We need to find a way of dealing with the root causes of the problem; filtering and the like is like sweeping up rat droppings, what you really need is to get rid of the rats. Perhaps if we could find a way of really making this business unprofitable.
Have checked out Oracle Text? As I understand it, it is now a standard part of an Oracle database, and it can index text documents - according to rumours, it should be able to index not just words as they occur in the documents, but also their "meaning", whatever that means, and it should understand several doc formats. I haven't used it myself, though.
You can download it for free for development purposes - get the enterprise edition for your OS plus the very, very (VERY!) comprehensive documentation, and install; now you just need a handy front-end:-)
I think what this story really illustrates is that young people are not stupid, and they hate being told lies. Creationism is so obviously implausible that you can only believe it if you force your eyes shut and work hard at staying ignorant.
Science - and the theory of evolution as part of it - is so obviously driven by a sincere wish to find the truth; science respects the intelligence of the audience by saying "these are the facts and this is what we think explains them - what do you think?". If creationists were right - and sincere - they would say the same and trust that other people would reach the same conclusion.
But is this just the posturing of pampered coders, or is this much screen real estate really a requirement for today's developers?
I can understand why you would react strongly to the way in which this happened - apparently without consultation or warning. Simple courtesy requires that you go and talk to people before you do this kind of things.
On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to work effectively on limited resources; I have two huge screens at work, but when I work from home, I have one small screen. In Linux you benefit from multiple desktops, and when I have to work on a serial terminal, which I still do sometimes, I use 'screen', as program that gives you the same in character mode.
So, no, you don't need it, strictly speaking, but management should not treat their workers as non-entities. It is a matter of mutual respect - in general you only get as much respect at you are willing to give.
All this hullabaloo about Osama having watched porn is based on the assumption that it is something he, as a muslim, would be ashamed of. I'm sure this is the case - all this prudishness and denial of our natural instincts is to a great extent something that is specific to our culture. Just read Arabian Nights - not the "cleaned up" version, but the full version. Or Kama Sutra, or look around in Indian temples; being shy about sexuality is not universal amongst religious people, it is a Christian thing.
All in all, I think most of his followers will be more interested in knowing which titles he preferred, so they can emulate their spiritual leader.
Can we (the USA) really be a part of the solution?
I think so. One part of it is to bring the part of Western influence under control that isn't: big business. It doesn't have to be by nationalising them, but as long as big multinationals make up their own rules as they go along, they are hurting our national interests, and I think we have a right to have a say in that. To achieve this we probably need some sort of super-national government with real power.
The other part is to find an effective way to educate people - not so much about knolwedge, in a way, but about qualities like tolerance, fair play and what one could vaguely call "sportsmanship": the idea that it is OK to lose a game because you get the chance again another time. This is fundamentally important for having a stable democracy - it is no use having an election, when the losing party doesn't want to accept that they have lost, or if the winner refuses to govern for the benefit of all, including their opponents. A people needs to feel convinced that whatever the differences, they are still one people.
... trying to convince man to simply be "good" is a lost cause...
Perhaps - I personally think that the idea that being good is somehow something we have to work hard to achieve; maybe I am only dreaming, but to me it seems "good" is the natural state, and evil is what we become when we go against our nature. Just look around: who is more evil, the average guy in the street or the guy who tries so hard to be pious, that he mentally cripples himself and his children? I think it is a no-brainer.
Do WE really? Personally, as a citizen the USA, I'm kind of sick of us intervening everywhere
Well, OK, then put it another way: We have to stop contributing to "social/political need and instability in the whole of Africa"; it is a sad fact that our wealthy lifestyle is directly linked to the misery of people in poor countries.
This game is too complex. To stop piracy: just sink these damned pirates. When they will all be in the depths of the sea the problem will be solved.
Reality IS complex; people in general don't turn to crime or become terrorists simply because they are evil - if you start smply killing "the evildoers" without addressing the reason why they got to be that. And the solution is not likely to involve dumping an American style reality-show democracy on them. We really need to solve issues of social/political need and instability in the whole of Africa.
... mileage taxes require, at bare minimum, the tax man inspecting every vehicle's odometer...
I can see ways around this; assuming you guys have the same sort of vehicle regulations as in Europe, where all vehicles must have a regular, basic check-up. In UK it is called MOT (or actually 'VOSA', but most people still call it MOT), and one of the things they record and report is mileage, which could then serve as a a useful way checking that people's self-reporting is not suspiciously low.
