Apple will have to make the choice of whether to port their music/media software to Windows or will face losing most of those customers...
Since they have already ported iTunes to the PC I will assume you are talking about GarageBand, iMovie, iDVD etc. I don't see any reason why they would have to port these products because there is a fundamental difference. iTunes & iPod are about consuming digital media, the others are about creating digital media. To engage in a bit of stereotyping with more than a kernel of truth PC users == consumers/Mac users == creators. As long as windows users can consume Apples digital media Apple will do fine with the mass market. Keeping all the software for creating such media on the Mac will help Apple to keep (and perhaps even make gains in) their small, but highly profitable niche market of "creators".
hearsay (that's the correct term for what someone says).
Actually no, if you insist on using terms from a court of law the correct term for what someone says is "testimomy". If their testimony is that someone else said they witnessed something that the witness himself did not witness - THAT is "hearsay".
So when Col. Abu Mohammed formerly of Saddam's Fedayeen says he saw Al Quaeda operatives at Salman Pak that would be in a court of law "testimony". IF he said "someone else told me they saw Al Queada operatives at Salman Pak" THAT would be hearsay
I'm having a bit of trouble extracting the content from the jingoism there.
OK, let me rephrase. We have an enemy that wants to do us harm. If he has a safe secure place where he can congregate, plan, train, gather assets etc. as well as a quasi-government that helps finance and train their recruits by renting them as mercenaries that is bad for us and good for them.
IF on the other hand we invade that safe haven and turn it into a roiling mess of civil war and ethnic rivalries where they can still find some recruits but are also constantly getting shot at and and bombed whenever the congregate that is Good for us and bad for them.
The second situation is the worst case scenario in Afghanistan at this point. Even a complete failure of the Afghan state is better for us in our war on terror than a hostile state that was succeeding and providing safe harbor for our enemies.
Yet Clinton lobbed missles at Osama, but none at Saddam.
You completely undermine all your other points when you exhibit such ignorance of recent history.
It also strains your credibility when you dismiss as mere speculation the idea that Saddam had an interest in seeing the U.S. forces leave Saudi Arabia. Sure, I suppose (there I go with the "suppositions") that Saddam COULD be one of those rare heads of state that really doesn't care if there are hostile troops on his border, blocking his ports, shooting down his aircraft, bombing his air-bases, AAA positions and intelligence offices. Perhaps he actually LIKED it despite his loud verbal opposition, violent rhetoric and threats.
Sure it is a supposition that Saddam wanted the Americans to leave - it is on the same level of supposition that you are engaging in when you say Iraqi's want us to leave now.
Then you need to read more about Osama. He isn't just Religious. He is a FANATIC. He gave up his nice home to live in a cave in Afghanistan. His people are willing to die to strike at their enemies
Speaking of suppositions, I don't see anything in this statement that precludes bin Laden's ability to form temporary alliances of convenience with those that don't share his fanatical religious views. You are SUPPOSING that such an alliance is simply impossible but there is no reason to suppose any such thing and plenty of reasons to suppose the alternative. Bin Laden HAS had relationships with those he quite openly considered apostate (the house of Saud, Musharef, etc.) or even pagans (ourselves) it is a HUGE leap into speculation to think that his religious belief that once allowed such interaction now forbids it.
I am NOT saying, and have not said throughout this entire thread that I believe that Al Queada and Iraq were definitely in a relationship with one another. I am merely saying that such a relationship is PLAUSIBLE on it's face and that there was evidence that SUGGESTED but did NOT PROVE (because it was either from a suspect source or because it was circumstantial) such a link. You respond with "but you didn't PROVE it" - Right - that is what I said! You also respond with your own flight of supposition by saying such an alliance is IMPOSSIBLE on it's face because religious people are incapable of forming alliances with secular people even if they have done so in the past... because "you don't understand, these people are FANATICS".
Whether you call someone a "terrorist" or "freedom fighter" doesn't matter.
Fine, then calling them terrorists doesn't matter - why do you make a big issue of it?
Wrong. If we don't turn Afghanistan into a stable, peaceful Democracy, al Queda will be back. They're still recruiting and fighting there.
No, there are plenty of undemocratic and not particularly stable regimes which are perfectly willing to crack down on Al Queada. Any regime other than a reconstituted Taliban would see Al Queada as a threat and repress them. I doubt the other ethnic groups with the U.S. as an occasional ally would allow the Taliban to take over to the degree they once did. At the very worst Afghanistan will devolve into a splintered mess of ethnic rivalries and continuous civil war (which seems to be Afghanistan's natural state) if Al Quaeda attempts to take advantage of this chaos it will be an opportunity for a "fly paper" free-kill zone strategy on our part with plenty of local proxies willing to do the real dirty work for us. Much better for us than the relative stability that provided a safe haven and state support for Al Queada before.
you cannot have "circumstantial evidence" that is "highly reliable"
Fine, I chose my terms poorly - still I hope you get my point. We had evidence that was circumstantial in nature and other evidence that was positive rather than circumstantial BUT was of unknown reliability. My point was that while it would not hold up in a court of law it is the kind of "indications" that are usually the most you ever get in the field of intelligence. There was certainly enough evidence of either sort that though we never had incontrovertible proof it was enough to convince the Clinton administration as well as the Bush administration that such a relationship existed.
Really? Where is the evidence that Saddam did anything to end it?
Umm... firing missiles at jets enforcing the no-fly zone?
You are aware of the mission of the U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia - they were there to enforce a no fly zone and the embargo. Saadam was not in much of a position to do anything about them but it was certainly in his interests to do something. Which answers the question of why he would want to support Al Queada which WAS doing something about them.
You start with a supposition (Osama and Saddam were cooperating) and then you pick "evidence" that supports that (in your mind).
No you start with numerous defectors from the Baathist regime categorically stating that such a relationship exists - and with the realization that such a relationship makes sense for the two parties concerned. Since defectors are known to lie you look for other evidence - as I said all other evidence was purely circumstantial. The case is not proven but it was enough to convince two U.S. administrations from different parties and different foreign policy biases to each come the the conclusion that such a relationship did exist.
As it turns out both of these administrations were wrong about WMD so it is more than possible that they suffered the same kind of intelligence failure on the of ties between Al Queada and Saddam.
Still, I think that such a relationship is not far fetched and the argument that it could NEVER happen because "Saddam is Secular and Bin Laden is Religious" is not very convincing on it's own when both parties are known to have worked with allies of convenience that didn't share their religious views in pursuit of their larger objectives.
But, then, I'll never be able to convince a conspiracy nut that no conspiracy existed.
lol, I can sympathize - I'm part of a vast-right wing neo-conservative zionist conspiracy run by Richard Perle to trade blood-for-oil with Haliburton as the middle-man. It was all working fine - we had warned all the Jews not to show up for work in the WTC on the day bin laden (A CIA trained operative, old friend of the Bush family) had his boys do their thing. But then Saddam threatened to switch from the Dollar to the Euro and we had to act. Anyway you wouldn't believe the problems we have getting people not to believe in us;)
Once we leave and civil war is over, the people you term "terrorists" will be the "freedom fighters" if their side wins.
If you are so elastic about the terms that fascists struggling to retain power are "freedom fighters" you can have no problem with the U.S. being "liberators" rather than "occupiers" - if it just depends on who wins - well we'll just make sure we win and so can stick the labels on things we want.
I'm less cynical, words mean things. By the same token that I don't think we particularly deserve the label "liberators" the Baathists and Jihadists don't deserve "freedom fighters"
the same as we're losing in Afghanistan
We have already won in Afghanistan. Our goal was to root out a particular enemy (Al Queada) having Afghanistan become stable, peaceful and contented is a secondary goal - nice if it happens and worth trying to achieve but in the end not of terribly high importance to us. It can become hell on earth and as long as it is no longer a safe haven for terrorist groups particularly targeting us we have achieved what we went there for.
If it was highly reliable, it was not circumstantial. If it was concrete, it was not of unknown reliability.
