In spite of your assertions, the United States only provided Saddam with around 1% of his armaments during the period from 1973-1992.
Ignoring all other assistance (intelligence, etc) that's still 1 percent too much, isn't it? If not, what percentage would you consider to be OK before a nation becomes culpable for assisting that regime? 5 percent? 10? 20? It must be nice to be able to pretend that assisting an oppressive regime doesn't matter as long as you don't help them too much.
So your reasoning is that if a country has ever done the tiniest wrong in the past, it can never be praised for "seeing the light" and doing the right thing? Congratulations, you've just defined a world in which countries can never move from evil to good, and can only move from good to evil.
Contrary to what you seem to think, the world is not a simple black and white place where you can pick and choose to support only countries that are perfectly good. Any country which tries to do that would have to become more reclusive than North Korea. Sometimes you have to support the lesser of two evils, and sometimes you're going to make the wrong decision as to which of the two is the lesser.
What's important is that a political process exists which can learn from and improve upon past wrong decisions so that future decisions are less likely to be wrong. What's not needed is the attitude that the smallest past transgression condemns you to being a bad guy for all eternity.
The facts are clear: when Saddam Hussein was murdering his people, the West stood by and watched, happy in the knowledge that he was being just as brutal towards Iranians as he was to his fellow Iraqis.
Exactly! And when one country in the West decided enough was enough, let's get rid of Saddam, people like you who criticized that country for supporting the guy turned around and criticized that country for opposing the guy. It's no wonder the US tends to ignore world opinion and does whatever is in its own best interests. It's damned if it does, damned if it doesn't. Since you damn it either way, is it any surprise it ignores you?
The basic fact is this: Saddam is/was bad. It was wrong for the U.S. to support him. It was right for the U.S. to support deposing him. The methods the U.S. used to depose him may not have been optimal, but what's done is done. You should be happy that he's been captured. Instead, the fact that you're using his capture as a springboard for more criticism of the U.S. would indicate that you don't really give a damn about the Iraqis, you just see this as another opportunity to criticize the US.
And if you're curious, I opposed the war on the basis that sidestepping the UN set a bad precedent for future police actions. But I'm overjoyed that Saddam has been captured. We can argue about whether the ends justify the means in this case. But the fact remains that a world in which the US fought a quasi-legal war with Iraq and captured Saddam is a better place than a world in which the US fought a quasi-legal war with Iraq and didn't capture Saddam.
From Microsoft's own dictionary:
quantum (kwontem) noun
plural quanta (-te)
1. A quantity or an amount.
2. A specified portion.
3. Something that can be counted or measured.
4. Physics. a. The smallest amount of a physical quantity that can exist independently, especially a discrete quantity of electromagnetic radiation. b. This amount of energy regarded as a unit.
So a "quantum leap" is the smallest possible change that can be considered an upgrade.;)
I know someone from IRC who openly brags about making up information to get a free download of Staroffice 7, because he says his claim will end up being thrown out. The fact is, it does encourage people to make up phony claims, and unfortunately, people like the one I mention above will probably never be caught. This is exactly one of Microsoft's objections, and they couldn't be more right in what they've said. By requiring people to file claims through the court, as would normally happen, people are much less able to make phony claims.
So you're saying it's too onerous a burden for Microsoft to have to verify all those claims themself, so a court should do it? I dunno, when the SBA audits you, you have to somehow prove to them that all the software that's installed on all your computers is properly licensed. You don't get the benefit of a court absorbing the cost of the audit for you. I don't see why Microsoft (SBA member) should get that benefit.
according to the law (for example: Louisville R. R. v. Letson -- 1844), a corporation IS a citizen! The railroads lobbied for and got this judgement passed back in the 1800s and corporations have run completely amok since then.
IMHO the perfect way to counterbalance this is to take the laws that limit campaign contributions by people, and apply it to corporations. If some company or PAC wants to donate half a million to some politician, then they can't be considered a citizen. If they want to be considered a citizen, then they can be limited to $2000/yr like the rest of us voting citizens.
As for being cost effective, for the airlines BA and Air France, it actually was. It only becomes a loss maker if you insist on taking into account all the R&D. That loss was picked up by the consortium that built the planes, not BA or Air France.
$6000 for a one-way ticket is not cost effective. Concorde burns about 10x as much fuel per passenger-mile as the latest subsonic aircraft. That figure is independent of any R&D. The physics of supersonic flight given the technology at the time simply don't allow you to get much cheaper.
