Since you seem receptive to new ideas, I would like to mention one of the "teaching methods" of one of my professors who I felt did an outstanding job of using term papers to their best possible practical use:
Each week we were required to write a 1-4 page "report" about the subject we were studying in class and bring a minimum of six different copies (usually on Monday). When we got to class, we exchanged these term papers with five other students, and handed the sixth copy to the instructor, who did read through the papers but mainly just marked that we had completed the assignment.
By getting copied from other students, we were introduced to not only a diversity of writing styles and viewpoints, it also provided a virtual textbook of comparisons... and a way to ferret out people who were plagiarizing. We also had a small group discussion over what we had just researched, and you could tell right away who was B.S.'ing or not.
When the final exam took place, it was "closed text, closed notes", but we were given all of these term papers we had worked on for reference in the exam. Basically, if we had done a good job in researching for the papers and had really learned the subject, the final was a breeze. If you had been copying stuff from other students and had not learned the content of the class... well... you were screwed. And you had to cite specific examples in the final together with sources of information.
While this was one of the toughest classes I ever had, it was also one that I learned more than just about any other in my entire educational career.
Being older (I'm 40+) and having taken a freshman biology course in the past 10 years, I hardly think this is necessarily a fair assessment of the situation.
I will admit that particularly in terms of biology, that there have been huge gains and leaps of knowledge. In the past, biology was largely an empirical science, with an attempt to build up knowledge through examples. That is why many biology research libraries have (especially older ones) huge catalogs of specimens of creatures, especially things like insects or stuffed animals, and have often turned these collections into museums. For this field there really is an "ocean of information" that has taken quite a bit of time to try and grasp to really find out what is going on.
Of course you have people like Gregor Mendel who have been working toward trying to turn Biology into a real science, and in the past couple of decades Biology has been turning more and more into something akin to a "hard science" similar to astronomy, chemistry, and physics. We understand DNA now far better than we did right after it was discovered, and the basic mechanisms of how living things work is understood at a much deeper level than was understood in the past. When I compare what was talked about in my textbook to the college biology textbook my mother had from the late 1950's, the science was so different that it is hard to believe that it was the same field. Computational power has also significantly improved to the point that problems which were previously unsolvable (at least within the modest budget of an assistant professor at a small college), can now routinely be done on equipment that is now headed to the city dump. Certainly Biology has benefited from technological developments in the 20th Century. Discussions that there may be construction of a completely artificial eukaryote, while technically beyond current biological sciences, is not nearly as far fetched as once thought possible, and a complete mapping of the human genome was throught to be impossible (or many decades into the future) but is now an accomplished fact.
Getting back to the plagiarism:.... I think the problem is not so much the students and their academic environment, other than the fact that the professors have gone through a cycle of knowledge where even their own relevance in the field is being questioned, particularly if they have been lazy and not really tried to keep up with the field. And if these professors are close to retirement, why should they bother to keep up.... other than the fact that some of their students may know more about the subject than they do, even as undergrads.
I will also say that you can find quite a bit of information "on line" about any given topic, but that information is at best a general overview and can't really be considered in depth... unless you are good at accessing original research papers on-line. Certainly stopping at Wikipedia as the final and best source of information (a common mistake for many undergrads) is not only bad but intellectually dishonest. And many web pages don't even have this degree of peer review but are random musings of one individual or another. More like a blog than anything else. To get real information, you have to dust off your skills in a university library and be able to go after other sources of information that simply can't be "googled".
If a student is lazy and tries to "cheat" on getting this basic knowledge, they are really cheating themselves. Of course somebody with a basic knowledge about a topic has often been capable of writing term papers that were filled with B.S. and made up references in the past. Today is no different.
This is presuming that the purpose of a college education (especially a "liberal arts" education) is to acquire knowledge and critical thinking skills. And to discover a diversity of viewpoints.
While these are all laudable goals, it is so far from the truth about what higher education is all about that if you really believe any of these points above... see a local psychiatrist, or at least a competent educational counselor.
The real truth of the matter is that a college degree (particularly the B.S., but the grad degrees as well) are really a form of the classic "guild certification" or "union card", but applied to professional occupations. Some professions require things like a Juris Doctorate or some other specialized degree, but a bachelor's degree is pretty typical... especially for things like engineers.
And of course you need the PhD if you want to be involved with teaching at a university.
While it is a good idea to try and pick up some knowledge while you are going through the meat grinder of a college education, you should keep foremost that the knowledge is not the point. The real point is to "punch the ticket", build up credits in required courses, and get the best grades you can. How you can talk the instructors into getting those grades is of course a matter of style and attitude, with demonstration of knowledge being but one of the ways you can do that.
And keep in mind that most university programs are not designed to give you knowledge either. If they were, they wouldn't be having Computer Science instructors with accents so thick that they might as well be speaking a foreign language. Or in some cases they are, but somehow got past the dean of the college and got hired anyway and speak a dialect of Klingon, with Esperanto as their second language.
The purpose of most university programs is to control the rate of entry for people entering a given profession. The American Medical Association is very blunt and obvious about this, by only certifying select schools and controlling the number of graduates that are produced. If one million students with the same skills (or better!) as the last recipient of the Nobel prize in Medicine applied to med school, the number of students actually graduating would still be largely the same. The standards for graduation would merely be raised to nearly impossible standards to control the rate of graduation. And if there is a shortfall in the number of doctors, those standards will be lowered to permit more to graduate. There may be problems with specific specialities, but the over all number of medical doctors will be maintained.
The same could be said about lawyers (and the bar exam) as well as other professions. Many of the classes are designed explicitly to scare the heck out of you to ever enter into a given profession and consider an alternative path in life, and certainly act as a way to "weed" students out who don't have views of society that meshes with those of the faculty. If you stick up like a rusty nail in a board, prepare to get wacked and beaten down. And never, ever, try to show that you know more about the subject than your instructor. While it is fun to be cocky and show off that you've been a Linux hacker since you were 12 and have contributed over 40,000 lines into the Linux kernel by the time you graduated from High School, don't you ever dare let your professor know that was the case. You will be surely marked for heresy and doomed to drop out of college. They will make it a point to see you get flushed out in one way or another.
Oh, there are some professors and a few (very few) college/universty environments that actually do care about their students and go against this orthodoxy, but I am telling you and anybody else reading this that this is a rare exception and not the general rule. Some colleges even brag about a 30% graduation rate.... to show just how successful they are at telling students where to go and scare them out of trying to finish the programs.
The USA is particularly loathsome about giving up its sovereignty in nearly any capacity, and for a good reason: We know first hand what happens when you give up that sovereignty and what it cost (in the lives of many of our citizens) to get it in the first place.
From a personal perspective, I would like to see the USA withdraw from the WTO. The impact on the global political scene is horrid, tarnishes the image of the USA, and puts incredible legislative and judicial power in the hands of individuals who IMHO are not bound by the principles of the U.S. Constitution, care little about popular opinion and have no reason to care, and is at least for U.S. representation in the hands of unelected career government bureaucrats who have a personal agenda that is at odds with the American people. Why the U.S. Congress gave such an unconstitutional usurpation of power is beyond me, but I also believe that this was sold to the U.S. Congress as being harmless, or worse as a noble cause, when in fact it wasn't.
As a forum for discussing trade activities and working on perhaps global efforts to reduce tariffs, I support the idea of something like the WTO. This is what was sold to the American people, along with the assumption that we, through our elected representatives, could accept or reject any such agreements that were reached in those meetings. And face the international consequences of accepting or rejecting these proposals. But as an authority that can override the U.S. Constitution and force changes to legislation outside of constitutional processes, that was not accepted by the American people. I have my doubts that the U.S. Congress would even have the authority to allow such a take-over of constitutional principles.
There are some things that a society simply must draw the line and say "No, we can't permit this sort of activity within our community."
The problem here being that our government does allow gambling. We have state lotteries, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, horse racing, etc. All are legal as long as the government gets its cut and the native gambling lobby keeps the money flowing.
You miss the point here. Yes, there are numerous states with lotteries and major gambling centers in the USA. But with the internet we are literally opening up our homes to allowing this everywhere and anywhere. This is an attempt to push that kind of stuff away and keep it quarantined to places where it can be kept under control. And it is a local exception to allow this kind of activity, which is the same for legalized prostitution.
But there are many communities who want to simply say that such stuff shouldn't be happening within their borders of this nature, and want to take active steps to keep it from happening. That in this particular case the solution proposed here will also have an indirect benefit to the gambling casinos in fixed places like Atlantic City and Las Vegas means that you have support from both the pro-gambling lobby and the anti-gambling lobby. And why this law will absolutely not be repealed by Congress, and why the USA is willing to flip off the WTO on this issue.
Only the most laissez-faire libertarianism would possibly fight against this sort of legislation, at least within the USA. It is not in our national interest to repeal the law. It also is a law that does not target Antigua specifically, but is a general law that refuses to honor debts incurred by on-line gambling, and affects businesses in the USA as much as abroad. And this law is also something completely within the range of authority for the U.S. Congress to regulate, the WTO not withstanding and a certain interpretation of the WTO treaty.
