Do you really think that anyone could cover up a nuclear accident to the extent that you wouldn't hear about it? I hate to break it to you, but the US military, including the Navy, is staffed by actual flesh-and-blood people with families and friends, and from time to time they even talk with those families and friends. Even sensitive information such as ships' schedules is usually public knowledge, especially in the area where a ship is due to arrive. Businesses usually have welcome banners made days or weeks in advance, when the information is technically only declassified in a much smaller window.
A nuclear accident would be orders of magnitude much more difficult to cover up. Family members and friends would have to say nothing about the death or radiation poisoning of their loved ones, vast areas would require "secret" quarantine and decontamination, etc. The Navy actually has very strict guidelines for its nuclear program, practices regular internal and community-involved drills, and limits radiation exposure of personnell to levels far below that of expected normal exposure in daily life, let alone an active outdoors-type individual.
Lets look at it from a practical consideration. Up until recently, fire was the primary means of heating and lighting our homes. Throughout history, fires have destroyed entire cities, and inspired the phrase "playing with fire," yet not using fire was not a viable option; people would freeze without it, work would have been limited to daylight hours, and society would probably still be in the pre-stone age, literally, without it. Electricity turned out to be even more useful than most people probably would have imagined at the time of its discovery, and its relative safety was an added bonus. Life as most people know it today would literally cease to exist without electricity. While it's true that a nuclear disaster would have severe repercussions, the likelyhood of such a disaster pales in comparison to the idea of millions of people lighting their homes with torches and candles. Further, modern reactors are much less accident-prone than their predecessors, and it's likely that safety and reliability will continue to improve.
Just as we have throughout human history, we must use the best tools available. In the future, alternatives to nuclear energy may, and likely will, be devised, but for now it's one of the best choices we have. When you come up with something better, do the world a favor and let us know.
I think that's a seperate issue though, since plagiarism is copying a work without attributing its source and AP articles are clearly labled as such. Media outlets generally pay to use the articles because it's often impractical to have a staff reporter cover every story, especially somewhat mundane events.
As far as fact checking, I think the responsibility lies largely with the author. Ideally, other media outlets should do a cursory examination of the articles and news wire reports they receive, but generally speaking they have to trust that the author did his or her homework, otherwise they're just reinvestigating the same story, which negates the benefit of purchasing the stories in the first place. It's not a perfect system, and there's probably room for improvement, but I think the benefits of aggregated source reporting outweigh the limitations inherent in reporting solely those stories which an organization has the resources to investigate on its own.
We at the RIAA have long been concerned about the ability of consumers to obtain our product for free. While we value radio for its ability to publicize our artists' music, even to the extent that we're more than willing to pay broadcasters to play specific songs, we loathe the idea that consumers might be able to listen to those songs at a time of their choosing without our companies directly profiting. We should be able to bring our product to the homes (and vehicles and workplaces) of our market without risking the possibility that they may somehow obtain a copy of our music by using something referred to as a "recording device." Such devices circumvent our ability to profit from the exposure of the music that we license for broadcast.
When consumers purchase our music, they are not paying for that specific copy; they are paying for the rights to listen to the music when and where they choose. (Except when they want to make a copy of that media to listen to it on another device, in which case we maintain that they actually bought the CD; not the rights to listen to the music in a manner of their choosing. Also we maintain that when music is purchased without physical media, the copy stored on the consumer's device is the only authorized copy, and it may only be played on the device which retrieved the content from our licensed servers. Also we would like to discuss further changes to the laws of space and time once the current licensing issues have been resolved to our satisfaction).
In short, we believe our industry should have its cake and eat it too, and we're prepared to donate generously* to achieve this previously impossible goal.
Yours Always**, The RIAA
* In the form of travel expenses and accomodations, until you ban that in your attempt to make it look like you're cleaning up corruption, at which time we'll make other arrangements. (Do you prefer blondes, or brunettes?)
** Or until you stop pandering to our interests above those of the people whom elected you. Remember, they probably wouldn't have even known about you without our significant campaign contributions.
