When has the government (with either party in charge) ever done anything efficiently or competently?
I'd say the US government did superbly manage their involvement into WW2. Minimum loss, maximum return. Take every aspect of the outcome of the war. Military, industry, economics, politics, diplomacy, prestige, you name it... The US ended the war greatly reinforced in any and all of these fields. And, last time I checked, conducting wars was still a government business.
Now, considering how the current administration is managing a comparatively far easier war, I'm not surprised they're trying to push the idea that abysmal performance is the norm in government.
How about sitting down with your kids and keeping an eye on what they're doing instead? Do you realize that most parents have to work during the day and can't constantly keep an eye on what their kids are doing?
Move the PC out to a communal area - the front room or dining room, somewhere you can see it from I don't know about you but I, for one, can't see the dining room from my office. I don't see what good moving the PC there would do.
So your post was anything but insightful. I would mod it informative. It pretty clearly conveyed the information that you don't have children and have no clue of what parenting is about. So please do us all a favor. Have some kids. Try and raise them decently. And come back to tell us all about your magic recipes. Thank you.
most of the inventions claimed here are in fact not made by muslims but either by their predecessors (...)
You obviously didn't rtfa :
Invention #1 : 15th century Invention #2 : 10th century Invention #3 : 10th century Invention #4 : 9th century Invention #5 : 18th century Invention #6 : 9th century Invention #7 : 13th century Invention #8 : crusades (ie. after 11th century) Invention #9 : not dated, probably post crusades Invention #10 : 10th century Invention #11 : 7th century Invention #12 : 18th century Invention #13 : 10th century Invention #14 : 9th century Invention #15 : 10th century Invention #16 : not dated Invention #17 : 9th century Invention #18 : 9th century Invention #19 : 15th century Invention #20 : 11th century
With the possible exception of invention #11, all of them were invented AFTER the foundation of Islam.
About the rest of your post, you obviously have some anger against Muslims. Since you broke Godwin's law yourself, the lesson to be drawn from the nazis is not just that they hated gays, women (really?), communists or jews. That description would fit your usual US conservative TV anchor. The real lesson of nazism is to never let ourselves judge people (or act against them) only according to their category.
Just because your against Bush doesn't mean you have to be pro muslim.
One doesn't have to be pro-muslim or anti-muslim. Muslim does not define someone enough for me to hate him or love him. No more than American. I don't hate Americans and I don't hate Muslims. I don't love Americans and I don't love Muslims. I just know some Americans and I know some Muslims. I happen to like most of them and dislike some of them. The fact that they are American or Muslim is not relevant to my decision to like or dislike them.
What I hate and fear is people who would force you to take sides, people who would tell you to hate someone because he's American or Muslim. Generalization is evil. When you start considering someone as a member of a (hateful) community rather than an individual person, you start eroding your perception of him as a human being. There lies the danger, there lies the slippery slope to nazism.
The socialism that you are pandering doesn't work in the long run
In the long run, we are all dead.
Libetarianism is about civil liberties and free-market economics
Libertarianism is about free-market, period. It is also about a weird religious belief that government is only evil and all evil comes from government. Thus Libertarians honestly believe that if you remove the government, civil liberties will increase. Except that it doesn't work in the short run.
A similar analysis can explain why Wall St. pushes so much for companies to replace capital with debt. A magical way to increase earning per share without doing any actual work.
Enough of this knee-jerk "blame-the-victim" mindset. Your post is wrong on so many basic points, it's hard to begin addressing them.
Decades ago, people would have known that the hurricane was coming and that it would be big. They would have taken the personal responsibility to get the hell out of dodge
Really? How many decades? Care to give an exemple? A cyclone that strong hitting a city that big and flooding a region that densely populated? Millions of people orderly fleeing through the devastation? I've tried but I can't find any such occurence. But you know better. So I'm counting on you. Please be specific.
and people are used to being coddled by their government
Maybe one day you'll open your eyes and get yourself a passport and visit some foreign countries. Or if you can't be bothered, just read some foreign newspapers. That day, you'll realize that the US is probably THE single least coddling government in all the western hemisphere. And it's probably less coddling today than it was "decades" ago. So your nice, heart-warming little theory that all evil come from big government and welfare state will crumble down.