I will say that I am not nearly as worried about nuclear proliferation as I used to be in the past. Here is the main reason why:
Any government that has nukes will quickly discover that they are very, very, very (am I understating this?), very expensive.
If you think you know what expensive is, you don't have the beginning of a thought on the topic in relationship to nukes. They are at least an order of magnitude more expensive than you last thought of. Take that thought and it is still more expensive yet.
OK, if you ask why they are expensive, here is part of it:
The basic material to build nukes, mainly Uranium-235 and Plutonium-238, are very rare elements.... something with the rarity of even gold. Uranium is the heaviest element on the periodic table that shows something close to billion-year stability. Perhaps something may be found way up the march through the periodic table, but it isn't something normally produced by super nova explosions as Uranium is. Building a bomb case out of solid gold would be cheaper to produce... especially if you are talking about refined bomb-grade fissionable material. Ounce per ounce, the gold is far, far cheaper to refine and mine.
Constructing a workable nuke is a very complex task, requiring a PhD in a specific sub-set of Physics. In fact, it needs more than just a working knowledge of atomic geometries and a near genius level understanding of quantum mechanics. It also requires engineers very skilled with explosives, and the ability to do complex mathmatical calculations to determine the precise geometries necessary to build the device. You can reduce the need have such advanced talent by simply building a bigger bomb, but please refer back to point #1 above, and see if you can double or even provide 100x the quantity of basic fissionable material for the same kind of explosion. Plus such a huge bomb can't be carried in the tip of a missile but instead must be carried in a heavy bomber... like the Enola Gay. Or in a ship and detonated on board in a suicide mission. I'm not talking a row boat either, as Uranium is also very heavy... heavier than even gold, which is not a light element by itself. This is tons of equipment that I'm talking about or a single bomb. Some of the knowledge can be stolen or inferred from physical science publications and abstracts, but not all of it, nor especially the most critical pieces of knowledge.
Even if you have the full plans gift wrapped to you from the USA, China, Russia, India, and Pakistan (to compare notes between all of these countries and see where they might have made a mistake... or to make sure they aren't filling you full of BS); you still have to have some very highly skilled technicians that would be capable of putting this whole thing together. Machining Plutonium-238 into spherical shapes (to help with creating a critical mass initiating fission) is something that is usually toxic for the machinist and has all kind of other complications, incluidng what to do with the shavings and dust from the process. Not only is this stuff far more valuable than gold (see #1 above), but Plutonium oxide is one of the most deadly compounds known to medical science. It also requires specialized tools and other equipment to produce this bomb.
Assuming that you have already obtained the Uranium (or refined Plutonium) and have actually built and tested this engineering marvel (keep in mind this is a task at least an order of magnitude more difficult than even launching a rocket into orbit), avoided producing a fizzle (in nuclear bomb talk...a dud), and you can faithfully reproduce this same design repeatedly in a systematic fashion with consistent results (not easy to do either), you still have to decide what to do with the thing now that it is built. Since you have by now already invested billions of dollars (or equivalent in local currency) into this project and have the resources of a medium sized nation state (who with billions of dollars in assetts doesn't have real
Keep in mind that the USA is not asking Antigua to stop offering on-line gambling. All it is saying is that any debts related to on-line gambling are not enforceable in the USA. If I pull out my Visa card and gamble away $100,000 (or my credit card limit), I can in turn tell my credit card company to go take a hike, I won't pay it. And they can't collect, close down my account, nor even make a bad reference on my credit history.
Antigua is justifiably pissed over this as they would be collecting a huge amount of money if this restriction wasn't in place, and other forms of monetary transfer (especially easy credit like with a credit card) that would entice people to spend that money on them instead just isn't as easily available.
Sweden is just as capable of doing this as well, but since they are a smaller country Antigua wouldn't really care nor even file a WTO complaint in the first place.
I give credit to Antigua for having the balls to try this out, as the potential for huge quantities of money for them is high and if they lose the case there is little else for them to lose. That some arbitrators at the WTO agreed with Antigua is the real news, but the WTO doesn't really have the teeth to really force a change either in the USA unless major elements of the U.S. Government agree with them. As apparently the WTO is finding out the hard way. There are 10 people to convince that may in effect throw the U.S. law out the window (President + SCOTUS) and another 435 individuals who could be persuaded to repeal the law. If you can't convince that body of 445 people that this is bad and they need to listen to the WTO, the WTO is screwed in terms of enforcement.
But the USA is better enough that they can take unilateral action to remove governments and bring Democracy to people who never asked for it. So much better, that their intent can be assumed to be just and good, no matter the actual actions taken and their practical effects.
No, I don't think so. The USA gets along with China and Saudi Arabia just fine, and neither are gleaming jewels of democracy. Indeed in the last half of the 20th Century, most of our trouble throughout the world is supporting those countries (like Iran during the Shah) that were friendly but didn't support democratic movements.
When we take "unilateral" action to remove governments, it is because of a direct threat (as was the case of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan) or perceived threats in the future (such as Spain in the 1890's or Iraq since 1990).
That we choose to leave behind democratic governments when we are through is a side effect and a means to deal with the people in those countries instead of performing mass genocides, ethnic cleansing, and directly annexing those countries into our own. As certainly some other countries (notably the Soviet Union) did during the same time period. Just ask Germany about Königsberg and where that formerly German city with a very long and rich history (being the homes of German kings) currently is at right now.
That at the end of WWII we choose to remove the Nazi party from power in Germany should not be surprising. Or that Gen. MacArthur decided to "force" the process on Japan by writing their current constitution.
Generally speaking, once the USA has gone in somewhere, the people living there are better off. Two huge exceptions are Cuba and Vietnam, but then again they also have something in common: They both have Soviet-style communist governments. Arguably the Philippines may not be a 1st world industrialized country, but then again they aren't scraping the bottom of the barrel either in terms of being a developing nation, and have resources and the capacity to substantially improve their position in the world.
Nothing compared to the former Belgian colony of Zaire (or is that the Congo?). Talk about a huge mess. Or most of the former French colonies in Africa. Wow, that is a good example of cleaning up messes and keeping problems from spilling out of control.
As far as going into Iraq, that was a decision that was debated by knowledgeable people in a very open, public, and lengthy debate, and approved by both major federal legislative bodies by huge numbers. I would argue that perhaps a formal declaration of war needed to be made instead of the so-called "authorization of the use of force", but that is largely semantics. The reasons for going in were made clear, and if opposition to this campaign didn't make their case, they should have spoken up louder and done so. Complaining after the fact is just sour grapes. If Saddam didn't want to die and lose his government, he should have been a tad bit more accommodating on the diplomatic front when people were prepared to go to war against him.
Perhaps this is what you are complaining about the most: That the USA doesn't hesitate to march into a country to show it is serious on a diplomatic level as well. That sometimes a President will wax philosophically about the moral rights to perform an action or other may be true, but that is something mainly meant for domestic consumption. The external message is clear: Don't mess with the USA if you want to exist as a nation. I guess that can upset some people who don't like such a blunt message.
I can pound my chest saying how cool my town/state/country is just like anybody else. And if I think my country has some special magic that makes it better for me to live here that is unique to any place else, why should I not try to brag about that?
At the same time, you are correct for the most part. You can also do the same thing, and claim how Costa Rica is such an awsome place because they have eliminated their military completely and have an outstanding national park system and more. (I don't know if you are Costa Rican, but there are many things to be proud of in that country.) Or say the same thing about France, England, Russia, or China.
The problem comes that Americans love to brag about their home (particularly Texans) to the point of being obnoxious. And most Americans also smile and say "yeah, I know... but let me tell you how cool it is to (fill in the blank) in America" and keep up bragging about their country even when people have reached the point of getting turned off.
Or many of these countries are upset about being in 2nd place to the USA that they try to knock the USA down a few notches when they can. This is as annoying as almost anything else. And Americans are competitive enough that saying they are in 2nd place is as likely to get some hard rebuttals or even some serious action to remedy the situation.
About the only thing American's don't care about being in last place with is the FIFA World Cup.
Seriously.... if you ask most Americans who havn't really studied the issue, they think of Canada as this crazy state to the north (or a bunch of wacked out states with strange names like Manitoba and Quebec) who has pictures of the Queen of England everywhere and funny looking money. And when Canadians come to the USA to live, they blend into American society so successfully that saying they are from Canada is like saying they are from Virginia or Massachusetts.
Post 9/11 is changing this somewhat (or substantially), but whole communities have been built across the international boundary and have hardly even given the thought that there were national borders at all. Certainly my experience of crossing the U.S./Canadian boundary was mainly coming across a park ranger with a funny looking red coat (being a member of the RCMP) instead of the drab green coats of their American counterparts. The border station was also something out of a Dudly Do-Right cartoon as a log cabin with a wood-burning stove that you had to deliberately go out of your way to get to if you wanted to "legally" cross the border.
