The whole word would have been better off if the jews of Europe had been handed a piece of Arizona or Alaska and told to either shut the fuck up about Palestine or go back to post-war Europe where they were FROM.
I don't know about sending them to America - looking at who's contributed to science and culture, I find that there is rather a lot of Jews, so I would think it would have been a lot better to try harder to get them to stay in Europe. However, after the war, it was probably too late; we should have mended our ways long before.
That said, Zionism is a harebrained idea which only got off the ground because we Europeans had painted ourselves into a corner - several times - and we wanted to get rid of a problem, so we went along with it and helped found a new nation, based on overwhelming, military power and gross injustice against the locals, whether you call them Palestinians or not. It is not easy to build a stable, righteous and long lasting nation on such a basis, and I have a hard time seeing that the government of Israel are trying very hard.
Any value attributed to bitcoin is essentially in the eyes of the people who choose to use it.
The same is true of anything whose value depends on a perception of value; Spain learned this when they started minting the famous 'Pieces of Eight' in the 15th century in such huge numbers that the actual value in term of what you could buy with them tumbled - and they were made of very pure silver. Money is, even at best, not real value, but only a token that you can exchange for goods and services of value. We continue to believe in certain currencies only because we believe in the entities that guarantee their value, and that is where cyber currency falls down, IMO. Like the emperor's clothes, it works well until the little boy speaks up and breaks the illusion; and the world is full of little boys like that.
Brexit will hurt a lot of things, but probably not things that are already working int the global sphere, if that is the correct term. Brexit will cause upheavals, and as always, this will harm those at the bottom of the pile (who ironically voted for brexit, it appears) and benefit those at the top. In the long run, however, brexit makes no difference; the internet will see to it, that the globalisation will continue, and national sovereignty will continue to become less relevant in a world where everybody can talk across borders with little effort. A lot of young, educated people no longer identify with their local community, but have close friends in countries on the other side of the world - they are not likely to care much about "Taking Our Country Back" in the future and will be happy to join the European Federation or whatever it is going to be called, when the time comes and they get into power.
In the short term - 5 to 10 years - brexit will continue cause us small, but significant problems, while we go through the slow and painful process of unraveling 40+ years of treaties that the UK have themselves been one of the prime drivers in building up. It is all very well to gloss over these things with cool sounding slogans or glib arguments about how many cars Germany want to sell, but the truth of the matter is that the negotiations will take a long time and cause endless trouble for the whole of Europe and to some extent to the rest of the world, and their leaders and populations will remember this for a long time. And just like people in the UK voted leave based on something less than rational, these feelings of resent in Europe will count against UK in any negotiations - this may also hit us when we try to get good deals with countries outside EU. We have signalled to the world that we are not entirely rational, and they will have their doubts about any relationship with us for some time. And so on and so on. There are some who will benefit, and who will feel that these problem are a price worth paying; because they won't be the ones paying.
As I have said in so many discussions, I don't need to win this argument; time will tell soon enough. It would be nice to be proven wrong, but I don't think I will.
I think this is just another simplistic "solution" to a problem not quite understood. We have seen similar projects in the past - in the 70es it was "University for All"; everybody should be pushed through some sort of higher education, it didn't really matter which or whether it actually gave useful skills. Not that education isn't a good thing, but as it turned out, having a major in creative arts wasn't always what the economy needed. And, it is not a bad thing as such if everybody knows how to write code - at least you may then have a basis for understanding what computers can (and not least: cannot) do, but the real problems for the economy are not as simple as "not enough coders". And the problems with the economy are not the most important in society either; I would say inequality is a far more important problem to solve. Inequality lies behind most of the unrest in the world, just as it always has.
The president has prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all president before him combined. His Justice Department has vastly expanded the scope of the law, turning it from a weapon against the nation's enemies to one that's pointed against its own citizens.
I think this needs to be taken with a grain or two of salt. Firstly, does the president have the power to prosecute anyone? I thought that would be for the public prosecutor or something; the president would not have the legal power to prosecute any criminal. Of course, this may be different under America law.
Secondly, I think it is a fundamentally dishonest way to use statistics, comparing the current president to "all presidents before him"; he is addressing a situation that didn't exist before, really: the rise of the internet and the fact that this enables not just good and honest people, but also criminals, terrorists, spies etc. Obama has been president for 8 years - in that time, these problems have grown exponentially. You might as well say "more people have died in road accidents since 1900 than in the tens of thousands of years that humanity has existed before 1900". Which is true - but it still paints a grossly distorted picture.