The federal government does not do anything well that involves actual people except for killing them
Really? Did you run some research to establish that? Or is this just one of those certainties you clinch to that allow you to let people suffer while still calling yourself "good"? Because responding to rare disasters is exactly the sort of things that are better handled on the federal level. Ever heard of something called mutualization or economies of scale? Expecting each state to maintain an emergency infrastructure scaled to be useful once every 10 years does not make economical sense. Better to mutualize that across all the states (aka federal gov.) so that one year it will be employed in Louisiana, the next year in Florida, then in Texas etc...
Also, I fail to see how asking each individual state to handle its own emergency infrastructure with no help from the feds will improve personal responsibility. Or do you recommand that each citizen maintains his own emergency infrastructure complete with surveillance airplanes, evacuation choppers and mobile hospitals?
Civilization in general and Christian civilization in particular are based on the principle that you should help others so that they will help you in return. If I'm struck, my family will help me. If my family is struck, my neighborhood will help us. etc... This goes up to states and US and other nations. But apparently, the people currently in charge in Washington do not abide to this basic principle. That's why they refused help from other nations and why they refused to help Louisiana.
I don't know what's going on in the US these days. It's very weird. But there seems to be a school of thought that managed to masquerade selfishness and greed as goodness and high morality.
I'll try to help. If you actually help actual people, you're good. If you sit on your hands while finding reasons to blame the people who need help, you're evil.
Generally, people who intentionally break inter-operability expect that they'll be a stronger force of attraction than the existing system. MS is a perfect exemple of that.
Now the question everybody will have to ask himself is "Can I afford to be isolated from China?" Since China has become the world's factory, I doubt many people will stop doing business with them. So everybody will basically support a dual system.
And if, at some point, people are forced to chose just one system because the two can't coexist, I'm not sure they will chose the US one. What do you think people can leave without more easily? Coca Cola and Hollywood movies or cloths and mobile phones?
I agree, this guys actually plays with his kids instead of watching TV like a good god-fearing, flag-waving American. No wonder his righteous wife has demanded divorce from such a deviant. Do you realize the damage done on his children? Instead of receiving their Government-approved weekly dose of Jack Bauer's Canned Moral Values (TM), they are forced to interact with their father on one of those video games.
Remember, party-approved ocupations are limited to watching TV, attending church and hunting quails. No other behavior is compatible with being a good parent.
Come to think of it, this divorce is actually a good thing. Now his children will be protected from the corrupting influence of their father. It might take them some time to realize it, but it's for their own good. Their father has exposed them to those addictive video games; he's akin to a drug-dealer if not Satan-worshipper or even Terrorist.
Yeah, so I'm judgemental. At least you'll get over it. His kids probably won't.
It was on Slashdot a couple years ago, can't find it though. It was a BBC article basically saying that US allies in Iraq (mainly UK troops) were afraid of Americans. Virtually all of friendly fire events are US firing on allies, it's almost never allies firing on US.
Now about collateral damage. WW2 showed that strategic bombing was a great way to achieve goals without risking too much casualties. Vietnam showed that infantry combat was indeed very costly in terms of human casualties and that the US public was not willing to accept heavy losses. The cold war officialized the absolute superiority of the US in technology and in air power.
I think all of this led the US to orient their military doctrine toward a massive use of air power before, during and after ground assault. This has proved very efficient at destroying ennemy military and infrastructure at a low price (in US lives). But this, imho, renders the US army pretty inefficient when it comes to occupying a country or winning "hearts and minds".
So you're right when you say : "It seems to me that US forces already tries to avoid collateral damage. It sounds more like you're calling for elimination of collateral damage - and that's a fantasy". The US tries to limit collateral damage within its doctrine of "bomb first, walk later". But that very doctrine generates more collateral damage than other doctrines with more boots on the ground and less laser-guided bombs.
Everybody tries to avoid collateral damage. No commander will decide to kill civilians if it brings no military advantage. At the end of the day, discussing collateral damage means answering the question "If razing that building risks killing X civilians but not razing it risks losing Y soldiers, should I do it?", in other words "How many foreign civilians is a US grunt worth?"
If your primary objective is to reduce your losses at a minimum, chances are that this implied number is very high.
The French riots had absolutely nothing to do with religion. All authoritative Muslim figures condemned the violence and this was widely reported by the media.
