In that case every single country should spy on US because no other country has been that dangerous to human kind!!
Whatever makes you think that they don't?
Sure, there are some Third-World hellholes that can't afford a pot to piss in that don't bother to spy on us, but it's probably safe to say that everyone else (including our allies) spies on us.
And for that matter, that we spy on everyone else (including our allies).
All that said, I think it's fairly safe to say that the USSR, China, and Germany have managed to do in far more people each than the USA has managed during its entire existance. If I were looking for a country that fits the bill "no other country has been that dangerous to human kind!!", I don't think I'd be looking in North America, frankly.
If I'm not mistaken (please correct me if I'm wrong here!) the furthest somebody has been from the Earth's surface and the fastest that anybody has ever traveled in absolute terms relative to the Earth was on Apollo 13. Not exactly a distinction that those astronauts were trying for, but it was a by product of the free return trajectory that they used to return back to the Earth. I don't know if these astronauts are the ones setting this record or not, but it is at least worth mentioning. Velocities of the ISS are trivial in comparison.
Trivial in comparison?
Apollo 13 went less than 50% faster relative to Earth than the ISS does. And that was only for a relatively short time at the beginning of its orbit. By the time it passed the moon, it was going rather slower than the ISS relative to Earth.
This is certainly true if you go up against the Army alone.
If, on the other, hand, every third American was on your side (about the estimates of number of American households with one or more firearms), then the 100 million of you against the less than a million of them makes for much better odds for you surviving.
Not to be surly, but we outside of the US sort of take for granted that all US cops are gung-ho people who "do whatever it takes", and cook up their own solutions and conspiracies to solve everything.
(My wife, who incidentally is black, thinks that the Civil War provided a social catharsis that was potentially worth both the political and human costs, but I can't bring myself to see the equivalency. Then again I lack the perspective of somebody with ancestry that can be traced to actual slaves of the 19th century.)
Separate reply, since the subjects were so unrelated.
I'm not black. Some of my ancestors were slave-owners. No doubt at all, I've seen some old Wills.
That said, I agree with your wife, more or less. The social catharsis was important. And it was important that it happen just the way it did - that is, with the South giving it a good shot and almost winning at times.
Anything else, and we'd have had a bloody insurrection going on for decades, if not continuing today.
Once passions had cooled down, being where two old soldiers could meet and say, in effect "We almost beat you, but for [particular screwup that set this guy off]", and getting back "Well, you might be right about that, but I think that [particular screwup that set this other guy off] pretty much cancelled that one out", which leads to "yeah, you may be right - that colonel of your'n surely had his head up his ass that day"...and so on, helped the healing no end.
So you would have been OK with the continuance of slavery in the South? Poll taxes? 'Literacy' tests?
All of those things are covered by that Constitutional thing. See, we have this process that we like to refer to as "the amendment process". We can change the Constitution if needed. As was done to deal with Slavery.
Note, by the way, that both poll taxes and "literacy tests" were never actually allowed by the Constitution. And there was a Constitutional solution to both anyway - if you disenfranchise someone, you can't count him for purposes of allotting Representatives.
The problem we have today is that the Congress is spending too damn much time dealing with things best left to the State legislatures. Like endowments for a local monument. Or (yes, it's shocking) education. Minimum wage laws at the Federal level probably did more bad things for the poor than anything else we've done - if each State had set its own minimum wages, they'd all be competing to attract workers (and voters, remember that Representation thing) by setting their own minimum wages (and yes, some States have minimum wage laws over and above what the Congress sets, so it certainly can be done, and would have been done).
Or just amend the Constitution to give it the powers you think it should have. If enough people and legislatures agree with you, it'll happen. If not, well, you're in the minority, so live with it.
And here I thought that when someone suggests that not everyone would go along with a consensus "No matter how reasonable a given consensus is" that he was suggesting that "there will always be a minority that feels otherwise" sort of implied that it made sense to use "reasonable" as an absolute.
As in, "I think this is reasonable, and anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot." Which you hear in lot of political discussions, when it comes right down to it.