Freedom of Speech has always been a fantasy, unless you define it narrowly to be the promise that you will not be a criminal for criticising those in power, and even then it has never been entirely real. And whatever you believe about freedom and human rights, the prospects of winning the public over to your opinion are vastly enhanced if you stop posturing and instead concentrate on setting realistic, attainable goals. People in general don't buy into the idea that anybody should have the right to say anything, anywhere; they can see the dangers inherent in allowing extremists to stir up shit - and they know that such people, who are more than willing to use the freedoms for their own purposes, are also the worst oppressors around, when it comes to accepting dissenting views; just look at Daesh.
No, Freedom of Speech simply means that it is not in itself a crime to speak out against those in power; not more, not less.
Everything you say is watched
Certainly, if you speak in a public forum; that is why we call it a public forum. The thing is, people don't realise that just because the are sitting in their homes when they are online, they are actually participating in public forums. If you don't want to be seen, don't go out in public - that has always been the case. Even experienced politicians don't always realise this - hence we have these embarrasments where they have to explain themselves, because they said something rather careless at what they imagined was a private occasion. Speaking of which, I bet all you loud freedom-and-privacy advocates just love it when that happens.
If people want privacy, all that is needed is a bit of common sense; don't buy in to all these fabulous gadgets that are specifically designed to get you online, where you will be in the public eye.
Why would this be a negative for China? Now they have an opportunity to increase exports to Europe with less of the ISO-based standards protectionism.
You make a couple of assumptions that I think are unrealistic. Firstly, I don't hink UK will get as good an arrangement with EU as we had before - leaving has already had and will continue to have a negative impact for EU; not surprisingly, they don't like that and are angry with UK. And they will hardly want to encourage other member states to leave by giving UK too good a deal - both of these factors make it unlikely that we will be able to trade with EU exactly like we did in EU.
As for "ISO-based protectionsim" - what are you talking about? I don't think ISO is even a part of EU, but calling it protectionsim is nonsense; having to follow the same standards means, among other things, that companies have to make their products somewhat compatible, which increases competition in the market and means that consumers have more choice. How is that a bad thing?
I can think of worse scenarios than the picture you paint. Leaving the EU opens up a host of new possibilities - regrettably most are less favourable.
This decision to leave has been a bit like when a teenager decides to move away from home because he can't stand being told to clean up his room and wash his clothes; after a while he will realise that he actually still has to do these things, but now he also has to pay bills and he isn't part of the daily meals cooked by his mom. No doubt we will manage, but this was a stupid and unnecessary thing to do. Those who voted leave did so because they didn't want so many foreigners coming to Britain, basically - but common sense says that there is no realistic way to stop that happening without incurring massive costs, and no matter who is in charge of the government, they will still have to address reality as it is.
Just to mention one, very important aspect: UK has built up a close relationship with China in recent years, and we have a massive trade deal with them. One of the main reasons why China chose UK instead of Germany was that we have the best climate for foreign investors, the most liberal labour market - and we were firmly embedded in the EU - or so they thought. So, UK was an attractive entry point to the European market - yesterday. Today we have turned out to be a less reliable partner. It may be that our relationship with China will become significantly less warm, unless we tread carefully. Some people may think this is a good thing, but realistically, this is not likely to be good for our economy.
Other things we don't really want to lose, if we think responsibly about things: London is on of the biggest financial centres in the world, if not the biggest. Being in EU is an important factor in this, for the same reasons. We may not like bankers, but we would feel it keenly if they started moving to Frankfurt or Paris - which they may well do, if we are not careful. And so on. All in all, unless we are willing to take some big hits, we will have to keep following the same old rules as before, only now we are no longer part of the daily life in the family. How clever was that?
The constitution is a limitation of government power, NOT a "grant of rights" to the citizens.
Well, isn't that what I said? Only, in my view it isn't a black box government that limits citizens' rights, it is the practical reality of living in a society. The constitution is a summary of the fundamental, social conventions, a promise by the state to the people, that these are the rules we will abide by, or IOW a limitation of the power of the government. My main complaint is that grand sounding rhetoric is of little value, because it adds no real understanding, it gives no arguments; it is just a postulate. I prefer the intelligent reasoning that invites the reader along, saying "These are my thoughts on the matter, this is why I reach this conclusion - what do you think?"
