Indeed, the whole Imperialism argument is nothing more than intellectual dishonesty and mental masturbation by those that have their hate on for America. Get the facts straight bub. No Imperialism here. I was about to respond to this with point by point citations and examples, not for your benefit (because I suspect your viewpoint is fixed) but for general edification. e.g. investing a few billions to extract trillions is a stunning profit in both wealth and power; see: economic-hit-man whistleblowers, IMF whistleblowers, brazen admissions by Brzezinski and neo-cons, the history of Latin America, the Fellowship Foundation, the CFR, Chalmers Johnson, etc. Closing a few bases out of a thousand (if you include the estimates of covert ones) is merely a tiny percentage, offset by other "repositioning of the footprint."
But I think that you've just proven my essential point: the american 'hegemony' is founded on some astoundingly well-crafted pervasive propaganda at home, with the theme of being a global benefactor.
Ask around: "why do we perpetually have half a million troops overseas in over 100 countries?" The reasoning of the american public in justifying such a massive permanent deployment in so many bases is very thin, if not jingoistic and naive, or outright frightening to citizens of other countries. Americans just don't believe in the scale of clandestine maneuvering through their history, and they have an essential sense of manifest destiny.
21C hegemony (shorthand for empire) does not resemble victorian Brittania, in the way that late post-industrial capitalism doesn't resemble feudalism.
Really effective security would be to bring every last troop home, and place them in every port and border crossing into the US. You do realize that the American taxpayer funds over 700 (seven-frakking-hundred, yes) military bases on foreign soil? And that Al Qaeda was initially pissed about the bases in Saudi territory, so it could be said that the global occupation under way is the catalyst for said terrorism? You want the USA to shut all those down?
Call me when this revolution of yours starts, I want to post it on youtube.
But seriously, I wonder at the loud scoffing denials heard from most people at the mention of an "american empire"--and then I remember that very few know that the USA occupies portions (large and small) of over 100 different nations. By invitation, of course!
The parent post is not flamebait. While it's debatable that Pipes actually has fascist views, there is enough evidence to have the debate. The rest of the post is simply based on well-documented behaviour and statements.
So religion is to be feared and mocked, but it's still okay to teach kids that school buses can magically fly around the universe. Check. You have an astonishingly uninformed opinion about the narrative savvy of six-year-olds.
Oh, and if ubiquitous does come to be something we'll just have to live with, couldn't it at least be something cuter than spiders or snakes? Why not butterflies? Butterfly POV video is barfy!
Absolutely! I want to know of all the Religious folks around me and those in Government because when they find out that I'm a gay atheist, and when they discriminate against me or even commit acts of violence against me, I'll know who they are! And that way, well, there's not a god damned thing I can do about it because I'm a minority and they're the majority. Without the anonymity, I'll have to fake being religious straight person in order to be safe, or stand up for the truth and get my ass kicked and business hurt.
Better than knowing who they are, you'll also know that a) Pastor X has a thing for small boys; b) Politician Y has a gambling problem; c) Moral Outrage leader Z spends lots of money on prostitutes; and d) Judge Billy works with the Mob.
But you're right, not that it makes much difference! I know a couple of lawyers who know these exact things (except for "a") but are powerless, afraid for their families and careers, and even for their lives.
They don't choose the miserable wars they participate in. Don't confuse the political decision to go to war with the military decisions about how to carry it out. Some of us support soldiers conditionally. They aren't all in the same situation, and they aren't all faced with the same choices. I honour professional, thoughtful, dedicated badass defenders of the innocent.
As the brother of a conscientious objector, I can observe that yah, soldiers do choose the wars they participate in, especially without a draft. Being publicly AWOL is tough and takes emotional (and some physical) courage. A warrior's code includes basic ethics; when your superiors breach those ethics and refuse any dissent, they are no longer worthy of your loyalty. Anything else is just mercenary, indoctrinated, or Borg.
I looked hard at bringing the KPC up to the Mini's functionality, and it would cost more, plus be kludgey, and take lots of my time (at $40/hr, too much).
It's tough to match the features of a tiny box the size of 5 stacked cd cases that can edit video (ETC.) right after it's turned on. Ubuntu's close, mind you, but not there yet... and it's usually lots of work to get going. (For the record, apple doesn't make a machine that suits me, though I use them... I want a mini-tower.)
Long ago, I decided to factor interface and usability into the speed of a machine. The real upgrade is between the ears; the less stress in struggling with making it work, the faster the machine.
