And I learnt not to click on/. links at school; it didn't help that the teacher logged me off so I couldn't even explain to someone I had innocently followed a link to this cool new show called South Park...
Uh huh. You're the politician who voted for this organisation. You're up for re-election next year. You voted for an organisation that says no to cancer treatment. You and I understand why, but it should be pretty obvious that any such organisation is a seriously hard sell to the unwashed masses, particularly when we're throwing around the word "trillion" on a daily basis. My only point is that communication around this organisation is extremely badly managed.
All the evidence suggests that that is exactly what the major interested powers are doing: playing a long game and waiting for someone in his inner circle to make a move. If the west had deemed it expedient, they could and would have engineered a crisis large enough to justify military intervention before now. The fact they haven't suggests that containment is the best long term option.
I'm well aware of that, thanks. My point is calling an institute whose main job is to decide who gets cancer drugs "NICE" is pretty bad marketing; it makes people suspicious and paranoid. Maybe it should be called the Klinical Kosts Komittee.
Well, Lord knows they could change the name, at least; it reeks of Orwellian doublespeak. Not to mention the associations with the last book of CS Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy.
Someone pointed out the other day that given Moore's Law and our ability to computerise lip-reading becoming fairly effective, the time is not too far away when the idea of conversation being ephemeral will disappear completely.
Not disagreeing, but how likely are you to be interested in mail from *any*.viagra domain? I imagine that any dodgy TLD operator will fairly soon become a pariah; getting spam autobounced because it emanates from.penis ought to force some sort of market discipline in place.
There's quite an illuminating comment on one of the Economist blogs re this issue. Apparently Obama's team were caught on the hop over the gift thing - not suprising when you think that the entire team around him is still green. It's quite possible that no-one even realised a gift was required until it was to late to do anything but scrabble around the shelves of the nearest store.
In my limited understanding, the difference is not so much like Spanish, where different dialects are almost mutually incomprehensible, but more like regional variatins of English. There's not that many places where English is spoken as a first language where it is difficult for any other English speaker to jump right in. Yes, French does have some fantastic variation in accent though. The easiest way is to ask a French speaker, who will jump at the opportunity to take the piss out of all the regions of France he doesn't come from by demonstrating them for you.
Like people everywhere, being over-run with tourists you can barely communicate with when you just want to get on with your life quietly can get tedious. It doesn't excuse bad manners, of course, but it's understandable.
How much difference does having the occasional space tourist aboard really make? Given the costs involved, it's hardly likely to become crowded up there any time soon.
But those tariffs would again be trade distorting. I see where you're coming from, but actually the rich contribute very little, relatively speaking, of your government's revenue. The bulk of revenues come from low to middle income households. Personally I think the best approach to taxation is a flat 10% on all income, no exceptions, no breaks. But who the hell listens to me?;)
English libel law is common law, meaning it gets shaped by the judiciary. Though as far as I'm aware there isn't much ground in libel law for nw and interesting precedents. More interesting, but OT, is the area of privacy law, which UK judges are making most of the running in the absence of a legislative steer.
It depends. "Immigrants will infect us all with scurvy, the job stealing benefit scrounging unwashed bastards" is fine, because immigrants don't have much of an effective lobby. Suggest that someone in power did something naughty, and you had better back your facts up. Although it's surprising, considering how much Daily Mail readers supposedly dislike perversion, how many of them appear to be interested in reading about it...
I think you seriously misread China's vision of itself. They would have no concerns about lashing out if they were to be subjected to an all-out trade war. This is a country that has sustained more than one massive civil war in the last few hundred years; a war against another superpower is not something they would necessarily back down from, despite the consequences. Countries with foolish governments and supercharged nationalist populations very often fail to act in their own best interests. You can come up with your own examples. Don't mistake China for a country with a leadership that calculates things in the same way as we might.
Lastly, the Chinese military makes no distinction between nuclear weapons and conventional shooting matches; they see them as part of the same strategic-tactical continuum.
But apart from that you're happy with wiping out your country's economy and permanenty damaging its economic prospects? Look, protectionism on the face of it seems like a good idea. In practice it's the worst idea possible.
Hi. This is reality calling, ding-dong. If you increase tariffs against China, you will (a) immediately increase the prices of all goods, (b) you will seriously increase your tax rates, because your government will no longer be able to fund its debt by selling its Treasuries to China (because China will have no more greenbacks coming in). You won't have a domestic industry to take up the slack, because you will have destroyed domestic demand. Seriously, buy a copy of the Wealth of Nations, for the love of God. Oh, not to mention the risk of provoking a war with China; and if you think that's going to be an easy fight, I have more bad news for you.
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And I learnt not to click on /. links at school; it didn't help that the teacher logged me off so I couldn't even explain to someone I had innocently followed a link to this cool new show called South Park...
