Gates got an academic scholarship to College of William and Mary, got a master's at Indiana U. (history), and a Ph.D. from Georgetown (Russian history). He served as president of Texas A&M, and initially declined an appointment as head of DHS to remain there.
So, what exactly is your definition of "intellectual" and "diploma mill?"
No. As you say, we're a pretty rich country. Free-market economics is what makes this work. Don't break it, or you'll have worse problems than health-care.
That's a great and cogent argument. The US government has no business subsidizing "seed" DRM, and genome-patent trolls are squeezing farmers unjustly. I agree with you completely.
I wish you'd posted this information in your original post instead of the anti-government histrionics, because it is far more insightful and educating.
WTF does any part of your rant have to do with Canadian seeds? The US government is not mentioned once in the article, and you don't even attempt to establish a logical connection.
OMG Amerika sux LOL!!!11!one! (Score:5, Insightful)
Insightful, my ass. It's off-topic karma-whoring. Think before you mod, people.
USA has about 10 times the murder rate per population, compared to other western countries.
This is also wrong. For instance, the US and France differ on murders per capita by 2.5 out of 100,000 people. I'm not a statistician, so I can't tell you whether or not that is a statistically significant number, but I think I can deduce that since France has a much lower murder-by-firearm per capita than murder per capita, they must be making up for it with murders without firearms.
Which only goes to show how much firearms contribute to the murder rate. Only counting firearms, the makes the top 5/top 10. Counting the rest as well, the US doesn't even make the top 20. Still sounds like a case against the use of firearms to me.
No, it means that 20 countries still have higher murder-per-capita rates than us even without guns.
Huh? Did you not look at the numbers? The United States has less than half the murders by firearm at #4 than Thailand does at #3. Now consider that the United stats has 5 times the population of Thailand.
South Africa? Almost 4 times as many murders and one sixth the population.
The large number (but still not even close to #1 as the great-grandparent post suggested) of murders by firearm in the US is floated almost entirely by the fact that it's the third most populated country on the planet.
To say we're "in company" with these countries is ignorant at best, and intentionally duplicitous at worst.
I don't recall hearing any sermons on the virtues of the Iraq war... well... ever. It's a political war, with tangential economic ramifications. What do Christians have to do with it? It seems rather convenient that you (liberals at large) can so easily switch between blaming right-wing religious nuts for the Iraq war and blaming greedy corporate capitalists (two mostly mutually exclusive groups).
You're right about the dates. Starting in 1954 (just prior to the French exit), the US began heavily supplying arms and supplies to French-Indochinese forces. So, while there was not yet armed conflict with the north, there was still significant military investment in the war by America.
Personally, I'm not sure we even took the right side in the conflict (Diem's government was incredibly corrupt, and his anti-communist policies galvanized hard-line communists in the north); but such is the way of America's "buddy" list. There was no way we were ever going to support the opposite side of France.
Huh? This isn't even remotely correct. The French petitioned for US intervention in exchange for increased support of US policies in NATO. Is this what French kids are taught in history class?
Choice quotes gathered from Wiki:
"France has milked it for one hundred years. The people of IndoChina are entitled to something better than that." - Roosevelt on Vietnam
"The U.S. came to the aid of the French... because we needed their support for our policies in regard to NATO.... The French blackmailed us. At every meeting... they brought up Indochina.... but refused to tell me what they hoped to accomplish or how. Perhaps they didn't know." - Dean Acheson, Secretary of State
I wasn't talking about UN inspections. I was talking about UN sanctions. And no, neither Hussein, France, or Russia were complying, grumpily or otherwise, with those.
everyone told you to stay out of and now YOU will clean it up
Everyone that made under-the-deal tables with Saddam in violation of UN-imposed sanctions (*wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*) bought a piece of the pie. As expected, we're picking up the tab for it.
By the way, remember Vietnam? That was France's mess we ended up trying to clean up. I don't really think they have a leg to stand on with this kind of hypocritical chiding.
I'd like to buy a CD for DATA without paying a stipend to the music industry. I'd like to distribute my music on internet radio without a third party collecting money off of it.
Since I don't pirate movies, music, or software, your witty sarcasm only proves you don't really understand the issue.
Slashdot Mirror
Gates got an academic scholarship to College of William and Mary, got a master's at Indiana U. (history), and a Ph.D. from Georgetown (Russian history). He served as president of Texas A&M, and initially declined an appointment as head of DHS to remain there.