The constitution does not grant any rights to the people, the people already had them.
Yes, rhetoric always sound grander when you insert a phrase like "The People". However, and I'm sure I will get modded down by people who can't be bothered to enter into an honest dialog about it, it isn't really true. Individuals may have rights, and they may even be inalienable and natural or granted by any number of gods, but the people as a group is almost certainly nothing more than a rhetorical device with little real meaning. And while individuals, who are totally on their own, can do pretty much whatever they like, they are almost invariably members of a society, and we all have to trade in some of our rights and freedoms in order to be part of that society. The different lists of fundamental, human rights in their various forms are the outcome of this process; society has decided by some process, that these are important for society to be as fair, prosperous and stable as possible, and they are very good rights, but it is important to keep in mind that they have come about as a compromise and that they are derived from and guaranteed by the society in which we live. That being the case, it is also possible that there may be some circumstances in which a right may end up being perceived to be so contrary to society and the indivuals that make up society, that enough people want to modify or even repeal it. This should inspire everbody to use their freedoms and rights with a certain amount of responsibility.
Right, feel free to mod me down - or if you feel up to it, discuss intelligently.
The alternative to fracking is buying more gas from Russia's Gazprom.
Or they could do what we will all to do eventually, which is to 1) cut back on our energy wastage and 2) develop renewable energy asap. When America uses - how much? - 15 times or even more energy per person than the average person in a developing country, then there clearly is some scope for saving energy. Even in Europe we don't waste as much as Americans do - and our living standard is certainly comparable; and some would say better in many respects.
As for whether renewable energy is ever going to be feasible: of course it is. Hardly a day goes by without some improvement or other in that area, and it is something that both Europe and China are investing heavily in. We could, according to some, switch away from fossi fuel almost "instantaneously" (ie. in the time it would take to change the necessary infrastructure etc - perhaps less than a decade); we actually know from experience how quickly it can be done, to some extent, since we had to make some very drastic changes during WWII. We can move pretty damn fast when necessary.
- not to mention the fact that they can - and therefore will - be intercepted by criminals. The risk of doing so will be much lower than robbing a postman, which to a criminal is almost the equivalent of being legal.
Sorry for replying to my own post - I forgot to add that I am not commenting on whether or not Clinton did anything illegal in the White House when he had sex with an intern, or whether it was consensual or not. I know too little about the subject - at least too few facts. Also, I'm somewhat puzzled that Mr Clinton's behaviour has been used as a weapon against Mrs Clinton - I would have thought that if anything, she is the aggrieved party and deserves some sympathy on that account, at least.
BTW, it is called rape when you get sexual favors while being someone's superior. It is termed quid pro quo.
I admit that I don't quite understand the American idea of what rape is; I'm used to the idea that it simply means forcing somebody to have sex against their will. Consensual sex, even if it is prohibited under the law, should not be called rape. Not even if the reasons for prohibition are entirely sensible, because it only serves to make the concept controversial and less clear in people's minds. When an important, legal concept is changed in this way, it tends to bring the law and the legal practice into to disrepute, which then can have the effect of harming victims of rape, because people (incl police) will think of 'rape' as being an term that is often unfairly applied. Hopefully that was not what the lawmakers had in mind.
...be outrageous, the press is always looking for a story that's not boring...
Nobody denies it is the way to act, if you are a celebrity for no other reason that you are able to place yourself on front pages, but how well will that work when you are the president? Promising to "act SO presidential..." just doesn't inspire a lot of confidence; it's like the winner of Big Brothel saying "I'll be SO scientific..." - one rather suspects they don't quite know what they are talking about.
No, I'm not just adding to the heavenly choir of self-appointed negativists, that seem to flood into the wake of this article. Has somebody pissed in everybody's favourite drink today? As far as I can see, there is nothing factually wrong about this article; we all know about economy of scale, and we all ought to be able to understand the risks associated with having huge concentrations of valuable cargo floating around in the oceans with virtually no protection, as far as I know. Pirates have been targeting cargo ships in the waters West of Africa for years, and it seems obvious that at some point there will be more of this, organised by larger, international gangs. Add to this the fact that the larger the ship, the harder it is to maneuvre, and the bigger is the financial impact when a shipment is lost. It is not very surprising if we are now reaching the point where ship owners are beginning to feel nervous enough to start looking for alternative ways.