Have you *tried* visiting North Korea lately? "Hi, I'm from the UN and I'm here to inspect your nuclear weapons^W^W peaceful satellites."
Uh huh. You're the politician who voted for this organisation. You're up for re-election next year. You voted for an organisation that says no to cancer treatment. You and I understand why, but it should be pretty obvious that any such organisation is a seriously hard sell to the unwashed masses, particularly when we're throwing around the word "trillion" on a daily basis. My only point is that communication around this organisation is extremely badly managed.
All the evidence suggests that that is exactly what the major interested powers are doing: playing a long game and waiting for someone in his inner circle to make a move. If the west had deemed it expedient, they could and would have engineered a crisis large enough to justify military intervention before now. The fact they haven't suggests that containment is the best long term option.
I'm well aware of that, thanks. My point is calling an institute whose main job is to decide who gets cancer drugs "NICE" is pretty bad marketing; it makes people suspicious and paranoid. Maybe it should be called the Klinical Kosts Komittee.
Well, Lord knows they could change the name, at least; it reeks of Orwellian doublespeak. Not to mention the associations with the last book of CS Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy.
Someone pointed out the other day that given Moore's Law and our ability to computerise lip-reading becoming fairly effective, the time is not too far away when the idea of conversation being ephemeral will disappear completely.
Not disagreeing, but how likely are you to be interested in mail from *any* .viagra domain? I imagine that any dodgy TLD operator will fairly soon become a pariah; getting spam autobounced because it emanates from .penis ought to force some sort of market discipline in place.
No, but I could beat you with a stick made of pure solidified smugness. How's that for ya?
There's quite an illuminating comment on one of the Economist blogs re this issue. Apparently Obama's team were caught on the hop over the gift thing - not suprising when you think that the entire team around him is still green. It's quite possible that no-one even realised a gift was required until it was to late to do anything but scrabble around the shelves of the nearest store.
(RP joke, for the humour impaired).
April 1st is a traditional day for time-based malware to go live, dating back to at least the mid nineties.
If I *did* give a shit, you'd be the first person I'd give it to.
In my limited understanding, the difference is not so much like Spanish, where different dialects are almost mutually incomprehensible, but more like regional variatins of English. There's not that many places where English is spoken as a first language where it is difficult for any other English speaker to jump right in. Yes, French does have some fantastic variation in accent though. The easiest way is to ask a French speaker, who will jump at the opportunity to take the piss out of all the regions of France he doesn't come from by demonstrating them for you.
Like people everywhere, being over-run with tourists you can barely communicate with when you just want to get on with your life quietly can get tedious. It doesn't excuse bad manners, of course, but it's understandable.
How much difference does having the occasional space tourist aboard really make? Given the costs involved, it's hardly likely to become crowded up there any time soon.
I think you should do an expose on 4chan.
While you're at it, you could update the links to Geeks in Space. Took me ages to hunt down a copy not that long ago.
Mmm. How exactly are these girls going to get anything approaching a fair trial under the circumstances?
But those tariffs would again be trade distorting. I see where you're coming from, but actually the rich contribute very little, relatively speaking, of your government's revenue. The bulk of revenues come from low to middle income households. Personally I think the best approach to taxation is a flat 10% on all income, no exceptions, no breaks. But who the hell listens to me? ;)
English libel law is common law, meaning it gets shaped by the judiciary. Though as far as I'm aware there isn't much ground in libel law for nw and interesting precedents. More interesting, but OT, is the area of privacy law, which UK judges are making most of the running in the absence of a legislative steer.
It depends. "Immigrants will infect us all with scurvy, the job stealing benefit scrounging unwashed bastards" is fine, because immigrants don't have much of an effective lobby. Suggest that someone in power did something naughty, and you had better back your facts up. Although it's surprising, considering how much Daily Mail readers supposedly dislike perversion, how many of them appear to be interested in reading about it...
Lastly, the Chinese military makes no distinction between nuclear weapons and conventional shooting matches; they see them as part of the same strategic-tactical continuum.
But apart from that you're happy with wiping out your country's economy and permanenty damaging its economic prospects? Look, protectionism on the face of it seems like a good idea. In practice it's the worst idea possible.
Hi. This is reality calling, ding-dong. If you increase tariffs against China, you will (a) immediately increase the prices of all goods, (b) you will seriously increase your tax rates, because your government will no longer be able to fund its debt by selling its Treasuries to China (because China will have no more greenbacks coming in). You won't have a domestic industry to take up the slack, because you will have destroyed domestic demand. Seriously, buy a copy of the Wealth of Nations, for the love of God. Oh, not to mention the risk of provoking a war with China; and if you think that's going to be an easy fight, I have more bad news for you.