Canadians take the relationship with the USA much more seriously and understand the issues to a much better degree... which is why Canada cares about this one issue of imported lumber (or imported beef) much more than Americans would for products going the other way. That and Canada just doesn't seem like a major military or even cultural threat to the USA, except perhaps that most good TV shows are now made there, but that is besides the point.
Keep in mind that this particular law that the WTO is complaining about here is based on a simple premise:
Antigua certainly is free to have an on-line Casino and do what ever the heck it wants to do. The USA isn't even asserting sovereignty over Antigua or anything else.
All that this laws says is that any debts that happen in Antigua (or elsewhere too!) as a result of gambling activities over the internet are unenforcable within the USA. American citizens don't have to pay up debts if they charge up tens of thousands of dollars in gambling losses. If the charge shows up on their credit card bill, all they have to say is this is an illegal charge, point to the anti-gambling law, and the credit card company is either stuck with the debt or they have to tell the casino that they will not honor those charges either. It can't even impact negatively on the credit report. Either way, the money is not going to places like Antigua, and that pisses off the people in Antigua.
I think this is a clever way to stop on-line gambling, but it is also something that is unique to this situation in terms of regulating the distribution of content over the internet. Similar kinds of laws also apply to pornography, but there are enough zealots in the world that want to do pornography and don't care if they make money or not that they don't have the same kind of impact.
BTW, with your example of somebody "hiring" a hit in Mexico from the USA... the same thing would apply (and it is also banned from being charged on your credit card!): If you ask for a hit on somebody in Mexico and the murder happens, you are not obligated to pay for that debt in the USA. You might have those same hit men coming into the USA to smack you down, but then by their presence in the USA it suddenly becomes a matter of U.S. law as well. Sovereignty is not violated in either case, and certainly extradition to/from the USA would also be available as well in terms of prosecuting the crimes.
One of the problems with treaty as a basis of national law is that the U.S. Constitution is not really clear on the subject. It only states that a treaty, once ratified, is the "supreme law of the land", but doesn't get into specifics over if it can override individual laws passed by Congress or even the U.S. constitution itself. What does it mean if the U.S. Supreme Court rules that a particular treaty is unconstitutional? Is SCOTUS even relevant in the discussion? If such a treaty is declared unconstitutional, would other nations still try to force the USA into keeping the terms of that treaty?
And what about treaties which the USA has signed, but the Senate has not ratified, such as the Outer Space Treaty? U.S. policy is to keep the terms of some of these treaties even if not ratified, but they don't have even this nebulous force of law behind them.
Of course several legal theories abound on this topic as applied to U.S. law, including the separation of powers clause that prohibits the federal government from interfering in the affairs of state governments (including treaties, I might add) and how far these sorts of legal entanglements between nations that the USA might get involved with. Or legal philosophies about sovereignty about how a government derives its authority to act, such as does the federal government derive its authority from the states (and in turn local municipalities and counties) or the other way around? Arguments can be made both ways.
And Americans in general are very distrusting toward any sort of usurption of sovereignty to any other authority precisely because many see the federal government as already going beyond the bounds they had originally claimed when it was set up in the first place. Sometimes individual lawmakers forget this, but it is a part of American society and can have a huge impact at the ballot box.
Katrina had nothing to do with the federal government. That is precisely where the problem was to begin with and why the feds should still stay out of Louisana: It was a state and municipal infrastructure failure where both the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans failed to come to grips with the fact that their city is partially below sea level and needs some serious civil engineering to figure out how to cope with the problems that leads to what damage happened. Similar hurricanes regular come across other parts of the USA and don't have nearly the same problems. Biloxi, Mississippi, just north of New Orleans and also in the path of Katrina (and a port city too!) has recovered much faster and required per capita much less federal assistance.
And the billions of federal monies that were spent on trying to help improve the situation were largely squandered through fraud and incompetence. President Bush could not legally do much of anything before, nor do much afterward until the local governments specifically asked for help... which they failed to do until it was too late. Mayor Nagin didn't even use the resources he had at his own disposal and instead let basic things like school buses be flooded and destroyed that could have helped with the evacuation, or gave thought that the Superdome needed some additional infrastructure to deal with a disaster situation.
I would like to point out that in the case of Katrina, that many local municpalties and other state governments (my own can be included here) opened up their hearts and even authorized explicit funds to help with coping with the survivors of Katrina, arranged transportation, and provided shelter, food, and even employment on an indefinite basis. Most of this was done without even thinking the feds would come into the picture and help cover the expenses.
I just don't see the other WTO nations coming together in a similar sort of international crisis, nor is it in their interest to do so.
As far as the WTO being the idea of the USA, I think you have that very wrong. It is the idea of a bunch of idealists who somehow got the U.S. Senate to agree with some crazy and half-cocked scheme. If you look at the Apollo program, the American government is riddled with these sort of crazy ideas, some of which even get substantial monetary support. Most of them are very harmless, but some of them like the WTO turn out to be something that once created are impossible to ignore and turn out to have a far wider impact than what was originally sold to the legislators. The WTO certainly did not get created with the full support of the American people, and that you can find both liberal and conservative campaigners against the idea should speak volumes about how bad of an idea it is to have the USA even involved with it. I seriously doubt that the WTO would pass acceptance in the U.S. Senate today if it came up for a vote. Supporters of the WTO would be justifiably worried if serious legislation for withdrawl from the WTO were introduced into the U.S. Senate. These same idealists are the ones who are pressuring the rest of the world to "join the club" or be left out.
As far as Iran or North Korea having nuclear weapons, I would have to agree that I find it sort of scary to think about (because both nations have expressed a desire to nuke the USA for perceived actions in the past), but they are certainly free to try and get them. They are independent governments and can do as they please. The argument against allowing these countries from getting nukes is mainly that they will be a destabilizing influence on the regions where they are at, and will likely trigger a small war if not a major war between world powers... potentially creating a situation like happened at the beginning of WWI. North Korea launching a nuke at the USA would be responded to in a very harsh manner, and ultimately involve China, Russia, Japan, the USA, and eventually most of Europe as well. It would also not stop at some arbitrary stalemate border, but
Ah... a social darwinist. Not that I'm trying to invoke the infamous net discussion rule, but it really comes into play here... seriously.
This is precisely the attitude that Adolph Hitler had which ultimately led to the holocaust and mass genocide of the Jewish people within Nazi Germany. People with genetic defects (being a Jew was considered a genetic defect) or other mental disorders were marked for death and eliminated.
There are some things that a society simply must draw the line and say "No, we can't permit this sort of activity within our community." This would include things like 419 scams and pyramid schemes as well, where I see gambling in most forms as something of a very similar nature. Especially large commercial gambling organizations. Such activities, if left unchecked and allowed to grow without any sort of control, will eventually lead to major societal problems.
In addition, this is the WTO that is trying to tell local communities that they can't provide a place free from this sort of activity. It isn't so much that you can't travel to some place where gambling is permitted (I don't think that can ever be stopped completely), but this is an attempt to say that my place or my community will not be having that sort of stuff happening here. We don't want to deal with the wrecked marriages and homeless families that would result from permitting uncontrolled gambling within our borders.
Legalized gambling is very seductive to smaller governments (like Antigua, for instance or Nevada) because there is a huge amount of cash that can be involved, generate incredible tax revenue, and doesn't really require huge outlays in terms of creating regulations and building critical infrastructure. Other than dealing with sewage and garbage from all of the people coming to the Casinos, a local government doesn't have to worry about any other environmental pollution or any other economic impacts. It is in effect free money. Compare that to a similar government that would want to help subsidize the construction of a steel mill, and there is no question that legalized gambling will bring in far more money... especially if other countries/governments in the region don't allow gambling. With this being an on-line casino trying to tap into the world's largest economy, the infrastructure requirements for a government is mainly trying to make sure that a quality fibre optic cable is already in place, and a pitiful amount of dependable electricity is available to run the server farm.
Again, if it is a government that is isolated in a region of otherwise no legalized gambling, the small government doesn't have to deal with the harmful effects of gambling.... it is the surrounding governments that have to deal with the long-term problems associated with gambling.
As an American, this attitude alone is disturbing as I see basic fundamental laws and constitutional rights being thrown out the window on the premise that some nebulous "international law" overrides what my elected representatives have been worked on to create legislation.
So when you talk about the rule of law, whose law is it that you are talking about? And why should I give a token bit of respect to an organization like the WTO to whom I have never elected any representatives, and seems to do far more harm than good in this world? Yet they are openly telling me that laws that were constitutionally passed and signed into law are invalid and must be thrown out, with no reasonable chance to be able to convince others that this law ought to be in place shy of going to war?
I know this is an issue of sovereignty, and something that in theory that the USA agreed upon when it joined the WTO, but in this case on this particular law, the WTO is attempting to supersceed US law where I don't necessarily agree with the government forms of those other nations participating with the WTO and overriding the laws of my country.
As far as other "rogue" states flipping off the WTO, so what? Trade barriers and other legalese are not going to stop a country like North Korea from detonating a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles, and when my neighbors are dead and lying in the street, the WTO countries are also not going to join in trying to fight back against such an atrocity.... just as few of the WTO nations gave any thought or care about what happened in New York City on 9/11.