I think you are confused about the distinction between "circumstantial" and "unreliable" they are NOT synonyms (words that mean the same thing) nor are they antonyms (words that mean the opposite things). They are related but distinct concepts.
Circumstantial evidence is "evidence obtained from circumstances, which necessarily or usually attend facts of a particular nature, from which arises presumption." There are certain circumstances we know with high reliability to be true that do not PROVE a tie but are suggestive of such a tie (for instance Iraq's harboring of Abdul Rahman Yasin or the capture of an Iraqi intelligence agent Salah Suleiman on the Afghan border of Pakistan, the arrest of two Al Queada members entering Saudi Arabia from Iraq, etc.). These bits of evidence (and others) are undisputed, they are reliable in and of themselves, but as evidence of a relationship they are only circumstantial.
On the other hand we have sources whose reliability we are unsure of making claims that IF true would be concrete evidence of ties between Bin Laden and Iraq. (a series of meetings between Iraqi Intelligence and Bin Laden and other Al Queada operatives, the claim that Salah Suleiman was a go-between with Al Queada, the claim by several Iraqi defectors that Al Queada members were at the Salman Pak training facility. IF the claims of these defectors and foreign intelligence agencies are true they would be concrete evidence of a tie, we just don't know how reliable the claims are.
Osama was willing to take the money and weapons, but his actions were STILL about getting the invaders out of that area..
Exactly my point - you sum it up better than I did.
Nobody is suggesting that Bin Laden and Saadam were going to exchange daughters for each others wives like in Afghanistan. Just that Iraq had an interest in seeing Al Queada succeed in it's conflict with American invaders who were enforcing the embargo and no-fly zone and that Al Queada had an interest in getting money and weapons. Bin Laden could worry about overthrowing Saadam/Saadam could worry about "blowback"... later.
They were BOTH particularly focussed on ending the American presence in Saudi Arabia. They didn't just share a common enemy but they shared a common immediate goal... ending the American presence in Saudi Arabia. It would be incredible if they didn't at least consider coordinating their efforts to bring that about.
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is NOT something Osama believes.
No but he does believe in "the enemy of my enemy is convenient" As I said, he has always thought that the Saudi's were apostate but he offered his services to them as an alternative to the U.S. during the first gulf war. He did work with the ISI which despite it's religious factions was part of an "apostate" government (they had a woman president for Allah's sake!)
The problem I have with the analysis and with Apples decision is that it looks at the market as a static thing. "we dominate the 30% of the market that is high capacity hard drives... lets go after the 20% that is small form-factor flash memory". Sure, that makes some sense as far as it goes but it doesn't recognize the revolutionary potential in this market that would grow the market as a whole exponentially and make all those market-share numbers completely irrelevant.
Right now MP3 players are a cool gadget for geeks. I think the market and the technology is getting ripe for the equivalent of the sony walkman to explode onto the scene. The person that comes out with the right product (easy to use reasonably high capacity MP3 player), in the right form factor (iPod sized is good, doesn't have to be smaller) at the right price (no more than $150 IMO) is going to blow away all the competitors and enter the true mass market. Steve Jobs should have figured out that magic price-point and told his engineers that meeting it was the absolute #1 priority.
Whoever this "winner" is that first gets the right product at the right price will also set the standard that the rest of the market will have to adopt. Since Apple has chosen their own standard (m4p) and all the others have chosen another (WMA) they HAVE to win to stay in this game over the long haul.
I'm hoping Apple sees this and that the only reason they didn't go for that lower mass-market appeal price-point is that it is still impossible to meet and they are just trying to marginally grow their market and secure their position in the meanwhile with the mini. I hope they have this magic product already mostly figured out and are just waiting for the components to come down in price.
What about the markets, hospitals and hotels that the US did atack?
I think it is possible to draw a distinction between accidental attacks on civilian targets caused by either faulty intelligence or simply missing the military target and deliberate attacks on the same.
A real democratic process in Irak will most certainly elect a govern that is anti-american and at some level pro-terrorists. People in Irak do not want the americans there.
I think that is simplistic. The majority in Iraq are Shia, and while they don't want us there they are willing to tolerate us (for a time) as the price of getting rid of their Sunni oppressors. Of the significant minorities the Kurds are pretty solidly (if guardedly) pro-American. Only the Sunni's are solidly and vehemently anti-American.
I think a democratic/federalist Iraq would be the the best chance for stability and peace between the ethnic and religious factions (if we can only get Sistani to agree to it) and would be unlikely to ever pursue an aggressively anti-american foreign policy. A more centralized democracy dominated by Shiites would likely lead to civil war and it's long term foreign policy would depend on who came out on top.
For me there was no reason for US be there if was not blood for oil.
Even if though the intel about Iraq's WMD looks like it was wrong I don't see any reason to believe that the administration didn't believe it at the time (though they did spin the intel the DID have to be even more scary).
Why all this trouble? Why spend millions of dolars and considerable life...
Exactly! Saadam would be more than willing to concede anything the oil interests wanted at considerably less risk in exchange for dropping the sanctions. Bush would have plenty of political cover in both the left's anti-sanctions movement and by his own nods to quasi-isolationist paleoconservative rhetoric during the campaign and by a "only Nixon could go to China" dynamic in the fact that nobody otherwise opposed could credibly accuse a member of the Bush family of being soft on Iraq. Have Saadam hand over Yasin and Abu Nidal as part of the deal and it's easily spun as a victory in the war on terror to boot.
On the other hand, those organizations are viewed as supporting the US
So? the attacks are terrorist attacks. Calling something "terrorist" is not a commentary on the legitimacy of the struggle (which you seem to think is, in fact, legitimate) it is a description of the tactics and strategy - attacks on "soft targets" non-military targets with an immediate goal to terrorize a population.
As for being "freedom fighters", they're fighting against the foreign invaders (us).
They are members of an ethnic minority and a fascist political party fighting to preserve their own supremacy over the ethnic majority - I think "freedom fighter" is too kind a term, they are NOT in fact fighting for "freedom."
I think you need to show that Saddam was pusuing relationships with terrorists first.
I will allow that it is not shown that he had pursued a relationship with Al Quaeda specifically his relationship with terrorist groups in general is NOT controversial. His harboring and support of Abu Nidal's organization was done right out in the open, as was his $25,000 bounties for suicide bombers in Israel/Palestine. His harboring of one of the principle actors in the first WTC attack Abdul Rahman Yasin was also done in the open (an individual with fairly extensive ties to Al Quaeda incidentally). His support for Hamas if not done in the open was widely reported.
Clinton also lied about a blowjob.
But we were all assured that "everyone lies about sex" and that Clinton was the soul of truthfulness about anything substantive... I'm shocked;).
I have know way of knowing the quality of intel that went into the Clinton administration claims about an Iraq/Al Queada relationship. What has come out into public domain looks like a lot of highly reliable evidence of a merely circumstantial nature and a lot of very concrete evidence but of unknown reliability - Stuff that wouldn't hold up in a court of law but is the stock in trade of intelligence agencies. I very much doubt that Clinton administration "lied" about this, though the intel could have been wrong - many of the public statements alleging the connection were made lower down the ladder by career civil servants - not by political appointees at the top.
But it was a barrier.
Really? why?
Pakistan has at least a few religious fundamentalists in its government...
But it is headed by a secularist, and you don't address the fact that Bin Laden was more than willing to deal with the U.S. during the war against the Soviets. He was also willing to fight for the Saudi's against Iraq even though he considers them to be apostate. Bin Laden is a religious fundamentalist - but he has shown over and over that he is willing to work in temporary alliances with those who he despises against common enemies.
I agree with a lot of your points but let me play the devil's advocate here.
#1. Those "terrorists" are "freedom fighters" or "resistance".
You have a point that U.S. troops are legitimate military targets - but the bombings of the Red Cross, the UN offices and Iraqi police are in fact terrorist.