The obvious question, to the thoughtful and sover minded reader, is what can be done to address the problems? Should ships sail in convoys for protection? Should they always be accompanied by naval vessels with great agility and considerable striking power? How about the very significant environmental problems caused by shipping - perhaps it would be worth considering sail ships in some form, or sail assisted ships, and smaller cargoes? Or should we move to a much more localised for of production as much as possible? There are many problems, and loads of potential solutions, for those that can be bothered to think.
These things ought to be of interest to technically minded people - these are real-world problems, that are important to solve, as opposed to how many gigaflops are available on the graphics card in your game PC.
I think your analysis is wrong - as well as being needlessly scathing. "Ship owners" as a group is clearly not a well-defined organised group, all operating in lock-step; so there is no contradiction between the two statements - it is just that more and more ship owners are changing their minds on what is the economically most viable development for the future. It makes a lot of sense to me, and I'm sure you agree. You are just trying to score a few, cheap points by pointing your finger and inventing an issue that isn't there.
You do not hear short, white men crying about the injustice of not being represented in the National Basketball Association
True - but then I don't hear anything about the NBA; I guess it is a strictly American phenomenon. However, this is not even about the hurt feelings or psychological traumas suffered by those suffering unjust discrimination; it is about good, common sense: if we need more, highly skilled people, how does it make sense to exclude certain groups of people from making a valuable contribution? Not long ago it was common to expect wives to stay home, rather then have a job; was it very clever for a family to choose to have a significantly lower income, just because of - what? Men's prejudice against working women or something? Letting everybody contribute to the best of their abilities is simple, common sense. It also happens to be fairer and better in so many other ways; I don't hope this fact in itself counts against.
Hiring women gets you nothing. Hiring minorities gets you nothing, Hiring skilled and well qualified PEOPLE will make your company better. Demanding the hiring of more women, more minorities, etc. is nothing more than judging people by their race and gender, which is what we're supposedly trying to get away from.
There certainly is such a thing as "reverse racism/sexism/...", in the sense that people may cover up the racism host within by overcompensating in their actions and rhetoric, and one may suspect some of the more absurd manifestations of "anti-racism" fall into that category. However, that does not mean that there is no argument for addressing the imbalances and unfairnesses that still occur in society. If particular segments of the population are significantly less well represented in certain professions, then it is worth finding out why, and possibly addressing in some way; it may even make sense to use some form of positive discrimination, although I think it is too often used without actually thinking about the issues involved. It would probably be much better for the state to invest in better education for whichever group is under-represented, since that would help break the vicious cycle of poverty -> poor education -> poverty...
In the UK, we have the Monster Raving Looney Party and their "Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_Party); in Denmark there's the Union of Conscientious Work-Shy Elements (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_Conscientiously_Work-Shy_Elements). These are deliberate jokes - can we assume this is the American version?
He's an IBM engineer. He'll be let go in the next restructuring initiative.
Oh, brighten up ever so slightly. It's a bit of innocent sillyness; the company probably thought there was a chance for them to appear more likeable. It is at most shrugworthy. Haven't you ever used a tool for something that could be considered massive overkill? I certainly do on a regular basis - I play with developing programs for organising things in the home, like a database of all the letters and other documents I receive. On the backend I use Oracle Enterprise Edition, because it is available to download for free. The actual code is a Java web application running on a Glassfish application server. Massive overkill by any standard, but why not? I'm not planning on selling it, but it is useful to be able to use these tools, and playing around with them prepares you for working professionally with them.
I have to admit, I couldn't be bothered to actually get informed about this new gadget; to me, a car is only ever going to be a tool, and I want to be able to load mine up with useful things like sand, stones, manure and so on. Silk thrones doesn't seem to fit the bill, although I have no experience with using silk in my car.
That said, Rolls Royces are impressive machines. I once drove beside one on the motorway at around 80 mph and thought, that looked very comfortable and rather sedate. When I looked back a few seconds later, it had gone - I could see it visibly red-shifted in the distance. Apparently they come with 8-liter engines.
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The whole word would have been better off if the jews of Europe had been handed a piece of Arizona or Alaska and told to either shut the fuck up about Palestine or go back to post-war Europe where they were FROM.
