I think that the worst thing in both examples, online gambling and targeting Cuban tourists, is that the law that the US is trying to impose on citizens of other countries is basically bad laws, done for the wrong reasons. Laws introduced by paying hard cash or by political postering, not for making the country function better.
A good portion of the insurgents are not iraqi people.
Any sources for that? I think even the lying Bush administration has stopped claiming that, even though I am not sure.
We achived our goal of outing the dictator and gave Iraq back to it's people.
The living conditions in Iraq at the moment is much worse than under Saddam. Probably the Bush adventure has killed more civilian iraqis than Saddam managed during his 26 years of rule, even though the numbers are still debated. Hopefully the blodshed in Iraq will not last too much longer, but realisticly Iraq will be a bloody mess for many years to come. What you have given the Iraqi people is a civil war.
They just want to kill people and blame it elswhere.
Sunni muslims are killing Shia muslims and Shias are killing Sunni. And they are not affraid of taking the credit for it. And it is not because muslims are more barbaric than us, just look at North Ireland where catholics and protestants extremes killed each other just based on religion.
What we have is a blood thirsty group of people who entire goal is to strike terror into the citizens by any means neccesary. They are killing because of some religous zealotry and a terrorist agenda.
Right, and they worship the devil and are not human. Go look up civil war, start with the american one.
Seems to be a good example of the government doing a better job than a private company manages. I guess some ideologies does not allow for that.
Of course, one cannot make the stronger statement that the government is doing a better job than the free market, since MS has a monopoly in desktop computers. Maybe it is an example of the extra burden that falls on a government does not deal with anti-competitive monopolies in the market place?
This is not about MS allowing anything. This is about the EU not allowing the MS to continue their practice of misusing their monopoly on the desktop to dictate other markets.
If the UN was beholden to dictatorships, these dictatorships would have gotten rid of the Human Rights declaration decades ago. The Human Rights, which is the defining document of the UN, has been giving these dictators head-aches since the UN was formed after the last big war. So stop listening to those right-wing nut jobs on the radio, their one dimensional world view is boring and wrong.
The irony is that these days also the US government is having problems because of its Human Rights abuses, and like facist governments before, the current US government have tried to change or got rid of the principles of international justice the UN is build upon. It is quite remarkable how the UN has survived so much hostility from dictatorships and political extreem organisations. It shows that building on a strong fundament makes for a strong organisation, and the Human Rights is definitely shown itself to be a strong governing principle.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the document that defines the UN and its purpose. One of the Human Rights is freedom of expression. If the RIAA and MPAA and other evil USAian corporations are able to get their poison into this new international UN Broadcasting Treaty, and this poison is not compatible with the Human Rights, the treaty will be void and will have to be changed. It is as simple as that.
Oh, and explain me again the theory that whatever governments do is evil while corporations can do no wrong because they are a part of a "free market" and should only make money for their stock holders.
Sorry, don't really know these guys, and looking at their work it doesn't seem particularly interesting either. They have published per-reviewed articles so they fit my definition of sciencist, but only 9 articles is less than impressive. I can't see how these articles makes it OK for bush et al to lie about global warming.
Explain again how this work analysing the statistics used to make one curve is very relevant for the discussion? I hope you are not one of those who believe that the network of current climate models all boils down to one curve produce by a group at Harvard? If it was this straight forward, you could reduce your refutation of global warming by discrediting this one curve. Too bad science is harder than that.
You should maybe go back and read some of those books on modelling again. When talking about Lorenz paper, read up on the concept of attractors. Then try to understand the difference between tomorrows weather and the global climate.
Science isn't about consensus or about getting one definite answer. Science is about honest debate where competing theories are developed based on what is known (hopefully facts) and to expand what we know by doing measurements/experiments (i.e., testing these theories).
Science is of course very respected in our societey, and therefore dangerous for certain politicians and other with a rigid, fundamentalistic world-view were facts is not of importance. The reason science is so respected is because the scientific method has been increadible succesful to explain the physical world around us and through this made possible the technological advances we all appriciate. Science is not the truth, but it is a proven method to reach trusth-worthy knowledge. I assume all this is self-evident.
The problem with the competing theory you are mentioning above is that these two people are not scientists. In this respect, these two guys are better labeled as politicians or people with an agenda (suggestion, follow the money...), than people producing scientific theories.