Well, a fullscale switch would cause the results you describe. But if we grandfathered in, uh, grandfathers (any adult who already had a license) and just started stricter requirements for the new crop of drivers, it should have a reasonably high success rate.
Well, that doesn't eliminate the possibility that you could get hit by a bad driver, in which case you'd still want a seatbelt/airbag/teleporter. Obviously the solution is that you're only issued a seatbelt as a reward after X years of safe driving.
What? The GP said "We shouldn't have joystick controls because of A," and you said, "Bullshit! We shouldn't have joystick controls! If you knew anything about A, you'd understand that."
Look, in real life we trade freedom for safety. That's pretty much the definition of gov't. It sounds nice to make sweeping pronouncements about dying for freedom, but in practice you're probably not any more against rule by law than I am. So quit acting like there's some qualitative difference between the two of us. It's just a question of where to draw the line. And I will never trust someone to draw the line that thinks there is no line - which is what cute quotes like that reveal about you.
So there's no qualitative difference between us, but you don't trust me? That makes sense.
Of course I'm not against rule by law. BY LAW. Not by arbitrary decisions of someone who feels they're above the law. Further, I don't think our current set of laws is lacking when it comes to providing adequate and reasonable protections. You could try to change the law, of course, but you've got an awful lot of people to convince. If you're successful, then I'll honor the law then too, just like I do now.
Am I willing to die for our liberty? Well, I can say I am, and I served in the military, so that's some evidence that I am, but if you don't believe me, there's nothing I can really do to convince you.
2. because of terrorism. Hamas is actually a very good organization - except when they blow stuff up. Isreal is a reasonably free country - except when it comes to try and stop aforementioned Hamas from blowing stuff up. So yeah - I'd say it comes down to terrorism screwing stuff up.
So if terrorism is the cause of all of the mid-east's problems, then we had no reason to get rid of Saddam. I hate to call BS, but.. I call BS. Look, terrorism is just a fear-monger's word for murder. It's not terrorism if we don't let it terrorize us. Are you terrified that you're going to get shot in a driveby, or killed in a car crash, or a natural disaster? No.. there's simply no point in being fearful because shit happens. Sometimes terrorists make a lot of shit happen at once, but overall it's nothing to get our panties in a bunch about. We prevent what we can with the lawful methods we have in place, bring them to justice when we can, and suck it up when we can't. Period.
3. Please don't get me started on quality of life issues. Look - you made it seem like all that determined seriousness was the body count. I proved that's not true. It's impressive mental judo to act like that was your position all along, but you were the one that used body count as an indicator of seriouosness to begin with, not me.
That wasn't me, that was one of the GPs. My point is that terrorism's only threat is a body count, and fear. Body counts are and always will be somewhat out of our control, but letting fear dictate our actions is a choice.
Look, PART of what we need to do is admit past mistakes, try to correct them, and do more outreach to moderate Muslims. But we have to do that in a context of strength. This isn't about machismo. It's the same principle as negotiating with hostage takers. Once you do it once you may save one life but you endanger hundreds more by sending the message "taking hostages works on us".
I don't disagree, and I'm not arguing that we should negotiate with terrorists. Afghanistan was a perfectly reasonable response. Iraq was not. Likewise, invading Iran would not be. Preemptive action might prevent a present threat, but it does nothing to deter, and often incites, future threats.
Same thing is happening in Iraq now. Regardless of whether we should have gone in or not, the divisiveness at home fuels terrorism more than any past foreign policy mistakes. Because terrorists don't really need motives for what they do, but they do need to believe it works or they'll try something else. Displaying weakness to a predator is just stupid. This is something liberals either don't get - or would rather ignore for short-term partisan gain.
Bill O'Reilly? Is that you? Sorry bud, but we're already pulling out of Iraq. Why is it you think we should stay exactly? A) There were not WMDs. B) Saddam's regime has been removed, C) it's not our responsibility to run other people's country, and D) Terrorism cannot be eradicated, unless you know something I don't?
If you need to download every patch, it's time to invest in a firewall.