So, what exactly is your definition of "intellectual" and "diploma mill?"
It is interesting, however, that "military manuals" had to find an "serious" justification for the video games.
SimCity Classic. 'nuff said.
That's a great and cogent argument. The US government has no business subsidizing "seed" DRM, and genome-patent trolls are squeezing farmers unjustly. I agree with you completely.
I wish you'd posted this information in your original post instead of the anti-government histrionics, because it is far more insightful and educating.
Thanks for this post, BTW.
WTF does any part of your rant have to do with Canadian seeds? The US government is not mentioned once in the article, and you don't even attempt to establish a logical connection.
OMG Amerika sux LOL!!!11!one! (Score:5, Insightful)
Insightful, my ass. It's off-topic karma-whoring. Think before you mod, people.
Where there's a will, there's a way.
Huh? Did you not look at the numbers? The United States has less than half the murders by firearm at #4 than Thailand does at #3. Now consider that the United stats has 5 times the population of Thailand.
South Africa? Almost 4 times as many murders and one sixth the population.
The large number (but still not even close to #1 as the great-grandparent post suggested) of murders by firearm in the US is floated almost entirely by the fact that it's the third most populated country on the planet.
To say we're "in company" with these countries is ignorant at best, and intentionally duplicitous at worst.
I am simply astonished at the flat wrongness of this assertion:
Murders with firearms (98-2000):
South Africa: 31,918
Colombia: 21,898
Thailand: 20,032
United States: 8,259
When you count murders with firearms per capita, the US falls to #8. When you count all murders, with and without firearms, the US falls to #24.
George Lucas had nothing to do with the CBS Holiday Special. At least give the man some credit...
'nuff said. I think that catches all the nuances.
I don't recall hearing any sermons on the virtues of the Iraq war... well... ever. It's a political war, with tangential economic ramifications. What do Christians have to do with it? It seems rather convenient that you (liberals at large) can so easily switch between blaming right-wing religious nuts for the Iraq war and blaming greedy corporate capitalists (two mostly mutually exclusive groups).
Somehow, I don't think 20% of evangelicals consider suicide bombing a valid way to proselytize.
Both of you will be brought to utter ruin.
I, for one, welcome Unicron. Now bow.
You're right about the dates. Starting in 1954 (just prior to the French exit), the US began heavily supplying arms and supplies to French-Indochinese forces. So, while there was not yet armed conflict with the north, there was still significant military investment in the war by America.
Personally, I'm not sure we even took the right side in the conflict (Diem's government was incredibly corrupt, and his anti-communist policies galvanized hard-line communists in the north); but such is the way of America's "buddy" list. There was no way we were ever going to support the opposite side of France.
Huh? This isn't even remotely correct. The French petitioned for US intervention in exchange for increased support of US policies in NATO. Is this what French kids are taught in history class?
... because we needed their support for our policies in regard to NATO .... The French blackmailed us. At every meeting ... they brought up Indochina .... but refused to tell me what they hoped to accomplish or how. Perhaps they didn't know." - Dean Acheson, Secretary of State
Choice quotes gathered from Wiki:
"France has milked it for one hundred years. The people of IndoChina are entitled to something better than that." - Roosevelt on Vietnam
"The U.S. came to the aid of the French
I wasn't talking about UN inspections. I was talking about UN sanctions. And no, neither Hussein, France, or Russia were complying, grumpily or otherwise, with those.
Everyone that made under-the-deal tables with Saddam in violation of UN-imposed sanctions (*wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*) bought a piece of the pie. As expected, we're picking up the tab for it.
By the way, remember Vietnam? That was France's mess we ended up trying to clean up. I don't really think they have a leg to stand on with this kind of hypocritical chiding.
I thought messages were being filtered for sensitive information, like snail mail has been since WWI.
What do with Bush or Republicans have to do with this article?
I'd like to buy a CD for DATA without paying a stipend to the music industry. I'd like to distribute my music on internet radio without a third party collecting money off of it.
Since I don't pirate movies, music, or software, your witty sarcasm only proves you don't really understand the issue.
Uh... err... I mean, I don't want to be presumptuous or anything, but you do know our military is a little more than line infantry, right?
BTW, would you really "love" it? Would you really "love" America getting nuked? Doesn't that mean you're at least as evil as you impute us as being?
That's kind of how it works; yes.