Japan was preparing to defend its islands inch-by-inch. Without the atomic bombs, 1 million+ Americans would likely have died in block-by-block fighting in Japan.
Of course that would have been a choice. There was no direct military reason to invade the Japanese main islands. It was thoroughly defeated, cut off from it's supply lines and willing to surrender under certain conditions. It was the decision of the US to hold out for complete and unconditional surrender, which would either require a massive invasion or the nukes.
True. The complaint about British nukes "being rented from the US" has more to do with the missile system and the warheads begin build and serviced solely by the US. Should the 'special relationship' ever break up the UK would have trouble keeping operational nuclear weapons after a while.
GVU has a nice site for viewing this kind of data (figures from 2002). Alternatively you can check the UN data directly (figure from 2000 since the US figures apparently aren't out yet). Both give a figure of about 7 per 1000 live births for the US and 3 for Sweden (the best performing nation), putting the US in roughly 33d place.
Not horrible, but certainly not great either, let alone "the best".
You are missing the point. Yes, your tiny, insignificant, individual vote from B.F.E counts just as much as Mr. Downtown Manhatten. But your problems and your ideas and your concerns don't. Because you don't get to vote as a bloc anymore. You don't get the power of voting with others in your state to make your STATE'S voice heard. The concerns of your state (if they aren't the same as those of a densely populated, voter-rich one) can be easily and safely ignored because there's no need to woo you directly or pay attention to your issues after election.
And what are the issues specific to a state? (especially those not the same as those of any minority in a state such as a densely populated area). Generally there are none. Or if there are there would be little difference between voting with or without an EC. If 2 million voters from Iowa or 15 million from Pennsylvania are strongly in favor or against something, they will be heard, at least as much as there relative size warrants.
However, in almost all cases the relevant grouping is the state but the social or occupational group. middle class parents wanting better schools, corn farmers wanting continued subsidies, union workers wanting it easier to unionize, employers wanting it less. The only effect of an EC is that it ignores the votes of the minority in each state. Be it political (Dems in the red states, Reps in the blue states) or social (city dwellers in Iowa, rural inhabitants in New York).
Think it through and you might understand why the tyranny of the popular majority is what the electoral college attempts to address. It isn't about your vote, it is about your concerns and issues being addressed before, during, and after the vote. Your issues in a less-populated region will simply matter only in proportion to your population now. Enjoy!
You can call it the tyranny of the popular majority or you can call it democracy. How is better to give some voters more of a say than others? How this avoid people being ignored, instead of simply shifting the group that is ignored. What's more the interests of many states *are* almost completely ignored since they're firmly on one side or the other. How muh attention was payed by either candidate in the last election to, say Texas or Maine?
Yes and most people think that's silly in a country claiming to be this shining democracy. And since changing the constitution is a lengthy process, likely to be hijacked by local issues and since there's nothing in the constitution prohibiting this it solves a perceived problem while stating within the rules.
Which small states did the candidates travel for a week becauser they wanted the EC votes? Not the primary votes, the EC votes. How many days did Obama, Biden, McCain an Palin spend in New Hampshire or Iowa during the actual campaign?
Beyond that: what do you think would happen is say, the Democratic candidate completely ignored Iowa? You can bet that the Republican would ensure that the people of Iowa voted massivly for him.
I side with the Founding Fathers on this issue. The common man, even 200+ years later, is not educated enough, or even intelligent enough, to make an informed decision about who should lead the US.
All you have to do is watch the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and catch his, I believe its called Jay Walking now but I recall it as "The Great American Pop Quiz", quiz of the common man on the streets of NYC to see that the vast majority of Americans have NO business selecting who should lead the US.
Pffff... I don't need to watch some humorless TV show for that. The 2004 election result was clear enough.
Generally you want the legislative branch to pay attention to your state (afterall, that's where the money, the earmarks and the special rules, tailor made for your state are). But mostly you don't want special attention for your state, you want special attention for your industry or political opinion. This sometimes correlates with states, but even then it means that if you don't belong to that group (city dwellers in Iowa, farmers in New York) your screwed.
It's actually worse then that, if a candidate gets 81% of the votes in Iowa but the other candidate wins the popular election with 51% of the vote, Iowa disregards what the people of their state thinks and votes for the other guy.
It's not so much disregarding the wishes of the people of Iowa as it is respecting the wish of the population of the United States.
People who think the Electoral College is bad have to be ignorant of the consequences of doing away with it. What it means is that candidates for national office will only campaign in a handful of states that will guarantee a popular majority. No one will ever again campaign in New England, the Midwest, or much of the South.
Really? They will ignore:
New England: population 15 million.