Also, the groups attacking us aren't "freedom fighters" they are on one hand Baathists dead-enders and foreign Islamists - neither group is fighting for freedom, they have no problem with violent oppression per se, they just want to be the ones doing the oppressing. If we totally botch the occupation and transition to Iraqi self-government we may in fact see a popular uprising and genuine freedom fighters, but the current bunch aren't.
Iraq will not be a Democracy. Unless you believe that the last regime was a Democracy. There are too many sides that are too heavily armed by various 3rd parties (such as the US). We went in without laying the groundwork for a Democracy.
You may be right - but I have to say it will probably be somewhat more democratic than the last regime. The fact that each faction is heavily armed is probably better than the alternative - that one side would be heavily armed and the others defenseless. I think the only hope of any kind of just peace between the different groups is federalism - democracy is somewhat less important. The Sunni's, Kurds, Chaldeans etc. are very aware that a lynch mob is a perfectly democratic - the majority is in enthusiastic agreement and the dissenter is about to cease his dissent.
Iraq was a SECULAR state. Iraq was NOT spreading "their radical Islam"
True, but after the first gulf war Saadam wrapped himself in the Koran as a way of solidifying his support and casting his conflict with America as being the U.S. against Islam rather than against Iraq. His own rhetoric became very religious, he added "God is Great" to the flag, began mandatory religious instruction to the schools, increased religious programing on state media, opened new mosques etc. To a large extent this was a defensive measure to forestall Wahabbi and Shia fundamentalist incursions into Iraq but it was also a way of rallying broader Arab and Muslim support.
Iraq had NOTHING to do with the WTC attack.
True, but I think the WTC is the ultimate rationale of the war (I find the "blood for oil" argument unconvincing - at least by itself). After 9/11 the doctrine has been that not only terrorists but their state sponsors are fair game. To some degree this goes for ALL state sponsors not just ones that sponsored Al Quaeda specifically. Of all the state sponsors of terrorism there are good arguments to be made that Iraq was the most immediately threatening. Unlike the others Iraq was in direct conflict with the U.S. - we were imposing the embargo, the no-fly zone, occasional cruise missile attacks by the Clinton administration. I think it is reasonable to assume that Saadams main interest in pursuing relationships with terrorists was to use them as a weapon against his immediate enemy - the U.S. rather than against Israel as is the case with Syria, or as a way to promote a religious doctrine throughout the middle east as is the case with Iran. And I think it is still likely that Iraq's support for terrorism included at least a nascent relationship with Al Queada. It was the Clinton administration that first alleged direct ties between Iraq and Al Quaeda. And such ties make sense - Saadam's preferred secular arab nationalist groups like Abu Nidal seem to have become less effective just as he was wrapping himself in the new Islamic flag of Iraq. He had started to support Islamist groups like Hamas so Al Quaeda's religious nature was no barrier to him. For Bin Laden's part he has always been more than willing to use "infidel" allies against his enemy of the moment - hell, he allied with US against the soviets and was pretty tight with Pakistan until very recently (I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during Armitiges first conversation with Musharef right after 9/11).
Good points all - I do think Walmart bears us keeping an eye on it. But I'm not always sympathetic to many of the complaints about them. At this point they use their marketshare to bludgeon their vendors to lower costs, but they were finding ways to lower costs (through some real innovations) before they had any marketshare to bludgeon anyone with. Those innovations allowed them to beat their competitors fair-and-square. They built a better mouse trap and won the fair reward for it (as do consumers).
RFID is one of those innovations, Walmart thinks adoption of this technology will cut costs by a VERY significant percentage. If Walmart is right (and they have a profound understanding of the issue and a stellar track record with such supply-chain innovations) then anyone in that business would benefit from the same technology. Walmart is beating their competitors not just because they were bigger (for much of their life they weren't) but because they have the vision and intelligence to pursue such technologies.
As for how this would affect the relative value of IT professionals. I can't help but think that RFID making all physical objects in the supply-chain trackable by computers is going to be a huge boon to IT jobs.
Yeah, Heaven forbid that someone might actually take a full-time job and try to live on the wage that it pays rather than live on welfare. Sheesh.
No, but somebody might take a lousy job that lets them make just enough to sort of get by (and isn't worth any more than that to the employer) because they are A) a kid working part-time, B) have limited capabilities or C) Are just starting out in life, have few responsibilities, and this crappy job is just the first rung.
If you are an adult, with adult responsibilities (dependents, mortgage, etc.) that requires "a decent living wage" and you are trying to get it in a job where all your coworkers are unskilled, part-time, high-school kids there is a problem. The work being done in these jobs are frankly just not worth that much - they require no skills, no education, no physical strength or even much intelligence. They are only "hard" because they are so tedious. They are the first rung on the economic ladder - they are a job to start out on, not to make a career of or to support you for the rest of your life.
Make your minds up. Either you want people to live on welfare or you want them to work for a living.
Requiring employers to pay higher wages for menial, unskilled, labor to do jobs that aren't particularly dangerous or physically demanding IS welfare (by proxy). Faced with the requirement that they pay people more than the work is worth employers will simply do away with the jobs. That would be too bad - it is IMPORTANT to have these kind of low paying jobs as a first rung. People starting out in the workforce need the experiences and skills and income these lousy jobs provide. I don't see any reason to deny them that first rung just because some people never bother to climb any higher.
if working full-time in a supermarket (or the equivalent) is the kind of job that you don't think is worthy of a decent living wage then you really need to do the job and take home the salary for a month.
To use a horrible but in this case appropriate cliche: been there, done that, I even have the t-shirt (really... I do). It's a crappy job, it's tedious, tiring work - on your feet for long hours, dealing with incompetent supervisors and often hostile customers. Honestly though it's not particularly difficult work. It didn't pay much and I was (barely) living on it, I hated my job, my boss, the company and at the time I believed they (or somebody) "owed" me more. I was wrong, and so are you - the only person than owed me more was ME - I was capable of more and of earning more but was too lazy and irresponsible to bother doing so. I will admit to catching some lucky breaks that revealed these facts to me, I suppose I could have gone on stuck in just such a dead-end situation, bitter and feeling deprived of an entitlement -certain that I deserved "a decent living wage" without once bothering to think about what the work I was doing was actually worth to anyone other than me.
Simply raise your prices. If it's really true that they could find the same or equivalent product from another source then perhaps your prices ARE too high. Perhaps your competitors are more efficient? Perhaps your paycheck that Wal-mart is affecting was too high? Is there a particular reason that YOU deserve that business more than the competitor that WalMart would switch to if you raised your prices? I have a client in the textile business, they don't sell to WalMart (perhaps with your complaints they shouldn't want to) But they are some great people, if tomorrow Wal-Mart calls them up with a big order at a price they can meet because you can't I don't see that I should feel any more sorry for you than I should feel happy for them.
How is asking for a decent living wage, one in which someone can pay their bills and not have to worry about descending into poverty at the first sign of illness "crying for a handout".
If the work you do isn't worth "a decent living wage" then asking for one is asking for a handout. If the job you do is worth more than they are paying - go somewhere else. If no-one else will pay you "a decent living wage" then perhaps you made poor choices in learning the skills and gaining the experience that people WOULD pay you for. I would suggest looking at a local community college or job training program.
NOT all jobs should pay a "decent living wage." There are jobs that aren't worth that much, and don't pay much - but are great for teenagers, and for people just getting started with no dependents etc. Requiring that ALL jobs pay enough for you to live on (and support a family?) would just cut the bottom rungs off the economic ladder and would make gaining the skills and experience that are WORTH a "decent living wage" more difficult for those that lack them.
Did you know nations also act altruistically? It's not uncommon for one nation to do something with no benefits for itself (or even potentially hazardous to itself) for another country.
Fine, give me an example.