If you want a practical definition of science, it is what is done by a scientist. If you want a practical definition of a scientist, it is a person who publish in respected, per-reviewed scientific journals. It can sound like a circular definition, but it isn't really, and I think it is difficult to find a better one (try!). It is also a definition that in principle does not exclude anyone, with any level of education, to call themselves scientists. I am sure the two so-called "researchers" you mention would be happy to publish in say Nature if their work was of any merit, but Nature does not publish quasi-science like this. Though luck, we are not all cut out to be scientists.
At it's core, the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis has relied on CO2 emissions as being causative. You have to be skeptical of a claim that an incredibly complex atmosephere which we can't fully model is being driven by variations of a single gas.
Since you clearly do not understand much about the climate, current climate theories, chaos theory (dynamical systems), modelling in general etc, and also base your view on false information (I asume you are not lying to make a point), wouldn't you support that the government actively supported experts from say NASA to go out in the media and inform? That is the question we are talking about. You seem to be somewhat interested in understanding climate science (hopefully not just to support some political view). You should be asking for more inform about what are the current accepted scientific theories about the climate and what are the well-established facts. Why don't you? I do not see why this should be dangerous to you...
How can you not blame the bush administration when they are deliberately lying about science?! How can you blame scientists for not explaining science properly to politicians that are deliberately lying and misrepresenting scientific knowledge? How are scientist to blame for politicians spreading misinformation and FUD in the so-called free press while at the same time trying to limit scientists ability to explain the current scientific theories to the public?
I am all for listening to both sides of a story, but where did scientists worried about the future of the planet exactly do wrong? If someone except the politicians are to blame here, it is the sheep public who lets this happen. Or write posts like yours.
Only some Democrates and one Independent voted against the UnPatriotic Act. Conclusion, don't even think about voting for a republican if you are patriotic in the spirit of the Founding Fathers.
The biggest myth in the US is that it has a liberal press. Bush is one of the most incompetent president in modern history, and the press has hardly asked a hard question.
It is also a strange notion that the US has the best press in the world since it is so one dimensional. Travel the world or at least read BBC news.
Actually, the best news commentators in the US are comedians, and that is not a joke. You learn more about what is going on in the US and the world by watching Letterman and Leno than cnn or abc.
Oh, for the fun of it. Educate us about the GOOD things happening in Iraq at the moment. Since our press in Europe seems to have overlooked it also.
Oh, and womens rights have been reduced in Iraq after the US puppet government replaced Saddaam Hussein. Not saying that Saddaam is my ideal of a state ruler, but lets not be so fast to point fingers at others and feel superior, but think a bit what good our governments does in the world also.
Hm, strange, the right wing Danish PM is now using diplomacy when he should have used it earlier and the confrontation could have been avoided. So, according to your twisted logic, the PM was strong before but is weak now.
Muslims see dead muslims on their TV every day, killed by western soldiers or their actions. Where is your condemnation of the invation of Iraq in your sad post? It is possible to discuss these matters without always saying political correct bullshit to protect your backside so that you don't become branded a terrorist.
And note also that so far (thank "God") no westerners have been killed because of these cartoon riots, only a few flags and buildings have been burned. I actually believe in the power of enlightment and not become a caveman because groups of people are ready to use violence instead of their heads. But that is not only a demand to "the others", but to us as well. And I despice both Al-Quaida and the Bush people both with blood on their hands, just to show that I am as balanced as you demand, you sad little person.
You should have mentioned that the right wing Danish Prime Minister refused even to meet muslim country diplomates in October 2005 who wanted to complain about the cartoons (and who probably expected to hear that the Danish government did not support these kind of views about Islam expressed in some of the cartoons, i.e. that Mohammed was a terrorist). If the Prime Minister had not been so arrogant and just met these diplomates and said that Jyllands-Posten does not represent the Danish government or the Danish people, but had the right under free speech to print such things, the PM could probably have avoided this thing to spread. Instead the PM now have been on TV every evening saying the things he should have told the diplomates months ago, and Danish lives are at risk.
The Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, had a few years ago refused to publish cartoons depicting Jesus in a not very offending way because it might "create an outcry among Christians".
Oh, and dead iraqies were shown on US tv just lying around. Is showing dead westerners so much worse? And why is the US media censored from showing coffins of dead US soldiers coming home? Free speech?
It is interesting how the Reps wasted the US governments time and money, actively trying to undermind Clinton because he got a blow job, and boldly attacking Clinton for trying to kill bin Laden as a meaningless action done just to distract the media away from their sex fixation. I repeat, the Reps in congress tried to make it as difficult as possible for Clinton to do his job and kill bin Laden, the person behind 911. Then, when Clinton left office, he tried to warn the new president about the terrorist threat. Now, your argument is that bin Laden is alive and strong because of Clinton, while the incompetent Bush of course does not have the resources to kill one tall, sick arab during 5 years of man hunt when he has the full backing of Pentagon, the Congress and the US people. Good grief.