I don't know about sending them to America - looking at who's contributed to science and culture, I find that there is rather a lot of Jews, so I would think it would have been a lot better to try harder to get them to stay in Europe. However, after the war, it was probably too late; we should have mended our ways long before.
That said, Zionism is a harebrained idea which only got off the ground because we Europeans had painted ourselves into a corner - several times - and we wanted to get rid of a problem, so we went along with it and helped found a new nation, based on overwhelming, military power and gross injustice against the locals, whether you call them Palestinians or not. It is not easy to build a stable, righteous and long lasting nation on such a basis, and I have a hard time seeing that the government of Israel are trying very hard.
Any value attributed to bitcoin is essentially in the eyes of the people who choose to use it.
The same is true of anything whose value depends on a perception of value; Spain learned this when they started minting the famous 'Pieces of Eight' in the 15th century in such huge numbers that the actual value in term of what you could buy with them tumbled - and they were made of very pure silver. Money is, even at best, not real value, but only a token that you can exchange for goods and services of value. We continue to believe in certain currencies only because we believe in the entities that guarantee their value, and that is where cyber currency falls down, IMO. Like the emperor's clothes, it works well until the little boy speaks up and breaks the illusion; and the world is full of little boys like that.
Brexit will hurt a lot of things, but probably not things that are already working int the global sphere, if that is the correct term. Brexit will cause upheavals, and as always, this will harm those at the bottom of the pile (who ironically voted for brexit, it appears) and benefit those at the top. In the long run, however, brexit makes no difference; the internet will see to it, that the globalisation will continue, and national sovereignty will continue to become less relevant in a world where everybody can talk across borders with little effort. A lot of young, educated people no longer identify with their local community, but have close friends in countries on the other side of the world - they are not likely to care much about "Taking Our Country Back" in the future and will be happy to join the European Federation or whatever it is going to be called, when the time comes and they get into power.
In the short term - 5 to 10 years - brexit will continue cause us small, but significant problems, while we go through the slow and painful process of unraveling 40+ years of treaties that the UK have themselves been one of the prime drivers in building up. It is all very well to gloss over these things with cool sounding slogans or glib arguments about how many cars Germany want to sell, but the truth of the matter is that the negotiations will take a long time and cause endless trouble for the whole of Europe and to some extent to the rest of the world, and their leaders and populations will remember this for a long time. And just like people in the UK voted leave based on something less than rational, these feelings of resent in Europe will count against UK in any negotiations - this may also hit us when we try to get good deals with countries outside EU. We have signalled to the world that we are not entirely rational, and they will have their doubts about any relationship with us for some time. And so on and so on. There are some who will benefit, and who will feel that these problem are a price worth paying; because they won't be the ones paying.
As I have said in so many discussions, I don't need to win this argument; time will tell soon enough. It would be nice to be proven wrong, but I don't think I will.
I think this is just another simplistic "solution" to a problem not quite understood. We have seen similar projects in the past - in the 70es it was "University for All"; everybody should be pushed through some sort of higher education, it didn't really matter which or whether it actually gave useful skills. Not that education isn't a good thing, but as it turned out, having a major in creative arts wasn't always what the economy needed. And, it is not a bad thing as such if everybody knows how to write code - at least you may then have a basis for understanding what computers can (and not least: cannot) do, but the real problems for the economy are not as simple as "not enough coders". And the problems with the economy are not the most important in society either; I would say inequality is a far more important problem to solve. Inequality lies behind most of the unrest in the world, just as it always has.
The president has prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all president before him combined. His Justice Department has vastly expanded the scope of the law, turning it from a weapon against the nation's enemies to one that's pointed against its own citizens.
I think this needs to be taken with a grain or two of salt. Firstly, does the president have the power to prosecute anyone? I thought that would be for the public prosecutor or something; the president would not have the legal power to prosecute any criminal. Of course, this may be different under America law.
Secondly, I think it is a fundamentally dishonest way to use statistics, comparing the current president to "all presidents before him"; he is addressing a situation that didn't exist before, really: the rise of the internet and the fact that this enables not just good and honest people, but also criminals, terrorists, spies etc. Obama has been president for 8 years - in that time, these problems have grown exponentially. You might as well say "more people have died in road accidents since 1900 than in the tens of thousands of years that humanity has existed before 1900". Which is true - but it still paints a grossly distorted picture.