If the ultimate goal of the WTO is to create a super-federalism on the order of the EU or U.S. Federal government but on a larger scale, it fails miserably. At least with the U.S. Federal system, when a disaster like Hurricane Katrina occurs or something like the 9/11 attacks, I can count on people from Alaska, Florida, Montana, and Texas also coming in and joining together to help both clean up the mess, and in the case of war fighting a common enemy. You won't have a New Mexican legislature saying "sorry, we're going to sit this war out, because we don't agree with it."
Neither the UN nor the WTO inspire me to defend their actions, nor do I even feel I have any sort of voice into how decisions are made for either body. Coming from a democratic society, I feel this is a minimum prerequisite before the laws of where I live deserve to be overridden and tossed aside "for the common good".
Just to reinforce your post here, power supplies are commodity items, which means that there is no huge markup on them as you have multiple suppliers and consumers of the products.
One bizzare place for a power supply that I saw was with the Coleco Adam computer, where the CPU power supply was actually loaded in the printer, and a huge cable that contained the 24V, 12V, and 5V DC power leads went from the printer to the CPU unit and also in turn powered all of the extra peripherals that came off the main CPU box. It also goes to show that if a manufacturer can dump the power supply in any way, they will.
It isn't like designing a transformer (AC to DC converter + voltage drop) is necessarily rocket science either. This is something taught in nearly every electrical engineering program, and even taught to freshmen students in terms of going over the basic details on how you would accomplish the task of building a basic power supply as you would find for most consumer electronics.
Where manufactuers "make money" is to put in some exotic connector that doesn't get reused anywhere else in the world. Or if they use some exotic voltage standard like 18.5 V instead of the more typical 12 or 5.
And you expect Star Wars (with the screaming sound effects and explosion sound effects in space) to be scientifically accurate?
Besides, the technical problems of trying to cast daylight shadows of two G-class stars is both beyond the experience of most people that it would detract from the film, as well as the fact that the cost would have been perceived as prohibitive as well for everything but the CGI shots. Certainly not something to really have to bother with.
I guess my main argument here is that if it really were a natural phenomena that was merely photographed, that it also would have been witnessed by the entire crew at the time Lucas was filming in Tunisia, and certainly would have been a "Wow! That is damn cool!" with other independent snapshots of that same sunset being done. It isn't like Lucas had the only camera in the world or even on the set at the time.
And due to the popularity of Star Wars in 1977, all of the crew members were interviewed, including relatively obscure ones like the lead gaffer and production assistants on national television. It also seems as though if this were a natural event merely being photographed, the P.R. value of mentioning this fact would have been something very much worthy of mentioning during all of these interviews... at least during George Lucas' 60 Minutes interview, and others as well. I would imagine that LucasFilm would have been contacted by National Geographic to reproduce the image if it were authentic and not just fx.
Besides, it isn't like this is something that would be particularly hard to accomplish by even an amature filmmaker.... even by some kid with an 8mm camera back in 1977. I certainly did similar kind of sfx back then when I was playing around with that stuff. In a film that had so many other much more elaborate composite sfx, to argue that this one is the real deal seems to be really trying to B.S. here. Or more important, the grandparent post here is B.S.'ing and I'm merely trying to call him on the carpet.
All of this talk about reference frames and trying to decide what the "absolute" accelerations and velocity of everything is just makes my head spin and wonder where these physicists come from that they havn't read about about this nearly Century-old theory proposed by the crazy Swiss patent examiner named A. Einstein.
Essentially speaking, it really doesn't matter what frame of reference you are using. From a certain point of view, everything in the Universe is gravitationally attracted to you, not the other way around. Or that the Earth, while you are falling above it, is accelerating toward you at 9.8 m/s. All physical effects are one body relative to another, and there is no independent frame of reference.
Of course this guy could be claiming that there is in fact a universal frame of reference that is independent of all other objects in the universe, and can try to define all sorts of motion based on this universal reference. That, however, is a bold theory and requires some extraordinary proof, not just some minor discrepencies as is being demonstrated here.
Of course Relativity is based in part on the fact that no matter which way you measure light traveling toward you, it is always going at the same speed. This of course is one of the reasons why it is called Relativity... as this is also a demonstratable way to prove that there is no universal frame reference that would influence the speed of light. This is something that would have to be explained in a universal reference frame theory.
This isn't to say that gravitational effects don't show up, because they do, but those effects don't need to be defined in any particular frame of reference, other than to simplify the mathematics of trying to figure out what the acceleration would be for any set of objects.
While not explictly stated in the article or paper, I think this particular person with the MOND theory is also implying a universal frame reference, or else the issue with having specific lattitudes and precisely timed periods of time that only happen a couple of times per year makes no other sense.
And we know for a fact that Newton's laws are not perfect, and need further refinement due to Einstein's theories. The motion of Mercury needs to be accounted for the fact that it is moving very close to a massive body, where being deep in the gravity well of the Sun time actually slows down.
If you are talking about orbital vectors and trying to derive the data from the GPS constellation, you need to account for relativistic effects both due to the fact that the GPS satellites are further out of the Earth's gravity well, and the fact they are also traveling at large enough velocities that measurements of the atomic clock signals that are broadcast from the satellites have relativistic time dilation effects.
Basically, Einstein both proved this guy correct (Newton's 2nd law does need to be adjusted on some fine points) and flat out wrong (that you need to use a universal frame reference to detect this adjustment).
For me, if you want to make some very genuine physical science research, I would recommend two huge areas of study:
Measurement of "G" - the universal gravitational constant - Just as refinement of the measurement of "C" (the speed of light) brought about some interesting ideas that changed the study of physics (like Relativity), the study of "G" may produce some interesting science... especially if "G" is not a constant but changes from one place in the universe to another. Or other crazy knowledge may come from knowing this constant to a higher degree of precision.
Mesaurement of frictional coefficients - While there are some good theories about what causes friction of any kind, detailed knowledge of how materials interact with each other is more of a "cookbook" than a serious study of why friction occurs and how to come up with the actual coefficient without empirical examples.
This is assuming that the CHON system of biology has to be the only way that you can have life.
Certainly something like a Von Neumann replicator (at the extreme like the replicators of Stargate SG-1) are a legitimate alternative, and other ideas with nano-technology can some up with some alterantives, but such machines do seem to be unlikely to have been created spontaneously from just raw matter.
Of course even the machinery of life as we know it has not been completely explained through any theories, nor have any demonstrations ever been made to show how life could have been started beyond creating a few basic amino acids. Getting from there to an eukaryote is a huge step, and while some interesting hypothesis have been suggested, none are really verifiable. They certainly don't reach the stage of a solid scientific theory that can be reproduced in a laboratory.
Europa is going to be especially interesting because it has a liquid ocean (under ice, admittedly, but it is there).
Long experience on the Earth is that life can be found nearly everywhere you can find an energy gradient and water, with a few other trace minerals, with the other elements mainly being carbon and nitrogen that are highly critical.
The dynamics of the Jovian moons, however, are a little different than what causes the molten core of the Earth and Venus, and active geological changes on these two planets as well. If you could move Europa to an orbit in the Asteroid belt, its ocean would have frozen solid completely.
One of the interesting "additions" to the Drake Equation (that you allude to here for the probability of life taking root on a particular planet in the universe), is the issue of the orbit of the star around the galactic core.
It appears as though our sun is unique enough to have a nearly circular orbit around the galactic core... and this is indeed something unusual for most stars that we see in the sky. Most stars have highly elliptical orbits relative to the galactic center.
The advantage of this is that the rate of mutation due to radiological effects has been more or less constant over the full history of our planet, and we are far enough away from the galactic center that the intense radiation that exists there is only noted by astronomical research and does not affect us here on substantial basis.
This also has given us a rather stable planetary system, where our sun hasn't passed that close to too many other stars, which would also tend to disrupt planetary systems. Again, drifting into the center of the galaxy would make disruptive effects from other stars much more likely.
Stars further from the galatic core in similar stable orbits would not have as much in terms of the heavy elements needed to create a silicate crust and iron core like we enjoy on the Earth as well, so I would say the number of eligible stars with terrestrial planets (Earth/Mars/Venus) is considerably less than is often presumed... and those which don't get sterilized each time they get into the galatic core is less still.
The Star Wars (A New Hope) novelization by Alan Dean Foster mentions not only the twin suns, but even gives them names and a bit of a mythology behind them by "natives" of Tatooine.
Luke clearly lived in a binary star system, although it should be noted that these "twin suns" were in relatively close proximity to each other, and they were of similar masses. The number of times that this was referenced in movies and other places is too numerous to mention.
If Mr. Lucas has a self-delusion that this was just an optical illusion caused by atmospheric distortion, I'll let him keep that opinion. But he certainly didn't go out of his way to try and refute this rumor of the twin suns of Tatooine as found in the novelization, press releases (at the time Star Wars originally came out in 1977), fan fiction, and more over the years. And Mr. Lucas certainly has done much to encourage this sort of Star Wars mythology.