The political spectrum is probably as wide in France as it is in the US and I'm used to hear the loonies from both sides on any subject. The truth is that nobody seriously suggested that religion was a factor in this riots. Depending on political side, people would mention race, poverty, unemployment, police tactics, hopelessness or complacency, cowardice, absence of authority, fame contests... you name it.
But religion? No way. No religious figure, no religious slogan, no religious emblems. Nothing. I guess the Muslim fundies did try to capitalize on the riots, but it's hard to say if they were successful and obviously they did not start or lead the riots in any way.
The fact that you believe that the French riots were islam-inspired says far more about your media than it says about Islam. Are you American?
I think that your post is generally well written and insightful, yet I'd say that you rely too much on the market's efficiency.
Doomsday predictions is one of the few areas where the market fails to adequately forecast. Even if I was 100% sure that the world would be destroyed tomorrow, I'd never ever bet a dollar on it. It would do me no good since I'd be dead when the time comes to collect my gains.
Granted, oil peak is not exactly the end of the world. But the world's economy is VERY dependent on oil and supply is rather inelastic. So, if demand exceeds supply long enough, we'll just have to learn to use less oil, quickly. That could very well lead to severe economic depression, global markets collapse, riots, wars, oil usage restricted to government/military etc... All of these could mean that the theoretical fortune I made on my oil futures would be worthless. So again, what's the point in betting on an oil shortage? If I'm wrong I lose my money; if I'm right I don't know what I win.
Also, financial markets are notorious for being poor planners of massive disruptions. Interestingly, your whole line of reasoning could have been used back in 2001, when the Nasdaq was 10,000 high, to argue against those who thought the bubble was going to burst. To paraphrase you:
If you're convinced that the market is mistaken, well, maybe you're right. But rather than argue with me, I have some simple advice for you: sell. Prove how convinced you are by putting your money where your mouth is, and if you're right, you'll amass a fortune. You can buy us all pets.com shares with the words "I told you so" painted on the front in cat litter. Thales will tell you, there's nothing that says "I'm smarter than you" like money.
But if anyone was confident enough in their predictions of peak Nasdaq to bank on it, the futures market would adjust to reflect it. Why hasn't that happened?
It hasn't happened because this apocalyptic pessimism is shortsighted.
I could go on but I think you get my point. You assume too much of the market. The fact that the April 06 future is at roughly $60 a barrel does not mean that the spot price won't be $120 a barrel in June 06. Remember, a barrel was worth $30 just 2 years ago.
VCs are businessmen. They're not in the business of funding ideas but businesses. This is a critical difference. Ideas are cheap, money is cheap, what is hard to find is people who can execute. If what you have is just an idea, my advice is "don't talk to VCs" and more "don't start a business".
Saying that VCs don't take risks is pure nonsense. When they fund a company, all the money they put in is at risk. Millions of things can happen. The product bugs or development takes longer than expected, customers don't want it or not presented that way or not at this price, sales process is too long or too costly, competitors take your biggest customer, a new technology emerges that renders your product obsolete... But most problems are people-related : you hire the wrong person, some key person quits or gets ill, your co-founder slacks or just can't handle the pressure, YOU slack or just can't handle the pressure... If any of these happen, your company can fail and the VCs can lose their money.
Now, that doesn't mean VCs are nice guys. They ARE ruthless. One could argue that they make more money than they deserve. All their efforts are directed towards maximizing profits and minimizing risks. Like everybody else. If your VC thinks that you've become a liability, he will do whatever he can to get rid of you.
But once again, if you fear VCs, you should not start a business. Because VCs are angels compared to customers. Nobody is worse than customers. Customers are ruthless. They are the epitome of ruthlessness. They don't care about you, they don't care about your business, they don't care about your product. They only care about themselves. They will ditch you in a second if they think they can get a cheaper alternative, or if your competitor's sales rep has bigger tits. Your VC has put money in your company, he will always try to protect that investment. A customer just doesn't care.
Don't vilify VCs. They're tough businessmen, nothing more. If you have to deal with one, get yourself a good and experienced lawyer, and make sure you are in a strong negotiating position. And ask yourself this question : "Is the value of the money VCs put in my company (in terms of reduced risk, accelerated growth...) worth the value and control they demand in return? Only you can answer that question.