The Mid west: population 19 million (or 66 million if you include the great lake states)
The South: population 68 million (if you exclude Texas and Florida)
That a total of 82 million people, some 55 million voters. And that's excluding the great lakes and the mountain states. You're saying they're going to ignore 60 million potential votes, when the difference in the last six elections was never more than 10 million? Should they really do that I know a few third pary candidates who would *love* to put ll their effort into those regions a possibly win.
Of course they will try to woo the rest of the country. It will just be more difficult for them, since they can't ignore their 'base' states. It will be more difficult for cnadidates of either party to first court the extrimist wing during the primary and then 'move to the center' (also known as flip flopping when it's the oppostion) for the general election.
So by doing away with electoral votes and tying them to the popular vote, you are potentially disenfranchising a huge number of states and their citizens from any meaningful participation in national elections.
Let's compare. In the current system any republican vote in New York and California and any Democratic vote in Texas lost. It has *no* influence on the final tally. Under the proposed system (assuming all states join in) every single vote would help decide who became president.
Really all you need to know is the result of the 2000 election (ignoring the butterflyfiasco, just the result: Final tally in the popular vote: Bush 50,456,002 Gore 50,999,897. Final tally in the EC: Bush 271, Gore 266.
Why would any presidential candidate ignore 2 milion votes? To put it differently: if the EC was abolished (literally or in the way the article suggests) Iowa would likely get as much attention as Chicago. Does it get more with the current system? Probably (see bioethanol, subsidies for ) but that actually means voters in other places get the short shrift.
Though there are a lot more ignorants and nutjobs in the US than in other western democracies, there are plenty in the rest of the world.
The main difference is that in the rest of the world they 1) don't get into positions of power (especially where education is concerned) or 2) are willing to live and let live as long as they don't have to teach evolution to their own children.
For example in the Netherlands evolution is not taught on some christian high schools and therefor isn't included as a subject on the country wide final exams. However since only the most fundamentalist parents would send their children there and since there is free school choice it has a lot less impact than when the board of education of an US county or state does the same thing.
Still seeing that *Iran* of all places is less religiously dogmatic than some US leaders is.... weird.
Dawkins is certainly abrasive on the subject, and I can understand many people disliking him for it. However science does have
Also there seems to be a rather odd difference made between people saying "There *is* as god, and you should believe in him or you're going to end badly" and someone saying "No your wrong, you're just believing in fairy tales". The former is pretty much accepted (though the explicitness of the 'end badly part' tends to vary with audience) while the latter is seen as rude.
Beyond that: no science can't disprove the existence of god. But science also can't disprove the existence of unicorns or leprechauns and no one seem to go into a tiffy when some one says those don't exist. For almost everything else the burden is on the person saying something exists.
While the total amount of France's highly nuclear waste is relatively small due to their reprocessing of fuel at La Haque, they still have no definitive storage for the remaining material which of course will remain quite dangerous for a long time.
Beyond that there's the issue of low level waste, which is mostly ignored in the discussion. All those huge plants will eventually have torn be torn down and result in enormous amounts of low level nuclear concrete etc. That will have to be put somewhere as well (the cost of safely dismantling hose plans is generally also ignored, at least by proponents of nuclear energy).
Nuclear energy is nothing like the Simpsons parody it's sometimes portrayed as by opponents. But there are real issues with cost en even waste that proponents should adress.
Bull, the IPCCC report says that it's "very likely" that human made CO2 results in climate change. That's about as definitive as you're likely to get from a very large group of scientists. Yes the precise details are not clear yet, but most of the uncertainty is about how *bad* it could/would get. That human activity is vastly increasing the CO2 levels is clear. That this has a significant influence on the climate is pretty much as well.
Yes it is, since this increase is the *result* of government intervention. The guarantees a minimum feed-in tariff which makes building wind installations commercially viable (not just because of the subsidy but also because it makes the large up front investment predictable). What's more, the past has shown what happens when it's left to the free market. Since the law has to be renewed every two years political wrangling means it's sometimes in place and sometimes not. When it's not, investment immediately collapses (see the graph at the end of this article).
And since so far it hasn't been renewed installation this year will most likely be significantly lower.
Beyond that total installad capacity is only important when looked at relatively. Total population is almost four times as large in the US than it is in Germany, energy consumption per household it much higher in the US and even Germany only gets a relatively small percentage of it's electricity from wind (7% according to this). So overall: good start, but most of the work is still to do.
George Washington's contribution to history is really amazing. He could have been a king or a dictator and he would have found great acceptance in that role. Instead, he was not tempted by power and he gladly renounced it for the greater good and edification of all. To my knowledge, he is the only person in history who ever provided such a great example.