The only way to 'fix' the federal government would be to either fundamentally change it, say by imposing limits on the number of bills that could be written/sponsored in a session, or by completely dissolving it and letting the states become sovereign again (which are microcosms of the federal problem so that only partially ameliorates).
Alternatively, we fall back on that Constitutional Separation of Powers thing, and leave the State Legislatures to handle State things, while restricting the Federal legislature to handling only Federal things. Of which there aren't really all that many.
Well, sounds great other than the million terawatt laser aimed at the Earth in order to transfer the power from satellite to where we use the power.
Note that even diffused by vast distances, this can be a bit of a problem, since it amounts to about seven times the solar energy hitting the Earth, even if the beam is spread out to cover the entire planet....
Further, congressmen, The President, cabinet members, etc. are all too busy to read most laws. That's not a secret. That's why they have a staff. Their staff researches proposed legislation, writes it, reads it, rewrites it, re-researches it, etc. and only briefs their superiors on key points. It's not a grand conspiracy, it's a simple adaptation to circumstances. There are too many bills which are too long for every congressman to read every one.
Of course, some of us see a problem in laws being voted on without being read by the people doing the voting. Makes for bad democracy when the voters (be they congresscritters or just plain citizens) vote absent concrete knowledge of what they're voting for (or against).
BLOCKQUOTE>Though feel free to link to a bill going through parliament that is taking the vote away from American muslims if one exists.
Most Americans would tend to ignore any bills going through parliament that were intended to apply to Americans, if for no other reason than that we don't have a parliament.
Rather more relevant, taking the vote away from anyone requires a Constitutional Amendment, not a simple Act of Congress.
After all, the royals do fight, unlike the protected children of US presidents,
While it seems to have fallen out of fashion, it should be pointed out that one of Teddy Roosevelt's kids (Teddy Jr.) fought in both World Wars, and one of FDr's sons was a Marine in WW2.
In both cases, the sons in question were in places where the bullets were flying. In one case, the son shouldn't have been there at all, since his health was questionable enough he should have had a medical discharge long before he got around to a heart attack in the field.
You made that waste, you should have to pay for it being taken care of.
Note, for reference, that one of the main objections to civilian processing (as opposed to government) of nuclear waste is that there is a certain amount of Pu-239 in that waste.
For some reason, governments seem to have a problem with letting that stuff wander around outside their own direct control.
Not a flame but the actual basis of the franchise (vote) in this country was property based, not agriculturally based.
That particular idea didn't even last through the debate on what to include in the Constitution. As Ben Franklin said at the time "I own an ass. I have the vote. The ass dies, I lose the vote. Therefore the franchise lies not in me, but in the ass."
The average American family owns two cars. For long family trips, they only need one that can go great distances. The other is almost entirely used for work commuting, a task for which electric vehicles are particularly suited.
The average American family owns one car per driver's license. And frequently an extra vehicle for hauling things around.
Yeah you're right, we shouldn't look at each other to see what others do better than we do, and merge the best bits from different people around the world in an attempt to make sure we at least do the best we can from the knowledge we have. "Keep doing the same thing" sounds much more hopeful.
Whether it sounds hopeful or not, if it violates the Constitution you have to get a bunch of politicians who benefit from the current system to vote for changing the Constitution, then get 38 States to agree to the same thing. Good luck with that.
I'm still genuinely curious. Is your constitution based on voting for individuals, not political principles? Don't regard this as an attack, but I'd appreciate a short explanation:)
Pretty much. No-one is required to even have a political principle when running for office, much less state it out loud. No-one is required to have political principles that match up to their nominal Party if they do state them out loud. No-one is required to vote with the Party if in office.
Actually, the only people who even expect our politicians to vote along Party lines are the higher ranking politicians, the press, and the real nutjobs. Most of the rest of us know better....
Admittedly, the Parties have a fairly decent stick to coerce cooperation from their members - their reelection campaign funds - if you don't help your Party enough between elections, they can be mighty sticky about handing you a share of the Party's reelection fund. But if you are popular with your constituents, you don't need the Party's help getting reelected, no matter how you vote.