Hmmm, did some research. It seems to date back to a 1985 law. Rates are updated from time to time.
Since November 2005, the broad principle is E45.73 per 100h of music and E125.77 per 100h of movie. This apparently (I did not check the math) translates into E.32 per 650Mo CD-R, E1.27 per 4.7Go DVD-R, E1.05 per 100Mo of flash drive or mp3 player (1 euro = 1.20 USD)
Congratulations for your excellent French (I sincerely hope that French is NOT your mother tongue and that I'm not currently insulting you). Still this is Slashdot and the rule of the place is that posts should be written in English, or at least should be readable by English-speakers (typos and bad syntax are tolerated, if not encouraged). So, if you don't mind, I'll try and translate your (Informative, IMHO) post. Please feel free to correct any mistake.
Jurisprudence is not the same as our precedent. Under a common law system, if a higher court decides a rule of law, all others must not only respect it but also follow it. No contradiction is allowed. The only exception is the Supreme Court, which bears no obligation. The French jurisprudence is more similar to the principle of "stare decisis" (is that latin? NDT)
And George_Deutsch_Graduateism should be taught in science classes. Kids need to be made aware of the controversy. Isn't it what science is about? Let kids make their own mind.
Maybe your point is that science has not disproved god. Obviously the vast majority of people with a brain agree with you on this. But that's a little offtopic. The subject of this decision is science vs ID, not science vs god.
Maybe your point is that schools should teach aliens together with ID in science class. In that case, I think that the vast majority of people with a brain will tell you : "No way".
No, we paid that debt in WWI. "On the 4th of July [1917], the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry (2-16), paraded through the streets of Paris to bolster the sagging French spirits.
Meanwhile, French and British soldiers were being slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands in the trenches. Luckily for the US, Lafayette did a little more than parading through the streets of Yorktown to bolster the sagging American spirit. He and his troops actually fought and won the actual battle.
Listen, it was nice of the US to join WWI, but let's not blow this out of proportions. Google for WWI casualties. The first result gives the following numbers : France 1,359,000 dead; Britain 658,700 dead; US 58,480 dead. WWI was a blood bath. France lost more soldiers in those 4 years than the US lost in its whole history.
If you visit France one day, try a little experiment. Choose any random village in the countryside, 500 souls or so. Somewhere, between the town hall and the church, you'll find a monument to the dead of WWI. Now count the names. You'll never find a place with less than 50 dead. And that does not include the wounded. 1,359,000 dead and 4,200,000 wounded out of a total population of maybe 35 millions at the time. Half of all French males between 18 and 50 were a casualty of that bloody war. No family was spared.
I think friends should not keep a detailed accounting of what they did for each other. Every French is thankful for US support in WWI, it certainly helped and hastened the war's end. But since you're in this "we owe / they owe" mood, I don't think Pershing's late involvement in WWI was as decisive as Lafayette's involvement in the US independance war.
Last, you seem to regret the time of French monarchy. I, for one, am happy for my American friends that they live under a republic rather than a monarchy.
And if you allow me a piece of advice. Look for reasons to like other people, not for reasons to hate them, you'll live a happier life.
According to the French Ambassador in the US, France accounted for only 8% of oil purchases under OFF. The biggest recipient of Iraqi oil under OFF was the US which purchased 44% of OFF oil. Granted, he's not exactly neutral in this, yet I can't find any "official sounding" sources stating otherwise (no, O'Reilly and Coulter don't count)
Iraq never was a BIG business partner of France. They bought a nuclear plant and some fighter aircrafts in the 80's when they were the West's ally against Iran. That's it. This whole portraying of France as a sinister backer of despots has very little to do with facts and a lot to do with squelching dissenting voices.
Slashdot Mirror
When has the government (with either party in charge) ever done anything efficiently or competently?
I'd say the US government did superbly manage their involvement into WW2. Minimum loss, maximum return. Take every aspect of the outcome of the war. Military, industry, economics, politics, diplomacy, prestige, you name it... The US ended the war greatly reinforced in any and all of these fields. And, last time I checked, conducting wars was still a government business.
Now, considering how the current administration is managing a comparatively far easier war, I'm not surprised they're trying to push the idea that abysmal performance is the norm in government.
How about sitting down with your kids and keeping an eye on what they're doing instead?