I'll grant you that on the margins many nation states engage in "altruism" but not at any real cost and it is always incidental to their primary motivations and actions. The U.S. engages if a fair amount of such marginal altruism itself. It engages in even more "altruism" that benefits it's own interests. (The Marshal plan comes to mind)
France and Germany did not oppose the war in Iraq for any sense of altruism, they were serving their own interests. In fact they were serving their own OIL interests. They thought the best thing for the interests of their citizens was to deal with Saadam rather than depose him. Attempting to bring the U.S. down a notch was also, in their opinion, in the best interests of their respective governments and peoples. The U.S. obviously reached the opposite conclusion regarding Saadam's continued reign. Neither side was any more altruistic, even while both sides claimed to be (France & Germany claiming to uphold pacifism while the U.S. claimed to uphold liberal democratic values and human rights)
To a large extent this is HOW IT SHOULD BE. The French government exists to serve the French people. Any French official that says: "This would be bad for France, and hurt the French people. But, it's really a nice thing to do for Belgium and will be of great benefit to the Belgians - lets do it" SHOULD be fired. His job is to protect and serve the people of France, not Iraq, not the U.S. - Nations should pursue those interests within some bounds of civility, good grace and respect for others peoples (if not always with respect for other governments), but within those bounds it is still their job to pursue the particular interests of their own people that they are responsible for, and to.
The chief advantage of Hydrogen over fossil fuels isn't so much that it's cheaper, but that it's truly an infinitely renewable resource that's virtually perfect in terms of environmental friendliness.
No, no, no! Without deposits of pure hydrogen lying around to use it is NOT! If you are getting the hydrogen out of water you CAN'T get more energy out when you burn it to get the water back! At that point it is an energy storage medium and the energy you are storing must be generated in some other way. I realize you acknowledge that, as well as why that is a good thing later in your post but the shorthand you use in your introduction (and other Hydrogen advocates use as well) is wrong and leads people to think about the benefits of Hydrogen in a wrong, starry-eyed, way.
The only advantage to hydrogen is that it would let us run our cars using energy that was originally generated as electricity which we can generate centrally and through a variety of techniques. Still, many of the cheapest techniques we have available are still fossil fuel based - coal, oil, natural gas etc.
There are a lot of advantages. We aren't anywhere near as dependent on foreign oil for electrical generation than we are for transportation. We have our own vast supplies of coal, a fair amount of natural gas, and if the ignorance stopped making it politically unfeasible plenty of uranium. If other "greener" energy sources become feasible we can use those. There are lots of advantages - but "hydrogen is a renewable energy source" is NOT one of the advantages.
If all the local businesses shut down, there's no choice but to work at Wal-Mart.
The consumers must be doing SOMETHING other than working in retail joints to get the money to spend in those same retail joints. If all the local business are retailers (or totally dependent on retailers) that can be forced out by Wal-Mart your local economy has ALREADY failed. At that point Wal-Mart is just making it obvious - and on the plus side making it so that your feeble income can at least buy something.
America only cares about Americans - everyone knows that.
And France only cares about the French, Germany only about the Germans, Russia only about the Russians, etc. etc. etc. Nation states serve their own interests - welcome to the real world.
Does it seem kind of backwards to be using Oil in the fuel cell process?
No that is the usual way of getting hydrogen. The other way involves getting it from water but that requires a great deal of energy - in fact, the same amount of energy that you get back when you turn it back into water in the fuel cell (really a fair bit more due to inefficiencies).
This is the problem with many alternative energy sources - they all sound good but there are always downsides that don't get much press. People talk about hydrogen like it's magic energy for free - but you have to GET the hydrogen from somewhere, either from oil, in which case we're back were we started. Or from water which takes more energy to process than you get from the fuel cell. At that point you can simply think of fuel cells as a type of battery. It's a way to store energy which must be produced in some other way.
It's true that Republicans favor a more laissez faire approach to business. But I don't know think they are in favor of the "duke it out in court" solution to conflicts. They are generally in favor of tort reform which would make that more difficult (and would make SCO's current tactics more difficult).
Sorry, I was being facetious and sarcastic. I actually don't have that low a view of such sites - actually I find them rather charming. They're the digital age equivalent of naive art. Every little cat page is today's version of a Grandma Moses painting.
I threw that dismissive rant for rhetorical effect - to mirror and lampoon the original post on each point. Still, I stand by my main point and intention for throwing it in. NOT everyone is incredibly creative and imaginative. NOT every bored, unimaginative, uncreative and lazy kid who cheats is a really a creative genius who is merely uninspired by a failing system and a lousy professor (and so by the parent posts logic justified in cheating). Quite often he is just a lazy, unimaginative and lazy kid who cheats - no hidden genius, no excuses - just a cheater who should be kicked out so the other kids (who may be quite interested in, and even inspired by, the material) can get an education and a fair grade.
For the simple reason that the educational establishment is responsible for itself.
As are college students - who are old enough that we can stop calling them children. Plagiarism is a problem and the source of the problem doesn't lie with the university, it lies with the student. I'm tired of this "society made me do it" crap excuse.
It is obvious that it is incredibly inefficient to teach people by force.
It's a good thing that we don't have such a system. The students at a university are there by choice - hell, they PAID to be there. Sure, there are lousy teachers, and institutional stupidity on the part of universities but plagiarism is not caused by those things, and I don't think checking for plagerism is an example of them.
But... if you think a school should be a place of rules and discpline, with metal detectors and security guards, you have the right to send your kids to such a place.
What the hell kind of university are you going to??? If (as I now gather) you have changed the topic to the largely unrelated subject of government primary and secondary schools then I can more than agree with you (I homeschool my kids). I'm all for kids having sufficient freedom to explore their interests, and think that government schools are little more than institutional daycare with education too often nothing more than a thin and neglected pretext.
That being said- at the university level I don't think it takes a rulebound quasi-fascist to think that that freedom to learn extends to cheating and plagiarism. To the degree that these are a widespread problem in universities I think it is more than reasonable that the universities take action to prevent it and to dismiss students that engage in it. I'd go further and say it's the universities *obligation* to do so. It is unfair to cheating students in the long run to let them succeed by cheating; It's unfair to the other students who didn't cheat; and to others in the future that would be fooled into thinking the cheaters diploma is worth something - because it's not.
There is a fairly wide variety of universities and colleges out there with a range of educational philosophies and practices - if you don't like the one you are at, transfer to another. If you are uninterested in learning for it's own sake and are only in it for the sheepskin, fine - but at least do the work without cheating. If you ARE in it to learn and can't find a university that gives you the freedom to learn as you see fit, a decent library is a LOT cheaper.
Why is it only the other guy (the university in this case) that needs to think about it's contribution to this attitude? Has it occurred to you that many (if not most) students ARE a burden, brats that can't behave and already are lousy members of society?
If students regularly cheat on written exams it's a good sign that they are lazy, uninterested in learning and shouldn't have bothered going to university in the first place. Kicking them out for plagerism would be doing them a favor.
Sadly, it's always simpler to turn simple questions of right and wrong into "complex issues" that relieve us of exercising personal responsiblity.
It's obvious from the Internet that the majority of people are unoriginal and like to create personal pages about their cat (or their "the cheat") with animated gifs and lame flash animation splash pages, and that they shouldn't bother entering the higher education system which is broken and overly dogmatic because it is choked with an overabundance of unmotivated careerists that are totally uninterested in actual learning and only want to do the minimum (and cheat at that) to get a sheepskin.
When you treat everyone like a potential criminal, nobody wins.
Reach into your pocket, what's in there? If the answer is a key-ring with keys then congratulations, you too treat everyone like a potential criminal. The same applies if you need a bank card and a PIN to get money out of the ATM, or a password as well as a username to access your email, network, or computer account.
A certain percentage of the population IS criminal, worse it's a percentage that grows the easier it is to be criminal. Taking minimal precautions that "treat everyone like a potential criminal" is necessary because there is a reasonably high chance that any particular person really could be a criminal. I'd like to live in a world where doors don't have locks, cars start at the push of a button rather than the turn of a key and only your username is necessary to access your computer accounts, sadly that is not this world.
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Apple will have to make the choice of whether to port their music/media software to Windows or will face losing most of those customers...