It also seems to be something very surprising that it wasn't mentioned during critical reviews and interviews of the movie back in 1977.... that would have been something remarkable to mention and would have been something worthy of note during the various talk show tours that also happened at the time. In short, I don't believe it for a second that this wasn't a double exposure of film stock or some other "special effect".
The one aspect of gold and silver that was also very attractive over other substances, including iron or even gemstones, is the fact that it is a metal, and a very malleable and ductile. It also had a (comparatively) low melting point, so it was also very easily recycled. That is something that gemstones like diamonds simply aren't... even though they are also valuable. Both of these metals are also chemically inert with other elements as well. Silver does oxidize, but at a very slow rate, and gold hardly does any oxidation at all (you could basically say none).
So both gold and silver have the ability to be both valuable, and you can take a gold or silver coin and "chop it up" for change. This is even where the term "two-bits" comes from... where two-eights of a Spanish dollar was also called a quarter. And that term stuck around in U.S. coinage. If you have a bunch of "change", you can have it melted down and remake new coins.
Gold and silver are also very valuable currently because their properties of being ductile and malleable also make them fantastic conductors of electricity. The best connectors you can get for electronic components (like a audio mixing system) will have contacts and parts made out of one of these two metals.... with gold having the best properties. Silver has also been traditionally a key element in photography, as many of the few silver compounds are also photosensitive. One of the largest silver mines in the world belonged to Eastman Kodak, and nearly the entire supply of that metal from that mine was consumed by that same company and resold as photographic film and other equipment.
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Since you seem receptive to new ideas, I would like to mention one of the "teaching methods" of one of my professors who I felt did an outstanding job of using term papers to their best possible practical use:
Each week we were required to write a 1-4 page "report" about the subject we were studying in class and bring a minimum of six different copies (usually on Monday). When we got to class, we exchanged these term papers with five other students, and handed the sixth copy to the instructor, who did read through the papers but mainly just marked that we had completed the assignment.
By getting copied from other students, we were introduced to not only a diversity of writing styles and viewpoints, it also provided a virtual textbook of comparisons... and a way to ferret out people who were plagiarizing. We also had a small group discussion over what we had just researched, and you could tell right away who was B.S.'ing or not.
When the final exam took place, it was "closed text, closed notes", but we were given all of these term papers we had worked on for reference in the exam. Basically, if we had done a good job in researching for the papers and had really learned the subject, the final was a breeze. If you had been copying stuff from other students and had not learned the content of the class... well... you were screwed. And you had to cite specific examples in the final together with sources of information.
While this was one of the toughest classes I ever had, it was also one that I learned more than just about any other in my entire educational career.
Being older (I'm 40+) and having taken a freshman biology course in the past 10 years, I hardly think this is necessarily a fair assessment of the situation.
I will admit that particularly in terms of biology, that there have been huge gains and leaps of knowledge. In the past, biology was largely an empirical science, with an attempt to build up knowledge through examples. That is why many biology research libraries have (especially older ones) huge catalogs of specimens of creatures, especially things like insects or stuffed animals, and have often turned these collections into museums. For this field there really is an "ocean of information" that has taken quite a bit of time to try and grasp to really find out what is going on.
Of course you have people like Gregor Mendel who have been working toward trying to turn Biology into a real science, and in the past couple of decades Biology has been turning more and more into something akin to a "hard science" similar to astronomy, chemistry, and physics. We understand DNA now far better than we did right after it was discovered, and the basic mechanisms of how living things work is understood at a much deeper level than was understood in the past. When I compare what was talked about in my textbook to the college biology textbook my mother had from the late 1950's, the science was so different that it is hard to believe that it was the same field. Computational power has also significantly improved to the point that problems which were previously unsolvable (at least within the modest budget of an assistant professor at a small college), can now routinely be done on equipment that is now headed to the city dump. Certainly Biology has benefited from technological developments in the 20th Century. Discussions that there may be construction of a completely artificial eukaryote, while technically beyond current biological sciences, is not nearly as far fetched as once thought possible, and a complete mapping of the human genome was throught to be impossible (or many decades into the future) but is now an accomplished fact.
Getting back to the plagiarism:.... I think the problem is not so much the students and their academic environment, other than the fact that the professors have gone through a cycle of knowledge where even their own relevance in the field is being questioned, particularly if they have been lazy and not really tried to keep up with the field. And if these professors are close to retirement, why should they bother to keep up.... other than the fact that some of their students may know more about the subject than they do, even as undergrads.
I will also say that you can find quite a bit of information "on line" about any given topic, but that information is at best a general overview and can't really be considered in depth... unless you are good at accessing original research papers on-line. Certainly stopping at Wikipedia as the final and best source of information (a common mistake for many undergrads) is not only bad but intellectually dishonest. And many web pages don't even have this degree of peer review but are random musings of one individual or another. More like a blog than anything else. To get real information, you have to dust off your skills in a university library and be able to go after other sources of information that simply can't be "googled".
If a student is lazy and tries to "cheat" on getting this basic knowledge, they are really cheating themselves. Of course somebody with a basic knowledge about a topic has often been capable of writing term papers that were filled with B.S. and made up references in the past. Today is no different.
This is presuming that the purpose of a college education (especially a "liberal arts" education) is to acquire knowledge and critical thinking skills. And to discover a diversity of viewpoints.
While these are all laudable goals, it is so far from the truth about what higher education is all about that if you really believe any of these points above... see a local psychiatrist, or at least a competent educational counselor.
The real truth of the matter is that a college degree (particularly the B.S., but the grad degrees as well) are really a form of the classic "guild certification" or "union card", but applied to professional occupations. Some professions require things like a Juris Doctorate or some other specialized degree, but a bachelor's degree is pretty typical... especially for things like engineers.
And of course you need the PhD if you want to be involved with teaching at a university.
While it is a good idea to try and pick up some knowledge while you are going through the meat grinder of a college education, you should keep foremost that the knowledge is not the point. The real point is to "punch the ticket", build up credits in required courses, and get the best grades you can. How you can talk the instructors into getting those grades is of course a matter of style and attitude, with demonstration of knowledge being but one of the ways you can do that.
And keep in mind that most university programs are not designed to give you knowledge either. If they were, they wouldn't be having Computer Science instructors with accents so thick that they might as well be speaking a foreign language. Or in some cases they are, but somehow got past the dean of the college and got hired anyway and speak a dialect of Klingon, with Esperanto as their second language.
The purpose of most university programs is to control the rate of entry for people entering a given profession. The American Medical Association is very blunt and obvious about this, by only certifying select schools and controlling the number of graduates that are produced. If one million students with the same skills (or better!) as the last recipient of the Nobel prize in Medicine applied to med school, the number of students actually graduating would still be largely the same. The standards for graduation would merely be raised to nearly impossible standards to control the rate of graduation. And if there is a shortfall in the number of doctors, those standards will be lowered to permit more to graduate. There may be problems with specific specialities, but the over all number of medical doctors will be maintained.
The same could be said about lawyers (and the bar exam) as well as other professions. Many of the classes are designed explicitly to scare the heck out of you to ever enter into a given profession and consider an alternative path in life, and certainly act as a way to "weed" students out who don't have views of society that meshes with those of the faculty. If you stick up like a rusty nail in a board, prepare to get wacked and beaten down. And never, ever, try to show that you know more about the subject than your instructor. While it is fun to be cocky and show off that you've been a Linux hacker since you were 12 and have contributed over 40,000 lines into the Linux kernel by the time you graduated from High School, don't you ever dare let your professor know that was the case. You will be surely marked for heresy and doomed to drop out of college. They will make it a point to see you get flushed out in one way or another.
Oh, there are some professors and a few (very few) college/universty environments that actually do care about their students and go against this orthodoxy, but I am telling you and anybody else reading this that this is a rare exception and not the general rule. Some colleges even brag about a 30% graduation rate.... to show just how successful they are at telling students where to go and scare them out of trying to finish the programs.
Of cour
The USA is particularly loathsome about giving up its sovereignty in nearly any capacity, and for a good reason: We know first hand what happens when you give up that sovereignty and what it cost (in the lives of many of our citizens) to get it in the first place.
From a personal perspective, I would like to see the USA withdraw from the WTO. The impact on the global political scene is horrid, tarnishes the image of the USA, and puts incredible legislative and judicial power in the hands of individuals who IMHO are not bound by the principles of the U.S. Constitution, care little about popular opinion and have no reason to care, and is at least for U.S. representation in the hands of unelected career government bureaucrats who have a personal agenda that is at odds with the American people. Why the U.S. Congress gave such an unconstitutional usurpation of power is beyond me, but I also believe that this was sold to the U.S. Congress as being harmless, or worse as a noble cause, when in fact it wasn't.