Re:Centralized Email
on
Spam is Dead
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
That a solution isn't perfect is not a reason to dismiss the solution entirely. Besides, what if there was a whitelist for people who could e-mail you for free?
While your sentiment is often repeated and seems logical, history seems to indicate otherwise. Organized crime, despite awareness of FBI wiretaps since the 30s, often spoke plainly if they had no reason to suspect their lines were being tapped or when they simply slipped up.
1930 Ness had his men tap Ralph's phones continuously. With the intelligence Ness gathered, he was able to ram the front door of Capone's South Wabash brewery with a truck outfitted with a snowplow on the front.
1989 "You know why he's dying?" Gotti was heard saying on an FBI wiretap on December 12, 1989, in reference to a wiseguy whose murder he had ordered. "He's gonna die because he refused to come in when I called. He didn't do nothing else wrong."
I remember watching interviews with some of the agents involved, and they simply couldn't believe how often mafia bosses would speak plainly, even right after their predecessors had been busted. Terrorists are just as falliable as anyone else, and it's pretty difficult to use code 100% of the time, although encryption is arguably making it easier to mask communications. That's not to say that wanton disregard for the 4th Amendment is acceptable, it's not, but wiretapping is a useful and effective tool of law enforcement.
The signal to noise ratio for widespread monitoring, however, is very low. I think one of the NSA informants mentioned that there were hundreds or thousands of hours of recordings which hadn't been reviewed because there just isn't enough manpower (specifically arabic translators).
1 - Terrorism has killed only a couple thousand americans so far, but how many could it kill if they got a nuke or a biological weapon?
Lots. But if you're not willing to die for freedom, then you're not free anyway. Once reasonable precautions become unreasonable, they're unreasonable, period. Ends do not justify means.
2 - Sure, only a few thousand are killed - but how many lives in the Middle East and other regions are lived in fear, poverty, and without basic human rights because of terrorism?
Because of terrorism or because of bad government? Isreal deals with terrorism on a fairly regular basis, but they don't seem particularly impoverished or lacking in the human rights department (relative to some of their neighbors). Living in fear is a personal choice.
The POINT of terrorism is to have a greater impact than the body count would indicate.
Exactly, so why are we playing into their hands by overreacting?
3 - Less people die from child molestation, child prostituion, and human trafficking than from car crashes. Which do you find to be a bigger problem?
But more people die from heart disease than all of the above.
The underlying question is: What's more important, being alive or quality of life? I would argue that it's quality of life, and based on your questions/arguments, I'd venture to say that you agree. If quality of life is more important, then it follows that we should devote a greater proportion of our resources toward things that further that goal. If vain/irrational/unreasonable attempts to prevent a few people from dying (yes, even if it's my sister, wife, daughter, or whatever) are more important, then by all means, let's continue with what we're doing.
Reasonable measures include mandatory international multilateral monitoring of the production and distribution of CBR weapons. Reasonable measures include the use of force to counter a clear and determined attack in progress (not one that may occur at some undefinable vague point in the future). Reasonable measures include undermining the power and credibility of terrorist organizations by taking action to demonstrate that we are not an evil empire, which would, naturally, require us to do things that are not evil, perhaps even things that are good. In order to counter an argument that we are evil, we need demonstrable evidence to the contrary; something we are sorely lacking in many parts of the world. "No we're not, and we'll take action against anyone who says otherwise," is not a very convincing argument.
Reasonable measures do not include attempting to identify and eliminate any possible threat, because a) that's simply not possible, and b) it breeds discontent. The downfall of communism did not win the cold war. The US did not win the cold war. Decades of not attacking the other side won the war, and peace was the victor. Granted, we were attacked on 9/11, but not by the people we're fighting now, unless you have some sort of evidence that the world isn't aware of.
First they came for the terrorists, and I said nothing because I'm an overused cliche.
But the point remains that it's a bad precedent. The US was founded on the idea that government cannot be trusted with unchecked authority, as demonstrated by every government in history, ever.