Since they have already ported iTunes to the PC I will assume you are talking about GarageBand, iMovie, iDVD etc. I don't see any reason why they would have to port these products because there is a fundamental difference. iTunes & iPod are about consuming digital media, the others are about creating digital media. To engage in a bit of stereotyping with more than a kernel of truth PC users == consumers/Mac users == creators. As long as windows users can consume Apples digital media Apple will do fine with the mass market. Keeping all the software for creating such media on the Mac will help Apple to keep (and perhaps even make gains in) their small, but highly profitable niche market of "creators".
hearsay (that's the correct term for what someone says).
Actually no, if you insist on using terms from a court of law the correct term for what someone says is "testimomy". If their testimony is that someone else said they witnessed something that the witness himself did not witness - THAT is "hearsay".
So when Col. Abu Mohammed formerly of Saddam's Fedayeen says he saw Al Quaeda operatives at Salman Pak that would be in a court of law "testimony". IF he said "someone else told me they saw Al Queada operatives at Salman Pak" THAT would be hearsay
I'm having a bit of trouble extracting the content from the jingoism there.
OK, let me rephrase. We have an enemy that wants to do us harm. If he has a safe secure place where he can congregate, plan, train, gather assets etc. as well as a quasi-government that helps finance and train their recruits by renting them as mercenaries that is bad for us and good for them.
IF on the other hand we invade that safe haven and turn it into a roiling mess of civil war and ethnic rivalries where they can still find some recruits but are also constantly getting shot at and and bombed whenever the congregate that is Good for us and bad for them.
The second situation is the worst case scenario in Afghanistan at this point. Even a complete failure of the Afghan state is better for us in our war on terror than a hostile state that was succeeding and providing safe harbor for our enemies.
Yet Clinton lobbed missles at Osama, but none at Saddam.
You completely undermine all your other points when you exhibit such ignorance of recent history.
It also strains your credibility when you dismiss as mere speculation the idea that Saddam had an interest in seeing the U.S. forces leave Saudi Arabia. Sure, I suppose (there I go with the "suppositions") that Saddam COULD be one of those rare heads of state that really doesn't care if there are hostile troops on his border, blocking his ports, shooting down his aircraft, bombing his air-bases, AAA positions and intelligence offices. Perhaps he actually LIKED it despite his loud verbal opposition, violent rhetoric and threats.
Sure it is a supposition that Saddam wanted the Americans to leave - it is on the same level of supposition that you are engaging in when you say Iraqi's want us to leave now.
Then you need to read more about Osama. He isn't just Religious. He is a FANATIC. He gave up his nice home to live in a cave in Afghanistan. His people are willing to die to strike at their enemies
Speaking of suppositions, I don't see anything in this statement that precludes bin Laden's ability to form temporary alliances of convenience with those that don't share his fanatical religious views. You are SUPPOSING that such an alliance is simply impossible but there is no reason to suppose any such thing and plenty of reasons to suppose the alternative. Bin Laden HAS had relationships with those he quite openly considered apostate (the house of Saud, Musharef, etc.) or even pagans (ourselves) it is a HUGE leap into speculation to think that his religious belief that once allowed such interaction now forbids it.
I am NOT saying, and have not said throughout this entire thread that I believe that Al Queada and Iraq were definitely in a relationship with one another. I am merely saying that such a relationship is PLAUSIBLE on it's face and that there was evidence that SUGGESTED but did NOT PROVE (because it was either from a suspect source or because it was circumstantial) such a link. You respond with "but you didn't PROVE it" - Right - that is what I said! You also respond with your own flight of supposition by saying such an alliance is IMPOSSIBLE on it's face because religious people are incapable of forming alliances with secular people even if they have done so in the past... because "you don't understand, these people are FANATICS".
Whether you call someone a "terrorist" or "freedom fighter" doesn't matter.
;)
Fine, then calling them terrorists doesn't matter - why do you make a big issue of it?
Wrong. If we don't turn Afghanistan into a stable, peaceful Democracy, al Queda will be back. They're still recruiting and fighting there.
No, there are plenty of undemocratic and not particularly stable regimes which are perfectly willing to crack down on Al Queada. Any regime other than a reconstituted Taliban would see Al Queada as a threat and repress them. I doubt the other ethnic groups with the U.S. as an occasional ally would allow the Taliban to take over to the degree they once did. At the very worst Afghanistan will devolve into a splintered mess of ethnic rivalries and continuous civil war (which seems to be Afghanistan's natural state) if Al Quaeda attempts to take advantage of this chaos it will be an opportunity for a "fly paper" free-kill zone strategy on our part with plenty of local proxies willing to do the real dirty work for us. Much better for us than the relative stability that provided a safe haven and state support for Al Queada before.
you cannot have "circumstantial evidence" that is "highly reliable"
Fine, I chose my terms poorly - still I hope you get my point. We had evidence that was circumstantial in nature and other evidence that was positive rather than circumstantial BUT was of unknown reliability. My point was that while it would not hold up in a court of law it is the kind of "indications" that are usually the most you ever get in the field of intelligence. There was certainly enough evidence of either sort that though we never had incontrovertible proof it was enough to convince the Clinton administration as well as the Bush administration that such a relationship existed.
Really? Where is the evidence that Saddam did anything to end it?
Umm... firing missiles at jets enforcing the no-fly zone? You are aware of the mission of the U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia - they were there to enforce a no fly zone and the embargo. Saadam was not in much of a position to do anything about them but it was certainly in his interests to do something. Which answers the question of why he would want to support Al Queada which WAS doing something about them.
You start with a supposition (Osama and Saddam were cooperating) and then you pick "evidence" that supports that (in your mind).
No you start with numerous defectors from the Baathist regime categorically stating that such a relationship exists - and with the realization that such a relationship makes sense for the two parties concerned. Since defectors are known to lie you look for other evidence - as I said all other evidence was purely circumstantial. The case is not proven but it was enough to convince two U.S. administrations from different parties and different foreign policy biases to each come the the conclusion that such a relationship did exist.
As it turns out both of these administrations were wrong about WMD so it is more than possible that they suffered the same kind of intelligence failure on the of ties between Al Queada and Saddam.
Still, I think that such a relationship is not far fetched and the argument that it could NEVER happen because "Saddam is Secular and Bin Laden is Religious" is not very convincing on it's own when both parties are known to have worked with allies of convenience that didn't share their religious views in pursuit of their larger objectives.
But, then, I'll never be able to convince a conspiracy nut that no conspiracy existed.
lol, I can sympathize - I'm part of a vast-right wing neo-conservative zionist conspiracy run by Richard Perle to trade blood-for-oil with Haliburton as the middle-man. It was all working fine - we had warned all the Jews not to show up for work in the WTC on the day bin laden (A CIA trained operative, old friend of the Bush family) had his boys do their thing. But then Saddam threatened to switch from the Dollar to the Euro and we had to act. Anyway you wouldn't believe the problems we have getting people not to believe in us
Once we leave and civil war is over, the people you term "terrorists" will be the "freedom fighters" if their side wins.
If you are so elastic about the terms that fascists struggling to retain power are "freedom fighters" you can have no problem with the U.S. being "liberators" rather than "occupiers" - if it just depends on who wins - well we'll just make sure we win and so can stick the labels on things we want.
I'm less cynical, words mean things. By the same token that I don't think we particularly deserve the label "liberators" the Baathists and Jihadists don't deserve "freedom fighters"
the same as we're losing in Afghanistan
We have already won in Afghanistan. Our goal was to root out a particular enemy (Al Queada) having Afghanistan become stable, peaceful and contented is a secondary goal - nice if it happens and worth trying to achieve but in the end not of terribly high importance to us. It can become hell on earth and as long as it is no longer a safe haven for terrorist groups particularly targeting us we have achieved what we went there for.
If it was highly reliable, it was not circumstantial. If it was concrete, it was not of unknown reliability.
I think you are confused about the distinction between "circumstantial" and "unreliable" they are NOT synonyms (words that mean the same thing) nor are they antonyms (words that mean the opposite things). They are related but distinct concepts.