As a forum for discussing trade activities and working on perhaps global efforts to reduce tariffs, I support the idea of something like the WTO. This is what was sold to the American people, along with the assumption that we, through our elected representatives, could accept or reject any such agreements that were reached in those meetings. And face the international consequences of accepting or rejecting these proposals. But as an authority that can override the U.S. Constitution and force changes to legislation outside of constitutional processes, that was not accepted by the American people. I have my doubts that the U.S. Congress would even have the authority to allow such a take-over of constitutional principles.
You miss the point here. Yes, there are numerous states with lotteries and major gambling centers in the USA. But with the internet we are literally opening up our homes to allowing this everywhere and anywhere. This is an attempt to push that kind of stuff away and keep it quarantined to places where it can be kept under control. And it is a local exception to allow this kind of activity, which is the same for legalized prostitution.
But there are many communities who want to simply say that such stuff shouldn't be happening within their borders of this nature, and want to take active steps to keep it from happening. That in this particular case the solution proposed here will also have an indirect benefit to the gambling casinos in fixed places like Atlantic City and Las Vegas means that you have support from both the pro-gambling lobby and the anti-gambling lobby. And why this law will absolutely not be repealed by Congress, and why the USA is willing to flip off the WTO on this issue.
Only the most laissez-faire libertarianism would possibly fight against this sort of legislation, at least within the USA. It is not in our national interest to repeal the law. It also is a law that does not target Antigua specifically, but is a general law that refuses to honor debts incurred by on-line gambling, and affects businesses in the USA as much as abroad. And this law is also something completely within the range of authority for the U.S. Congress to regulate, the WTO not withstanding and a certain interpretation of the WTO treaty.
Any government that has nukes will quickly discover that they are very, very, very (am I understating this?), very expensive.
If you think you know what expensive is, you don't have the beginning of a thought on the topic in relationship to nukes. They are at least an order of magnitude more expensive than you last thought of. Take that thought and it is still more expensive yet.
OK, if you ask why they are expensive, here is part of it:
Even if you have the full plans gift wrapped to you from the USA, China, Russia, India, and Pakistan (to compare notes between all of these countries and see where they might have made a mistake... or to make sure they aren't filling you full of BS); you still have to have some very highly skilled technicians that would be capable of putting this whole thing together. Machining Plutonium-238 into spherical shapes (to help with creating a critical mass initiating fission) is something that is usually toxic for the machinist and has all kind of other complications, incluidng what to do with the shavings and dust from the process. Not only is this stuff far more valuable than gold (see #1 above), but Plutonium oxide is one of the most deadly compounds known to medical science. It also requires specialized tools and other equipment to produce this bomb.
Keep in mind that the USA is not asking Antigua to stop offering on-line gambling. All it is saying is that any debts related to on-line gambling are not enforceable in the USA. If I pull out my Visa card and gamble away $100,000 (or my credit card limit), I can in turn tell my credit card company to go take a hike, I won't pay it. And they can't collect, close down my account, nor even make a bad reference on my credit history.
Antigua is justifiably pissed over this as they would be collecting a huge amount of money if this restriction wasn't in place, and other forms of monetary transfer (especially easy credit like with a credit card) that would entice people to spend that money on them instead just isn't as easily available.
Sweden is just as capable of doing this as well, but since they are a smaller country Antigua wouldn't really care nor even file a WTO complaint in the first place.
I give credit to Antigua for having the balls to try this out, as the potential for huge quantities of money for them is high and if they lose the case there is little else for them to lose. That some arbitrators at the WTO agreed with Antigua is the real news, but the WTO doesn't really have the teeth to really force a change either in the USA unless major elements of the U.S. Government agree with them. As apparently the WTO is finding out the hard way. There are 10 people to convince that may in effect throw the U.S. law out the window (President + SCOTUS) and another 435 individuals who could be persuaded to repeal the law. If you can't convince that body of 445 people that this is bad and they need to listen to the WTO, the WTO is screwed in terms of enforcement.
No, I don't think so. The USA gets along with China and Saudi Arabia just fine, and neither are gleaming jewels of democracy. Indeed in the last half of the 20th Century, most of our trouble throughout the world is supporting those countries (like Iran during the Shah) that were friendly but didn't support democratic movements.
When we take "unilateral" action to remove governments, it is because of a direct threat (as was the case of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan) or perceived threats in the future (such as Spain in the 1890's or Iraq since 1990).
That we choose to leave behind democratic governments when we are through is a side effect and a means to deal with the people in those countries instead of performing mass genocides, ethnic cleansing, and directly annexing those countries into our own. As certainly some other countries (notably the Soviet Union) did during the same time period. Just ask Germany about Königsberg and where that formerly German city with a very long and rich history (being the homes of German kings) currently is at right now.
That at the end of WWII we choose to remove the Nazi party from power in Germany should not be surprising. Or that Gen. MacArthur decided to "force" the process on Japan by writing their current constitution.
Generally speaking, once the USA has gone in somewhere, the people living there are better off. Two huge exceptions are Cuba and Vietnam, but then again they also have something in common: They both have Soviet-style communist governments. Arguably the Philippines may not be a 1st world industrialized country, but then again they aren't scraping the bottom of the barrel either in terms of being a developing nation, and have resources and the capacity to substantially improve their position in the world.
Nothing compared to the former Belgian colony of Zaire (or is that the Congo?). Talk about a huge mess. Or most of the former French colonies in Africa. Wow, that is a good example of cleaning up messes and keeping problems from spilling out of control.
As far as going into Iraq, that was a decision that was debated by knowledgeable people in a very open, public, and lengthy debate, and approved by both major federal legislative bodies by huge numbers. I would argue that perhaps a formal declaration of war needed to be made instead of the so-called "authorization of the use of force", but that is largely semantics. The reasons for going in were made clear, and if opposition to this campaign didn't make their case, they should have spoken up louder and done so. Complaining after the fact is just sour grapes. If Saddam didn't want to die and lose his government, he should have been a tad bit more accommodating on the diplomatic front when people were prepared to go to war against him.
Perhaps this is what you are complaining about the most: That the USA doesn't hesitate to march into a country to show it is serious on a diplomatic level as well. That sometimes a President will wax philosophically about the moral rights to perform an action or other may be true, but that is something mainly meant for domestic consumption. The external message is clear: Don't mess with the USA if you want to exist as a nation. I guess that can upset some people who don't like such a blunt message.
I can pound my chest saying how cool my town/state/country is just like anybody else. And if I think my country has some special magic that makes it better for me to live here that is unique to any place else, why should I not try to brag about that?
At the same time, you are correct for the most part. You can also do the same thing, and claim how Costa Rica is such an awsome place because they have eliminated their military completely and have an outstanding national park system and more. (I don't know if you are Costa Rican, but there are many things to be proud of in that country.) Or say the same thing about France, England, Russia, or China.
The problem comes that Americans love to brag about their home (particularly Texans) to the point of being obnoxious. And most Americans also smile and say "yeah, I know... but let me tell you how cool it is to (fill in the blank) in America" and keep up bragging about their country even when people have reached the point of getting turned off.
Or many of these countries are upset about being in 2nd place to the USA that they try to knock the USA down a few notches when they can. This is as annoying as almost anything else. And Americans are competitive enough that saying they are in 2nd place is as likely to get some hard rebuttals or even some serious action to remedy the situation.
About the only thing American's don't care about being in last place with is the FIFA World Cup.
Seriously.... if you ask most Americans who havn't really studied the issue, they think of Canada as this crazy state to the north (or a bunch of wacked out states with strange names like Manitoba and Quebec) who has pictures of the Queen of England everywhere and funny looking money. And when Canadians come to the USA to live, they blend into American society so successfully that saying they are from Canada is like saying they are from Virginia or Massachusetts.
Post 9/11 is changing this somewhat (or substantially), but whole communities have been built across the international boundary and have hardly even given the thought that there were national borders at all. Certainly my experience of crossing the U.S./Canadian boundary was mainly coming across a park ranger with a funny looking red coat (being a member of the RCMP) instead of the drab green coats of their American counterparts. The border station was also something out of a Dudly Do-Right cartoon as a log cabin with a wood-burning stove that you had to deliberately go out of your way to get to if you wanted to "legally" cross the border.
Canadians take the relationship with the USA much more seriously and understand the issues to a much better degree... which is why Canada cares about this one issue of imported lumber (or imported beef) much more than Americans would for products going the other way. That and Canada just doesn't seem like a major military or even cultural threat to the USA, except perhaps that most good TV shows are now made there, but that is besides the point.
Keep in mind that this particular law that the WTO is complaining about here is based on a simple premise:
Antigua certainly is free to have an on-line Casino and do what ever the heck it wants to do. The USA isn't even asserting sovereignty over Antigua or anything else.
All that this laws says is that any debts that happen in Antigua (or elsewhere too!) as a result of gambling activities over the internet are unenforcable within the USA. American citizens don't have to pay up debts if they charge up tens of thousands of dollars in gambling losses. If the charge shows up on their credit card bill, all they have to say is this is an illegal charge, point to the anti-gambling law, and the credit card company is either stuck with the debt or they have to tell the casino that they will not honor those charges either. It can't even impact negatively on the credit report. Either way, the money is not going to places like Antigua, and that pisses off the people in Antigua.