There was never a booming farm community on Greenland. I guess you think the vikings was farming there, but this is a myth that not even the vikings believed. The reason the settling vikings called Greenland green was to attract others to join them, but it didn't work. Greenland was discovered a little while after Iceland, showing that this part of the planet was not warm in the viking age (or before western or any other culture discovered the island for that matter).
If you are comforting yourself on silly stories about earlier farming communities on Greenland, it is maybe time to wake up and smell the coffee. Maybe consider that the water levels will rise by 7 meters by the time the ice cap on Greenland is gone.
You wrote a thoughtfull post (sometimes reading slashdot is not just a time waste). What I find most scary is not the creepy White House at the present moment, but all those sheeps in the US who goes out of their way to cover over their governments abuses. A good example is the people who moderated the GP post with its to the point, funny observation as a troll.
Slashdot Mirror
No wonder you are moderated as funny :).
Oh, and I think we all know what you are missing.
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article158 8670.ece
I think that the worst thing in both examples, online gambling and targeting Cuban tourists, is that the law that the US is trying to impose on citizens of other countries is basically bad laws, done for the wrong reasons. Laws introduced by paying hard cash or by political postering, not for making the country function better.
A fitting start.
Any sources for that? I think even the lying Bush administration has stopped claiming that, even though I am not sure.
The living conditions in Iraq at the moment is much worse than under Saddam. Probably the Bush adventure has killed more civilian iraqis than Saddam managed during his 26 years of rule, even though the numbers are still debated. Hopefully the blodshed in Iraq will not last too much longer, but realisticly Iraq will be a bloody mess for many years to come. What you have given the Iraqi people is a civil war.
Sunni muslims are killing Shia muslims and Shias are killing Sunni. And they are not affraid of taking the credit for it. And it is not because muslims are more barbaric than us, just look at North Ireland where catholics and protestants extremes killed each other just based on religion.
Right, and they worship the devil and are not human. Go look up civil war, start with the american one.
Of course, one cannot make the stronger statement that the government is doing a better job than the free market, since MS has a monopoly in desktop computers. Maybe it is an example of the extra burden that falls on a government does not deal with anti-competitive monopolies in the market place?
Just buy them. And then there will be more.
This is not about MS allowing anything. This is about the EU not allowing the MS to continue their practice of misusing their monopoly on the desktop to dictate other markets.
Great work by UNESCO. Another example why the UN has become such a vital organisation after WWII.
The irony is that these days also the US government is having problems because of its Human Rights abuses, and like facist governments before, the current US government have tried to change or got rid of the principles of international justice the UN is build upon. It is quite remarkable how the UN has survived so much hostility from dictatorships and political extreem organisations. It shows that building on a strong fundament makes for a strong organisation, and the Human Rights is definitely shown itself to be a strong governing principle.
Oh, and explain me again the theory that whatever governments do is evil while corporations can do no wrong because they are a part of a "free market" and should only make money for their stock holders.
Explain again how this work analysing the statistics used to make one curve is very relevant for the discussion? I hope you are not one of those who believe that the network of current climate models all boils down to one curve produce by a group at Harvard? If it was this straight forward, you could reduce your refutation of global warming by discrediting this one curve. Too bad science is harder than that.
You should maybe go back and read some of those books on modelling again. When talking about Lorenz paper, read up on the concept of attractors. Then try to understand the difference between tomorrows weather and the global climate.
Science is of course very respected in our societey, and therefore dangerous for certain politicians and other with a rigid, fundamentalistic world-view were facts is not of importance. The reason science is so respected is because the scientific method has been increadible succesful to explain the physical world around us and through this made possible the technological advances we all appriciate. Science is not the truth, but it is a proven method to reach trusth-worthy knowledge. I assume all this is self-evident.
The problem with the competing theory you are mentioning above is that these two people are not scientists. In this respect, these two guys are better labeled as politicians or people with an agenda (suggestion, follow the money...), than people producing scientific theories.
If you want a practical definition of science, it is what is done by a scientist. If you want a practical definition of a scientist, it is a person who publish in respected, per-reviewed scientific journals. It can sound like a circular definition, but it isn't really, and I think it is difficult to find a better one (try!). It is also a definition that in principle does not exclude anyone, with any level of education, to call themselves scientists. I am sure the two so-called "researchers" you mention would be happy to publish in say Nature if their work was of any merit, but Nature does not publish quasi-science like this. Though luck, we are not all cut out to be scientists.