It may look like a total non-issue from an American point of view, but I think there are quite a few in the rest of the world who have annoyed - or even incensed - by the constant, superficial and so very American tendency to take the tales of other countries, get them completely wrong and produce some totally vapid "Grand Epic" with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor or, good grief, some idiotic superhero cartoon. That there are still countries in the world whose cultural heritage hasn't been commercialised and/or semi-raped yet is only down to the fact that the perpetrators are generally not all the well versed in other countries' tradition, because that would require the to get some education.
Personally, I feel particularly affronted by the cartoon featuring "Thor", being Danish, but I don't think there has ever been just one accurate, faithful representation of any folk-tale, religious myth or other in any American mass production. Mulan? Pocanhontas (and that one is native American!)? Sparta?
Probably, the reason why it feels so bad is that these cultural traditions are so old - they have, generation after generation, touched something deep in ordinary people, and then some smarmy wanker from Holywood comes and pisses on you. How can you not feel bad about that?
When you have enough indications that a thing is happening, that thing eventually becomes the sensible assumption, and the burden of proof switches to those who want to deny it.
The danger of this view, as I am sure you realise, is that it is so easy to whip up a lot of "indications" without ever saying anything explicitly. And there is no lack of groups and individuals who for whatever reason see their advantage in doing so.
It is the same in every country - America have a large number of 'patriots' who play with vigilante activism, and there is no reason to think that China doesn't have its share of morons too. You know how easy it is to organise cyber attacks, and it is only a short from there to actually making a profit from it.
Then it gets really silly for the Chinese government to simultaneously boast about its great firewall while simultaneously claiming it has no actual control over what goes on in its network
I can see another explanation that I think is reasonable: The socalled firewall is not really about the big, bad government controlling every word expressed on the internet, it is about setting up a fence, so those who are not technically savvy don't stumble into too many things that would upset them. Most Chinese seem to agree that this is a good thing - they are actually in favour of the way their government does things. And of course, since it is not intended to shut the whole world out of China, it doesn't. It is what the Chinese call a "gentleman's lock": a small, weak lock that anybody could break through, but which asks you not to do so.
And I think the fact that China sends millions of students to study overseas every year and receives huge numbers of foreign tourists, supports my view; any Chinese who wants to circumvent the firewall can do so, and even if they don't, they still have very easy access to exchanging views and ideas with people in the west.
But they do that anyway, don't they? What I am talking about is taking the profiteering out of the equation - this whole thing about privatisation making things cheaper and more efficient has by and large turned out to be a myth fueled by ideological tunnel-vision. Closing your eye to reality is always a bad idea, whether it is based on grand ideas about socialism, capitalism or religion.
Seven years after the US launched its first astronaut in orbit, they had sent people to the moon.
... in a thimble made of tin-foil. It still makes shiver, when I comtemplate how rudimentary the Apollo missions were in many ways. It was a great technical achievement, but it was dwarfed by the monumental bravery of the men that went up there. Unfortunately it was never meant to more than a bit of dick-waving - "We do it not because it is easy, but because it is hard", to paraphrase mr Kennedy.
The Chinese take it more seriously - they may not be blind to the fact that it makes the ordinary Chinese feel good, but they want to achieve something more sustainable; they don't want to waste lives and resources on a boast. So they do it at a sensible pace.
I wonder why China never thought of securing their systems more tightly. Surely they must have realized that retaliation would come their way at some point, no? I mean, aside from the fact secure systems are usually preferably to ones that are not...
Quite so. It is also worth noting that we have never actually seen anything that looks like evidence for the Chinese state organising "cyberattacks" on the US - all we have to go on is allegations spread on places like/. in the form of rumours.
Can it really have escaped anybody's attention that it is extremely easy to spread false rumours, especially on the internet, and it is extremely easy to spoof the origins of any attack?
And how can anybody credit a tall tale about some anonymous source "knowing" that some "Chinese secret service" is orchestrating hacker attacks? It that really all that likely - a guy sits in his parents' garage and just knows this? What happened to simple, common sense and critical thinking? I mean, with Wikileaks you have documents - mr Assange doesn't go around saying "somebody told me...", does he?
Until this kind of accusations are accompanied by sound references, I can't regard it as more than an attempt to poison the well.
This is why we should just give up this free-market farce and regulate the ISPs as utilities, with standards on purity (e.g. not modifying traffic) and equity (not censoring traffic from conglomerate competitors). AKA net neutrality.