Do you realize that most parents have to work during the day and can't constantly keep an eye on what their kids are doing?
Move the PC out to a communal area - the front room or dining room, somewhere you can see it from
I don't know about you but I, for one, can't see the dining room from my office. I don't see what good moving the PC there would do.
So your post was anything but insightful.
I would mod it informative. It pretty clearly conveyed the information that you don't have children and have no clue of what parenting is about.
So please do us all a favor. Have some kids. Try and raise them decently. And come back to tell us all about your magic recipes. Thank you.
most of the inventions claimed here are in fact not made by muslims but either by their predecessors (...)
You obviously didn't rtfa :
Invention #1 : 15th century
Invention #2 : 10th century
Invention #3 : 10th century
Invention #4 : 9th century
Invention #5 : 18th century
Invention #6 : 9th century
Invention #7 : 13th century
Invention #8 : crusades (ie. after 11th century)
Invention #9 : not dated, probably post crusades
Invention #10 : 10th century
Invention #11 : 7th century
Invention #12 : 18th century
Invention #13 : 10th century
Invention #14 : 9th century
Invention #15 : 10th century
Invention #16 : not dated
Invention #17 : 9th century
Invention #18 : 9th century
Invention #19 : 15th century
Invention #20 : 11th century
With the possible exception of invention #11, all of them were invented AFTER the foundation of Islam.
About the rest of your post, you obviously have some anger against Muslims. Since you broke Godwin's law yourself, the lesson to be drawn from the nazis is not just that they hated gays, women (really?), communists or jews. That description would fit your usual US conservative TV anchor. The real lesson of nazism is to never let ourselves judge people (or act against them) only according to their category.
Just because your against Bush doesn't mean you have to be pro muslim.
One doesn't have to be pro-muslim or anti-muslim. Muslim does not define someone enough for me to hate him or love him. No more than American. I don't hate Americans and I don't hate Muslims. I don't love Americans and I don't love Muslims. I just know some Americans and I know some Muslims. I happen to like most of them and dislike some of them. The fact that they are American or Muslim is not relevant to my decision to like or dislike them.
What I hate and fear is people who would force you to take sides, people who would tell you to hate someone because he's American or Muslim. Generalization is evil. When you start considering someone as a member of a (hateful) community rather than an individual person, you start eroding your perception of him as a human being. There lies the danger, there lies the slippery slope to nazism.
I don't know what chance a handful of civilians with handguns have against a military with long-range missiles, tear gas, sonic weapons, etc
Take a look at Iraq. It seems that, if they really want it, the handful of civilians have a reasonable chance.
The socialism that you are pandering doesn't work in the long run
In the long run, we are all dead.
Libetarianism is about civil liberties and free-market economics
Libertarianism is about free-market, period. It is also about a weird religious belief that government is only evil and all evil comes from government. Thus Libertarians honestly believe that if you remove the government, civil liberties will increase. Except that it doesn't work in the short run.
Brilliant, so simple yet so real!
A similar analysis can explain why Wall St. pushes so much for companies to replace capital with debt. A magical way to increase earning per share without doing any actual work.
Enough of this knee-jerk "blame-the-victim" mindset. Your post is wrong on so many basic points, it's hard to begin addressing them.
Decades ago, people would have known that the hurricane was coming and that it would be big. They would have taken the personal responsibility to get the hell out of dodge
Really? How many decades? Care to give an exemple? A cyclone that strong hitting a city that big and flooding a region that densely populated? Millions of people orderly fleeing through the devastation? I've tried but I can't find any such occurence. But you know better. So I'm counting on you. Please be specific.
and people are used to being coddled by their government
Maybe one day you'll open your eyes and get yourself a passport and visit some foreign countries. Or if you can't be bothered, just read some foreign newspapers. That day, you'll realize that the US is probably THE single least coddling government in all the western hemisphere. And it's probably less coddling today than it was "decades" ago. So your nice, heart-warming little theory that all evil come from big government and welfare state will crumble down.
The federal government does not do anything well that involves actual people except for killing them
Really? Did you run some research to establish that? Or is this just one of those certainties you clinch to that allow you to let people suffer while still calling yourself "good"? Because responding to rare disasters is exactly the sort of things that are better handled on the federal level. Ever heard of something called mutualization or economies of scale? Expecting each state to maintain an emergency infrastructure scaled to be useful once every 10 years does not make economical sense. Better to mutualize that across all the states (aka federal gov.) so that one year it will be employed in Louisiana, the next year in Florida, then in Texas etc...