Circumstantial evidence is "evidence obtained from circumstances, which necessarily or usually attend facts of a particular nature, from which arises presumption." There are certain circumstances we know with high reliability to be true that do not PROVE a tie but are suggestive of such a tie (for instance Iraq's harboring of Abdul Rahman Yasin or the capture of an Iraqi intelligence agent Salah Suleiman on the Afghan border of Pakistan, the arrest of two Al Queada members entering Saudi Arabia from Iraq, etc.). These bits of evidence (and others) are undisputed, they are reliable in and of themselves, but as evidence of a relationship they are only circumstantial.
On the other hand we have sources whose reliability we are unsure of making claims that IF true would be concrete evidence of ties between Bin Laden and Iraq. (a series of meetings between Iraqi Intelligence and Bin Laden and other Al Queada operatives, the claim that Salah Suleiman was a go-between with Al Queada, the claim by several Iraqi defectors that Al Queada members were at the Salman Pak training facility. IF the claims of these defectors and foreign intelligence agencies are true they would be concrete evidence of a tie, we just don't know how reliable the claims are.
Osama was willing to take the money and weapons, but his actions were STILL about getting the invaders out of that area..
Exactly my point - you sum it up better than I did.
Nobody is suggesting that Bin Laden and Saadam were going to exchange daughters for each others wives like in Afghanistan. Just that Iraq had an interest in seeing Al Queada succeed in it's conflict with American invaders who were enforcing the embargo and no-fly zone and that Al Queada had an interest in getting money and weapons. Bin Laden could worry about overthrowing Saadam/Saadam could worry about "blowback"... later.
They were BOTH particularly focussed on ending the American presence in Saudi Arabia. They didn't just share a common enemy but they shared a common immediate goal... ending the American presence in Saudi Arabia. It would be incredible if they didn't at least consider coordinating their efforts to bring that about.
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is NOT something Osama believes.
No but he does believe in "the enemy of my enemy is convenient" As I said, he has always thought that the Saudi's were apostate but he offered his services to them as an alternative to the U.S. during the first gulf war. He did work with the ISI which despite it's religious factions was part of an "apostate" government (they had a woman president for Allah's sake!)
The problem I have with the analysis and with Apples decision is that it looks at the market as a static thing. "we dominate the 30% of the market that is high capacity hard drives... lets go after the 20% that is small form-factor flash memory". Sure, that makes some sense as far as it goes but it doesn't recognize the revolutionary potential in this market that would grow the market as a whole exponentially and make all those market-share numbers completely irrelevant.
Right now MP3 players are a cool gadget for geeks. I think the market and the technology is getting ripe for the equivalent of the sony walkman to explode onto the scene. The person that comes out with the right product (easy to use reasonably high capacity MP3 player), in the right form factor (iPod sized is good, doesn't have to be smaller) at the right price (no more than $150 IMO) is going to blow away all the competitors and enter the true mass market. Steve Jobs should have figured out that magic price-point and told his engineers that meeting it was the absolute #1 priority.
Whoever this "winner" is that first gets the right product at the right price will also set the standard that the rest of the market will have to adopt. Since Apple has chosen their own standard (m4p) and all the others have chosen another (WMA) they HAVE to win to stay in this game over the long haul.
I'm hoping Apple sees this and that the only reason they didn't go for that lower mass-market appeal price-point is that it is still impossible to meet and they are just trying to marginally grow their market and secure their position in the meanwhile with the mini. I hope they have this magic product already mostly figured out and are just waiting for the components to come down in price.
What about the markets, hospitals and hotels that the US did atack?
I think it is possible to draw a distinction between accidental attacks on civilian targets caused by either faulty intelligence or simply missing the military target and deliberate attacks on the same.
A real democratic process in Irak will most certainly elect a govern that is anti-american and at some level pro-terrorists. People in Irak do not want the americans there.
I think that is simplistic. The majority in Iraq are Shia, and while they don't want us there they are willing to tolerate us (for a time) as the price of getting rid of their Sunni oppressors. Of the significant minorities the Kurds are pretty solidly (if guardedly) pro-American. Only the Sunni's are solidly and vehemently anti-American.
I think a democratic/federalist Iraq would be the the best chance for stability and peace between the ethnic and religious factions (if we can only get Sistani to agree to it) and would be unlikely to ever pursue an aggressively anti-american foreign policy. A more centralized democracy dominated by Shiites would likely lead to civil war and it's long term foreign policy would depend on who came out on top.
For me there was no reason for US be there if was not blood for oil.
Even if though the intel about Iraq's WMD looks like it was wrong I don't see any reason to believe that the administration didn't believe it at the time (though they did spin the intel the DID have to be even more scary).
Why all this trouble? Why spend millions of dolars and considerable life...
Exactly! Saadam would be more than willing to concede anything the oil interests wanted at considerably less risk in exchange for dropping the sanctions. Bush would have plenty of political cover in both the left's anti-sanctions movement and by his own nods to quasi-isolationist paleoconservative rhetoric during the campaign and by a "only Nixon could go to China" dynamic in the fact that nobody otherwise opposed could credibly accuse a member of the Bush family of being soft on Iraq. Have Saadam hand over Yasin and Abu Nidal as part of the deal and it's easily spun as a victory in the war on terror to boot.
On the other hand, those organizations are viewed as supporting the US
;).
So? the attacks are terrorist attacks. Calling something "terrorist" is not a commentary on the legitimacy of the struggle (which you seem to think is, in fact, legitimate) it is a description of the tactics and strategy - attacks on "soft targets" non-military targets with an immediate goal to terrorize a population.
As for being "freedom fighters", they're fighting against the foreign invaders (us).
They are members of an ethnic minority and a fascist political party fighting to preserve their own supremacy over the ethnic majority - I think "freedom fighter" is too kind a term, they are NOT in fact fighting for "freedom."
I think you need to show that Saddam was pusuing relationships with terrorists first.
I will allow that it is not shown that he had pursued a relationship with Al Quaeda specifically his relationship with terrorist groups in general is NOT controversial. His harboring and support of Abu Nidal's organization was done right out in the open, as was his $25,000 bounties for suicide bombers in Israel/Palestine. His harboring of one of the principle actors in the first WTC attack Abdul Rahman Yasin was also done in the open (an individual with fairly extensive ties to Al Quaeda incidentally). His support for Hamas if not done in the open was widely reported.
Clinton also lied about a blowjob.
But we were all assured that "everyone lies about sex" and that Clinton was the soul of truthfulness about anything substantive... I'm shocked
I have know way of knowing the quality of intel that went into the Clinton administration claims about an Iraq/Al Queada relationship. What has come out into public domain looks like a lot of highly reliable evidence of a merely circumstantial nature and a lot of very concrete evidence but of unknown reliability - Stuff that wouldn't hold up in a court of law but is the stock in trade of intelligence agencies. I very much doubt that Clinton administration "lied" about this, though the intel could have been wrong - many of the public statements alleging the connection were made lower down the ladder by career civil servants - not by political appointees at the top.
But it was a barrier.
Really? why?
Pakistan has at least a few religious fundamentalists in its government...
But it is headed by a secularist, and you don't address the fact that Bin Laden was more than willing to deal with the U.S. during the war against the Soviets. He was also willing to fight for the Saudi's against Iraq even though he considers them to be apostate. Bin Laden is a religious fundamentalist - but he has shown over and over that he is willing to work in temporary alliances with those who he despises against common enemies.
I agree with a lot of your points but let me play the devil's advocate here.
#1. Those "terrorists" are "freedom fighters" or "resistance".
You have a point that U.S. troops are legitimate military targets - but the bombings of the Red Cross, the UN offices and Iraqi police are in fact terrorist.
Also, the groups attacking us aren't "freedom fighters" they are on one hand Baathists dead-enders and foreign Islamists - neither group is fighting for freedom, they have no problem with violent oppression per se, they just want to be the ones doing the oppressing. If we totally botch the occupation and transition to Iraqi self-government we may in fact see a popular uprising and genuine freedom fighters, but the current bunch aren't.
