Forbids US troops in Colombia from participating in any combat against rebels, except in cases of self-defense. Caps the number of US troops allowed in Colombia at 800.
Why is it that the US takes such a lame position in Colombia? The US could rout these destabilizing Communists and the drug lords they fight for easily, yet the US government appears to love Communists and cocaine. What gives?
It's just that now, the inner workings of many election systems are no longer observable. That makes it very difficult to verify the integrity of the election process.
“Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” — Joseph Stalin
we weren't playing our cold war based on religion, it was based on political ideal.
There's not really a great deal of distinction between ideology and religion. Absolute beliefs of any kind are very dangerous things that have killed countless hundreds of millions of people. The best we can do is accept rationality as being a "good bet".
No nation or other group can seriously try to play mediator in the region re. nuclear weapons without confronting the elephant in the room.
You just need to spell out the rules of the game clearly. Only stable first-world democracies can be trusted with possessing nuclear weapons. All other forms of government are illegitimate criminal mafias that cannot be trusted with anything.
It's theatre. The court he was tried in has no legal standing over crimes that were perpetuated before the court was created.
From my perspective, organizations like the UN and liberal pacifists have no standing to criticize or prosecute the misdeeds of tyrant dictators like Saddam Hussein. This is because the UN explicitly, and pacifists implicitly, recognize these regimes as being legitimate governments. They recognize that a dictator is not bound by any law and has the absolute privilege to kill as many people as he wishes. Absolute power corrupting is inevitable and; you want it, you got it. Therefore, all absolute dictators must be pardoned for all of their supposed "crimes" if they are ever deposed.
OTOH, I have no illusions about these psychopathic mafia crime bosses being legitimate in any way, shape, or form. They were not chosen by the people they claim to represent and they do not rule "countries". The landmasses are void entities.
Given that the political stories usually get the most comments, Slashdot users clearly are political animals and political bitching is stuff that matters to nerds. I think there should be a big political story every day.
Young Terrorist: Ackmed, Ackmed! I just recieved word that the Americans are pulling out of Iraq!
Ackmed: By Allah, that can only mean one thing... Everyone, pack your gear and go home, The insurgency is over. The Great Satan has left and we can now live in peace. I'd like to thank all of you for your time and service to the cause, but democracy has won the day. As you leave, we will be handing out pamphlets on applying for a new job. Also on the way out, please remember to throw away your paper cups.
*as the terrorists leave,the lights in the hideout all turn on*
Ackmed: The electricity is back on! We can go on living now! Thank you President Clinton! Thank you!
"If you persisted in this 'eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth' business,
then everyone would end up walking around eyeless and toothless."
"No, not everyone, just the bad guys."
China would rather have a stable dictatorship with nuclear weapons on its border than an unstable failed state with nuclear weapons there.
I think you mean "China would rather have an unstable failed state with nuclear weapons on its border than a collapsed failed state with nuclear weapons there."
Personally, I'm willing to pay for whatever I watch, like I do with HBO. I just don't want it interrupted all the time. Maybe some sort of a la carte system??
I think that this is how things will ultimately end up, with not that much "live" broadcasting, but with most stuff available on-demand. There'll be options for paying more to get no commercials, or paying less but watching unskippable commercials. There may still be "channels", but they will operate more like play lists.
It is simply astonishing how the DeBeers cartel has managed to turn a fairly ordinary (but shiny) stone into one of the most expensive, sought after stones around.
What I don't understand is how an monopoly cartel even more insidious than Microsoft is allowed to operate in the first world. All of the company management should be doing perp walks on CNN. At least the Enron guys only killed a few people, not tens of thousands.
I would rather have a slow system than one that can go wrong in so many ways (at this point in time).
Counting paper ballots, even by hand, is a fully parallizable task. One million people could count one million ballots in one second. There is no need for hand counting to be slow.
As a Doctor of Computer Science, I certainly don't trust computer voting.
we could be violently annexed in a depressingly short amount of time (and our supplies of uranium, oil, fresh water and lumber might make us a delectable target)
Free trade makes this notion pretty much senseless.
If you figure all the mandantory fees, duties, and other government rakes then the USA tax rate is higher than 50% for most people.
I severly doubt your claim that it's 50% in the US, but one thing to keep in mind about the tax-rate lists for other countries is that they include government health care whereas Americans pay for that through their employers or out-of-pocket (plus, Americans pay inflated prices for drugs and services compared to other countries). You need to factor in how much you get to how much you pay to make any meaningful comparisons.
Perhaps that is because Microsoft is a convicted predatory monopolist with a vested interest in anti-interoperability. When the anti-Microsoft conspiracy theories always end up being right on the money, maybe there really is a conspiracy going on.