Why not go the full mile, and decide that the internet is essential infrastructure and should be provided by the state? I know all the usual arguments, "the government is evil per definition", and "all public efforts are big, bumbling wastes of time and money". Both are disingenious, bordering on fraudulent - the state is NOT the government, just for one thing, and most of government is not the politicians; and even politicians are not all thoroughly evil, believe it or not.
And, as a matter of fact, most state driven projects are not all that bad - some are even highly succesful. It's just that bad news sell better and of course, it mets the expectations of the readers that "governments are evil and useless" - why else would they ask us to pay tax?
It seems like a wasteful solution if you imagine sending up rockets with fuel, but we could freeze it solid and shoot it up with a magnetic rail-gun, perhaps...
I don't expect the US to convert in my or my childrens' lifetimes.
On the other hand, most countries have gone metric at some point. Before it happened, people have whined and complained, and afterwards it has taken about a week to get used to - so it wasn't that hard after all. Societies go through these changes from time to time - UK decimalised their currency, Sweden changed from driving on the left from one day to the next, and amazingly, the world still stands. Are Americans unable - or too stubborn/spiteful - to do the same? I doubt it.
In the US, the spirit of rugged individualism is held up an an ideal to aspire to. In the US, the government imposing mandates saying "You WILL use THIS system." is likely to result in a backlash. More so than in many other places.
IOW, Americans are spiteful?
Re:Organic vs processed (toxic) sugar.
on
Is Sugar Toxic?
·
· Score: 2
The problem seems to be, by far, quantity consumed rather than the nature of the material, unless you can present some compelling proof otherwise.
Quite so - but then that is the case for anything: even things like strychnin can have beneficial effects if the dose is small enough. And on the other hand, oxygen is quite toxic too.
I haven't bothered reading the article, the subject seemed too sensationalistic, but as they say: everything is good in moderation. It is a question of finding the right balance, eating just enough and learning to enjoy the things that are beneficial to your health.
That last part often surprises people: that you can learn to enjoy something that you think you don't like, and that you can learn not to like the things you crave. However, my own, personal experience is exactly that. I used to shovel down sugary/fatty food like cake, large steaks, pizzas etc. Now I am practically a vegetarian; I find that I more and more prefer to avoid meat, not for ideological reasons, just because it isn't so satisfying, it feels heavy in the stomach - and there are so many really delicious ways of cooking vegetables. Same thing with sugar - I recently bought a Coke, and I had to throw it out because it was so sickeningly sweet.
And most important of all, you can wrap a cold beer so the cops can't tell what you're drinking!
I did the opposite once; and not even intentionally: I had bought a bottle of iced tea and lost the cap down a sewer, so I decided to transfer it to a suitable, empty bottle I happened to have. When I had to stop a little later, just beside a police car, I gave the cops a friendly smile and took a sip of tea - and they pulled me over; I was almost ripped out of the front seat and made to blow an alcometer. I hadn't really thought about the fact that the bottle I was using was an old whisky bottle - Jolly Wanker, as I recall.
Well done, mr Branson! One of the few who dare, nowadays.
But, what is it that always tends to make American articles appear so downright stupid? Why are numbers and sizes always dumbed down to something you hope the average Joe Sixpack might get his head around? Like "8000 pounds" rather than "4t"? Or "37,000 ft"? Or, in other articles, numbers like "100,000 million billion" - is it just to make it sound impressive? If so, it doesn't work, it just sounds like toddler-talk. I would expect people who are able to understand subjects involving big numbers, are also able to understand the meaning of prefixes like "k", "M" and "G", and even (shudder) metric units.
And, of course, I can understand feet and pounds; it's just that every time it feels like yet another example of America wanting to show everybody that they are too bloody high and mighty to follow the lead of others. No, I don't hate America, and I do know that Americans are good and decent people; but then, why not show off all those good sides you guys have?
Obama's justification for going into Libya is the approval of the Arab League and not the approval of Congress?
After Iraq and Afghanistan, how can you even ask? I think it is safe to take Congress for granted in this, for two reasons:
1) Gadaffi is a "communist" (never mind that Communism has nothing to do with what he stands for, coz' he's a commie)
2) War means big profit for the weapons manufaturers, who sponsor much of Congress.
No, the Arab League are much more important, because Libya is an Arab country, and you don't want yet another scenario where the US is seen as the world's bully-boy going after Muslims.