Also, I fail to see how asking each individual state to handle its own emergency infrastructure with no help from the feds will improve personal responsibility. Or do you recommand that each citizen maintains his own emergency infrastructure complete with surveillance airplanes, evacuation choppers and mobile hospitals?
Civilization in general and Christian civilization in particular are based on the principle that you should help others so that they will help you in return. If I'm struck, my family will help me. If my family is struck, my neighborhood will help us. etc... This goes up to states and US and other nations. But apparently, the people currently in charge in Washington do not abide to this basic principle. That's why they refused help from other nations and why they refused to help Louisiana.
I don't know what's going on in the US these days. It's very weird. But there seems to be a school of thought that managed to masquerade selfishness and greed as goodness and high morality.
I'll try to help. If you actually help actual people, you're good. If you sit on your hands while finding reasons to blame the people who need help, you're evil.
I searched for "Live" in Google, got 2,650,000,000 results.
I searched for "Google" in Live, got 63,232,036 results.
Obviously, Live wins. err... I mean Google wins... No, Live! Google! Loovle!
Whatever...
...is that the French are doing it
:)
Generally, people who intentionally break inter-operability expect that they'll be a stronger force of attraction than the existing system. MS is a perfect exemple of that.
Now the question everybody will have to ask himself is "Can I afford to be isolated from China?" Since China has become the world's factory, I doubt many people will stop doing business with them. So everybody will basically support a dual system.
And if, at some point, people are forced to chose just one system because the two can't coexist, I'm not sure they will chose the US one. What do you think people can leave without more easily? Coca Cola and Hollywood movies or cloths and mobile phones?
How should he know?
He does not live in the US. He's not exposed to the US media. How can someone judge media bias/undercurrent if he's not immersed in it?
I agree, this guys actually plays with his kids instead of watching TV like a good god-fearing, flag-waving American. No wonder his righteous wife has demanded divorce from such a deviant. Do you realize the damage done on his children? Instead of receiving their Government-approved weekly dose of Jack Bauer's Canned Moral Values (TM), they are forced to interact with their father on one of those video games.
Remember, party-approved ocupations are limited to watching TV, attending church and hunting quails. No other behavior is compatible with being a good parent.
Come to think of it, this divorce is actually a good thing. Now his children will be protected from the corrupting influence of their father. It might take them some time to realize it, but it's for their own good. Their father has exposed them to those addictive video games; he's akin to a drug-dealer if not Satan-worshipper or even Terrorist.
Yeah, so I'm judgemental. At least you'll get over it. His kids probably won't.
It was on Slashdot a couple years ago, can't find it though. It was a BBC article basically saying that US allies in Iraq (mainly UK troops) were afraid of Americans. Virtually all of friendly fire events are US firing on allies, it's almost never allies firing on US.
Now about collateral damage. WW2 showed that strategic bombing was a great way to achieve goals without risking too much casualties. Vietnam showed that infantry combat was indeed very costly in terms of human casualties and that the US public was not willing to accept heavy losses. The cold war officialized the absolute superiority of the US in technology and in air power.
I think all of this led the US to orient their military doctrine toward a massive use of air power before, during and after ground assault. This has proved very efficient at destroying ennemy military and infrastructure at a low price (in US lives). But this, imho, renders the US army pretty inefficient when it comes to occupying a country or winning "hearts and minds".
So you're right when you say : "It seems to me that US forces already tries to avoid collateral damage. It sounds more like you're calling for elimination of collateral damage - and that's a fantasy". The US tries to limit collateral damage within its doctrine of "bomb first, walk later". But that very doctrine generates more collateral damage than other doctrines with more boots on the ground and less laser-guided bombs.
Everybody tries to avoid collateral damage. No commander will decide to kill civilians if it brings no military advantage. At the end of the day, discussing collateral damage means answering the question "If razing that building risks killing X civilians but not razing it risks losing Y soldiers, should I do it?", in other words "How many foreign civilians is a US grunt worth?"
If your primary objective is to reduce your losses at a minimum, chances are that this implied number is very high.