If we had done the same and gone back to the Apollo program, 14 people would still be alive.
Unlikely. Hard as it may be to believe, Shuttle's safety record (two disasters in 132 flights) was better than Apollo (one disaster in twelve flights) or even Soyuz (two disasters in 106 flights).
Most likely result if we hadn't gone with Shuttle would have been more, smaller disasters (killing people two or three at a time rather than seven at a shot).
While some few guns in the hands of Canadian criminals are bought legally in Canada then stolen or just used for ill, the vast majority of them come over the world's longest undefended border.
Well, then. Perhaps Canada should do something about that open border. A fence perhaps....
Note also that it's pretty much illegal for Canadians to buy guns in the US (under US law).
The #1 use of your taxes is war [warresisters.org] and it's consequences, or here [investorguide.com], or the interactive chart [foxbusiness.com].
Well, actually, if we look purely at the Federal budget (the only one even concerned with war, and not the one this article is about), then the number one use of our taxes is Social Security. Followed by Medicare. Followed by the Defense Department. War would come in after that, since even without war, we'd spend some money on the Defense Department, just in case not everyone has an enlightened view of the evils of war.
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The TWO Lagrange points? There are five last I checked.
Whatever makes you think that they don't?
Sure, there are some Third-World hellholes that can't afford a pot to piss in that don't bother to spy on us, but it's probably safe to say that everyone else (including our allies) spies on us.
And for that matter, that we spy on everyone else (including our allies).
All that said, I think it's fairly safe to say that the USSR, China, and Germany have managed to do in far more people each than the USA has managed during its entire existance. If I were looking for a country that fits the bill "no other country has been that dangerous to human kind!!", I don't think I'd be looking in North America, frankly.
Trivial in comparison?
Apollo 13 went less than 50% faster relative to Earth than the ISS does. And that was only for a relatively short time at the beginning of its orbit. By the time it passed the moon, it was going rather slower than the ISS relative to Earth.
This is certainly true if you go up against the Army alone.
If, on the other, hand, every third American was on your side (about the estimates of number of American households with one or more firearms), then the 100 million of you against the less than a million of them makes for much better odds for you surviving.
You've been watching too many cop shows on TV.
Separate reply, since the subjects were so unrelated.
I'm not black. Some of my ancestors were slave-owners. No doubt at all, I've seen some old Wills.
That said, I agree with your wife, more or less. The social catharsis was important. And it was important that it happen just the way it did - that is, with the South giving it a good shot and almost winning at times.
Anything else, and we'd have had a bloody insurrection going on for decades, if not continuing today.
Once passions had cooled down, being where two old soldiers could meet and say, in effect "We almost beat you, but for [particular screwup that set this guy off]", and getting back "Well, you might be right about that, but I think that [particular screwup that set this other guy off] pretty much cancelled that one out", which leads to "yeah, you may be right - that colonel of your'n surely had his head up his ass that day"...and so on, helped the healing no end.
All of those things are covered by that Constitutional thing. See, we have this process that we like to refer to as "the amendment process". We can change the Constitution if needed. As was done to deal with Slavery.
Note, by the way, that both poll taxes and "literacy tests" were never actually allowed by the Constitution. And there was a Constitutional solution to both anyway - if you disenfranchise someone, you can't count him for purposes of allotting Representatives.
The problem we have today is that the Congress is spending too damn much time dealing with things best left to the State legislatures. Like endowments for a local monument. Or (yes, it's shocking) education. Minimum wage laws at the Federal level probably did more bad things for the poor than anything else we've done - if each State had set its own minimum wages, they'd all be competing to attract workers (and voters, remember that Representation thing) by setting their own minimum wages (and yes, some States have minimum wage laws over and above what the Congress sets, so it certainly can be done, and would have been done).
Or just amend the Constitution to give it the powers you think it should have. If enough people and legislatures agree with you, it'll happen. If not, well, you're in the minority, so live with it.
Don't be wedded to opening everything full screen.
I do just fine by sizing my apps so they fill about half the screen horizontally. Added bonus that it leaves me half my display for another app.