Slashdot Mirror
We need to find a way of dealing with the root causes of the problem; filtering and the like is like sweeping up rat droppings, what you really need is to get rid of the rats. Perhaps if we could find a way of really making this business unprofitable.
now you just need a handy front-end :-)
- unless you enjoy the subtle beauty of the SQLplus command line.
Have checked out Oracle Text? As I understand it, it is now a standard part of an Oracle database, and it can index text documents - according to rumours, it should be able to index not just words as they occur in the documents, but also their "meaning", whatever that means, and it should understand several doc formats. I haven't used it myself, though.
You can download it for free for development purposes - get the enterprise edition for your OS plus the very, very (VERY!) comprehensive documentation, and install; now you just need a handy front-end :-)
I think what this story really illustrates is that young people are not stupid, and they hate being told lies. Creationism is so obviously implausible that you can only believe it if you force your eyes shut and work hard at staying ignorant.
Science - and the theory of evolution as part of it - is so obviously driven by a sincere wish to find the truth; science respects the intelligence of the audience by saying "these are the facts and this is what we think explains them - what do you think?". If creationists were right - and sincere - they would say the same and trust that other people would reach the same conclusion.
But is this just the posturing of pampered coders, or is this much screen real estate really a requirement for today's developers?
I can understand why you would react strongly to the way in which this happened - apparently without consultation or warning. Simple courtesy requires that you go and talk to people before you do this kind of things.
On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to work effectively on limited resources; I have two huge screens at work, but when I work from home, I have one small screen. In Linux you benefit from multiple desktops, and when I have to work on a serial terminal, which I still do sometimes, I use 'screen', as program that gives you the same in character mode.
So, no, you don't need it, strictly speaking, but management should not treat their workers as non-entities. It is a matter of mutual respect - in general you only get as much respect at you are willing to give.
All this hullabaloo about Osama having watched porn is based on the assumption that it is something he, as a muslim, would be ashamed of. I'm sure this is the case - all this prudishness and denial of our natural instincts is to a great extent something that is specific to our culture. Just read Arabian Nights - not the "cleaned up" version, but the full version. Or Kama Sutra, or look around in Indian temples; being shy about sexuality is not universal amongst religious people, it is a Christian thing.
All in all, I think most of his followers will be more interested in knowing which titles he preferred, so they can emulate their spiritual leader.
Can we (the USA) really be a part of the solution?
I think so. One part of it is to bring the part of Western influence under control that isn't: big business. It doesn't have to be by nationalising them, but as long as big multinationals make up their own rules as they go along, they are hurting our national interests, and I think we have a right to have a say in that. To achieve this we probably need some sort of super-national government with real power.
The other part is to find an effective way to educate people - not so much about knolwedge, in a way, but about qualities like tolerance, fair play and what one could vaguely call "sportsmanship": the idea that it is OK to lose a game because you get the chance again another time. This is fundamentally important for having a stable democracy - it is no use having an election, when the losing party doesn't want to accept that they have lost, or if the winner refuses to govern for the benefit of all, including their opponents. A people needs to feel convinced that whatever the differences, they are still one people.
... trying to convince man to simply be "good" is a lost cause ...
Perhaps - I personally think that the idea that being good is somehow something we have to work hard to achieve; maybe I am only dreaming, but to me it seems "good" is the natural state, and evil is what we become when we go against our nature. Just look around: who is more evil, the average guy in the street or the guy who tries so hard to be pious, that he mentally cripples himself and his children? I think it is a no-brainer.
Do WE really? Personally, as a citizen the USA, I'm kind of sick of us intervening everywhere
Well, OK, then put it another way: We have to stop contributing to "social/political need and instability in the whole of Africa"; it is a sad fact that our wealthy lifestyle is directly linked to the misery of people in poor countries.
This game is too complex. To stop piracy: just sink these damned pirates. When they will all be in the depths of the sea the problem will be solved.
Reality IS complex; people in general don't turn to crime or become terrorists simply because they are evil - if you start smply killing "the evildoers" without addressing the reason why they got to be that. And the solution is not likely to involve dumping an American style reality-show democracy on them. We really need to solve issues of social/political need and instability in the whole of Africa.
... mileage taxes require, at bare minimum, the tax man inspecting every vehicle's odometer ...
I can see ways around this; assuming you guys have the same sort of vehicle regulations as in Europe, where all vehicles must have a regular, basic check-up. In UK it is called MOT (or actually 'VOSA', but most people still call it MOT), and one of the things they record and report is mileage, which could then serve as a a useful way checking that people's self-reporting is not suspiciously low.