Don't you get it? Such grievances almost always start out with legitimate (or pseudo-legitimate) purposes. Tyrants rarely say, "F all of you, we're taking over." Look at Chavez in Venezuela. He has popular support because he has improved things. Every action is always claimed (and perhaps demonstrated) to be for the good of the people.
It's not that it's not possible to have a good leader who has unchecked power -- there were plenty of good emperors, monarchs, and pharohs -- but, inevitably there will be a not-so-good tyrant, or even just a misguided tyrant. Whether you believe Bush is good or bad is largely irrelevant.
Why not? Our country was founded on such idealism.
Wow, your idealism hasn't faded yet? You must be a new lawyer.
(Not to mention you conceeded the point that it was hopelessly idealistic (which it isn't), and inferred that the concepts of our nation are similarly hopeless).
Guess again. The midwest doesn't hold a candle to the Pacific islands in terms of Spam consumption, thanks to WWII. They actually serve Spam and rice for breakfast at McDonalds here.
It seems that we have a greater need for high acuity vision than the octopus does and accordingly our eyes have a richer supply of nutrients than the octopus does. The retinas of our eyes get nutrition both from the blood vessels in front and from the choroid layer directly behind the rods and cones. The blood vessels in front supplement the supply from behind.
Quite honestly, I think that just the new power connector alone was worth the press.
I don't. I have kitchen appliances with power cords that attach magnetically, although I have no idea why. I don't remember hearing any press when they were launched. In fact, they don't even advertise that "feature" on the box.
Yeah, I know what you meant, however I think the fact that they sell AMD CPUs at all seems to contradict the idea that they're just the sales division of Intel. (Otherwise why sell competing products in any form?) I expect to see AMD systems from Dell in the near future.. Intel would be foolish to raise their prices to Dell, which would only encourage more sales of AMD. If anything, such a move would likely cause Intel to lower their prices to remain competitive.
That's an old theory. Recent evidence suggests that the rate of expansion of the universe is actually increasing, not decreasing as you'd expect in a spring-type scenario.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you really think that anyone could cover up a nuclear accident to the extent that you wouldn't hear about it? I hate to break it to you, but the US military, including the Navy, is staffed by actual flesh-and-blood people with families and friends, and from time to time they even talk with those families and friends. Even sensitive information such as ships' schedules is usually public knowledge, especially in the area where a ship is due to arrive. Businesses usually have welcome banners made days or weeks in advance, when the information is technically only declassified in a much smaller window.
A nuclear accident would be orders of magnitude much more difficult to cover up. Family members and friends would have to say nothing about the death or radiation poisoning of their loved ones, vast areas would require "secret" quarantine and decontamination, etc. The Navy actually has very strict guidelines for its nuclear program, practices regular internal and community-involved drills, and limits radiation exposure of personnell to levels far below that of expected normal exposure in daily life, let alone an active outdoors-type individual.
Lets look at it from a practical consideration. Up until recently, fire was the primary means of heating and lighting our homes. Throughout history, fires have destroyed entire cities, and inspired the phrase "playing with fire," yet not using fire was not a viable option; people would freeze without it, work would have been limited to daylight hours, and society would probably still be in the pre-stone age, literally, without it. Electricity turned out to be even more useful than most people probably would have imagined at the time of its discovery, and its relative safety was an added bonus. Life as most people know it today would literally cease to exist without electricity. While it's true that a nuclear disaster would have severe repercussions, the likelyhood of such a disaster pales in comparison to the idea of millions of people lighting their homes with torches and candles. Further, modern reactors are much less accident-prone than their predecessors, and it's likely that safety and reliability will continue to improve.
Just as we have throughout human history, we must use the best tools available. In the future, alternatives to nuclear energy may, and likely will, be devised, but for now it's one of the best choices we have. When you come up with something better, do the world a favor and let us know.
I think that's a seperate issue though, since plagiarism is copying a work without attributing its source and AP articles are clearly labled as such. Media outlets generally pay to use the articles because it's often impractical to have a staff reporter cover every story, especially somewhat mundane events.