I'm not suggesting it's a horrible film, but what's the big deal? It's just a movie, ads on TV have been saying the same thing - the movie has been released, yes fine - but on Slashdot? "News for Nerds." Movie character invents flying armour suit with rockets and lasers and AI. Movie doesn't suck. Comic book aficionados satisfied.
What's not to get? Your local daily newspaper has a whole section devoted to culture and arts.
Don't sweat it stoolpigeon, the AC is barely literate, and has trouble both reading your post and writing coherently. I liked your observation about the film's attempt at a military vs. war dialectic, some reviewers missed it.
Re:The best indicator of my enjoyment of a film...
on
Iron Man Released
·
· Score: 1
Rotten Tomatoes has 57% for Transformers. wtf mate? You're right, that's generous for that excremental piece of eyecandy brainfluff.
It implies all those things in my original (no, not a troll) post, especially about listening habits and hearing loss, but also that people are compelled to have more music on hand than they can actually listen to, and that being a form of conspicuous consumption.
I think that post was modded troll because someone doesn't think anyone should find a problem with having thousands upon thousands of songs in a collection.
I'm replying to myself to reply to all the repliers: you missed the point, maybe. I'm astonished at the size and scope of the music collections people have, and what it implies.
I'm not complaining about copying, I'm canadian. I'm bemused by the gathering and hoarding, and wondering about your hearing.
Then they released the iPod Touch (iPhone not available (officially) north of the border, or this would be a comment about the iPhone...). It's basically the same thing with some fancy bells and whistles added on. Really fancy bells and whistles. Really, really fancy. No. I mean REALLY fancy.
Fancy enough that I convinced my semi-retired dad that if all he needed to do was travel lightly and surf the web and do email, take short notes, reference maps and view documents and photos, he didn't need a laptop. He got an iPod touch instead, and is more than pleased. It's better than a laptop, because he's more likely to have it when he needs it. Much better than the blackberry option too, once you get used to the keyboard.
I find this utterly astonishing, if you're referring to compressed music. Even uncompressed, that's an enormous collection at your fingertips. Do you really listen to all that music? If so, I have concerns about: a) your hearing, as damage is related to length of exposure; b) your mental health, as locked away in a private auditory world is ultimately alienating; c) your substitution of listening for creation (i.e. you don't make any music); d) your identity being somehow reliant on your consumption of music; e) your inability to make a decision and just pick a playlist for the road. If you aren't listening to it all, yet must carry it around with you, you're engaged in a strange variant of conspicuous consumption.
Okay, that's partly facetious, except for the hearing bit, and don't take it personally, I direct my concerns to all those I see lost in earphone land (disclaimer: I have one too). There are lots of reasons to have all that space used: you're an ethnographer studying music; you're a musician using it for reference; you're backing up hard drives; you're storing video. All of which is perfectly reasonable for requiring 60GB.
More like 200 million, at most 15%, are middle class and buying luxuries. Note that middle class there is less voracious than in USA. It's debatable, but not much larger for a few years. [/stultifying pedantry].
Please do some simple homework, or stop trolling. It's rampant, and though by nature these operations are secretive, they're discovered once patents are examined... there are so many that mainly the high profile cases are spotlighted, but the obscure ones are legion. Read a little then come back with questions.
http://www.captainhookawards.org/winners
http://www.etcgroup.org/en/issues/biopiracy.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopiracy
http://www.ramshorn.ca/archive2004/225.html
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/rampant.htm
neem, turmeric, enola bean, cotton species and soybean (driftnet claims), etc. etc.
Culprits? just about any of the giant 'life sciences' conglomerates, and many small ones you've never heard of.
Conversely, if you basically steal the idea that other people have come up with, and implement them in a proprietary manner, you shouldn't go around claiming you invented it.
Oh, hey, why stop there, when you were just getting going? After all, the monopolist's argument complained about drug companies not being able to charge enough for their inventions, yet a considerable portion of the modern pharmacopeia comes from old [indigenous] knowledge. You know, odd tree barks and fungi and leaf decoctions. These details, hard-won by untold generations of experiment and oral tradition, are then translated into writing and big science, industrialized into reliability, proven, marketed, etc. etc. As biopirates, they appropriate the knowledge, claim ownership, and invest hugely in its marketing (a big part of its 'development'). The 'invention' is actually the implementation of mass production of ancient knowledge.
Then they whine about generic drug clones being theft. The patent system is the safe where they lock up the knowledge to claim it as theirs. It really is the california gold rush (with all its nastiness) out there in drug patent land.
And the first time he needs to install some piece of software and realizes that it will only work with Windows, I'm sure he'll call you up to thank you for your work.
