Correction: it never used to be that news was not opinionated, it simply used to be that no one noticed. The professionalism of journalism was the biggest hoax of the twentieth century, the last thing newspapers should do is seek a return.
OK, so you learn the language at a young age. Let's say Russia is a big concern at the time (Cold War is in full swing), and then you come to today where Russian is not quite as important. Instead, you need to know Arabic. So, kids today start learning Arabic. The problem is, by the time they grow up, Arabic isn't that usefull anymore. Instead, it's Mandarin. So, their children get to learning Mandarin, but by the time they grow up China is no longer the issue. Instead, they really need speakers of Tagalog or something. On and on and on, always being stuck with the language capabilities needed twenty years ago instead of what is needed now.
It's totally dependant on another, unquestionable human and rights-endowed being, the mother. Can we legitmately force her to sacrifice her own health, risk her own life, etc. for the fetus?
No. In fact, most abortion laws that are drafted do have exceptions for life-threatening instances. They still get struck down though. Thus, the question is not the one you pose. The question is is abortion to be treated as simply another form of birth control?
Even if the fetus were a little curled-up totally-aware *adult* inside her, can we force her to let it exist parasitically in her? I know most twins would give up a kidney to save their twin... but are they legally compelled to do it?
Yes, because a) most likely, the woman willing engaged in an act that involved the possibility of putting that "curled-up totally-aware *adult* inside her" and b) if she did so unwilling, that "curled-up totally-aware *adult* inside her" was not responsible for the initial infringement of her rights. Now, if society denies her the legal right to kill that person, society also has an obligation to provide support for her so that the obligation is as light as possible.
Your twins example is also not parrallel with abortion. With abortion, you're talking about preventing the woman from doing something. With the twins, you're talking about forcing the twins to do something.
But if you give the cells on the end of a dead guy's fingers and provide them with everything the need to survive (nutrients, heat, pressure, etc.), they will never grow into a human being. Instead, you would need to change what those cells are in order to bring that about. You might just as well talk about a collection of unassembled chemicals, or just a clod of dirt, as a potential human life if the possibility of intelligent tinkering is allowed. A fertilized human egg, on the other hand, if allowed to survive, might some day go to college and have to repay student loans. It's an important fundamental difference that your example pretends doesn't exit.
So if I kill someone before they hit puberty, then that's ok because they were unable to reproduce durring their existance, and therefore not alive? I can just go on a rampage through the maternity ward then instead of playing GTA!
Yes, to some that is considered murder. If you believe that life begins at conception and not some arbitrary point down the road, then that would mean that intentionally creating a condition where a fertilized human egg is going to die is murder. Much like if you actively denied someone warmth durring the winter, making them die of frostbite.
I think you misunderstand. The requirement would not be de jure, as if Congress actually passed a law, but it would be de facto, in that if an adult website wants to be profitable it would need to limit itself to.xxx or else handle the court costs incurred by ordinary citizens taking it to court for placing "the children" at risk or something. So there would be no one sueing government, but rather people sueing each other. Now, granted, this may be a grossly exagerated sceinerio, but I just don't see the need to risk it.
I'm not doubting your belief in liberty, but you always have to look at the law of unintended consequences. Government is rife with programs initiated by good intentions that backfired and made things worse.
Well, we need to be fair about the whole Tiawan deal. Both the PRC and Tiawan have a "One China" policy, which means that states can only recognize one, but not the other, as the "real China." So if Tiawan was recognized as the "real China" (which, at one point, it was) that would mean that the PRC, with its billion+ people, would be excluded from the UN (which, at one point, it was). Now, if Tiawan were to drop this policy, that would allow the other nations to admit it to the UN in a 2/3rds vote in the General Assembly (besides also probably starting a war with the PRC, but that's another discussion).
I kinda like the free state idea though, but simply because of the implications that such an organization could become the framework of an IO to rival and eventually replace the UN, not because of any "necessity" of moving the Internet out of the US.
But do you trust it will stay non-mandatory? Sure, the US says.xxx is voluntary, but then one day a five-year-old comes across a porn site on a.com while he's surfing with his parents. Suddenly, thanks to the existance of.xxx, there's a case for a lawsuit! Hooray! One bad ruling and.xxx becomes mandatory just because of the potential consequences. And the situation isn't much better in the international arena. Do you trust China or the Middle-Eastern voting block to help keep.xxx voluntary?
I think the confusion over the EU is understandable as there has been lots and lots of talk from that region of having a united foreign policy. Match that up with the fact that the media only likes to report bad things (and the incessent beating of the "unilateralism" drum durring the 2004 election making it seem like we had no allies) and you get the perception that all of Europe is united behind a "Frog-legs good, Cowboy-boots bad" mentality.