Truth is, Freedom of Speech is dead
Freedom of Speech has always been a fantasy, unless you define it narrowly to be the promise that you will not be a criminal for criticising those in power, and even then it has never been entirely real. And whatever you believe about freedom and human rights, the prospects of winning the public over to your opinion are vastly enhanced if you stop posturing and instead concentrate on setting realistic, attainable goals. People in general don't buy into the idea that anybody should have the right to say anything, anywhere; they can see the dangers inherent in allowing extremists to stir up shit - and they know that such people, who are more than willing to use the freedoms for their own purposes, are also the worst oppressors around, when it comes to accepting dissenting views; just look at Daesh.
No, Freedom of Speech simply means that it is not in itself a crime to speak out against those in power; not more, not less.
Everything you say is watched
Certainly, if you speak in a public forum; that is why we call it a public forum. The thing is, people don't realise that just because the are sitting in their homes when they are online, they are actually participating in public forums. If you don't want to be seen, don't go out in public - that has always been the case. Even experienced politicians don't always realise this - hence we have these embarrasments where they have to explain themselves, because they said something rather careless at what they imagined was a private occasion. Speaking of which, I bet all you loud freedom-and-privacy advocates just love it when that happens.
If people want privacy, all that is needed is a bit of common sense; don't buy in to all these fabulous gadgets that are specifically designed to get you online, where you will be in the public eye.
Why would this be a negative for China? Now they have an opportunity to increase exports to Europe with less of the ISO-based standards protectionism.
You make a couple of assumptions that I think are unrealistic. Firstly, I don't hink UK will get as good an arrangement with EU as we had before - leaving has already had and will continue to have a negative impact for EU; not surprisingly, they don't like that and are angry with UK. And they will hardly want to encourage other member states to leave by giving UK too good a deal - both of these factors make it unlikely that we will be able to trade with EU exactly like we did in EU.
As for "ISO-based protectionsim" - what are you talking about? I don't think ISO is even a part of EU, but calling it protectionsim is nonsense; having to follow the same standards means, among other things, that companies have to make their products somewhat compatible, which increases competition in the market and means that consumers have more choice. How is that a bad thing?
Didn't I hear "15 bits per minute" somewhere? You could transmit it faster by drum signal; it is probably more like smoke-sginals.
I can think of worse scenarios than the picture you paint. Leaving the EU opens up a host of new possibilities - regrettably most are less favourable.
This decision to leave has been a bit like when a teenager decides to move away from home because he can't stand being told to clean up his room and wash his clothes; after a while he will realise that he actually still has to do these things, but now he also has to pay bills and he isn't part of the daily meals cooked by his mom. No doubt we will manage, but this was a stupid and unnecessary thing to do. Those who voted leave did so because they didn't want so many foreigners coming to Britain, basically - but common sense says that there is no realistic way to stop that happening without incurring massive costs, and no matter who is in charge of the government, they will still have to address reality as it is.
Just to mention one, very important aspect: UK has built up a close relationship with China in recent years, and we have a massive trade deal with them. One of the main reasons why China chose UK instead of Germany was that we have the best climate for foreign investors, the most liberal labour market - and we were firmly embedded in the EU - or so they thought. So, UK was an attractive entry point to the European market - yesterday. Today we have turned out to be a less reliable partner. It may be that our relationship with China will become significantly less warm, unless we tread carefully. Some people may think this is a good thing, but realistically, this is not likely to be good for our economy.
Other things we don't really want to lose, if we think responsibly about things: London is on of the biggest financial centres in the world, if not the biggest. Being in EU is an important factor in this, for the same reasons. We may not like bankers, but we would feel it keenly if they started moving to Frankfurt or Paris - which they may well do, if we are not careful. And so on. All in all, unless we are willing to take some big hits, we will have to keep following the same old rules as before, only now we are no longer part of the daily life in the family. How clever was that?
The constitution is a limitation of government power, NOT a "grant of rights" to the citizens.
Well, isn't that what I said? Only, in my view it isn't a black box government that limits citizens' rights, it is the practical reality of living in a society. The constitution is a summary of the fundamental, social conventions, a promise by the state to the people, that these are the rules we will abide by, or IOW a limitation of the power of the government. My main complaint is that grand sounding rhetoric is of little value, because it adds no real understanding, it gives no arguments; it is just a postulate. I prefer the intelligent reasoning that invites the reader along, saying "These are my thoughts on the matter, this is why I reach this conclusion - what do you think?"
