumstances, who will give themselves cancer or destroy their ability to have children by doping themselves with toxic brews, but this minority of people are not the deciding factor here
they are just the cheaters. whose faulty decision making processes should not drive the debate here, even though it is driving the entire subject matter of this thread and the author of the story we are posting under
these people are to be identified and excluded from competition. the entire competition itself should not be destroyed for the sake of those who would win by doing that which destroys the fundamental appeal of the sport in the first place
the us won't catch up to japan in population density for 101 years either. or korea, or china
that's the REAL metric involved here
adjust broadband penetration for population density, and then you have a valid metric. otherwise, nothing interesting in this figure
the idea of any sport is to marvel in human strength, endurance, dexderity, etc.
but if athletes are artifically doped, you destroy interest in sports
because now they are artificial: they don't represent great feats of human endurance, strength, dexderity, etc., they represent great feats in biochemical research
in other words, if you allow athletes to take performance enhancers, you destroy the fundamental appeal of sports in the first place. the public simply won't be interested anymore, because they won't see themselves in the human thrill. it won't BE a human thrill anymore, it will be a technological achievement
so if you want to destroy sports, if you want smaller audiences and tv ratings for baseball, cycling, the olympics, etc., then allow doping
meanwhile, if you want sports to be compelling spectacles that people want to partake of, then you do your damnedest to keep doping out of athletes. of course this is difficult and an ongoing costly arms race, and there will always be those who try to cheat. that's the price you pay for keeping sports interesting. meanwhile, relax your standards about what athletes can dope with, and you will find that interest level in sports will wane. you've destroyed the fundamental human interest factor
what does that have to do with a dead anthrax scientist?
let me be perfectly clear: distrust of government is the mark of a healthy society
i repeat: distrust of government is the mark of a healthy society
have i made myself crystal clear?
meanwhile, rabid kneejerk hobbling distrust is the mark of someone with a personality disorder
you can distrust TOO MUCH just as much as you can trust too much. got that?
you are correct, it is 100% possible to trust too much. but it is also possible to distrust too much. it's a balance
so when you see someone who is trying to balance trust and distrust, you are not allowed to accuse them of trusting to much, simply because they do not share with you your impoverished level of distrust. your distrust is on the far end of the specturm. it is not healthy. of course, there are those on the far end of too much trust too. they are unhealthy too. i view them, and you, with incredulity
but don't mind me, right? i'm obviously a blind fooled sheeple. you've got it all figured out from your basement and your vast collection of intartube links. i should trust your fantasy life based on b-grade hollywood movies as superior to dem evil gubmints
baaaaah
baaaaah
in the thread on the tragedy of the anticommons, but it seems even more relevant to this topic
on the subject of intellectual property and the rare souls reviving old media through blood sweat and tears, the filmmaker vincent gallo said this four years ago:
bottom line: revive old media, bring renewed attention AND SALES to a long forgotten artist and piece of music, and expect the corporate intellectual property assholes to punish you for effort
thats the state of intellectual property today
suggests the actions of a loan deranged scientist as more likely than some sort of conspiracy
it always amazes me how the same people that talk of the federal government in terms of utter incompetence in one sentence, the next sentence they are suggesting a multiorganizational airtight conspiracy has been meticulously arranged
motive? right! warhawks hellbent on invading iraq... zzz
warhawks DO exist. but most everything that happens in the realm of tricky manipulation is usually due to the individual initiative of individual warhawks. not some sort of grand poobah conspiracy of warhawk cabals, or whatever. this is called paranoid schizophrenia, not intelligent insight
i think some people have been watching too many steven seagal movies. real life is far more mundane than your fantasy life suggests, i'm sorry about that
but don't mind me, i'm obviously an agent of the illuminati, come to cast aspersions on armchair intelligence anaylsts and their cutting insights
oops! gotta go, someone's chatting about the vince foster suicide cover up on an obscure message board... gotta cover that up... brb
are always born with new ways of hiding
your privacy isn't dead, its just shifted to new forms
that there is no value in partial invisibility. even with all of the weaknesses you point out, this tech is still very useful to exactly the kind of people who would most be interested in it: military applications