However, you made a similar mistake. The EU hasn't provided a single soldier toward any US-led mission. Countries who are members of the EU have. Your statement is akin to saying the UN has provided more troops than the US to Iraq, simply because every member of the coalition in Iraq is also a member of the UN.
If by "materials and tools" you are including the several thousands or tens of thousands of people they had working on the project and the decades of time devoted to it, then I don't think that experiment has been tried yet.
How about CONSUMERS pay for new TVs or converters themselves?
That sounds good, but in which case how about CONSUMERS determine when analog broadcasts are dead through market forces instead of through federal legislation? Essentially, what the government did when it gave a phaseout date for the new medium was to issue an unfunded mandate to the public. This is simply the government funding that mandate. Don't get mad at this, get mad at the mandate instead.
I don't know why you're not looking forward to it. I mean, what are you, a professional ice breaker?
Plus, let's not forget that the antarctic ice mass is increasing. So we're all concerned about the ice that is already floating melting while ice is building up around areas where it doesn't float. Hardly a doom and gloom sceinerio, unless you're pro-flooding.
I hope you're refering to your grandparent, other wise I'd suggest that you read a book about the American revolution. Learn about Richard and William Howe, sent by the British to meet with representives of the Continental Congress to reach a compromise at the start of the rebellion (Surely something a country would do if they considered their enemies terrorists). And while American revolutionaries were considered traitors by many British, "traitor" is not a synonym for "terrorist."
I don't misunderstand the threat. I was only refering to the status of MAD, in that there does not seem to exist any nation that is both capable and likely to assure our destruction when we assure someone else's, not that there are no hostile nations with the capability to do serious damage. Your last sentence says that you seem to agree with me.
You should have a look at the Cuban regime to determine how it would affect the balance of power. Castro was not easily controled by Moscow, so it wasn't simply a case of Russia having nukes in Cuba, it was Castro having nukes. But you're right, we had missiles in Turkey, which we quietly agreed to withdraw to bring an end to the conflict.
That's an intelligence issue mostly. It's going to take us a while to build the human resources necessary to do the job. If you are refering to the insurgency, they take twelve years, on average, to be pacified, and military action is mostly a holding action while the true battlefield is in the domestic (for the insurgents, I mean) political structure. I recomend Misagh Parsa's States, Ideologies, and Social Revolutions for more information, or Jeff Goodwin's No Other Way Out. They aren't perfect, but they're a good start on knowing what it takes to win in these situations.
I'm sorry, but I've been to the VRWC meetings, and those points never came up. I'm also confused, as I thought NeoCons were all Zionist, Christian-blood drinking Jews, like Wolfowitz, so where does the Rapture fit in?
And you're right, it should go without saying that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," because it's a load of crap.
I don't know if you've ever studied the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it came about because we elected John F. Kennedy. Now, I'm not saying that Kennedy was incompetent. Hardly, just the opposite. The problem was that Kennedy was percieved as being a spoiled rich boy by Nikita Khrushchev, someone the Soviet Premiere thought he could easily push around. Well, thankfully, Khrushchev was wrong, Kennedy was willing to go to war, and the Soviet sphere didn't gain a permanent nuclear strike base just off our coast. The key to international security is to show that you are willing to fight those who threaten you, otherwise your weakness is going to be exploited for all it's worth until it's too late for you to do anything but go to war.
Actually, the War Powers Resolution allows the President to wage war without the approval of Congress (BTW: the distinction between "waging war" and "declaring war" is how the office of the President has been able to get around the Constitutional requirement. Yeah, it's bullshit, but what's the Constitution going to do about it? Give him a paper cut?). He does need to either notify or seek permission (I can't remember which) from Congress within 48 hours of military action. It seems to me that we could easily launch our entire contingent of nuclear-armed missles within that 48-hour timeframe.
Also, what's with this surprise over a pre-emptive nuclear strike? We had a pre-emptive strike planned against the USSR throughout the Cold War. We never committed to second-strike capability only.
Just because you have "nuclear capabilities" does not mean that you possess the capability needed to wipe out the US. You also need enough warheads to do the requisite damage (destroying just a few cities doesn't do it) and the appropriate number of adequete delivery systems to get them on target. With those requirements, we can eliminate China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea from the list. Britain and France are not going to respond with a nuclear retaliation on the US unless we attack them, which leaves Russia, though I doubt we'd be attacking anything that would piss Russia off to the point where they would feel the pressing need to get wiped off the face planet just after they launch their missiles.
AP reporters who saw blacks taking stuff from a supermarket called them looters (as their protocols stated, they would only call someone a looter who they witnessed looting), while AFP reporters who saw a white woman wading down a street with a bag in her hand didn't call her a looter. I know, the fact that these two different incidents reported by two different news agencies weren't captioned the exact same way reeks of racism.