As far as fact checking, I think the responsibility lies largely with the author. Ideally, other media outlets should do a cursory examination of the articles and news wire reports they receive, but generally speaking they have to trust that the author did his or her homework, otherwise they're just reinvestigating the same story, which negates the benefit of purchasing the stories in the first place. It's not a perfect system, and there's probably room for improvement, but I think the benefits of aggregated source reporting outweigh the limitations inherent in reporting solely those stories which an organization has the resources to investigate on its own.
That's not what Retarded says, although I fail to see the relevance of their personal lives.
We at the RIAA have long been concerned about the ability of consumers to obtain our product for free. While we value radio for its ability to publicize our artists' music, even to the extent that we're more than willing to pay broadcasters to play specific songs, we loathe the idea that consumers might be able to listen to those songs at a time of their choosing without our companies directly profiting. We should be able to bring our product to the homes (and vehicles and workplaces) of our market without risking the possibility that they may somehow obtain a copy of our music by using something referred to as a "recording device." Such devices circumvent our ability to profit from the exposure of the music that we license for broadcast.
When consumers purchase our music, they are not paying for that specific copy; they are paying for the rights to listen to the music when and where they choose. (Except when they want to make a copy of that media to listen to it on another device, in which case we maintain that they actually bought the CD; not the rights to listen to the music in a manner of their choosing. Also we maintain that when music is purchased without physical media, the copy stored on the consumer's device is the only authorized copy, and it may only be played on the device which retrieved the content from our licensed servers. Also we would like to discuss further changes to the laws of space and time once the current licensing issues have been resolved to our satisfaction).
In short, we believe our industry should have its cake and eat it too, and we're prepared to donate generously* to achieve this previously impossible goal.
Yours Always**,
The RIAA
* In the form of travel expenses and accomodations, until you ban that in your attempt to make it look like you're cleaning up corruption, at which time we'll make other arrangements. (Do you prefer blondes, or brunettes?)
** Or until you stop pandering to our interests above those of the people whom elected you. Remember, they probably wouldn't have even known about you without our significant campaign contributions.
Well, a fullscale switch would cause the results you describe. But if we grandfathered in, uh, grandfathers (any adult who already had a license) and just started stricter requirements for the new crop of drivers, it should have a reasonably high success rate.
Well, that doesn't eliminate the possibility that you could get hit by a bad driver, in which case you'd still want a seatbelt/airbag/teleporter. Obviously the solution is that you're only issued a seatbelt as a reward after X years of safe driving.
What? The GP said "We shouldn't have joystick controls because of A," and you said, "Bullshit! We shouldn't have joystick controls! If you knew anything about A, you'd understand that."
Look, in real life we trade freedom for safety. That's pretty much the definition of gov't. It sounds nice to make sweeping pronouncements about dying for freedom, but in practice you're probably not any more against rule by law than I am. So quit acting like there's some qualitative difference between the two of us. It's just a question of where to draw the line. And I will never trust someone to draw the line that thinks there is no line - which is what cute quotes like that reveal about you.
So there's no qualitative difference between us, but you don't trust me? That makes sense.
Of course I'm not against rule by law. BY LAW. Not by arbitrary decisions of someone who feels they're above the law. Further, I don't think our current set of laws is lacking when it comes to providing adequate and reasonable protections. You could try to change the law, of course, but you've got an awful lot of people to convince. If you're successful, then I'll honor the law then too, just like I do now.
Am I willing to die for our liberty? Well, I can say I am, and I served in the military, so that's some evidence that I am, but if you don't believe me, there's nothing I can really do to convince you.
2. because of terrorism. Hamas is actually a very good organization - except when they blow stuff up. Isreal is a reasonably free country - except when it comes to try and stop aforementioned Hamas from blowing stuff up. So yeah - I'd say it comes down to terrorism screwing stuff up.
So if terrorism is the cause of all of the mid-east's problems, then we had no reason to get rid of Saddam. I hate to call BS, but.. I call BS. Look, terrorism is just a fear-monger's word for murder. It's not terrorism if we don't let it terrorize us. Are you terrified that you're going to get shot in a driveby, or killed in a car crash, or a natural disaster? No.. there's simply no point in being fearful because shit happens. Sometimes terrorists make a lot of shit happen at once, but overall it's nothing to get our panties in a bunch about. We prevent what we can with the lawful methods we have in place, bring them to justice when we can, and suck it up when we can't. Period.