Iraq will not be a Democracy. Unless you believe that the last regime was a Democracy. There are too many sides that are too heavily armed by various 3rd parties (such as the US). We went in without laying the groundwork for a Democracy.
You may be right - but I have to say it will probably be somewhat more democratic than the last regime. The fact that each faction is heavily armed is probably better than the alternative - that one side would be heavily armed and the others defenseless. I think the only hope of any kind of just peace between the different groups is federalism - democracy is somewhat less important. The Sunni's, Kurds, Chaldeans etc. are very aware that a lynch mob is a perfectly democratic - the majority is in enthusiastic agreement and the dissenter is about to cease his dissent.
Iraq was a SECULAR state. Iraq was NOT spreading "their radical Islam"
True, but after the first gulf war Saadam wrapped himself in the Koran as a way of solidifying his support and casting his conflict with America as being the U.S. against Islam rather than against Iraq. His own rhetoric became very religious, he added "God is Great" to the flag, began mandatory religious instruction to the schools, increased religious programing on state media, opened new mosques etc. To a large extent this was a defensive measure to forestall Wahabbi and Shia fundamentalist incursions into Iraq but it was also a way of rallying broader Arab and Muslim support.
Iraq had NOTHING to do with the WTC attack.
True, but I think the WTC is the ultimate rationale of the war (I find the "blood for oil" argument unconvincing - at least by itself). After 9/11 the doctrine has been that not only terrorists but their state sponsors are fair game. To some degree this goes for ALL state sponsors not just ones that sponsored Al Quaeda specifically. Of all the state sponsors of terrorism there are good arguments to be made that Iraq was the most immediately threatening. Unlike the others Iraq was in direct conflict with the U.S. - we were imposing the embargo, the no-fly zone, occasional cruise missile attacks by the Clinton administration. I think it is reasonable to assume that Saadams main interest in pursuing relationships with terrorists was to use them as a weapon against his immediate enemy - the U.S. rather than against Israel as is the case with Syria, or as a way to promote a religious doctrine throughout the middle east as is the case with Iran. And I think it is still likely that Iraq's support for terrorism included at least a nascent relationship with Al Queada. It was the Clinton administration that first alleged direct ties between Iraq and Al Quaeda. And such ties make sense - Saadam's preferred secular arab nationalist groups like Abu Nidal seem to have become less effective just as he was wrapping himself in the new Islamic flag of Iraq. He had started to support Islamist groups like Hamas so Al Quaeda's religious nature was no barrier to him. For Bin Laden's part he has always been more than willing to use "infidel" allies against his enemy of the moment - hell, he allied with US against the soviets and was pretty tight with Pakistan until very recently (I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during Armitiges first conversation with Musharef right after 9/11).
Good points all - I do think Walmart bears us keeping an eye on it. But I'm not always sympathetic to many of the complaints about them. At this point they use their marketshare to bludgeon their vendors to lower costs, but they were finding ways to lower costs (through some real innovations) before they had any marketshare to bludgeon anyone with. Those innovations allowed them to beat their competitors fair-and-square. They built a better mouse trap and won the fair reward for it (as do consumers).
RFID is one of those innovations, Walmart thinks adoption of this technology will cut costs by a VERY significant percentage. If Walmart is right (and they have a profound understanding of the issue and a stellar track record with such supply-chain innovations) then anyone in that business would benefit from the same technology. Walmart is beating their competitors not just because they were bigger (for much of their life they weren't) but because they have the vision and intelligence to pursue such technologies.
As for how this would affect the relative value of IT professionals. I can't help but think that RFID making all physical objects in the supply-chain trackable by computers is going to be a huge boon to IT jobs.
Yeah, Heaven forbid that someone might actually take a full-time job and try to live on the wage that it pays rather than live on welfare. Sheesh.
No, but somebody might take a lousy job that lets them make just enough to sort of get by (and isn't worth any more than that to the employer) because they are A) a kid working part-time, B) have limited capabilities or C) Are just starting out in life, have few responsibilities, and this crappy job is just the first rung.
If you are an adult, with adult responsibilities (dependents, mortgage, etc.) that requires "a decent living wage" and you are trying to get it in a job where all your coworkers are unskilled, part-time, high-school kids there is a problem. The work being done in these jobs are frankly just not worth that much - they require no skills, no education, no physical strength or even much intelligence. They are only "hard" because they are so tedious. They are the first rung on the economic ladder - they are a job to start out on, not to make a career of or to support you for the rest of your life.
Make your minds up. Either you want people to live on welfare or you want them to work for a living.
Requiring employers to pay higher wages for menial, unskilled, labor to do jobs that aren't particularly dangerous or physically demanding IS welfare (by proxy). Faced with the requirement that they pay people more than the work is worth employers will simply do away with the jobs. That would be too bad - it is IMPORTANT to have these kind of low paying jobs as a first rung. People starting out in the workforce need the experiences and skills and income these lousy jobs provide. I don't see any reason to deny them that first rung just because some people never bother to climb any higher.
if working full-time in a supermarket (or the equivalent) is the kind of job that you don't think is worthy of a decent living wage then you really need to do the job and take home the salary for a month.
To use a horrible but in this case appropriate cliche: been there, done that, I even have the t-shirt (really... I do). It's a crappy job, it's tedious, tiring work - on your feet for long hours, dealing with incompetent supervisors and often hostile customers. Honestly though it's not particularly difficult work. It didn't pay much and I was (barely) living on it, I hated my job, my boss, the company and at the time I believed they (or somebody) "owed" me more. I was wrong, and so are you - the only person than owed me more was ME - I was capable of more and of earning more but was too lazy and irresponsible to bother doing so. I will admit to catching some lucky breaks that revealed these facts to me, I suppose I could have gone on stuck in just such a dead-end situation, bitter and feeling deprived of an entitlement -certain that I deserved "a decent living wage" without once bothering to think about what the work I was doing was actually worth to anyone other than me.
Simply raise your prices. If it's really true that they could find the same or equivalent product from another source then perhaps your prices ARE too high. Perhaps your competitors are more efficient? Perhaps your paycheck that Wal-mart is affecting was too high? Is there a particular reason that YOU deserve that business more than the competitor that WalMart would switch to if you raised your prices? I have a client in the textile business, they don't sell to WalMart (perhaps with your complaints they shouldn't want to) But they are some great people, if tomorrow Wal-Mart calls them up with a big order at a price they can meet because you can't I don't see that I should feel any more sorry for you than I should feel happy for them.
How is asking for a decent living wage, one in which someone can pay their bills and not have to worry about descending into poverty at the first sign of illness "crying for a handout".
If the work you do isn't worth "a decent living wage" then asking for one is asking for a handout. If the job you do is worth more than they are paying - go somewhere else. If no-one else will pay you "a decent living wage" then perhaps you made poor choices in learning the skills and gaining the experience that people WOULD pay you for. I would suggest looking at a local community college or job training program.
NOT all jobs should pay a "decent living wage." There are jobs that aren't worth that much, and don't pay much - but are great for teenagers, and for people just getting started with no dependents etc. Requiring that ALL jobs pay enough for you to live on (and support a family?) would just cut the bottom rungs off the economic ladder and would make gaining the skills and experience that are WORTH a "decent living wage" more difficult for those that lack them.
Did you know nations also act altruistically? It's not uncommon for one nation to do something with no benefits for itself (or even potentially hazardous to itself) for another country.
Fine, give me an example.
