Hardly make believe. Upgrade sales are more significant than you like to pretend. Not everyone running OS X 10.3 bought a new machine. Not everyone running Windows XP bought a new machine, either. And if Linux ever takes off, not eveyone running the newest kernel will get it by buying a new machine.
Gratuituous cross-species sex to seal contracts is not part of normal human behavior, it's just some guy with weird sexual hangups playing out his bizarre fantasies in print.
The last I checked, the United States government wasn't using straight pins through the cheeks of women to fasten burqas and executing men who shaved and letting girls burn to death in a flaming high school because the religious police wouldn't allow them to leave without their islamic garb or engaging in honor killings or publicly stoning adulterers and homosexuals to death in crowded arenas with forced attendance.
Now, are you seriously maintaining that Islamic Sharia dictatorships are morally equivalent to representative democracies?
if americans used their technological prowess to solve the problems that these box-cutter weilding people thought that blowing up skyscrapers in new york would solve, perhaps they wouldn't be blowing up skyscrapers?
Since I'm not willing to turn the United States into an Islamic Theocracy under Sharia law, the terrorists will just have to deal with me trying to kill them instead.
And the Chinese government, which is a communist dictatorship, in which the people and their good wishes are totally irrelevant to the designs and wishes of their government (the summary was in case you were educated in the public school system), would laugh behind their sleeves at the foolishness of their enemy strengthening them and would use the resulting increase in productivity to help modernize and strengthen their military machine.
You see, the Chinese government is not our friend and never will be our friend under their current communist government. The Chinese government WANTS us militarily weak so that we are no longer a check on their ambitions in Asia. The Chinese government would be the first in line for your proposal, knowing you would be helping them advance their military goals.
This was tried in the 70s under Carter. All it got us was increased Soviet Agression in Europe.
This was tried in Viet Nam under Johnson, who would order the bombing of jungles without anything in them to show the North Vietnamese what we could do to them if we really wanted to. He also ordered continual bombing pauses so that the North Vietnamese could think about how hopeless their odds were and stop fighting.
The results was an even more agressive North Vietnamese campaign because they perceived America's position as one of weakness.
Your naivete is charming, but is nothing but naivete. You have no understanding of human pscyhology, and have a tremendous ignorance of the world outisde the United States. That can be the only explanation for this totally irrational conclusion that war exists in the world because the US is a military power.
It's much easier than that. All China has to do is demand a UN investigation into the whole affair (where China has veto power) and paint any nation who fails to agree to the UN resolutions on the matter as a rogue nation acting against the wishes of the international community.
Whether or not this strategy becomes viable depends in large part on how the current psychological civil war Americans are in over Iraq plays out.
Unless, of course, the Chinese think that American leadership would be too weak-willed to respond.
You have to have more than the capability to deter an enemy. You have to have the will to use the capability.
You can lay money on the fact that the Chinese are watching how the psychological war against America regarding Iraq is currently being waged. You can also lay money on the fact that many of the generals in this war are Americans is not lost on them.
Nice in theory, but in reality, it doesn't always work that way. Many third-world dictators started their careers as military men. Hitler was in the military. By your criteria, his decisions on going to war were wiser and more studied the Roosevelt's who never served in the military.
Japan was a military dictatorship.
History has demonstrated that it is the military governments that are the warlike governments. Putting civilians in charge of the military generally results in a more peaceful nation.
The whole UN resolutions nonsense is a straw man. We went into Iraq because the nation presented a clear and present danger to the security of the United States. Hell, a manlier nation would have taken the country back in 1993 when Saddam attempted to assassinate a President of the United States who had just left office. That, in and of itself was full justification for war.
All solutions in the end are military, because the final, last argument, often unspoken, but always present is: If we can't resolve this any other way, we're going to beat the crap out of you.
Considering the last cold war resulted in the freeing of all of Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union, I'm all for another one. The stated goal should be the shredding of the bamboo curtain.
Bunk. Most people don't even see the 1/24th second flash unless they've practiced at it. How many people here see the white dot that flashes on old movies indicating a reel change? It lasts for precisely one frame. I can see it because I had to watch for it while running projectors for a theater back in my high school days.
For most people the persistence of vision from the previous frame will overwrite a single one-frame flash, unless you really turn the contrast up.