I think this is a clever way to stop on-line gambling, but it is also something that is unique to this situation in terms of regulating the distribution of content over the internet. Similar kinds of laws also apply to pornography, but there are enough zealots in the world that want to do pornography and don't care if they make money or not that they don't have the same kind of impact.
BTW, with your example of somebody "hiring" a hit in Mexico from the USA... the same thing would apply (and it is also banned from being charged on your credit card!): If you ask for a hit on somebody in Mexico and the murder happens, you are not obligated to pay for that debt in the USA. You might have those same hit men coming into the USA to smack you down, but then by their presence in the USA it suddenly becomes a matter of U.S. law as well. Sovereignty is not violated in either case, and certainly extradition to/from the USA would also be available as well in terms of prosecuting the crimes.
One of the problems with treaty as a basis of national law is that the U.S. Constitution is not really clear on the subject. It only states that a treaty, once ratified, is the "supreme law of the land", but doesn't get into specifics over if it can override individual laws passed by Congress or even the U.S. constitution itself. What does it mean if the U.S. Supreme Court rules that a particular treaty is unconstitutional? Is SCOTUS even relevant in the discussion? If such a treaty is declared unconstitutional, would other nations still try to force the USA into keeping the terms of that treaty?
And what about treaties which the USA has signed, but the Senate has not ratified, such as the Outer Space Treaty? U.S. policy is to keep the terms of some of these treaties even if not ratified, but they don't have even this nebulous force of law behind them.
Of course several legal theories abound on this topic as applied to U.S. law, including the separation of powers clause that prohibits the federal government from interfering in the affairs of state governments (including treaties, I might add) and how far these sorts of legal entanglements between nations that the USA might get involved with. Or legal philosophies about sovereignty about how a government derives its authority to act, such as does the federal government derive its authority from the states (and in turn local municipalities and counties) or the other way around? Arguments can be made both ways.
And Americans in general are very distrusting toward any sort of usurption of sovereignty to any other authority precisely because many see the federal government as already going beyond the bounds they had originally claimed when it was set up in the first place. Sometimes individual lawmakers forget this, but it is a part of American society and can have a huge impact at the ballot box.
Katrina had nothing to do with the federal government. That is precisely where the problem was to begin with and why the feds should still stay out of Louisana: It was a state and municipal infrastructure failure where both the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans failed to come to grips with the fact that their city is partially below sea level and needs some serious civil engineering to figure out how to cope with the problems that leads to what damage happened. Similar hurricanes regular come across other parts of the USA and don't have nearly the same problems. Biloxi, Mississippi, just north of New Orleans and also in the path of Katrina (and a port city too!) has recovered much faster and required per capita much less federal assistance.
And the billions of federal monies that were spent on trying to help improve the situation were largely squandered through fraud and incompetence. President Bush could not legally do much of anything before, nor do much afterward until the local governments specifically asked for help... which they failed to do until it was too late. Mayor Nagin didn't even use the resources he had at his own disposal and instead let basic things like school buses be flooded and destroyed that could have helped with the evacuation, or gave thought that the Superdome needed some additional infrastructure to deal with a disaster situation.
I would like to point out that in the case of Katrina, that many local municpalties and other state governments (my own can be included here) opened up their hearts and even authorized explicit funds to help with coping with the survivors of Katrina, arranged transportation, and provided shelter, food, and even employment on an indefinite basis. Most of this was done without even thinking the feds would come into the picture and help cover the expenses.
I just don't see the other WTO nations coming together in a similar sort of international crisis, nor is it in their interest to do so.
As far as the WTO being the idea of the USA, I think you have that very wrong. It is the idea of a bunch of idealists who somehow got the U.S. Senate to agree with some crazy and half-cocked scheme. If you look at the Apollo program, the American government is riddled with these sort of crazy ideas, some of which even get substantial monetary support. Most of them are very harmless, but some of them like the WTO turn out to be something that once created are impossible to ignore and turn out to have a far wider impact than what was originally sold to the legislators. The WTO certainly did not get created with the full support of the American people, and that you can find both liberal and conservative campaigners against the idea should speak volumes about how bad of an idea it is to have the USA even involved with it. I seriously doubt that the WTO would pass acceptance in the U.S. Senate today if it came up for a vote. Supporters of the WTO would be justifiably worried if serious legislation for withdrawl from the WTO were introduced into the U.S. Senate. These same idealists are the ones who are pressuring the rest of the world to "join the club" or be left out.
As far as Iran or North Korea having nuclear weapons, I would have to agree that I find it sort of scary to think about (because both nations have expressed a desire to nuke the USA for perceived actions in the past), but they are certainly free to try and get them. They are independent governments and can do as they please. The argument against allowing these countries from getting nukes is mainly that they will be a destabilizing influence on the regions where they are at, and will likely trigger a small war if not a major war between world powers... potentially creating a situation like happened at the beginning of WWI. North Korea launching a nuke at the USA would be responded to in a very harsh manner, and ultimately involve China, Russia, Japan, the USA, and eventually most of Europe as well. It would also not stop at some arbitrary stalemate border, but
Ah... a social darwinist. Not that I'm trying to invoke the infamous net discussion rule, but it really comes into play here... seriously.
This is precisely the attitude that Adolph Hitler had which ultimately led to the holocaust and mass genocide of the Jewish people within Nazi Germany. People with genetic defects (being a Jew was considered a genetic defect) or other mental disorders were marked for death and eliminated.
There are some things that a society simply must draw the line and say "No, we can't permit this sort of activity within our community." This would include things like 419 scams and pyramid schemes as well, where I see gambling in most forms as something of a very similar nature. Especially large commercial gambling organizations. Such activities, if left unchecked and allowed to grow without any sort of control, will eventually lead to major societal problems.
In addition, this is the WTO that is trying to tell local communities that they can't provide a place free from this sort of activity. It isn't so much that you can't travel to some place where gambling is permitted (I don't think that can ever be stopped completely), but this is an attempt to say that my place or my community will not be having that sort of stuff happening here. We don't want to deal with the wrecked marriages and homeless families that would result from permitting uncontrolled gambling within our borders.
Legalized gambling is very seductive to smaller governments (like Antigua, for instance or Nevada) because there is a huge amount of cash that can be involved, generate incredible tax revenue, and doesn't really require huge outlays in terms of creating regulations and building critical infrastructure. Other than dealing with sewage and garbage from all of the people coming to the Casinos, a local government doesn't have to worry about any other environmental pollution or any other economic impacts. It is in effect free money. Compare that to a similar government that would want to help subsidize the construction of a steel mill, and there is no question that legalized gambling will bring in far more money... especially if other countries/governments in the region don't allow gambling. With this being an on-line casino trying to tap into the world's largest economy, the infrastructure requirements for a government is mainly trying to make sure that a quality fibre optic cable is already in place, and a pitiful amount of dependable electricity is available to run the server farm.
Again, if it is a government that is isolated in a region of otherwise no legalized gambling, the small government doesn't have to deal with the harmful effects of gambling.... it is the surrounding governments that have to deal with the long-term problems associated with gambling.
As an American, this attitude alone is disturbing as I see basic fundamental laws and constitutional rights being thrown out the window on the premise that some nebulous "international law" overrides what my elected representatives have been worked on to create legislation.
So when you talk about the rule of law, whose law is it that you are talking about? And why should I give a token bit of respect to an organization like the WTO to whom I have never elected any representatives, and seems to do far more harm than good in this world? Yet they are openly telling me that laws that were constitutionally passed and signed into law are invalid and must be thrown out, with no reasonable chance to be able to convince others that this law ought to be in place shy of going to war?
I know this is an issue of sovereignty, and something that in theory that the USA agreed upon when it joined the WTO, but in this case on this particular law, the WTO is attempting to supersceed US law where I don't necessarily agree with the government forms of those other nations participating with the WTO and overriding the laws of my country.
As far as other "rogue" states flipping off the WTO, so what? Trade barriers and other legalese are not going to stop a country like North Korea from detonating a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles, and when my neighbors are dead and lying in the street, the WTO countries are also not going to join in trying to fight back against such an atrocity.... just as few of the WTO nations gave any thought or care about what happened in New York City on 9/11.
If the ultimate goal of the WTO is to create a super-federalism on the order of the EU or U.S. Federal government but on a larger scale, it fails miserably. At least with the U.S. Federal system, when a disaster like Hurricane Katrina occurs or something like the 9/11 attacks, I can count on people from Alaska, Florida, Montana, and Texas also coming in and joining together to help both clean up the mess, and in the case of war fighting a common enemy. You won't have a New Mexican legislature saying "sorry, we're going to sit this war out, because we don't agree with it."
Neither the UN nor the WTO inspire me to defend their actions, nor do I even feel I have any sort of voice into how decisions are made for either body. Coming from a democratic society, I feel this is a minimum prerequisite before the laws of where I live deserve to be overridden and tossed aside "for the common good".
Just to reinforce your post here, power supplies are commodity items, which means that there is no huge markup on them as you have multiple suppliers and consumers of the products.
