Just because the US doesn't believe in surrendering national sovereignty for um, well, uh, hmmm. What exactly did the Europeans get for giving up their sovereignty, anyway? I've never been able to figure that out.
Well, let's see. Turkey is worried that the Kurds could get their own country, and all the other ones are ruled by tyrants that may be concerned about the ramifications of a successful democratic Muslim country.
Now if we said we were going to install a different tyrant that wasn't interested in developing WMDs, they'd join right up:).
Wow, assasinate Saddam. I wonder why nobody's thought of that?
Any volunteers? Anyone want to go into Iraq and shoot Saddam? Anyone? (cut to sound of chirping crickets).
Saddam kills anyone who remotely threatens him. Everyone near him has known, for the last twelve years, that if he knocks off Saddam, he'll be the US's newest bestest bud for the rest of his life, and he gets to own Iraq. But still it hasn't happened. Evidently, people just don't seem to enjoy seeing their children tortured to death and their wife raped to death before they themselves get tortured to death. Go figure.
Well, it's not too late for someone to go in and kill Kim Ill Sung II. Should be a piece of cake.
GPS was built by and for the American military, and for our allies' military.
Do you think the US military is going to endanger soldier's lives just so some Euro geo-cacher can find their box of goodies more easily? Any system that relies exclusively on GPS is badly designed anyway; even our GPS guided bombs have inertial guidance backup systems.
The cost to our economy? The stock market and the oil prices have been waiting for the war to get over with (good or bad) in order to start recovering. Getting the war over will help the economy.
Not that that's a valid reason for the war. I don't even believe that's a reason for the war. I honestly believe that Bush is doing it because he believes it will improve national security. He was not at all into intervention and "nation building" and was even considering reducing sanctions when he took office; then he did a 180 after 9/11.
Is Galileo funded by the private sector? Are they going to make their money by selling licenses for recievers? I don't think so, chief.
It's funded by the governments of the EU, with taxpayer money. So replace "capitalist ideals about competition in the market" in your post with phrase "not wasting EU money building something that does what something else already does for free".
Of course, we won't have to worry about Galileo ever being degraded for military reasons because, well, (mainland) Europeans can't even take care of military problems within Europe, let alone project a significant force outside Europe.
On the bright side, in ten years, if the North Koreans pay the French enough money, they can have precision guided munitions too.
Some fusion reactions create little or no nuetrons; He-3 would be good. Problem is it's not available on Earth; have to go to the moon or the gas giants.
Also, why put solar power plants in the desert? If we can figure out how to make ocean colonies (ala "The Millenium Project"), make an acretted breakwater enclosing an artificial lagoon and fill it with floating solar collectors. Advantages would include:
1) No sandstorms:) 2) Abundant cooling water, so could go with hot water/steam solar collectors instead of cells. Cheaper and more efficient. 3) There's a lot more ocean at the equator than there is land. 4) Large parts of the tropical ocean are fairly lifeless; the nutrients in the surface waters have been exhausted. Solar collectors here would have much less of an environmental impact. 5) Easy access to shipping. 6) International waters: less regulations, less taxes. Could have interesting side businesses:) 7) Except for building the breakwater, construction costs could be lower. No need to level ground, pour foundations, put in drainage systems (which would devastate the environment in a desert), not to mention the difficulty of moving around bulky, fragile collectors to get them into position. Just build floating collectors, tow them out into position, and bolt them into place.
The economy is so bad because the bubble got so big before it burst.
Maybe if Mr. "I invented the Internet" and his boss had been more forthcoming about the state of the economy before the election (remember Bush saying the economy was already in a recession during the debates? Remember Gore jumping on his *ss for it?), the bubble wouldn't have gotten so big, and the bust would likely be over by now.
But that would have meant losing the election, and that trumps the general welfare any day.
Hey, maybe I can get one of those $120,000 a year longshoremen jobs. You know, the ones that shut down the west coast last year, and that refuse to modernize and use things like bar codes (gotta all be written by hand) because it could cost jobs.
You know, I think big labor is causing *some* of the problems; I mean how come Southwestern Air has a market valuation greater than most of the other (soon to be bankrupt) airlines combined? Hint: their unions aren't a total bunch of greed-hogs like the ones in the other airlines.
House payments stay about the same. In six, seven years your house payment will be about the same as rent on an OK apartment. This assumes you buy the house and stay there for the duration, though.
The most *important* things about buying a house:
2) With a good home theater/stereo, you can really crank it. If I lived in an apartment, I'd be on a first-name basis with every cop in the town.:)
My dad's a farmer. He doesn't get farm subsidies. Why would he? He doesn't contribute thousands of dollars to politicians. Ted Turner, on the other hand, gets hundreds of thousands in farm subsidies.
Oh, wait, I forgot that some of the poorer tobacco farmers get federal subsidies. Can't have tobacco farmers going out of business (or, more likely, raising something else, maybe even something that doesn't kill people).