Iran does nothing for us, China is a major trade partner.
Plus, China is less of a state sponsor of radical Islamic terrorists. They also spout less rhetoric about annihilating first-world democracies. And their leaders are 20% less psychopathic.
This seems to me to be plenty of bandwidth for messages like "totalitarian dictatorships suck!". That's only 32 characters. You could send this out 500 times per second at 128kbps.
Slashdot Mirror
Why is it that the US takes such a lame position in Colombia? The US could rout these destabilizing Communists and the drug lords they fight for easily, yet the US government appears to love Communists and cocaine. What gives?
“Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” — Joseph Stalin
There's not really a great deal of distinction between ideology and religion. Absolute beliefs of any kind are very dangerous things that have killed countless hundreds of millions of people. The best we can do is accept rationality as being a "good bet".
You just need to spell out the rules of the game clearly. Only stable first-world democracies can be trusted with possessing nuclear weapons. All other forms of government are illegitimate criminal mafias that cannot be trusted with anything.
From my perspective, organizations like the UN and liberal pacifists have no standing to criticize or prosecute the misdeeds of tyrant dictators like Saddam Hussein. This is because the UN explicitly, and pacifists implicitly, recognize these regimes as being legitimate governments. They recognize that a dictator is not bound by any law and has the absolute privilege to kill as many people as he wishes. Absolute power corrupting is inevitable and; you want it, you got it. Therefore, all absolute dictators must be pardoned for all of their supposed "crimes" if they are ever deposed.
OTOH, I have no illusions about these psychopathic mafia crime bosses being legitimate in any way, shape, or form. They were not chosen by the people they claim to represent and they do not rule "countries". The landmasses are void entities.
Given that the political stories usually get the most comments, Slashdot users clearly are political animals and political bitching is stuff that matters to nerds. I think there should be a big political story every day.
Young Terrorist: Ackmed, Ackmed! I just recieved word that the Americans are pulling out of Iraq!
Ackmed: By Allah, that can only mean one thing... Everyone, pack your gear and go home, The insurgency is over. The Great Satan has left and we can now live in peace. I'd like to thank all of you for your time and service to the cause, but democracy has won the day. As you leave, we will be handing out pamphlets on applying for a new job. Also on the way out, please remember to throw away your paper cups.
*as the terrorists leave,the lights in the hideout all turn on*
Ackmed: The electricity is back on! We can go on living now! Thank you President Clinton! Thank you!
"If you persisted in this 'eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth' business, then everyone would end up walking around eyeless and toothless."
"No, not everyone, just the bad guys."
I think you mean "China would rather have an unstable failed state with nuclear weapons on its border than a collapsed failed state with nuclear weapons there."
I think that this is how things will ultimately end up, with not that much "live" broadcasting, but with most stuff available on-demand. There'll be options for paying more to get no commercials, or paying less but watching unskippable commercials. There may still be "channels", but they will operate more like play lists.
What I don't understand is how an monopoly cartel even more insidious than Microsoft is allowed to operate in the first world. All of the company management should be doing perp walks on CNN. At least the Enron guys only killed a few people, not tens of thousands.
Indeed, blackmailing the bosses is a job that only janitors should have the access to do.
One reason people might want to move away from the US.
Counting paper ballots, even by hand, is a fully parallizable task. One million people could count one million ballots in one second. There is no need for hand counting to be slow.
As a Doctor of Computer Science, I certainly don't trust computer voting.
Free trade makes this notion pretty much senseless.
... riots, burning cars, a large angry underclass.
I severly doubt your claim that it's 50% in the US, but one thing to keep in mind about the tax-rate lists for other countries is that they include government health care whereas Americans pay for that through their employers or out-of-pocket (plus, Americans pay inflated prices for drugs and services compared to other countries). You need to factor in how much you get to how much you pay to make any meaningful comparisons.
Perhaps that is because Microsoft is a convicted predatory monopolist with a vested interest in anti-interoperability. When the anti-Microsoft conspiracy theories always end up being right on the money, maybe there really is a conspiracy going on.
I forsee some marketing problems with this technology.
Customer: How many megapixels is it?
Salesman: 0.000001!!
Is the number 7 odd, or just different?
I have refined your calculations and computed it to an infinite number of significant figures: e. Let's see someone top that!
Plus, China is less of a state sponsor of radical Islamic terrorists. They also spout less rhetoric about annihilating first-world democracies. And their leaders are 20% less psychopathic.
This seems to me to be plenty of bandwidth for messages like "totalitarian dictatorships suck!". That's only 32 characters. You could send this out 500 times per second at 128kbps.
I'm curious to know what a 'fundamentalist secularist' looks like.