The French riots had absolutely nothing to do with religion. All authoritative Muslim figures condemned the violence and this was widely reported by the media.
The political spectrum is probably as wide in France as it is in the US and I'm used to hear the loonies from both sides on any subject. The truth is that nobody seriously suggested that religion was a factor in this riots. Depending on political side, people would mention race, poverty, unemployment, police tactics, hopelessness or complacency, cowardice, absence of authority, fame contests... you name it.
But religion? No way. No religious figure, no religious slogan, no religious emblems. Nothing. I guess the Muslim fundies did try to capitalize on the riots, but it's hard to say if they were successful and obviously they did not start or lead the riots in any way.
The fact that you believe that the French riots were islam-inspired says far more about your media than it says about Islam. Are you American?
I think that your post is generally well written and insightful, yet I'd say that you rely too much on the market's efficiency.
:
Doomsday predictions is one of the few areas where the market fails to adequately forecast. Even if I was 100% sure that the world would be destroyed tomorrow, I'd never ever bet a dollar on it. It would do me no good since I'd be dead when the time comes to collect my gains.
Granted, oil peak is not exactly the end of the world. But the world's economy is VERY dependent on oil and supply is rather inelastic. So, if demand exceeds supply long enough, we'll just have to learn to use less oil, quickly. That could very well lead to severe economic depression, global markets collapse, riots, wars, oil usage restricted to government/military etc... All of these could mean that the theoretical fortune I made on my oil futures would be worthless. So again, what's the point in betting on an oil shortage? If I'm wrong I lose my money; if I'm right I don't know what I win.
Also, financial markets are notorious for being poor planners of massive disruptions. Interestingly, your whole line of reasoning could have been used back in 2001, when the Nasdaq was 10,000 high, to argue against those who thought the bubble was going to burst. To paraphrase you
If you're convinced that the market is mistaken, well, maybe you're right. But rather than argue with me, I have some simple advice for you: sell. Prove how convinced you are by putting your money where your mouth is, and if you're right, you'll amass a fortune. You can buy us all pets.com shares with the words "I told you so" painted on the front in cat litter. Thales will tell you, there's nothing that says "I'm smarter than you" like money.
But if anyone was confident enough in their predictions of peak Nasdaq to bank on it, the futures market would adjust to reflect it. Why hasn't that happened?
It hasn't happened because this apocalyptic pessimism is shortsighted.
I could go on but I think you get my point. You assume too much of the market. The fact that the April 06 future is at roughly $60 a barrel does not mean that the spot price won't be $120 a barrel in June 06. Remember, a barrel was worth $30 just 2 years ago.
I disagree.
VCs are businessmen. They're not in the business of funding ideas but businesses. This is a critical difference. Ideas are cheap, money is cheap, what is hard to find is people who can execute. If what you have is just an idea, my advice is "don't talk to VCs" and more "don't start a business".
Saying that VCs don't take risks is pure nonsense. When they fund a company, all the money they put in is at risk. Millions of things can happen. The product bugs or development takes longer than expected, customers don't want it or not presented that way or not at this price, sales process is too long or too costly, competitors take your biggest customer, a new technology emerges that renders your product obsolete... But most problems are people-related : you hire the wrong person, some key person quits or gets ill, your co-founder slacks or just can't handle the pressure, YOU slack or just can't handle the pressure... If any of these happen, your company can fail and the VCs can lose their money.
Now, that doesn't mean VCs are nice guys. They ARE ruthless. One could argue that they make more money than they deserve. All their efforts are directed towards maximizing profits and minimizing risks. Like everybody else. If your VC thinks that you've become a liability, he will do whatever he can to get rid of you.
But once again, if you fear VCs, you should not start a business. Because VCs are angels compared to customers. Nobody is worse than customers. Customers are ruthless. They are the epitome of ruthlessness. They don't care about you, they don't care about your business, they don't care about your product. They only care about themselves. They will ditch you in a second if they think they can get a cheaper alternative, or if your competitor's sales rep has bigger tits. Your VC has put money in your company, he will always try to protect that investment. A customer just doesn't care.
Don't vilify VCs. They're tough businessmen, nothing more. If you have to deal with one, get yourself a good and experienced lawyer, and make sure you are in a strong negotiating position. And ask yourself this question : "Is the value of the money VCs put in my company (in terms of reduced risk, accelerated growth...) worth the value and control they demand in return? Only you can answer that question.