Since you clearly do not understand much about the climate, current climate theories, chaos theory (dynamical systems), modelling in general etc, and also base your view on false information (I asume you are not lying to make a point), wouldn't you support that the government actively supported experts from say NASA to go out in the media and inform? That is the question we are talking about. You seem to be somewhat interested in understanding climate science (hopefully not just to support some political view). You should be asking for more inform about what are the current accepted scientific theories about the climate and what are the well-established facts. Why don't you? I do not see why this should be dangerous to you ...
I am all for listening to both sides of a story, but where did scientists worried about the future of the planet exactly do wrong? If someone except the politicians are to blame here, it is the sheep public who lets this happen. Or write posts like yours.
Only some Democrates and one Independent voted against the UnPatriotic Act. Conclusion, don't even think about voting for a republican if you are patriotic in the spirit of the Founding Fathers.
It is also a strange notion that the US has the best press in the world since it is so one dimensional. Travel the world or at least read BBC news.
Actually, the best news commentators in the US are comedians, and that is not a joke. You learn more about what is going on in the US and the world by watching Letterman and Leno than cnn or abc.
Oh, for the fun of it. Educate us about the GOOD things happening in Iraq at the moment. Since our press in Europe seems to have overlooked it also.
Shock and awe, what a joke.
Oh, and womens rights have been reduced in Iraq after the US puppet government replaced Saddaam Hussein. Not saying that Saddaam is my ideal of a state ruler, but lets not be so fast to point fingers at others and feel superior, but think a bit what good our governments does in the world also.
Muslims see dead muslims on their TV every day, killed by western soldiers or their actions. Where is your condemnation of the invation of Iraq in your sad post? It is possible to discuss these matters without always saying political correct bullshit to protect your backside so that you don't become branded a terrorist.
And note also that so far (thank "God") no westerners have been killed because of these cartoon riots, only a few flags and buildings have been burned. I actually believe in the power of enlightment and not become a caveman because groups of people are ready to use violence instead of their heads. But that is not only a demand to "the others", but to us as well. And I despice both Al-Quaida and the Bush people both with blood on their hands, just to show that I am as balanced as you demand, you sad little person.
You should have mentioned that the right wing Danish Prime Minister refused even to meet muslim country diplomates in October 2005 who wanted to complain about the cartoons (and who probably expected to hear that the Danish government did not support these kind of views about Islam expressed in some of the cartoons, i.e. that Mohammed was a terrorist). If the Prime Minister had not been so arrogant and just met these diplomates and said that Jyllands-Posten does not represent the Danish government or the Danish people, but had the right under free speech to print such things, the PM could probably have avoided this thing to spread. Instead the PM now have been on TV every evening saying the things he should have told the diplomates months ago, and Danish lives are at risk.
Oh, and dead iraqies were shown on US tv just lying around. Is showing dead westerners so much worse? And why is the US media censored from showing coffins of dead US soldiers coming home? Free speech?
Maybe the corrupt and incompetent Republicans did not see a reason to take bin Laden out, but Clinton sure did, clarvoyent or not.
It is interesting how the Reps wasted the US governments time and money, actively trying to undermind Clinton because he got a blow job, and boldly attacking Clinton for trying to kill bin Laden as a meaningless action done just to distract the media away from their sex fixation. I repeat, the Reps in congress tried to make it as difficult as possible for Clinton to do his job and kill bin Laden, the person behind 911. Then, when Clinton left office, he tried to warn the new president about the terrorist threat. Now, your argument is that bin Laden is alive and strong because of Clinton, while the incompetent Bush of course does not have the resources to kill one tall, sick arab during 5 years of man hunt when he has the full backing of Pentagon, the Congress and the US people. Good grief.
If you are comforting yourself on silly stories about earlier farming communities on Greenland, it is maybe time to wake up and smell the coffee. Maybe consider that the water levels will rise by 7 meters by the time the ice cap on Greenland is gone.
You wrote a thoughtfull post (sometimes reading slashdot is not just a time waste). What I find most scary is not the creepy White House at the present moment, but all those sheeps in the US who goes out of their way to cover over their governments abuses. A good example is the people who moderated the GP post with its to the point, funny observation as a troll.
And Bush has convinced Europe that we don't share the same goals as the US any longer. I am sure that this is in the best interest of the US.