We didn't bother to test the uranium gun-type bomb (the Hiroshima bomb) because we were confident it would work. He'd really only need to test it if it were a fission implosion (plutonium) bomb or a fusion bomb.
You need a reactor to make plutonium; you don't need one to enrich uranium to weapons grade. And I recall that after the gulf war the inspectors were quite surprised at how advanced Iraq's uranium enrichment equipment was.
Of course, the other reason to test a bomb is to make sure people know you've got it.
Nothing, in a world where I'm responsible only for my own spending, and where everyone is smart enough to continually combat multinational corporations with every purchase. I'm pretty sure I would save money in a system like that, and it's obvious you feel the same way. But there's more to life than that. Do you really want to have to plot strategy every time you go shopping to make sure the powers that be don't try to screw you over? To have to go to a web site to see if you paid a reasonable price for that can of tuna?
I guess I need to lose those last few vestiges of liberalism. I actually still care somewhat about the uneducated, the younger people, and the elderly.
You're right, what we need are more refined methods for oligopolies to extract the maximum amount of money from consumers.
How about individualizing pricing? If they notice you don't seem to be price-sensitive and go for impulse buys, you get quoted a higher price. This could be easily implemented for on-line sales, and could eventually be in real stores (electronic price tags for items; you press a button and it displays the price)
I for one *don't* want multiple versions. I want the version I saw in the theater when I was a kid.
Well, he can put in DTS sound, that'd be cool. And clean up the special effects. I don't need any added or changed footage. Han had better shoot Greedo without Greedo shooting first.
Hey, maybe when he releases Indiana Jones on DVD, he can put in the bullwhip/sword fight they originally intended, instead of just having Indy shoot the guy. That would be *great* !!
You know, there also isn't anything preventing the broadcasters from showing commercials that people actually would like to watch. But I guess that would be to hard.
Don't some European countries have their broadcasters show their commercials all in a block in the evening, like from 6 to 7? And then nothing but programming the rest of the evening?
Slashdot Mirror
Just because the US doesn't believe in surrendering national sovereignty for um, well, uh, hmmm. What exactly did the Europeans get for giving up their sovereignty, anyway? I've never been able to figure that out.
Well, let's see. Turkey is worried that the Kurds could get their own country, and all the other ones are ruled by tyrants that may be concerned about the ramifications of a successful democratic Muslim country.
:).
Now if we said we were going to install a different tyrant that wasn't interested in developing WMDs, they'd join right up
Heck, France and Germany don't actually have a military to speak of . . . :)
That's what the new EMP weapons are for. No evidence :).
Wow, assasinate Saddam. I wonder why nobody's thought of that?
Any volunteers? Anyone want to go into Iraq and shoot Saddam? Anyone? (cut to sound of chirping crickets).
Saddam kills anyone who remotely threatens him. Everyone near him has known, for the last twelve years, that if he knocks off Saddam, he'll be the US's newest bestest bud for the rest of his life, and he gets to own Iraq. But still it hasn't happened. Evidently, people just don't seem to enjoy seeing their children tortured to death and their wife raped to death before they themselves get tortured to death. Go figure.
Well, it's not too late for someone to go in and kill Kim Ill Sung II. Should be a piece of cake.
GPS was built by and for the American military, and for our allies' military.
Do you think the US military is going to endanger soldier's lives just so some Euro geo-cacher can find their box of goodies more easily? Any system that relies exclusively on GPS is badly designed anyway; even our GPS guided bombs have inertial guidance backup systems.
The cost to our economy? The stock market and the oil prices have been waiting for the war to get over with (good or bad) in order to start recovering. Getting the war over will help the economy.
Not that that's a valid reason for the war. I don't even believe that's a reason for the war. I honestly believe that Bush is doing it because he believes it will improve national security. He was not at all into intervention and "nation building" and was even considering reducing sanctions when he took office; then he did a 180 after 9/11.
GPS is a line-of-sight system and the satellites orbit at about 13,000 miles up. "Regional basis" is probably half the frickin' planet.
Is Galileo funded by the private sector? Are they going to make their money by selling licenses for recievers? I don't think so, chief.
It's funded by the governments of the EU, with taxpayer money. So replace "capitalist ideals about competition in the market" in your post with phrase "not wasting EU money building something that does what something else already does for free".
Of course, we won't have to worry about Galileo ever being degraded for military reasons because, well, (mainland) Europeans can't even take care of military problems within Europe, let alone project a significant force outside Europe.
On the bright side, in ten years, if the North Koreans pay the French enough money, they can have precision guided munitions too.
Personally, I think the right way to do space is to screw chemical fuel, and go with laser or microwave propelled vehicles.
Some fusion reactions create little or no nuetrons; He-3 would be good. Problem is it's not available on Earth; have to go to the moon or the gas giants.
:) :)
Also, why put solar power plants in the desert? If we can figure out how to make ocean colonies (ala "The Millenium Project"), make an acretted breakwater enclosing an artificial lagoon and fill it with floating solar collectors. Advantages would include:
1) No sandstorms
2) Abundant cooling water, so could go with hot water/steam solar collectors instead of cells. Cheaper and more efficient.