It may look like a total non-issue from an American point of view, but I think there are quite a few in the rest of the world who have annoyed - or even incensed - by the constant, superficial and so very American tendency to take the tales of other countries, get them completely wrong and produce some totally vapid "Grand Epic" with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor or, good grief, some idiotic superhero cartoon. That there are still countries in the world whose cultural heritage hasn't been commercialised and/or semi-raped yet is only down to the fact that the perpetrators are generally not all the well versed in other countries' tradition, because that would require the to get some education.
Personally, I feel particularly affronted by the cartoon featuring "Thor", being Danish, but I don't think there has ever been just one accurate, faithful representation of any folk-tale, religious myth or other in any American mass production. Mulan? Pocanhontas (and that one is native American!)? Sparta?
Probably, the reason why it feels so bad is that these cultural traditions are so old - they have, generation after generation, touched something deep in ordinary people, and then some smarmy wanker from Holywood comes and pisses on you. How can you not feel bad about that?
When you have enough indications that a thing is happening, that thing eventually becomes the sensible assumption, and the burden of proof switches to those who want to deny it.
The danger of this view, as I am sure you realise, is that it is so easy to whip up a lot of "indications" without ever saying anything explicitly. And there is no lack of groups and individuals who for whatever reason see their advantage in doing so.
It is the same in every country - America have a large number of 'patriots' who play with vigilante activism, and there is no reason to think that China doesn't have its share of morons too. You know how easy it is to organise cyber attacks, and it is only a short from there to actually making a profit from it.
Then it gets really silly for the Chinese government to simultaneously boast about its great firewall while simultaneously claiming it has no actual control over what goes on in its network
I can see another explanation that I think is reasonable: The socalled firewall is not really about the big, bad government controlling every word expressed on the internet, it is about setting up a fence, so those who are not technically savvy don't stumble into too many things that would upset them. Most Chinese seem to agree that this is a good thing - they are actually in favour of the way their government does things. And of course, since it is not intended to shut the whole world out of China, it doesn't. It is what the Chinese call a "gentleman's lock": a small, weak lock that anybody could break through, but which asks you not to do so.
And I think the fact that China sends millions of students to study overseas every year and receives huge numbers of foreign tourists, supports my view; any Chinese who wants to circumvent the firewall can do so, and even if they don't, they still have very easy access to exchanging views and ideas with people in the west.
One word: censorship.
But they do that anyway, don't they? What I am talking about is taking the profiteering out of the equation - this whole thing about privatisation making things cheaper and more efficient has by and large turned out to be a myth fueled by ideological tunnel-vision. Closing your eye to reality is always a bad idea, whether it is based on grand ideas about socialism, capitalism or religion.
Seven years after the US launched its first astronaut in orbit, they had sent people to the moon.
... in a thimble made of tin-foil. It still makes shiver, when I comtemplate how rudimentary the Apollo missions were in many ways. It was a great technical achievement, but it was dwarfed by the monumental bravery of the men that went up there. Unfortunately it was never meant to more than a bit of dick-waving - "We do it not because it is easy, but because it is hard", to paraphrase mr Kennedy.
The Chinese take it more seriously - they may not be blind to the fact that it makes the ordinary Chinese feel good, but they want to achieve something more sustainable; they don't want to waste lives and resources on a boast. So they do it at a sensible pace.
I wonder why China never thought of securing their systems more tightly. Surely they must have realized that retaliation would come their way at some point, no? I mean, aside from the fact secure systems are usually preferably to ones that are not...
Quite so. It is also worth noting that we have never actually seen anything that looks like evidence for the Chinese state organising "cyberattacks" on the US - all we have to go on is allegations spread on places like /. in the form of rumours.
Can it really have escaped anybody's attention that it is extremely easy to spread false rumours, especially on the internet, and it is extremely easy to spoof the origins of any attack?
And how can anybody credit a tall tale about some anonymous source "knowing" that some "Chinese secret service" is orchestrating hacker attacks? It that really all that likely - a guy sits in his parents' garage and just knows this? What happened to simple, common sense and critical thinking? I mean, with Wikileaks you have documents - mr Assange doesn't go around saying "somebody told me ...", does he?
Until this kind of accusations are accompanied by sound references, I can't regard it as more than an attempt to poison the well.
This is why we should just give up this free-market farce and regulate the ISPs as utilities, with standards on purity (e.g. not modifying traffic) and equity (not censoring traffic from conglomerate competitors). AKA net neutrality.