I'll grant you that on the margins many nation states engage in "altruism" but not at any real cost and it is always incidental to their primary motivations and actions. The U.S. engages if a fair amount of such marginal altruism itself. It engages in even more "altruism" that benefits it's own interests. (The Marshal plan comes to mind)
France and Germany did not oppose the war in Iraq for any sense of altruism, they were serving their own interests. In fact they were serving their own OIL interests. They thought the best thing for the interests of their citizens was to deal with Saadam rather than depose him. Attempting to bring the U.S. down a notch was also, in their opinion, in the best interests of their respective governments and peoples. The U.S. obviously reached the opposite conclusion regarding Saadam's continued reign. Neither side was any more altruistic, even while both sides claimed to be (France & Germany claiming to uphold pacifism while the U.S. claimed to uphold liberal democratic values and human rights)
To a large extent this is HOW IT SHOULD BE. The French government exists to serve the French people. Any French official that says: "This would be bad for France, and hurt the French people. But, it's really a nice thing to do for Belgium and will be of great benefit to the Belgians - lets do it" SHOULD be fired. His job is to protect and serve the people of France, not Iraq, not the U.S. - Nations should pursue those interests within some bounds of civility, good grace and respect for others peoples (if not always with respect for other governments), but within those bounds it is still their job to pursue the particular interests of their own people that they are responsible for, and to.
The chief advantage of Hydrogen over fossil fuels isn't so much that it's cheaper, but that it's truly an infinitely renewable resource that's virtually perfect in terms of environmental friendliness.
No, no, no! Without deposits of pure hydrogen lying around to use it is NOT! If you are getting the hydrogen out of water you CAN'T get more energy out when you burn it to get the water back! At that point it is an energy storage medium and the energy you are storing must be generated in some other way. I realize you acknowledge that, as well as why that is a good thing later in your post but the shorthand you use in your introduction (and other Hydrogen advocates use as well) is wrong and leads people to think about the benefits of Hydrogen in a wrong, starry-eyed, way.
The only advantage to hydrogen is that it would let us run our cars using energy that was originally generated as electricity which we can generate centrally and through a variety of techniques. Still, many of the cheapest techniques we have available are still fossil fuel based - coal, oil, natural gas etc.
There are a lot of advantages. We aren't anywhere near as dependent on foreign oil for electrical generation than we are for transportation. We have our own vast supplies of coal, a fair amount of natural gas, and if the ignorance stopped making it politically unfeasible plenty of uranium. If other "greener" energy sources become feasible we can use those. There are lots of advantages - but "hydrogen is a renewable energy source" is NOT one of the advantages.
If all the local businesses shut down, there's no choice but to work at Wal-Mart.
The consumers must be doing SOMETHING other than working in retail joints to get the money to spend in those same retail joints. If all the local business are retailers (or totally dependent on retailers) that can be forced out by Wal-Mart your local economy has ALREADY failed. At that point Wal-Mart is just making it obvious - and on the plus side making it so that your feeble income can at least buy something.
America only cares about Americans - everyone knows that.
And France only cares about the French, Germany only about the Germans, Russia only about the Russians, etc. etc. etc. Nation states serve their own interests - welcome to the real world.
Seriously. It's a joke.
Make up your mind.
But one of my main reasons for endorsing hydrogen power so strongly was that it would cut our dependence on FOSSIL FUELS.
The question is why did you think hydrogen power would cut our dependence on fossil fuels? The hydrogen has to come from somewhere.
RTFA - where do you think the hydrogen comes from?
so the whole thing is, to an extent, still vapourware.
LOL
Does it seem kind of backwards to be using Oil in the fuel cell process?
No that is the usual way of getting hydrogen. The other way involves getting it from water but that requires a great deal of energy - in fact, the same amount of energy that you get back when you turn it back into water in the fuel cell (really a fair bit more due to inefficiencies).
This is the problem with many alternative energy sources - they all sound good but there are always downsides that don't get much press. People talk about hydrogen like it's magic energy for free - but you have to GET the hydrogen from somewhere, either from oil, in which case we're back were we started. Or from water which takes more energy to process than you get from the fuel cell. At that point you can simply think of fuel cells as a type of battery. It's a way to store energy which must be produced in some other way.
It's true that Republicans favor a more laissez faire approach to business. But I don't know think they are in favor of the "duke it out in court" solution to conflicts. They are generally in favor of tort reform which would make that more difficult (and would make SCO's current tactics more difficult).
Sorry, I was being facetious and sarcastic. I actually don't have that low a view of such sites - actually I find them rather charming. They're the digital age equivalent of naive art. Every little cat page is today's version of a Grandma Moses painting.
I threw that dismissive rant for rhetorical effect - to mirror and lampoon the original post on each point. Still, I stand by my main point and intention for throwing it in. NOT everyone is incredibly creative and imaginative. NOT every bored, unimaginative, uncreative and lazy kid who cheats is a really a creative genius who is merely uninspired by a failing system and a lousy professor (and so by the parent posts logic justified in cheating). Quite often he is just a lazy, unimaginative and lazy kid who cheats - no hidden genius, no excuses - just a cheater who should be kicked out so the other kids (who may be quite interested in, and even inspired by, the material) can get an education and a fair grade.
For the simple reason that the educational establishment is responsible for itself.
As are college students - who are old enough that we can stop calling them children. Plagiarism is a problem and the source of the problem doesn't lie with the university, it lies with the student. I'm tired of this "society made me do it" crap excuse.
It is obvious that it is incredibly inefficient to teach people by force.
It's a good thing that we don't have such a system. The students at a university are there by choice - hell, they PAID to be there. Sure, there are lousy teachers, and institutional stupidity on the part of universities but plagiarism is not caused by those things, and I don't think checking for plagerism is an example of them.
But... if you think a school should be a place of rules and discpline, with metal detectors and security guards, you have the right to send your kids to such a place.
What the hell kind of university are you going to??? If (as I now gather) you have changed the topic to the largely unrelated subject of government primary and secondary schools then I can more than agree with you (I homeschool my kids). I'm all for kids having sufficient freedom to explore their interests, and think that government schools are little more than institutional daycare with education too often nothing more than a thin and neglected pretext.
That being said- at the university level I don't think it takes a rulebound quasi-fascist to think that that freedom to learn extends to cheating and plagiarism. To the degree that these are a widespread problem in universities I think it is more than reasonable that the universities take action to prevent it and to dismiss students that engage in it. I'd go further and say it's the universities *obligation* to do so. It is unfair to cheating students in the long run to let them succeed by cheating; It's unfair to the other students who didn't cheat; and to others in the future that would be fooled into thinking the cheaters diploma is worth something - because it's not.
There is a fairly wide variety of universities and colleges out there with a range of educational philosophies and practices - if you don't like the one you are at, transfer to another. If you are uninterested in learning for it's own sake and are only in it for the sheepskin, fine - but at least do the work without cheating. If you ARE in it to learn and can't find a university that gives you the freedom to learn as you see fit, a decent library is a LOT cheaper.
Why is it only the other guy (the university in this case) that needs to think about it's contribution to this attitude? Has it occurred to you that many (if not most) students ARE a burden, brats that can't behave and already are lousy members of society?
If students regularly cheat on written exams it's a good sign that they are lazy, uninterested in learning and shouldn't have bothered going to university in the first place. Kicking them out for plagerism would be doing them a favor.
Sadly, it's always simpler to turn simple questions of right and wrong into "complex issues" that relieve us of exercising personal responsiblity.
It's obvious from the Internet that the majority of people are unoriginal and like to create personal pages about their cat (or their "the cheat") with animated gifs and lame flash animation splash pages, and that they shouldn't bother entering the higher education system which is broken and overly dogmatic because it is choked with an overabundance of unmotivated careerists that are totally uninterested in actual learning and only want to do the minimum (and cheat at that) to get a sheepskin.
When you treat everyone like a potential criminal, nobody wins.
Reach into your pocket, what's in there? If the answer is a key-ring with keys then congratulations, you too treat everyone like a potential criminal. The same applies if you need a bank card and a PIN to get money out of the ATM, or a password as well as a username to access your email, network, or computer account.
A certain percentage of the population IS criminal, worse it's a percentage that grows the easier it is to be criminal. Taking minimal precautions that "treat everyone like a potential criminal" is necessary because there is a reasonably high chance that any particular person really could be a criminal. I'd like to live in a world where doors don't have locks, cars start at the push of a button rather than the turn of a key and only your username is necessary to access your computer accounts, sadly that is not this world.