Slashdot Mirror
Correction: it never used to be that news was not opinionated, it simply used to be that no one noticed. The professionalism of journalism was the biggest hoax of the twentieth century, the last thing newspapers should do is seek a return.
OK, so you learn the language at a young age. Let's say Russia is a big concern at the time (Cold War is in full swing), and then you come to today where Russian is not quite as important. Instead, you need to know Arabic. So, kids today start learning Arabic. The problem is, by the time they grow up, Arabic isn't that usefull anymore. Instead, it's Mandarin. So, their children get to learning Mandarin, but by the time they grow up China is no longer the issue. Instead, they really need speakers of Tagalog or something. On and on and on, always being stuck with the language capabilities needed twenty years ago instead of what is needed now.
All right, how about the Chomskybot?
It's totally dependant on another, unquestionable human and rights-endowed being, the mother. Can we legitmately force her to sacrifice her own health, risk her own life, etc. for the fetus?
No. In fact, most abortion laws that are drafted do have exceptions for life-threatening instances. They still get struck down though. Thus, the question is not the one you pose. The question is is abortion to be treated as simply another form of birth control?
Even if the fetus were a little curled-up totally-aware *adult* inside her, can we force her to let it exist parasitically in her? I know most twins would give up a kidney to save their twin... but are they legally compelled to do it?
Yes, because a) most likely, the woman willing engaged in an act that involved the possibility of putting that "curled-up totally-aware *adult* inside her" and b) if she did so unwilling, that "curled-up totally-aware *adult* inside her" was not responsible for the initial infringement of her rights. Now, if society denies her the legal right to kill that person, society also has an obligation to provide support for her so that the obligation is as light as possible.
Your twins example is also not parrallel with abortion. With abortion, you're talking about preventing the woman from doing something. With the twins, you're talking about forcing the twins to do something.
But if you give the cells on the end of a dead guy's fingers and provide them with everything the need to survive (nutrients, heat, pressure, etc.), they will never grow into a human being. Instead, you would need to change what those cells are in order to bring that about. You might just as well talk about a collection of unassembled chemicals, or just a clod of dirt, as a potential human life if the possibility of intelligent tinkering is allowed. A fertilized human egg, on the other hand, if allowed to survive, might some day go to college and have to repay student loans. It's an important fundamental difference that your example pretends doesn't exit.
So if I kill someone before they hit puberty, then that's ok because they were unable to reproduce durring their existance, and therefore not alive? I can just go on a rampage through the maternity ward then instead of playing GTA!
Yes, to some that is considered murder. If you believe that life begins at conception and not some arbitrary point down the road, then that would mean that intentionally creating a condition where a fertilized human egg is going to die is murder. Much like if you actively denied someone warmth durring the winter, making them die of frostbite.
I think you misunderstand. The requirement would not be de jure, as if Congress actually passed a law, but it would be de facto, in that if an adult website wants to be profitable it would need to limit itself to .xxx or else handle the court costs incurred by ordinary citizens taking it to court for placing "the children" at risk or something. So there would be no one sueing government, but rather people sueing each other. Now, granted, this may be a grossly exagerated sceinerio, but I just don't see the need to risk it.
I'm not doubting your belief in liberty, but you always have to look at the law of unintended consequences. Government is rife with programs initiated by good intentions that backfired and made things worse.
Well, we need to be fair about the whole Tiawan deal. Both the PRC and Tiawan have a "One China" policy, which means that states can only recognize one, but not the other, as the "real China." So if Tiawan was recognized as the "real China" (which, at one point, it was) that would mean that the PRC, with its billion+ people, would be excluded from the UN (which, at one point, it was). Now, if Tiawan were to drop this policy, that would allow the other nations to admit it to the UN in a 2/3rds vote in the General Assembly (besides also probably starting a war with the PRC, but that's another discussion).
I kinda like the free state idea though, but simply because of the implications that such an organization could become the framework of an IO to rival and eventually replace the UN, not because of any "necessity" of moving the Internet out of the US.
But do you trust it will stay non-mandatory? Sure, the US says .xxx is voluntary, but then one day a five-year-old comes across a porn site on a .com while he's surfing with his parents. Suddenly, thanks to the existance of .xxx, there's a case for a lawsuit! Hooray! One bad ruling and .xxx becomes mandatory just because of the potential consequences. And the situation isn't much better in the international arena. Do you trust China or the Middle-Eastern voting block to help keep .xxx voluntary?
I think the confusion over the EU is understandable as there has been lots and lots of talk from that region of having a united foreign policy. Match that up with the fact that the media only likes to report bad things (and the incessent beating of the "unilateralism" drum durring the 2004 election making it seem like we had no allies) and you get the perception that all of Europe is united behind a "Frog-legs good, Cowboy-boots bad" mentality.