And here I thought that when someone suggests that not everyone would go along with a consensus "No matter how reasonable a given consensus is" that he was suggesting that "there will always be a minority that feels otherwise" sort of implied that it made sense to use "reasonable" as an absolute.
As in, "I think this is reasonable, and anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot." Which you hear in lot of political discussions, when it comes right down to it.
Alternatively, we fall back on that Constitutional Separation of Powers thing, and leave the State Legislatures to handle State things, while restricting the Federal legislature to handling only Federal things. Of which there aren't really all that many.
Well, sounds great other than the million terawatt laser aimed at the Earth in order to transfer the power from satellite to where we use the power.
Note that even diffused by vast distances, this can be a bit of a problem, since it amounts to about seven times the solar energy hitting the Earth, even if the beam is spread out to cover the entire planet....
Of course, some of us see a problem in laws being voted on without being read by the people doing the voting. Makes for bad democracy when the voters (be they congresscritters or just plain citizens) vote absent concrete knowledge of what they're voting for (or against).
Note that not as many people as you might think agree with you (or with anyone else in particular) in their definition of "reasonable".
BLOCKQUOTE>Though feel free to link to a bill going through parliament that is taking the vote away from American muslims if one exists.
Most Americans would tend to ignore any bills going through parliament that were intended to apply to Americans, if for no other reason than that we don't have a parliament.
Rather more relevant, taking the vote away from anyone requires a Constitutional Amendment, not a simple Act of Congress.
While it seems to have fallen out of fashion, it should be pointed out that one of Teddy Roosevelt's kids (Teddy Jr.) fought in both World Wars, and one of FDr's sons was a Marine in WW2.
In both cases, the sons in question were in places where the bullets were flying. In one case, the son shouldn't have been there at all, since his health was questionable enough he should have had a medical discharge long before he got around to a heart attack in the field.
Note, for reference, that one of the main objections to civilian processing (as opposed to government) of nuclear waste is that there is a certain amount of Pu-239 in that waste.
For some reason, governments seem to have a problem with letting that stuff wander around outside their own direct control.
That particular idea didn't even last through the debate on what to include in the Constitution. As Ben Franklin said at the time "I own an ass. I have the vote. The ass dies, I lose the vote. Therefore the franchise lies not in me, but in the ass."
The average American family owns one car per driver's license. And frequently an extra vehicle for hauling things around.
Whether it sounds hopeful or not, if it violates the Constitution you have to get a bunch of politicians who benefit from the current system to vote for changing the Constitution, then get 38 States to agree to the same thing. Good luck with that.
Pretty much. No-one is required to even have a political principle when running for office, much less state it out loud. No-one is required to have political principles that match up to their nominal Party if they do state them out loud. No-one is required to vote with the Party if in office.
Actually, the only people who even expect our politicians to vote along Party lines are the higher ranking politicians, the press, and the real nutjobs. Most of the rest of us know better....
Admittedly, the Parties have a fairly decent stick to coerce cooperation from their members - their reelection campaign funds - if you don't help your Party enough between elections, they can be mighty sticky about handing you a share of the Party's reelection fund. But if you are popular with your constituents, you don't need the Party's help getting reelected, no matter how you vote.
Unlikely. Hard as it may be to believe, Shuttle's safety record (two disasters in 132 flights) was better than Apollo (one disaster in twelve flights) or even Soyuz (two disasters in 106 flights).
Most likely result if we hadn't gone with Shuttle would have been more, smaller disasters (killing people two or three at a time rather than seven at a shot).
Please, his name was Valentine Michael Smith...
You obviously haven't seen much of it, then. There are far more hunters than "wannabe-guerilla anarchists".
Well, then. Perhaps Canada should do something about that open border. A fence perhaps....
Note also that it's pretty much illegal for Canadians to buy guns in the US (under US law).
Well, actually, if we look purely at the Federal budget (the only one even concerned with war, and not the one this article is about), then the number one use of our taxes is Social Security. Followed by Medicare. Followed by the Defense Department. War would come in after that, since even without war, we'd spend some money on the Defense Department, just in case not everyone has an enlightened view of the evils of war.