Um, no, he grasps the concept (it isn't hard), and is really quite giggly-happy about synaptic and everything being free and more than adequate. All his needs are taken care of by the available packages, and as a first-time user of computers he was ripping and burning CD's in under two hours, managing digital photos in half an hour, surfing etc.. I did have to work hard to explain the concepts behind a word processor, though--electronic typography as it turns out isn't very intuitive.
Nerds can be so myopic. Just what software might a retired lawyer noob need that ubuntu won't run? Splinter Cell?
Geeks aside, why would anyone install over an MS box?
Because it works better? I had a client, a retired lawyer, never used a computer in his life (or typewriter!), ask me to help him get going on a hand-down Dell from his office. The office techs had installed the wrong license of XP and not the oem, and the activation nag, the security nags, the hardware popups, were freaking him out (rightly so) and completely botching his learning anything.
The solution was Ubuntu. Everything works, even the new digital camera, the networking, the old HP printer, etc.
Turns out that a successful linux install is not only ready for the desktop, it's actually easier for a complete and utter newbie to learn than XP.
Does Herdy already have a GUI for configuring all the buttons of a multi-button mouse? And a GUI for configuring all the features supported by Synaptic touchpad drivers (that already are in kernel)?
Good question! I don't really know, because when I booted into the live CD of HH beta, the synaptic touchpad seemed to support features like scrolling without configuring, which impressed me.
Then when I tried waking it up from sleep, sound drivers were conked and the damn thing needed a reboot. So, no dual boot for that nice new vista machine yet (and turning it into a hackintosh not an option either, yet).
Not like Vista worked perfectly out of the box, either. 2.5 hours from unpacking it to first boot to desktop; yay toshiba-microsoft, thanks for convincing my users that macs are better.
Slashdot Mirror
But I think that you've just proven my essential point: the american 'hegemony' is founded on some astoundingly well-crafted pervasive propaganda at home, with the theme of being a global benefactor.
Ask around: "why do we perpetually have half a million troops overseas in over 100 countries?" The reasoning of the american public in justifying such a massive permanent deployment in so many bases is very thin, if not jingoistic and naive, or outright frightening to citizens of other countries. Americans just don't believe in the scale of clandestine maneuvering through their history, and they have an essential sense of manifest destiny.
21C hegemony (shorthand for empire) does not resemble victorian Brittania, in the way that late post-industrial capitalism doesn't resemble feudalism.
Call me when this revolution of yours starts, I want to post it on youtube.
But seriously, I wonder at the loud scoffing denials heard from most people at the mention of an "american empire"--and then I remember that very few know that the USA occupies portions (large and small) of over 100 different nations. By invitation, of course!
The parent post is not flamebait. While it's debatable that Pipes actually has fascist views, there is enough evidence to have the debate. The rest of the post is simply based on well-documented behaviour and statements.
Better than knowing who they are, you'll also know that a) Pastor X has a thing for small boys; b) Politician Y has a gambling problem; c) Moral Outrage leader Z spends lots of money on prostitutes; and d) Judge Billy works with the Mob.
But you're right, not that it makes much difference! I know a couple of lawyers who know these exact things (except for "a") but are powerless, afraid for their families and careers, and even for their lives.
As the brother of a conscientious objector, I can observe that yah, soldiers do choose the wars they participate in, especially without a draft. Being publicly AWOL is tough and takes emotional (and some physical) courage. A warrior's code includes basic ethics; when your superiors breach those ethics and refuse any dissent, they are no longer worthy of your loyalty. Anything else is just mercenary, indoctrinated, or Borg.
I looked hard at bringing the KPC up to the Mini's functionality, and it would cost more, plus be kludgey, and take lots of my time (at $40/hr, too much).
It's tough to match the features of a tiny box the size of 5 stacked cd cases that can edit video (ETC.) right after it's turned on. Ubuntu's close, mind you, but not there yet... and it's usually lots of work to get going. (For the record, apple doesn't make a machine that suits me, though I use them... I want a mini-tower.)
Long ago, I decided to factor interface and usability into the speed of a machine. The real upgrade is between the ears; the less stress in struggling with making it work, the faster the machine.
What's not to get? Your local daily newspaper has a whole section devoted to culture and arts.
Don't sweat it stoolpigeon, the AC is barely literate, and has trouble both reading your post and writing coherently. I liked your observation about the film's attempt at a military vs. war dialectic, some reviewers missed it.
And it sounds like fuck, I'd pay $200 to get rid of that noise alone.
That's just it. By the time I have a nice quiet speedy shuttle-sized box configured, I'm up around $1000. I'd buy that from Apple in a flash.
Silence is Golden.