The thing that killed the aircraft was purely and simply American sour grapes when Boeing finally admitted that their own late entry into supersonic air travel was over budget, overdue and over weight and would never fly. There were plenty of American airline with options to buy, but they all pulled out when the American government then decided to ban overland commercial supersonic flight, making the aircraft practically useless to American airlines.
Which of course explains why Concordes were flying all over continental Europe all the time, right?
As far as reliability goes, one fatal crash in 30 years of operation is actually pretty good. Admittedly, the somewhat spectacular film of the doomed flight didn't help.
That one crash turned Concorde from the safest commercial airliner to the most dangerous commercial airliner. Granted airliner crashes are rare enough that there are huge uncertainties in the statistics you compile about them. But its safety record was not "pretty good" by any stretch.
I've seen a lot of anti-US sentiments, some founded, some not. But this is the first time I've seen someone try to blame the limitations of physics and economics on US policy.
Any idiot can come up with a one-click system. A smarter person will come up with a one-click system, then think about what problems such a system may cause. The user could accidently click on something he didn't mean to buy! So to safeguard against that, you add a confirmation page, making it a two-click system.
You don't dream up the system with a confirmation page to begin with, then "innovate" getting rid of the confirmation page. (That is, unless you're so intellectually challenged that you have to copy someone else's system that already has a confirmation page.)
In the US, most landline services are sold at a flat monthly fee for unlimited calls. In Europe, the caller is charged when they call anywhere, and charged extra when calling a cell phone.
The the flat fee structure is insanely popular in the US (so much so that it's even being offered for long distance). So the US phone companies really want to keep it in place, even after the advent of cell phones. But cell phone calls had to be paid by someone. Since it can't be the caller (who may be on a flat-fee unlimited plan), it has to be the cell phone owner who pays it.
RIAA revenues in 2001: $13.7 billion
RIAA new releases in 2001: about 27,000
Figure 10 songs per release avg
$13,700,000,000 / 27,000 / 10 = avg $50,700 revenue per song
So the way the law is written right now, a song being pirated just once is worth three times more than it is on the free market.
A turbocharger that's always engaged is called a supercharger.;) Superchargers are usually mechanically linked to the engine, while turbochargers are spun up by exhaust gases (hence the lag).
It's a symptom of the cost of attempting to obtain justice (factoring in statistical win/loss likelihood analysis) exceeding the value of obtaining justice in some cases. So financially constrained people (i.e. the little guy) choose the path involving the least losses, which is foregoing justice.
If that becomes the norm, there's no longer any point to having a legal system and civilized society breaks down. A fact that I fear too many corporations and law firms are losing sight of in their blind pursuit of the almighty dollar.
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Ignoring all other assistance (intelligence, etc) that's still 1 percent too much, isn't it? If not, what percentage would you consider to be OK before a nation becomes culpable for assisting that regime? 5 percent? 10? 20? It must be nice to be able to pretend that assisting an oppressive regime doesn't matter as long as you don't help them too much.
So your reasoning is that if a country has ever done the tiniest wrong in the past, it can never be praised for "seeing the light" and doing the right thing? Congratulations, you've just defined a world in which countries can never move from evil to good, and can only move from good to evil.
Contrary to what you seem to think, the world is not a simple black and white place where you can pick and choose to support only countries that are perfectly good. Any country which tries to do that would have to become more reclusive than North Korea. Sometimes you have to support the lesser of two evils, and sometimes you're going to make the wrong decision as to which of the two is the lesser.
What's important is that a political process exists which can learn from and improve upon past wrong decisions so that future decisions are less likely to be wrong. What's not needed is the attitude that the smallest past transgression condemns you to being a bad guy for all eternity.
The facts are clear: when Saddam Hussein was murdering his people, the West stood by and watched, happy in the knowledge that he was being just as brutal towards Iranians as he was to his fellow Iraqis.
Exactly! And when one country in the West decided enough was enough, let's get rid of Saddam, people like you who criticized that country for supporting the guy turned around and criticized that country for opposing the guy. It's no wonder the US tends to ignore world opinion and does whatever is in its own best interests. It's damned if it does, damned if it doesn't. Since you damn it either way, is it any surprise it ignores you?