Hmmm, did some research. It seems to date back to a 1985 law. Rates are updated from time to time.
Since November 2005, the broad principle is E45.73 per 100h of music and E125.77 per 100h of movie. This apparently (I did not check the math) translates into E.32 per 650Mo CD-R, E1.27 per 4.7Go DVD-R, E1.05 per 100Mo of flash drive or mp3 player (1 euro = 1.20 USD)
Hope this helps.
Congratulations for your excellent French (I sincerely hope that French is NOT your mother tongue and that I'm not currently insulting you). Still this is Slashdot and the rule of the place is that posts should be written in English, or at least should be readable by English-speakers (typos and bad syntax are tolerated, if not encouraged). So, if you don't mind, I'll try and translate your (Informative, IMHO) post. Please feel free to correct any mistake.
Jurisprudence is not the same as our precedent. Under a common law system, if a higher court decides a rule of law, all others must not only respect it but also follow it. No contradiction is allowed. The only exception is the Supreme Court, which bears no obligation. The French jurisprudence is more similar to the principle of "stare decisis" (is that latin? NDT)
In France, a judge cannot make or repel a law.
I would have thought, in this specific occurrence, that it is the US who surrendered to big business.
But I'm just French. And not even Republican. What do I know about spinning news?
And George_Deutsch_Graduateism should be taught in science classes. Kids need to be made aware of the controversy. Isn't it what science is about? Let kids make their own mind.
And the decline of an economical/cultural power is beneficial to other powers how ?
I think you misspelled "military."
I'm trying to make sense of your post.
Maybe your point is that science has not disproved god. Obviously the vast majority of people with a brain agree with you on this. But that's a little offtopic. The subject of this decision is science vs ID, not science vs god.
Maybe your point is that schools should teach aliens together with ID in science class. In that case, I think that the vast majority of people with a brain will tell you : "No way".
I hate to be the one who brings the bad news, but the last paragraph of your post is blatantly offtopic.
No, we paid that debt in WWI. "On the 4th of July [1917], the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry (2-16), paraded through the streets of Paris to bolster the sagging French spirits.
Meanwhile, French and British soldiers were being slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands in the trenches. Luckily for the US, Lafayette did a little more than parading through the streets of Yorktown to bolster the sagging American spirit. He and his troops actually fought and won the actual battle.
Listen, it was nice of the US to join WWI, but let's not blow this out of proportions. Google for WWI casualties. The first result gives the following numbers : France 1,359,000 dead; Britain 658,700 dead; US 58,480 dead. WWI was a blood bath. France lost more soldiers in those 4 years than the US lost in its whole history.
If you visit France one day, try a little experiment. Choose any random village in the countryside, 500 souls or so. Somewhere, between the town hall and the church, you'll find a monument to the dead of WWI. Now count the names. You'll never find a place with less than 50 dead. And that does not include the wounded. 1,359,000 dead and 4,200,000 wounded out of a total population of maybe 35 millions at the time. Half of all French males between 18 and 50 were a casualty of that bloody war. No family was spared.
I think friends should not keep a detailed accounting of what they did for each other. Every French is thankful for US support in WWI, it certainly helped and hastened the war's end. But since you're in this "we owe / they owe" mood, I don't think Pershing's late involvement in WWI was as decisive as Lafayette's involvement in the US independance war.
Last, you seem to regret the time of French monarchy. I, for one, am happy for my American friends that they live under a republic rather than a monarchy.
And if you allow me a piece of advice. Look for reasons to like other people, not for reasons to hate them, you'll live a happier life.
According to the French Ambassador in the US, France accounted for only 8% of oil purchases under OFF. The biggest recipient of Iraqi oil under OFF was the US which purchased 44% of OFF oil. Granted, he's not exactly neutral in this, yet I can't find any "official sounding" sources stating otherwise (no, O'Reilly and Coulter don't count)
Iraq never was a BIG business partner of France. They bought a nuclear plant and some fighter aircrafts in the 80's when they were the West's ally against Iran. That's it. This whole portraying of France as a sinister backer of despots has very little to do with facts and a lot to do with squelching dissenting voices.