It implies all those things in my original (no, not a troll) post, especially about listening habits and hearing loss, but also that people are compelled to have more music on hand than they can actually listen to, and that being a form of conspicuous consumption.
I think that post was modded troll because someone doesn't think anyone should find a problem with having thousands upon thousands of songs in a collection.
The desktop 386 iso at that site checks out using an md5 from an official mirror.
I'm replying to myself to reply to all the repliers: you missed the point, maybe. I'm astonished at the size and scope of the music collections people have, and what it implies.
I'm not complaining about copying, I'm canadian. I'm bemused by the gathering and hoarding, and wondering about your hearing.
Well, if you can find realistic projections, I'd be interested. I couldn't find any that high.
Fancy enough that I convinced my semi-retired dad that if all he needed to do was travel lightly and surf the web and do email, take short notes, reference maps and view documents and photos, he didn't need a laptop. He got an iPod touch instead, and is more than pleased. It's better than a laptop, because he's more likely to have it when he needs it. Much better than the blackberry option too, once you get used to the keyboard.
I find this utterly astonishing, if you're referring to compressed music. Even uncompressed, that's an enormous collection at your fingertips. Do you really listen to all that music? If so, I have concerns about: a) your hearing, as damage is related to length of exposure; b) your mental health, as locked away in a private auditory world is ultimately alienating; c) your substitution of listening for creation (i.e. you don't make any music); d) your identity being somehow reliant on your consumption of music; e) your inability to make a decision and just pick a playlist for the road. If you aren't listening to it all, yet must carry it around with you, you're engaged in a strange variant of conspicuous consumption.
Okay, that's partly facetious, except for the hearing bit, and don't take it personally, I direct my concerns to all those I see lost in earphone land (disclaimer: I have one too). There are lots of reasons to have all that space used: you're an ethnographer studying music; you're a musician using it for reference; you're backing up hard drives; you're storing video. All of which is perfectly reasonable for requiring 60GB.
More like 200 million, at most 15%, are middle class and buying luxuries. Note that middle class there is less voracious than in USA. It's debatable, but not much larger for a few years. [/stultifying pedantry].
Please do some simple homework, or stop trolling. It's rampant, and though by nature these operations are secretive, they're discovered once patents are examined... there are so many that mainly the high profile cases are spotlighted, but the obscure ones are legion. Read a little then come back with questions.
Oh, hey, why stop there, when you were just getting going? After all, the monopolist's argument complained about drug companies not being able to charge enough for their inventions, yet a considerable portion of the modern pharmacopeia comes from old [indigenous] knowledge. You know, odd tree barks and fungi and leaf decoctions. These details, hard-won by untold generations of experiment and oral tradition, are then translated into writing and big science, industrialized into reliability, proven, marketed, etc. etc. As biopirates, they appropriate the knowledge, claim ownership, and invest hugely in its marketing (a big part of its 'development'). The 'invention' is actually the implementation of mass production of ancient knowledge.
Then they whine about generic drug clones being theft. The patent system is the safe where they lock up the knowledge to claim it as theirs. It really is the california gold rush (with all its nastiness) out there in drug patent land.
Um, no, he grasps the concept (it isn't hard), and is really quite giggly-happy about synaptic and everything being free and more than adequate. All his needs are taken care of by the available packages, and as a first-time user of computers he was ripping and burning CD's in under two hours, managing digital photos in half an hour, surfing etc.. I did have to work hard to explain the concepts behind a word processor, though--electronic typography as it turns out isn't very intuitive.
Nerds can be so myopic. Just what software might a retired lawyer noob need that ubuntu won't run? Splinter Cell?
Because it works better? I had a client, a retired lawyer, never used a computer in his life (or typewriter!), ask me to help him get going on a hand-down Dell from his office. The office techs had installed the wrong license of XP and not the oem, and the activation nag, the security nags, the hardware popups, were freaking him out (rightly so) and completely botching his learning anything.
The solution was Ubuntu. Everything works, even the new digital camera, the networking, the old HP printer, etc.
Turns out that a successful linux install is not only ready for the desktop, it's actually easier for a complete and utter newbie to learn than XP.
Good question! I don't really know, because when I booted into the live CD of HH beta, the synaptic touchpad seemed to support features like scrolling without configuring, which impressed me.
Then when I tried waking it up from sleep, sound drivers were conked and the damn thing needed a reboot. So, no dual boot for that nice new vista machine yet (and turning it into a hackintosh not an option either, yet).
Not like Vista worked perfectly out of the box, either. 2.5 hours from unpacking it to first boot to desktop; yay toshiba-microsoft, thanks for convincing my users that macs are better.