One bizzare place for a power supply that I saw was with the Coleco Adam computer, where the CPU power supply was actually loaded in the printer, and a huge cable that contained the 24V, 12V, and 5V DC power leads went from the printer to the CPU unit and also in turn powered all of the extra peripherals that came off the main CPU box. It also goes to show that if a manufacturer can dump the power supply in any way, they will.
It isn't like designing a transformer (AC to DC converter + voltage drop) is necessarily rocket science either. This is something taught in nearly every electrical engineering program, and even taught to freshmen students in terms of going over the basic details on how you would accomplish the task of building a basic power supply as you would find for most consumer electronics.
Where manufactuers "make money" is to put in some exotic connector that doesn't get reused anywhere else in the world. Or if they use some exotic voltage standard like 18.5 V instead of the more typical 12 or 5.
And you expect Star Wars (with the screaming sound effects and explosion sound effects in space) to be scientifically accurate?
Besides, the technical problems of trying to cast daylight shadows of two G-class stars is both beyond the experience of most people that it would detract from the film, as well as the fact that the cost would have been perceived as prohibitive as well for everything but the CGI shots. Certainly not something to really have to bother with.
I guess my main argument here is that if it really were a natural phenomena that was merely photographed, that it also would have been witnessed by the entire crew at the time Lucas was filming in Tunisia, and certainly would have been a "Wow! That is damn cool!" with other independent snapshots of that same sunset being done. It isn't like Lucas had the only camera in the world or even on the set at the time.
And due to the popularity of Star Wars in 1977, all of the crew members were interviewed, including relatively obscure ones like the lead gaffer and production assistants on national television. It also seems as though if this were a natural event merely being photographed, the P.R. value of mentioning this fact would have been something very much worthy of mentioning during all of these interviews... at least during George Lucas' 60 Minutes interview, and others as well. I would imagine that LucasFilm would have been contacted by National Geographic to reproduce the image if it were authentic and not just fx.
Besides, it isn't like this is something that would be particularly hard to accomplish by even an amature filmmaker.... even by some kid with an 8mm camera back in 1977. I certainly did similar kind of sfx back then when I was playing around with that stuff. In a film that had so many other much more elaborate composite sfx, to argue that this one is the real deal seems to be really trying to B.S. here. Or more important, the grandparent post here is B.S.'ing and I'm merely trying to call him on the carpet.
Essentially speaking, it really doesn't matter what frame of reference you are using. From a certain point of view, everything in the Universe is gravitationally attracted to you, not the other way around. Or that the Earth, while you are falling above it, is accelerating toward you at 9.8 m/s. All physical effects are one body relative to another, and there is no independent frame of reference.
Of course this guy could be claiming that there is in fact a universal frame of reference that is independent of all other objects in the universe, and can try to define all sorts of motion based on this universal reference. That, however, is a bold theory and requires some extraordinary proof, not just some minor discrepencies as is being demonstrated here.
Of course Relativity is based in part on the fact that no matter which way you measure light traveling toward you, it is always going at the same speed. This of course is one of the reasons why it is called Relativity... as this is also a demonstratable way to prove that there is no universal frame reference that would influence the speed of light. This is something that would have to be explained in a universal reference frame theory.
This isn't to say that gravitational effects don't show up, because they do, but those effects don't need to be defined in any particular frame of reference, other than to simplify the mathematics of trying to figure out what the acceleration would be for any set of objects.
While not explictly stated in the article or paper, I think this particular person with the MOND theory is also implying a universal frame reference, or else the issue with having specific lattitudes and precisely timed periods of time that only happen a couple of times per year makes no other sense.
And we know for a fact that Newton's laws are not perfect, and need further refinement due to Einstein's theories. The motion of Mercury needs to be accounted for the fact that it is moving very close to a massive body, where being deep in the gravity well of the Sun time actually slows down.
If you are talking about orbital vectors and trying to derive the data from the GPS constellation, you need to account for relativistic effects both due to the fact that the GPS satellites are further out of the Earth's gravity well, and the fact they are also traveling at large enough velocities that measurements of the atomic clock signals that are broadcast from the satellites have relativistic time dilation effects.
Basically, Einstein both proved this guy correct (Newton's 2nd law does need to be adjusted on some fine points) and flat out wrong (that you need to use a universal frame reference to detect this adjustment).
For me, if you want to make some very genuine physical science research, I would recommend two huge areas of study:
Neither area of study has may physicists who
This is assuming that the CHON system of biology has to be the only way that you can have life.
Certainly something like a Von Neumann replicator (at the extreme like the replicators of Stargate SG-1) are a legitimate alternative, and other ideas with nano-technology can some up with some alterantives, but such machines do seem to be unlikely to have been created spontaneously from just raw matter.
Of course even the machinery of life as we know it has not been completely explained through any theories, nor have any demonstrations ever been made to show how life could have been started beyond creating a few basic amino acids. Getting from there to an eukaryote is a huge step, and while some interesting hypothesis have been suggested, none are really verifiable. They certainly don't reach the stage of a solid scientific theory that can be reproduced in a laboratory.
Do you mean this moon?
Just don't ask Richard Hogland.... he'll give you an interesting response on this one.
Europa is going to be especially interesting because it has a liquid ocean (under ice, admittedly, but it is there).
Long experience on the Earth is that life can be found nearly everywhere you can find an energy gradient and water, with a few other trace minerals, with the other elements mainly being carbon and nitrogen that are highly critical.
The dynamics of the Jovian moons, however, are a little different than what causes the molten core of the Earth and Venus, and active geological changes on these two planets as well. If you could move Europa to an orbit in the Asteroid belt, its ocean would have frozen solid completely.
One of the interesting "additions" to the Drake Equation (that you allude to here for the probability of life taking root on a particular planet in the universe), is the issue of the orbit of the star around the galactic core.
It appears as though our sun is unique enough to have a nearly circular orbit around the galactic core... and this is indeed something unusual for most stars that we see in the sky. Most stars have highly elliptical orbits relative to the galactic center.
The advantage of this is that the rate of mutation due to radiological effects has been more or less constant over the full history of our planet, and we are far enough away from the galactic center that the intense radiation that exists there is only noted by astronomical research and does not affect us here on substantial basis.
This also has given us a rather stable planetary system, where our sun hasn't passed that close to too many other stars, which would also tend to disrupt planetary systems. Again, drifting into the center of the galaxy would make disruptive effects from other stars much more likely.
Stars further from the galatic core in similar stable orbits would not have as much in terms of the heavy elements needed to create a silicate crust and iron core like we enjoy on the Earth as well, so I would say the number of eligible stars with terrestrial planets (Earth/Mars/Venus) is considerably less than is often presumed... and those which don't get sterilized each time they get into the galatic core is less still.
Some food for thought here at least.
Oh come on, you can't really believe that.
The Star Wars (A New Hope) novelization by Alan Dean Foster mentions not only the twin suns, but even gives them names and a bit of a mythology behind them by "natives" of Tatooine.
Luke clearly lived in a binary star system, although it should be noted that these "twin suns" were in relatively close proximity to each other, and they were of similar masses. The number of times that this was referenced in movies and other places is too numerous to mention.
If Mr. Lucas has a self-delusion that this was just an optical illusion caused by atmospheric distortion, I'll let him keep that opinion. But he certainly didn't go out of his way to try and refute this rumor of the twin suns of Tatooine as found in the novelization, press releases (at the time Star Wars originally came out in 1977), fan fiction, and more over the years. And Mr. Lucas certainly has done much to encourage this sort of Star Wars mythology.
It also seems to be something very surprising that it wasn't mentioned during critical reviews and interviews of the movie back in 1977.... that would have been something remarkable to mention and would have been something worthy of note during the various talk show tours that also happened at the time. In short, I don't believe it for a second that this wasn't a double exposure of film stock or some other "special effect".
The one aspect of gold and silver that was also very attractive over other substances, including iron or even gemstones, is the fact that it is a metal, and a very malleable and ductile. It also had a (comparatively) low melting point, so it was also very easily recycled. That is something that gemstones like diamonds simply aren't... even though they are also valuable. Both of these metals are also chemically inert with other elements as well. Silver does oxidize, but at a very slow rate, and gold hardly does any oxidation at all (you could basically say none).
So both gold and silver have the ability to be both valuable, and you can take a gold or silver coin and "chop it up" for change. This is even where the term "two-bits" comes from... where two-eights of a Spanish dollar was also called a quarter. And that term stuck around in U.S. coinage. If you have a bunch of "change", you can have it melted down and remake new coins.
Gold and silver are also very valuable currently because their properties of being ductile and malleable also make them fantastic conductors of electricity. The best connectors you can get for electronic components (like a audio mixing system) will have contacts and parts made out of one of these two metals.... with gold having the best properties. Silver has also been traditionally a key element in photography, as many of the few silver compounds are also photosensitive. One of the largest silver mines in the world belonged to Eastman Kodak, and nearly the entire supply of that metal from that mine was consumed by that same company and resold as photographic film and other equipment.