However, you made a similar mistake. The EU hasn't provided a single soldier toward any US-led mission. Countries who are members of the EU have. Your statement is akin to saying the UN has provided more troops than the US to Iraq, simply because every member of the coalition in Iraq is also a member of the UN.
If by "materials and tools" you are including the several thousands or tens of thousands of people they had working on the project and the decades of time devoted to it, then I don't think that experiment has been tried yet.
How about CONSUMERS pay for new TVs or converters themselves?
That sounds good, but in which case how about CONSUMERS determine when analog broadcasts are dead through market forces instead of through federal legislation? Essentially, what the government did when it gave a phaseout date for the new medium was to issue an unfunded mandate to the public. This is simply the government funding that mandate. Don't get mad at this, get mad at the mandate instead.
Plus, let's not forget that the antarctic ice mass is increasing. So we're all concerned about the ice that is already floating melting while ice is building up around areas where it doesn't float. Hardly a doom and gloom sceinerio, unless you're pro-flooding.
I hope you're refering to your grandparent, other wise I'd suggest that you read a book about the American revolution. Learn about Richard and William Howe, sent by the British to meet with representives of the Continental Congress to reach a compromise at the start of the rebellion (Surely something a country would do if they considered their enemies terrorists). And while American revolutionaries were considered traitors by many British, "traitor" is not a synonym for "terrorist."
I don't misunderstand the threat. I was only refering to the status of MAD, in that there does not seem to exist any nation that is both capable and likely to assure our destruction when we assure someone else's, not that there are no hostile nations with the capability to do serious damage. Your last sentence says that you seem to agree with me.
You should have a look at the Cuban regime to determine how it would affect the balance of power. Castro was not easily controled by Moscow, so it wasn't simply a case of Russia having nukes in Cuba, it was Castro having nukes. But you're right, we had missiles in Turkey, which we quietly agreed to withdraw to bring an end to the conflict.
That's an intelligence issue mostly. It's going to take us a while to build the human resources necessary to do the job. If you are refering to the insurgency, they take twelve years, on average, to be pacified, and military action is mostly a holding action while the true battlefield is in the domestic (for the insurgents, I mean) political structure. I recomend Misagh Parsa's States, Ideologies, and Social Revolutions for more information, or Jeff Goodwin's No Other Way Out. They aren't perfect, but they're a good start on knowing what it takes to win in these situations.
I'm sorry, but I've been to the VRWC meetings, and those points never came up. I'm also confused, as I thought NeoCons were all Zionist, Christian-blood drinking Jews, like Wolfowitz, so where does the Rapture fit in?
And you're right, it should go without saying that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," because it's a load of crap.
I don't know if you've ever studied the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it came about because we elected John F. Kennedy. Now, I'm not saying that Kennedy was incompetent. Hardly, just the opposite. The problem was that Kennedy was percieved as being a spoiled rich boy by Nikita Khrushchev, someone the Soviet Premiere thought he could easily push around. Well, thankfully, Khrushchev was wrong, Kennedy was willing to go to war, and the Soviet sphere didn't gain a permanent nuclear strike base just off our coast. The key to international security is to show that you are willing to fight those who threaten you, otherwise your weakness is going to be exploited for all it's worth until it's too late for you to do anything but go to war.
Mr. President, we cannot allow a mineshaft gap!
Actually, the War Powers Resolution allows the President to wage war without the approval of Congress (BTW: the distinction between "waging war" and "declaring war" is how the office of the President has been able to get around the Constitutional requirement. Yeah, it's bullshit, but what's the Constitution going to do about it? Give him a paper cut?). He does need to either notify or seek permission (I can't remember which) from Congress within 48 hours of military action. It seems to me that we could easily launch our entire contingent of nuclear-armed missles within that 48-hour timeframe.
Also, what's with this surprise over a pre-emptive nuclear strike? We had a pre-emptive strike planned against the USSR throughout the Cold War. We never committed to second-strike capability only.
Just because you have "nuclear capabilities" does not mean that you possess the capability needed to wipe out the US. You also need enough warheads to do the requisite damage (destroying just a few cities doesn't do it) and the appropriate number of adequete delivery systems to get them on target. With those requirements, we can eliminate China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea from the list. Britain and France are not going to respond with a nuclear retaliation on the US unless we attack them, which leaves Russia, though I doubt we'd be attacking anything that would piss Russia off to the point where they would feel the pressing need to get wiped off the face planet just after they launch their missiles.
AP reporters who saw blacks taking stuff from a supermarket called them looters (as their protocols stated, they would only call someone a looter who they witnessed looting), while AFP reporters who saw a white woman wading down a street with a bag in her hand didn't call her a looter. I know, the fact that these two different incidents reported by two different news agencies weren't captioned the exact same way reeks of racism.
Yeah, but when you see nine football fields flying at you, you want to get out of the way.