The basic fact is this: Saddam is/was bad. It was wrong for the U.S. to support him. It was right for the U.S. to support deposing him. The methods the U.S. used to depose him may not have been optimal, but what's done is done. You should be happy that he's been captured. Instead, the fact that you're using his capture as a springboard for more criticism of the U.S. would indicate that you don't really give a damn about the Iraqis, you just see this as another opportunity to criticize the US.
And if you're curious, I opposed the war on the basis that sidestepping the UN set a bad precedent for future police actions. But I'm overjoyed that Saddam has been captured. We can argue about whether the ends justify the means in this case. But the fact remains that a world in which the US fought a quasi-legal war with Iraq and captured Saddam is a better place than a world in which the US fought a quasi-legal war with Iraq and didn't capture Saddam.
From Microsoft's own dictionary: quantum (kwontem) noun plural quanta (-te) 1. A quantity or an amount. 2. A specified portion. 3. Something that can be counted or measured. 4. Physics. a. The smallest amount of a physical quantity that can exist independently, especially a discrete quantity of electromagnetic radiation. b. This amount of energy regarded as a unit. So a "quantum leap" is the smallest possible change that can be considered an upgrade. ;)
So you're saying it's too onerous a burden for Microsoft to have to verify all those claims themself, so a court should do it? I dunno, when the SBA audits you, you have to somehow prove to them that all the software that's installed on all your computers is properly licensed. You don't get the benefit of a court absorbing the cost of the audit for you. I don't see why Microsoft (SBA member) should get that benefit.
IMHO the perfect way to counterbalance this is to take the laws that limit campaign contributions by people, and apply it to corporations. If some company or PAC wants to donate half a million to some politician, then they can't be considered a citizen. If they want to be considered a citizen, then they can be limited to $2000/yr like the rest of us voting citizens.
I thought it was illegal to obtain someone's credit card number if you don't intend to charge it.
$6000 for a one-way ticket is not cost effective. Concorde burns about 10x as much fuel per passenger-mile as the latest subsonic aircraft. That figure is independent of any R&D. The physics of supersonic flight given the technology at the time simply don't allow you to get much cheaper.
The thing that killed the aircraft was purely and simply American sour grapes when Boeing finally admitted that their own late entry into supersonic air travel was over budget, overdue and over weight and would never fly. There were plenty of American airline with options to buy, but they all pulled out when the American government then decided to ban overland commercial supersonic flight, making the aircraft practically useless to American airlines.
Which of course explains why Concordes were flying all over continental Europe all the time, right?
As far as reliability goes, one fatal crash in 30 years of operation is actually pretty good. Admittedly, the somewhat spectacular film of the doomed flight didn't help.
That one crash turned Concorde from the safest commercial airliner to the most dangerous commercial airliner. Granted airliner crashes are rare enough that there are huge uncertainties in the statistics you compile about them. But its safety record was not "pretty good" by any stretch.
I've seen a lot of anti-US sentiments, some founded, some not. But this is the first time I've seen someone try to blame the limitations of physics and economics on US policy.
So PDAs are dead because the boss of the company who makes the leading smartphone software and someone from Nokia say so. Ok...
You don't dream up the system with a confirmation page to begin with, then "innovate" getting rid of the confirmation page. (That is, unless you're so intellectually challenged that you have to copy someone else's system that already has a confirmation page.)
In the US, most landline services are sold at a flat monthly fee for unlimited calls. In Europe, the caller is charged when they call anywhere, and charged extra when calling a cell phone. The the flat fee structure is insanely popular in the US (so much so that it's even being offered for long distance). So the US phone companies really want to keep it in place, even after the advent of cell phones. But cell phone calls had to be paid by someone. Since it can't be the caller (who may be on a flat-fee unlimited plan), it has to be the cell phone owner who pays it.
RIAA revenues in 2001: $13.7 billion RIAA new releases in 2001: about 27,000 Figure 10 songs per release avg $13,700,000,000 / 27,000 / 10 = avg $50,700 revenue per song So the way the law is written right now, a song being pirated just once is worth three times more than it is on the free market.
If they've only sold 6000, why does it seem everything the company does is announced to half a billion people via the national and world news outlets?
Any business model which pisses off the majority of your customer base is doomed to failure.
A turbocharger that's always engaged is called a supercharger. ;) Superchargers are usually mechanically linked to the engine, while turbochargers are spun up by exhaust gases (hence the lag).
If that becomes the norm, there's no longer any point to having a legal system and civilized society breaks down. A fact that I fear too many corporations and law firms are losing sight of in their blind pursuit of the almighty dollar.