Anytime anyone uses words like sentences like 'the only person in history who ever' my fingers start to itch. It's almost never true for human actions (good or bad). In this case I'd offer the quick rebuttal of Juan Carlos I of Spain and Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus . Juan Carlos may have become king but he gave up the (considerable) power that Franco bestowed on him. Cincinnatus retired to his farm after being Roman dictator, not once but twice.
Nah, the golden century was mostly the result of a highly skilled labour force (including many protestant Belgians fleeing north), the large trading fleet at the pivot point between southern and baltic trade and taking over the lucrative spice trade. The real colonization (as in conquering significant areas and using the locals as slave labour came mostly in the 19th century. And while that was profitable it was nothing compared to the earlier time.
There's the slave trade of course, but even that only slightly profitable (which you could argue made it even worse).
Well the same would go for almost all nations except the US 9and maybe the UK). So sensible thing for the rest of the world clearly is to stimulate downloading:)
Actually, local artists tend to sell fewer CD's in almost all countries except maybe Japan and Germany. A decline in sales due to downloading therefore hurts them much more than the import artists (which tend to be the mega sellers from the US, not the cult favourites). So if d/l is good for them it'll probably be beneficial to foreign sales as well.
I seem to remember at least two other apps that had a HTML renderer in 1995: Mosaic and Netscape and both where (initially) made in the garage equivalent so others could have follows easily. And how many apps did end up using the explorer HTML renderer for anything other than the net? Not to mention that providing an easy API for third parties to use != grafting it to the kernel.
Incorporating IE into windows was purely done to make it impossible to be replaced by netscape.
Insulation works both ways. It's also very useful in a hot climate/time of year the GP was lives in Florida with high A/C costs. Better insulation would work wonders for his/her electricity bill.
How about an Iranian convicted for being gay (and somehow not having been executed)? Would they (theoretically) deny him entry? Or a Saudi women convicted for adultery?
I wouldn't call the sales numbers on the A380 pathetic. There's a backlog of almost 200 planes, which means the soonest you can get one if you order it now is 2013. Furthermore to total market for a plane of this size is much smaller than for something like the A320 or even Boeing 777. It has been estimated at between 500 (Boeing trying to discourage Airbus) and 1000 (Airbus overestimating for PR purposes) aircraft. So it's doing fine so far.
Well, you were arguing that all French support was by definition awful. Unless you were actually French that seems quite xenophobic. Or anti non Swedish/American perhaps but there's a lack of a good descriptive for that.
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Of course that would have been a choice. There was no direct military reason to invade the Japanese main islands. It was thoroughly defeated, cut off from it's supply lines and willing to surrender under certain conditions. It was the decision of the US to hold out for complete and unconditional surrender, which would either require a massive invasion or the nukes.
True. The complaint about British nukes "being rented from the US" has more to do with the missile system and the warheads begin build and serviced solely by the US. Should the 'special relationship' ever break up the UK would have trouble keeping operational nuclear weapons after a while.
GVU has a nice site for viewing this kind of data (figures from 2002). Alternatively you can check the UN data directly (figure from 2000 since the US figures apparently aren't out yet). Both give a figure of about 7 per 1000 live births for the US and 3 for Sweden (the best performing nation), putting the US in roughly 33d place.
Not horrible, but certainly not great either, let alone "the best".
And what are the issues specific to a state? (especially those not the same as those of any minority in a state such as a densely populated area). Generally there are none. Or if there are there would be little difference between voting with or without an EC. If 2 million voters from Iowa or 15 million from Pennsylvania are strongly in favor or against something, they will be heard, at least as much as there relative size warrants.
However, in almost all cases the relevant grouping is the state but the social or occupational group. middle class parents wanting better schools, corn farmers wanting continued subsidies, union workers wanting it easier to unionize, employers wanting it less. The only effect of an EC is that it ignores the votes of the minority in each state. Be it political (Dems in the red states, Reps in the blue states) or social (city dwellers in Iowa, rural inhabitants in New York).
You can call it the tyranny of the popular majority or you can call it democracy. How is better to give some voters more of a say than others? How this avoid people being ignored, instead of simply shifting the group that is ignored. What's more the interests of many states *are* almost completely ignored since they're firmly on one side or the other. How muh attention was payed by either candidate in the last election to, say Texas or Maine?
Yes and most people think that's silly in a country claiming to be this shining democracy. And since changing the constitution is a lengthy process, likely to be hijacked by local issues and since there's nothing in the constitution prohibiting this it solves a perceived problem while stating within the rules.
Beyond that: what do you think would happen is say, the Democratic candidate completely ignored Iowa? You can bet that the Republican would ensure that the people of Iowa voted massivly for him.
Pffff... I don't need to watch some humorless TV show for that. The 2004 election result was clear enough.