Why not go the full mile, and decide that the internet is essential infrastructure and should be provided by the state? I know all the usual arguments, "the government is evil per definition", and "all public efforts are big, bumbling wastes of time and money". Both are disingenious, bordering on fraudulent - the state is NOT the government, just for one thing, and most of government is not the politicians; and even politicians are not all thoroughly evil, believe it or not.
And, as a matter of fact, most state driven projects are not all that bad - some are even highly succesful. It's just that bad news sell better and of course, it mets the expectations of the readers that "governments are evil and useless" - why else would they ask us to pay tax?
It seems like a wasteful solution if you imagine sending up rockets with fuel, but we could freeze it solid and shoot it up with a magnetic rail-gun, perhaps ...
I don't expect the US to convert in my or my childrens' lifetimes.
On the other hand, most countries have gone metric at some point. Before it happened, people have whined and complained, and afterwards it has taken about a week to get used to - so it wasn't that hard after all. Societies go through these changes from time to time - UK decimalised their currency, Sweden changed from driving on the left from one day to the next, and amazingly, the world still stands. Are Americans unable - or too stubborn/spiteful - to do the same? I doubt it.
In the US, the spirit of rugged individualism is held up an an ideal to aspire to. In the US, the government imposing mandates saying "You WILL use THIS system." is likely to result in a backlash. More so than in many other places.
IOW, Americans are spiteful?
The problem seems to be, by far, quantity consumed rather than the nature of the material, unless you can present some compelling proof otherwise.
Quite so - but then that is the case for anything: even things like strychnin can have beneficial effects if the dose is small enough. And on the other hand, oxygen is quite toxic too.
I haven't bothered reading the article, the subject seemed too sensationalistic, but as they say: everything is good in moderation. It is a question of finding the right balance, eating just enough and learning to enjoy the things that are beneficial to your health.
That last part often surprises people: that you can learn to enjoy something that you think you don't like, and that you can learn not to like the things you crave. However, my own, personal experience is exactly that. I used to shovel down sugary/fatty food like cake, large steaks, pizzas etc. Now I am practically a vegetarian; I find that I more and more prefer to avoid meat, not for ideological reasons, just because it isn't so satisfying, it feels heavy in the stomach - and there are so many really delicious ways of cooking vegetables. Same thing with sugar - I recently bought a Coke, and I had to throw it out because it was so sickeningly sweet.
And most important of all, you can wrap a cold beer so the cops can't tell what you're drinking!
I did the opposite once; and not even intentionally: I had bought a bottle of iced tea and lost the cap down a sewer, so I decided to transfer it to a suitable, empty bottle I happened to have. When I had to stop a little later, just beside a police car, I gave the cops a friendly smile and took a sip of tea - and they pulled me over; I was almost ripped out of the front seat and made to blow an alcometer. I hadn't really thought about the fact that the bottle I was using was an old whisky bottle - Jolly Wanker, as I recall.
Well done, mr Branson! One of the few who dare, nowadays.
But, what is it that always tends to make American articles appear so downright stupid? Why are numbers and sizes always dumbed down to something you hope the average Joe Sixpack might get his head around? Like "8000 pounds" rather than "4t"? Or "37,000 ft"? Or, in other articles, numbers like "100,000 million billion" - is it just to make it sound impressive? If so, it doesn't work, it just sounds like toddler-talk. I would expect people who are able to understand subjects involving big numbers, are also able to understand the meaning of prefixes like "k", "M" and "G", and even (shudder) metric units.
And, of course, I can understand feet and pounds; it's just that every time it feels like yet another example of America wanting to show everybody that they are too bloody high and mighty to follow the lead of others. No, I don't hate America, and I do know that Americans are good and decent people; but then, why not show off all those good sides you guys have?
...there is little integrity from any political party right now
Actually, the Chinese Communist Party doesn't look too bad, all things considered ;-)
Right, you can mod me down now.
Obama's justification for going into Libya is the approval of the Arab League and not the approval of Congress?
After Iraq and Afghanistan, how can you even ask? I think it is safe to take Congress for granted in this, for two reasons:
1) Gadaffi is a "communist" (never mind that Communism has nothing to do with what he stands for, coz' he's a commie)
2) War means big profit for the weapons manufaturers, who sponsor much of Congress.
No, the Arab League are much more important, because Libya is an Arab country, and you don't want yet another scenario where the US is seen as the world's bully-boy going after Muslims.