In fact, I was watching that great series Babylon 5 when just such a thing happened. In the episode where the INS is doing a documentary on Babylon 5, they break away to commercial. It's still part of the show and is a commercial for Psi-Corps. In the middle of the commercial, a single frame flashes and then is gone.
I about jumped out of my seat, all excited. Later, after the episode was done, we pulled out the tape (we recorded the episodes) and played it to that point. Sure enough, there was a single frame that came up in the middle of the "commercial." It was a poster of some psi-corps guy with a message that the corps is your friend, or something to that effect.
The interesting point is: No one else in my family even saw the flash, and I would wager most of the people here who know what episode I'm talking about never saw it, either.
You should amend that to freedom from menial, tedious, unnecessarily forced choices.
My choices should be: Windows, Mac, or a specific set of Linux distros that have a specific set of apps coming with them.
When I buy a bag of chips at the supermarket, I don't want to have to specify which ingredients go into the bag BEFORE I get the product. Just let me choose from a dozen or so pre-packaged possibilities.
The way to feed the people of the world is to free them.
Were you aware that the unemployment rate in Iraq right now is half of what it was under Saddam Huseein?
---- We have hunger and want in the world because evil men use the vehicle of government to deprive men of that liberty which they need to produce abundantly.
This isn't even a theory. It's a hypothesis. It requires experimental verification before you can call it a theory.
Re:Damn straight...
on
The Wrong Stuff
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
Yes, we are. The US GDP is 10 TRILLION dollars. It would be much more if we didn't pay people about a trillion a year to be nonproductive.
Our wealth is the number one reason the rest of the world hates us. Our ability to kick their butts to Mars if we so chose is number two. The fact that we don't demonstrates we are morally superior to them and is reason number three.
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Hardly make believe. Upgrade sales are more significant than you like to pretend. Not everyone running OS X 10.3 bought a new machine. Not everyone running Windows XP bought a new machine, either. And if Linux ever takes off, not eveyone running the newest kernel will get it by buying a new machine.
Gratuituous cross-species sex to seal contracts is not part of normal human behavior, it's just some guy with weird sexual hangups playing out his bizarre fantasies in print.
The last I checked, the United States government wasn't using straight pins through the cheeks of women to fasten burqas and executing men who shaved and letting girls burn to death in a flaming high school because the religious police wouldn't allow them to leave without their islamic garb or engaging in honor killings or publicly stoning adulterers and homosexuals to death in crowded arenas with forced attendance.
Now, are you seriously maintaining that Islamic Sharia dictatorships are morally equivalent to representative democracies?
Since I'm not willing to turn the United States into an Islamic Theocracy under Sharia law, the terrorists will just have to deal with me trying to kill them instead.
And the Chinese government, which is a communist dictatorship, in which the people and their good wishes are totally irrelevant to the designs and wishes of their government (the summary was in case you were educated in the public school system), would laugh behind their sleeves at the foolishness of their enemy strengthening them and would use the resulting increase in productivity to help modernize and strengthen their military machine.
You see, the Chinese government is not our friend and never will be our friend under their current communist government. The Chinese government WANTS us militarily weak so that we are no longer a check on their ambitions in Asia. The Chinese government would be the first in line for your proposal, knowing you would be helping them advance their military goals.
This was tried in the 70s under Carter. All it got us was increased Soviet Agression in Europe.
This was tried in Viet Nam under Johnson, who would order the bombing of jungles without anything in them to show the North Vietnamese what we could do to them if we really wanted to. He also ordered continual bombing pauses so that the North Vietnamese could think about how hopeless their odds were and stop fighting.
The results was an even more agressive North Vietnamese campaign because they perceived America's position as one of weakness.
Your naivete is charming, but is nothing but naivete. You have no understanding of human pscyhology, and have a tremendous ignorance of the world outisde the United States. That can be the only explanation for this totally irrational conclusion that war exists in the world because the US is a military power.
In 90% of the world the phrase "we the people" doesn't mean jack squat. If you learn nothing else in your life, you need to learn that.
It's much easier than that. All China has to do is demand a UN investigation into the whole affair (where China has veto power) and paint any nation who fails to agree to the UN resolutions on the matter as a rogue nation acting against the wishes of the international community.