Generally you want the legislative branch to pay attention to your state (afterall, that's where the money, the earmarks and the special rules, tailor made for your state are). But mostly you don't want special attention for your state, you want special attention for your industry or political opinion. This sometimes correlates with states, but even then it means that if you don't belong to that group (city dwellers in Iowa, farmers in New York) your screwed.
It's not so much disregarding the wishes of the people of Iowa as it is respecting the wish of the population of the United States.
Really? They will ignore:
That a total of 82 million people, some 55 million voters. And that's excluding the great lakes and the mountain states. You're saying they're going to ignore 60 million potential votes, when the difference in the last six elections was never more than 10 million? Should they really do that I know a few third pary candidates who would *love* to put ll their effort into those regions a possibly win.
Of course they will try to woo the rest of the country. It will just be more difficult for them, since they can't ignore their 'base' states. It will be more difficult for cnadidates of either party to first court the extrimist wing during the primary and then 'move to the center' (also known as flip flopping when it's the oppostion) for the general election.
Let's compare. In the current system any republican vote in New York and California and any Democratic vote in Texas lost. It has *no* influence on the final tally. Under the proposed system (assuming all states join in) every single vote would help decide who became president.
Really all you need to know is the result of the 2000 election (ignoring the butterflyfiasco, just the result: Final tally in the popular vote: Bush 50,456,002 Gore 50,999,897. Final tally in the EC: Bush 271, Gore 266.
Why would any presidential candidate ignore 2 milion votes? To put it differently: if the EC was abolished (literally or in the way the article suggests) Iowa would likely get as much attention as Chicago. Does it get more with the current system? Probably (see bioethanol, subsidies for ) but that actually means voters in other places get the short shrift.
The main difference is that in the rest of the world they 1) don't get into positions of power (especially where education is concerned) or 2) are willing to live and let live as long as they don't have to teach evolution to their own children.
For example in the Netherlands evolution is not taught on some christian high schools and therefor isn't included as a subject on the country wide final exams. However since only the most fundamentalist parents would send their children there and since there is free school choice it has a lot less impact than when the board of education of an US county or state does the same thing.
Still seeing that *Iran* of all places is less religiously dogmatic than some US leaders is.... weird.
Beyond that: no science can't disprove the existence of god. But science also can't disprove the existence of unicorns or leprechauns and no one seem to go into a tiffy when some one says those don't exist. For almost everything else the burden is on the person saying something exists.
Beyond that there's the issue of low level waste, which is mostly ignored in the discussion. All those huge plants will eventually have torn be torn down and result in enormous amounts of low level nuclear concrete etc. That will have to be put somewhere as well (the cost of safely dismantling hose plans is generally also ignored, at least by proponents of nuclear energy).
Nuclear energy is nothing like the Simpsons parody it's sometimes portrayed as by opponents. But there are real issues with cost en even waste that proponents should adress.
Bull, the IPCCC report says that it's "very likely" that human made CO2 results in climate change. That's about as definitive as you're likely to get from a very large group of scientists. Yes the precise details are not clear yet, but most of the uncertainty is about how *bad* it could/would get. That human activity is vastly increasing the CO2 levels is clear. That this has a significant influence on the climate is pretty much as well.
And since so far it hasn't been renewed installation this year will most likely be significantly lower.
Beyond that total installad capacity is only important when looked at relatively. Total population is almost four times as large in the US than it is in Germany, energy consumption per household it much higher in the US and even Germany only gets a relatively small percentage of it's electricity from wind (7% according to this). So overall: good start, but most of the work is still to do.
There's the slave trade of course, but even that only slightly profitable (which you could argue made it even worse).
Actually, local artists tend to sell fewer CD's in almost all countries except maybe Japan and Germany. A decline in sales due to downloading therefore hurts them much more than the import artists (which tend to be the mega sellers from the US, not the cult favourites). So if d/l is good for them it'll probably be beneficial to foreign sales as well.
Incorporating IE into windows was purely done to make it impossible to be replaced by netscape.
Thanks for the information.
Insulation works both ways. It's also very useful in a hot climate/time of year the GP was lives in Florida with high A/C costs. Better insulation would work wonders for his/her electricity bill.
How about an Iranian convicted for being gay (and somehow not having been executed)? Would they (theoretically) deny him entry? Or a Saudi women convicted for adultery?
I wouldn't call the sales numbers on the A380 pathetic. There's a backlog of almost 200 planes, which means the soonest you can get one if you order it now is 2013. Furthermore to total market for a plane of this size is much smaller than for something like the A320 or even Boeing 777. It has been estimated at between 500 (Boeing trying to discourage Airbus) and 1000 (Airbus overestimating for PR purposes) aircraft. So it's doing fine so far.
Well, you were arguing that all French support was by definition awful. Unless you were actually French that seems quite xenophobic. Or anti non Swedish/American perhaps but there's a lack of a good descriptive for that.