The constitution does not grant any rights to the people, the people already had them.
Yes, rhetoric always sound grander when you insert a phrase like "The People". However, and I'm sure I will get modded down by people who can't be bothered to enter into an honest dialog about it, it isn't really true. Individuals may have rights, and they may even be inalienable and natural or granted by any number of gods, but the people as a group is almost certainly nothing more than a rhetorical device with little real meaning. And while individuals, who are totally on their own, can do pretty much whatever they like, they are almost invariably members of a society, and we all have to trade in some of our rights and freedoms in order to be part of that society. The different lists of fundamental, human rights in their various forms are the outcome of this process; society has decided by some process, that these are important for society to be as fair, prosperous and stable as possible, and they are very good rights, but it is important to keep in mind that they have come about as a compromise and that they are derived from and guaranteed by the society in which we live. That being the case, it is also possible that there may be some circumstances in which a right may end up being perceived to be so contrary to society and the indivuals that make up society, that enough people want to modify or even repeal it. This should inspire everbody to use their freedoms and rights with a certain amount of responsibility.
Right, feel free to mod me down - or if you feel up to it, discuss intelligently.
Ah, if this is the thread for non-sequiturs, can I just say that Trump is a pig, and Clinton is evil? Thank you for your attention.
And anyway, we already regard companies, and even lawyers, as persons in some cases, don't we?
The alternative to fracking is buying more gas from Russia's Gazprom.
Or they could do what we will all to do eventually, which is to 1) cut back on our energy wastage and 2) develop renewable energy asap. When America uses - how much? - 15 times or even more energy per person than the average person in a developing country, then there clearly is some scope for saving energy. Even in Europe we don't waste as much as Americans do - and our living standard is certainly comparable; and some would say better in many respects.
As for whether renewable energy is ever going to be feasible: of course it is. Hardly a day goes by without some improvement or other in that area, and it is something that both Europe and China are investing heavily in. We could, according to some, switch away from fossi fuel almost "instantaneously" (ie. in the time it would take to change the necessary infrastructure etc - perhaps less than a decade); we actually know from experience how quickly it can be done, to some extent, since we had to make some very drastic changes during WWII. We can move pretty damn fast when necessary.
- not to mention the fact that they can - and therefore will - be intercepted by criminals. The risk of doing so will be much lower than robbing a postman, which to a criminal is almost the equivalent of being legal.
Sorry for replying to my own post - I forgot to add that I am not commenting on whether or not Clinton did anything illegal in the White House when he had sex with an intern, or whether it was consensual or not. I know too little about the subject - at least too few facts. Also, I'm somewhat puzzled that Mr Clinton's behaviour has been used as a weapon against Mrs Clinton - I would have thought that if anything, she is the aggrieved party and deserves some sympathy on that account, at least.
BTW, it is called rape when you get sexual favors while being someone's superior. It is termed quid pro quo.
I admit that I don't quite understand the American idea of what rape is; I'm used to the idea that it simply means forcing somebody to have sex against their will. Consensual sex, even if it is prohibited under the law, should not be called rape. Not even if the reasons for prohibition are entirely sensible, because it only serves to make the concept controversial and less clear in people's minds. When an important, legal concept is changed in this way, it tends to bring the law and the legal practice into to disrepute, which then can have the effect of harming victims of rape, because people (incl police) will think of 'rape' as being an term that is often unfairly applied. Hopefully that was not what the lawmakers had in mind.
...be outrageous, the press is always looking for a story that's not boring...
Nobody denies it is the way to act, if you are a celebrity for no other reason that you are able to place yourself on front pages, but how well will that work when you are the president? Promising to "act SO presidential..." just doesn't inspire a lot of confidence; it's like the winner of Big Brothel saying "I'll be SO scientific..." - one rather suspects they don't quite know what they are talking about.
No, I'm not just adding to the heavenly choir of self-appointed negativists, that seem to flood into the wake of this article. Has somebody pissed in everybody's favourite drink today? As far as I can see, there is nothing factually wrong about this article; we all know about economy of scale, and we all ought to be able to understand the risks associated with having huge concentrations of valuable cargo floating around in the oceans with virtually no protection, as far as I know. Pirates have been targeting cargo ships in the waters West of Africa for years, and it seems obvious that at some point there will be more of this, organised by larger, international gangs. Add to this the fact that the larger the ship, the harder it is to maneuvre, and the bigger is the financial impact when a shipment is lost. It is not very surprising if we are now reaching the point where ship owners are beginning to feel nervous enough to start looking for alternative ways.