Whether or not this strategy becomes viable depends in large part on how the current psychological civil war Americans are in over Iraq plays out.
Unless, of course, the Chinese think that American leadership would be too weak-willed to respond.
You have to have more than the capability to deter an enemy. You have to have the will to use the capability.
You can lay money on the fact that the Chinese are watching how the psychological war against America regarding Iraq is currently being waged. You can also lay money on the fact that many of the generals in this war are Americans is not lost on them.
Nice in theory, but in reality, it doesn't always work that way. Many third-world dictators started their careers as military men. Hitler was in the military. By your criteria, his decisions on going to war were wiser and more studied the Roosevelt's who never served in the military.
Japan was a military dictatorship.
History has demonstrated that it is the military governments that are the warlike governments. Putting civilians in charge of the military generally results in a more peaceful nation.
The whole UN resolutions nonsense is a straw man. We went into Iraq because the nation presented a clear and present danger to the security of the United States. Hell, a manlier nation would have taken the country back in 1993 when Saddam attempted to assassinate a President of the United States who had just left office. That, in and of itself was full justification for war.
All solutions in the end are military, because the final, last argument, often unspoken, but always present is: If we can't resolve this any other way, we're going to beat the crap out of you.
Considering the last cold war resulted in the freeing of all of Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union, I'm all for another one. The stated goal should be the shredding of the bamboo curtain.
The only positive thing about your post is that it gives me hope you're too stupid to find your polling location and actually cast a vote.
Ask a military guy about the advantage of high ground.
Bunk. Most people don't even see the 1/24th second flash unless they've practiced at it. How many people here see the white dot that flashes on old movies indicating a reel change? It lasts for precisely one frame. I can see it because I had to watch for it while running projectors for a theater back in my high school days.
For most people the persistence of vision from the previous frame will overwrite a single one-frame flash, unless you really turn the contrast up.
In fact, I was watching that great series Babylon 5 when just such a thing happened. In the episode where the INS is doing a documentary on Babylon 5, they break away to commercial. It's still part of the show and is a commercial for Psi-Corps. In the middle of the commercial, a single frame flashes and then is gone.
I about jumped out of my seat, all excited. Later, after the episode was done, we pulled out the tape (we recorded the episodes) and played it to that point. Sure enough, there was a single frame that came up in the middle of the "commercial." It was a poster of some psi-corps guy with a message that the corps is your friend, or something to that effect.
The interesting point is: No one else in my family even saw the flash, and I would wager most of the people here who know what episode I'm talking about never saw it, either.
You should amend that to freedom from menial, tedious, unnecessarily forced choices.
My choices should be: Windows, Mac, or a specific set of Linux distros that have a specific set of apps coming with them.
When I buy a bag of chips at the supermarket, I don't want to have to specify which ingredients go into the bag BEFORE I get the product. Just let me choose from a dozen or so pre-packaged possibilities.
Appeasers feed the crocodile, hoping he will eat them last.
--
Winston Churchill
And then a bomb goes off and kills 200 people on a train in Madrid and people realize just what an ass folks like you really are.
The way to feed the people of the world is to free them.
Were you aware that the unemployment rate in Iraq right now is half of what it was under Saddam Huseein?
----
We have hunger and want in the world because evil men use the vehicle of government to deprive men of that liberty which they need to produce abundantly.
-Ezra Taft Benson
That's what homeowners associations are for.
I am always amazed at how eagerly people are willing to give their freedoms up to a government.
You really need to read the Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. Pay particular attention to the graduation speech given by Screwtape in the appendix.
Two words: Bulging forehead.
This hypothesis is such a load of just-so story, that I'm amazed anyone is taking it the least bit seriously.
This isn't even a theory. It's a hypothesis. It requires experimental verification before you can call it a theory.
Yes, we are. The US GDP is 10 TRILLION dollars. It would be much more if we didn't pay people about a trillion a year to be nonproductive.
Our wealth is the number one reason the rest of the world hates us. Our ability to kick their butts to Mars if we so chose is number two. The fact that we don't demonstrates we are morally superior to them and is reason number three.
Or the Epic of Gilgamesh text is a corrupted version of a more ancient common source for both it and the Noah account.