3. Please don't get me started on quality of life issues. Look - you made it seem like all that determined seriousness was the body count. I proved that's not true. It's impressive mental judo to act like that was your position all along, but you were the one that used body count as an indicator of seriouosness to begin with, not me.
That wasn't me, that was one of the GPs. My point is that terrorism's only threat is a body count, and fear. Body counts are and always will be somewhat out of our control, but letting fear dictate our actions is a choice.
Look, PART of what we need to do is admit past mistakes, try to correct them, and do more outreach to moderate Muslims. But we have to do that in a context of strength. This isn't about machismo. It's the same principle as negotiating with hostage takers. Once you do it once you may save one life but you endanger hundreds more by sending the message "taking hostages works on us".
I don't disagree, and I'm not arguing that we should negotiate with terrorists. Afghanistan was a perfectly reasonable response. Iraq was not. Likewise, invading Iran would not be. Preemptive action might prevent a present threat, but it does nothing to deter, and often incites, future threats.
Same thing is happening in Iraq now. Regardless of whether we should have gone in or not, the divisiveness at home fuels terrorism more than any past foreign policy mistakes. Because terrorists don't really need motives for what they do, but they do need to believe it works or they'll try something else. Displaying weakness to a predator is just stupid. This is something liberals either don't get - or would rather ignore for short-term partisan gain.
Bill O'Reilly? Is that you? Sorry bud, but we're already pulling out of Iraq. Why is it you think we should stay exactly? A) There were not WMDs. B) Saddam's regime has been removed, C) it's not our responsibility to run other people's country, and D) Terrorism cannot be eradicated, unless you know something I don't?
Look - you made it seem like all that determined seriousness was the body count.
That wasn't me.
Welcome to the US, where the obvious is not only insightful, but usually patentable!
If you need to download every patch, it's time to invest in a firewall.
That a solution isn't perfect is not a reason to dismiss the solution entirely. Besides, what if there was a whitelist for people who could e-mail you for free?
While your sentiment is often repeated and seems logical, history seems to indicate otherwise. Organized crime, despite awareness of FBI wiretaps since the 30s, often spoke plainly if they had no reason to suspect their lines were being tapped or when they simply slipped up.
1930 Ness had his men tap Ralph's phones continuously. With the intelligence Ness gathered, he was able to ram the front door of Capone's South Wabash brewery with a truck outfitted with a snowplow on the front.
1989 "You know why he's dying?" Gotti was heard saying on an FBI wiretap on December 12, 1989, in reference to a wiseguy whose murder he had ordered. "He's gonna die because he refused to come in when I called. He didn't do nothing else wrong."
I remember watching interviews with some of the agents involved, and they simply couldn't believe how often mafia bosses would speak plainly, even right after their predecessors had been busted. Terrorists are just as falliable as anyone else, and it's pretty difficult to use code 100% of the time, although encryption is arguably making it easier to mask communications. That's not to say that wanton disregard for the 4th Amendment is acceptable, it's not, but wiretapping is a useful and effective tool of law enforcement.
The signal to noise ratio for widespread monitoring, however, is very low. I think one of the NSA informants mentioned that there were hundreds or thousands of hours of recordings which hadn't been reviewed because there just isn't enough manpower (specifically arabic translators).
1 - Terrorism has killed only a couple thousand americans so far, but how many could it kill if they got a nuke or a biological weapon?
Lots. But if you're not willing to die for freedom, then you're not free anyway. Once reasonable precautions become unreasonable, they're unreasonable, period. Ends do not justify means.
2 - Sure, only a few thousand are killed - but how many lives in the Middle East and other regions are lived in fear, poverty, and without basic human rights because of terrorism?
Because of terrorism or because of bad government? Isreal deals with terrorism on a fairly regular basis, but they don't seem particularly impoverished or lacking in the human rights department (relative to some of their neighbors). Living in fear is a personal choice.