The obvious question, to the thoughtful and sover minded reader, is what can be done to address the problems? Should ships sail in convoys for protection? Should they always be accompanied by naval vessels with great agility and considerable striking power? How about the very significant environmental problems caused by shipping - perhaps it would be worth considering sail ships in some form, or sail assisted ships, and smaller cargoes? Or should we move to a much more localised for of production as much as possible? There are many problems, and loads of potential solutions, for those that can be bothered to think.
These things ought to be of interest to technically minded people - these are real-world problems, that are important to solve, as opposed to how many gigaflops are available on the graphics card in your game PC.
I think your analysis is wrong - as well as being needlessly scathing. "Ship owners" as a group is clearly not a well-defined organised group, all operating in lock-step; so there is no contradiction between the two statements - it is just that more and more ship owners are changing their minds on what is the economically most viable development for the future. It makes a lot of sense to me, and I'm sure you agree. You are just trying to score a few, cheap points by pointing your finger and inventing an issue that isn't there.
You do not hear short, white men crying about the injustice of not being represented in the National Basketball Association
True - but then I don't hear anything about the NBA; I guess it is a strictly American phenomenon. However, this is not even about the hurt feelings or psychological traumas suffered by those suffering unjust discrimination; it is about good, common sense: if we need more, highly skilled people, how does it make sense to exclude certain groups of people from making a valuable contribution? Not long ago it was common to expect wives to stay home, rather then have a job; was it very clever for a family to choose to have a significantly lower income, just because of - what? Men's prejudice against working women or something? Letting everybody contribute to the best of their abilities is simple, common sense. It also happens to be fairer and better in so many other ways; I don't hope this fact in itself counts against.
Hiring women gets you nothing. Hiring minorities gets you nothing, Hiring skilled and well qualified PEOPLE will make your company better. Demanding the hiring of more women, more minorities, etc. is nothing more than judging people by their race and gender, which is what we're supposedly trying to get away from.
There certainly is such a thing as "reverse racism/sexism/...", in the sense that people may cover up the racism host within by overcompensating in their actions and rhetoric, and one may suspect some of the more absurd manifestations of "anti-racism" fall into that category. However, that does not mean that there is no argument for addressing the imbalances and unfairnesses that still occur in society. If particular segments of the population are significantly less well represented in certain professions, then it is worth finding out why, and possibly addressing in some way; it may even make sense to use some form of positive discrimination, although I think it is too often used without actually thinking about the issues involved. It would probably be much better for the state to invest in better education for whichever group is under-represented, since that would help break the vicious cycle of poverty -> poor education -> poverty ...
In the UK, we have the Monster Raving Looney Party and their "Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_Party); in Denmark there's the Union of Conscientious Work-Shy Elements (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_Conscientiously_Work-Shy_Elements). These are deliberate jokes - can we assume this is the American version?
He's an IBM engineer. He'll be let go in the next restructuring initiative.
Oh, brighten up ever so slightly. It's a bit of innocent sillyness; the company probably thought there was a chance for them to appear more likeable. It is at most shrugworthy. Haven't you ever used a tool for something that could be considered massive overkill? I certainly do on a regular basis - I play with developing programs for organising things in the home, like a database of all the letters and other documents I receive. On the backend I use Oracle Enterprise Edition, because it is available to download for free. The actual code is a Java web application running on a Glassfish application server. Massive overkill by any standard, but why not? I'm not planning on selling it, but it is useful to be able to use these tools, and playing around with them prepares you for working professionally with them.
I have to admit, I couldn't be bothered to actually get informed about this new gadget; to me, a car is only ever going to be a tool, and I want to be able to load mine up with useful things like sand, stones, manure and so on. Silk thrones doesn't seem to fit the bill, although I have no experience with using silk in my car.
That said, Rolls Royces are impressive machines. I once drove beside one on the motorway at around 80 mph and thought, that looked very comfortable and rather sedate. When I looked back a few seconds later, it had gone - I could see it visibly red-shifted in the distance. Apparently they come with 8-liter engines.