3) There's a lot more ocean at the equator than there is land.
4) Large parts of the tropical ocean are fairly lifeless; the nutrients in the surface waters have been exhausted. Solar collectors here would have much less of an environmental impact.
5) Easy access to shipping.
6) International waters: less regulations, less taxes. Could have interesting side businesses
7) Except for building the breakwater, construction costs could be lower. No need to level ground, pour foundations, put in drainage systems (which would devastate the environment in a desert), not to mention the difficulty of moving around bulky, fragile collectors to get them into position. Just build floating collectors, tow them out into position, and bolt them into place.
The economy is so bad because the bubble got so big before it burst.
Maybe if Mr. "I invented the Internet" and his boss had been more forthcoming about the state of the economy before the election (remember Bush saying the economy was already in a recession during the debates? Remember Gore jumping on his *ss for it?), the bubble wouldn't have gotten so big, and the bust would likely be over by now.
But that would have meant losing the election, and that trumps the general welfare any day.
Agree with all of your arguments. Except one.
The way to fix the schools is with vouchers, and competition. Until parents can choose to reward/punish good/bad schools, they won't improve.
For Gore's loss, you can either blame the founding fathers for putting the electoral college in the Constitution, or you can blame Ralph Nader.
I would suggest blaming Ralph. He knew he would likely spoil the election for Gore.
Hey, maybe I can get one of those $120,000 a year longshoremen jobs. You know, the ones that shut down the west coast last year, and that refuse to modernize and use things like bar codes (gotta all be written by hand) because it could cost jobs.
You know, I think big labor is causing *some* of the problems; I mean how come Southwestern Air has a market valuation greater than most of the other (soon to be bankrupt) airlines combined? Hint: their unions aren't a total bunch of greed-hogs like the ones in the other airlines.
Hey, don't tell that to the CA people. There's already too many people wanting to live in Austin (I live in Dallas).
One nice thing about buying a house:
:)
House payments stay about the same. In six, seven years your house payment will be about the same as rent on an OK apartment. This assumes you buy the house and stay there for the duration, though.
The most *important* things about buying a house:
2) With a good home theater/stereo, you can really crank it. If I lived in an apartment, I'd be on a first-name basis with every cop in the town.
Why don't they just list their *airfares* as blurry human readable numbers?
Also - home to Al-Jaziera (spelling?), closest thing to a free press in the Arab world.
Think it's still a monarchy, though, but it is experimenting with democracy, freedom of the press, etc.
Hahahaha.
My dad's a farmer. He doesn't get farm subsidies. Why would he? He doesn't contribute thousands of dollars to politicians. Ted Turner, on the other hand, gets hundreds of thousands in farm subsidies.
Oh, wait, I forgot that some of the poorer tobacco farmers get federal subsidies. Can't have tobacco farmers going out of business (or, more likely, raising something else, maybe even something that doesn't kill people).
FYI
We didn't bother to test the uranium gun-type bomb (the Hiroshima bomb) because we were confident it would work. He'd really only need to test it if it were a fission implosion (plutonium) bomb or a fusion bomb.
You need a reactor to make plutonium; you don't need one to enrich uranium to weapons grade. And I recall that after the gulf war the inspectors were quite surprised at how advanced Iraq's uranium enrichment equipment was.
Of course, the other reason to test a bomb is to make sure people know you've got it.
Nothing, in a world where I'm responsible only for my own spending, and where everyone is smart enough to continually combat multinational corporations with every purchase. I'm pretty sure I would save money in a system like that, and it's obvious you feel the same way. But there's more to life than that. Do you really want to have to plot strategy every time you go shopping to make sure the powers that be don't try to screw you over? To have to go to a web site to see if you paid a reasonable price for that can of tuna?
I guess I need to lose those last few vestiges of liberalism. I actually still care somewhat about the uneducated, the younger people, and the elderly.
You're right, what we need are more refined methods for oligopolies to extract the maximum amount of money from consumers.
How about individualizing pricing? If they notice you don't seem to be price-sensitive and go for impulse buys, you get quoted a higher price. This could be easily implemented for on-line sales, and could eventually be in real stores (electronic price tags for items; you press a button and it displays the price)
I for one *don't* want multiple versions. I want the version I saw in the theater when I was a kid.
Well, he can put in DTS sound, that'd be cool. And clean up the special effects. I don't need any added or changed footage. Han had better shoot Greedo without Greedo shooting first.
Hey, maybe when he releases Indiana Jones on DVD, he can put in the bullwhip/sword fight they originally intended, instead of just having Indy shoot the guy. That would be *great* !!
You know, there also isn't anything preventing the broadcasters from showing commercials that people actually would like to watch. But I guess that would be to hard.
Don't some European countries have their broadcasters show their commercials all in a block in the evening, like from 6 to 7? And then nothing but programming the rest of the evening?