The POINT of terrorism is to have a greater impact than the body count would indicate.
Exactly, so why are we playing into their hands by overreacting?
3 - Less people die from child molestation, child prostituion, and human trafficking than from car crashes. Which do you find to be a bigger problem?
But more people die from heart disease than all of the above.
The underlying question is: What's more important, being alive or quality of life? I would argue that it's quality of life, and based on your questions/arguments, I'd venture to say that you agree. If quality of life is more important, then it follows that we should devote a greater proportion of our resources toward things that further that goal. If vain/irrational/unreasonable attempts to prevent a few people from dying (yes, even if it's my sister, wife, daughter, or whatever) are more important, then by all means, let's continue with what we're doing.
Reasonable measures include mandatory international multilateral monitoring of the production and distribution of CBR weapons. Reasonable measures include the use of force to counter a clear and determined attack in progress (not one that may occur at some undefinable vague point in the future). Reasonable measures include undermining the power and credibility of terrorist organizations by taking action to demonstrate that we are not an evil empire, which would, naturally, require us to do things that are not evil, perhaps even things that are good. In order to counter an argument that we are evil, we need demonstrable evidence to the contrary; something we are sorely lacking in many parts of the world. "No we're not, and we'll take action against anyone who says otherwise," is not a very convincing argument.
Reasonable measures do not include attempting to identify and eliminate any possible threat, because a) that's simply not possible, and b) it breeds discontent. The downfall of communism did not win the cold war. The US did not win the cold war. Decades of not attacking the other side won the war, and peace was the victor. Granted, we were attacked on 9/11, but not by the people we're fighting now, unless you have some sort of evidence that the world isn't aware of.
First they came for the terrorists, and I said nothing because I'm an overused cliche.
But the point remains that it's a bad precedent. The US was founded on the idea that government cannot be trusted with unchecked authority, as demonstrated by every government in history, ever.
Don't you get it? Such grievances almost always start out with legitimate (or pseudo-legitimate) purposes. Tyrants rarely say, "F all of you, we're taking over." Look at Chavez in Venezuela. He has popular support because he has improved things. Every action is always claimed (and perhaps demonstrated) to be for the good of the people.
It's not that it's not possible to have a good leader who has unchecked power -- there were plenty of good emperors, monarchs, and pharohs -- but, inevitably there will be a not-so-good tyrant, or even just a misguided tyrant. Whether you believe Bush is good or bad is largely irrelevant.
Guess again. The midwest doesn't hold a candle to the Pacific islands in terms of Spam consumption, thanks to WWII. They actually serve Spam and rice for breakfast at McDonalds here.
It's more of a staple food and part of island culture. Hawaii leads the nation in per capita Spam consumption.
We actually make particular can just for Guam, that's called hot and spicy.
All-Spam restaurant is serious business for the Philippines
I'd rather have a pet with a built-in alarm to alert me when it's planning to relieve itself behind some furniture.
Seconded. Motion passes.
Quite honestly, I think that just the new power connector alone was worth the press.
I don't. I have kitchen appliances with power cords that attach magnetically, although I have no idea why. I don't remember hearing any press when they were launched. In fact, they don't even advertise that "feature" on the box.
I'll show you something redundant.
I'll show you something redundant.
I'd tap 'dat ash.
Yeah, I know what you meant, however I think the fact that they sell AMD CPUs at all seems to contradict the idea that they're just the sales division of Intel. (Otherwise why sell competing products in any form?) I expect to see AMD systems from Dell in the near future.. Intel would be foolish to raise their prices to Dell, which would only encourage more sales of AMD. If anything, such a move would likely cause Intel to lower their prices to remain competitive.
That's an old theory. Recent evidence suggests that the rate of expansion of the universe is actually increasing, not decreasing as you'd expect in a spring-type scenario.
o ff=1&client=opera&rls=en&q=universe+expansion&btnG =Search_ universe
http://www.google.com/search?hs=bMo&hl=en&lr=&c2c
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe#Fate_of_the