I'm pretty suspicious of those numbers. I mean, I keep hearing things like X thousand species going extinct each year, or umpteen bazillion species of insects found in one square mile of Amazon rainforest, and I can't help but wonder: *really*? Did they actually try to interbreed any of those bugs to make sure they were different species and not just slightly different-looking individuals from the same species? I'd love to know what criteria are being used there. I suspect that, with such large numbers being bandied about, while the line between what's a species boundary and what isn't isn't always very clear, even the various races of humans or breeds of dogs could be mis-identified as separate species rather than intra-species diversity.
Disclaimer: I'm not trying to discredit the dangers of biodiversity loss, but I have real trouble assigning any real meaning to the notion of "millions of species", and I don't think that those numbers are doing much to win over eco-skeptics either. The real issue to me seems to be overall genetic diversity and the need to preserve it; how many "species" you pigeonhole that diversity into has very little practical relevance and is probably impossible to do properly anyway.
Right. And if you freeze-distill wine for long enough, it'll be brandy, right? Bullshit.
It makes a huge difference whether you remove water by freezing or by distilling. The heat used in distillation causes chemical changes that do not happen when freezing; also, in distillation, much more than just water is left behind in the heated vessel, only the substances that can travel with the alcohol fumes end up in the distillate. This is why beer , even the really strong stuff, tastes nothing like whisky, and why even fortified wine tastes nothing like brandy.
But hey, if you want to call everything that was made from barley or wheat and has a high alcohol content "whisky", feel free to try and rewrite the dictionary -- while the rest of us continue to use words like "strong beer", "vodka", "aquavit", "jenever", and whatnot. Cheers!
Amm... a society with one child per family may not be sustainable. You are making the same mistake everybody that thinks that there is an obvious solution.
Imagine in a few generations a single great grandchild will have to support his parents and their parents and considering life expectancy... maybe some of his great grand parents.
No, you, sir, are making the mistake everyone makes. In game theory, it's called the Horizon Effect: where you fail to make the move that produces the best long-term result, because you aren't looking far enough ahead to see the disaster that will ensue if you keep on minimizing short-term losses.
Yes, lowering birthrates will mean that the generation that decided to have only one child per couple will have fewer children and grandchildren to take care of them. *Not* lowering birthrates leads to a world where natural resources are so depleted that your large number of grandchildren will have nothing to support you with.
We're already collectively screwed; the longer we stay in denial about this, the worse the pain will be when starvation forces population growth to zero or less.
Ultimately censorship will be killed by end to end encryption and onion routing.
I'm sure any government that is serious about censorship will eventually also ban encryption, or at least restrict it to only algorithms that they have a back door to. Such a ban is easy to enforce by forcing ISPs to pass only government-whitelisted protocols and nothing else.
There was a time in the Western world, before sushi had ascended to its current status, that it was much easier to sell fish & chips than it was to sell sushi. People were actually grossed out by the idea
People in the Netherlands, northern Germany, and Scandinavia eat raw herring and have done so for ages -- it's a delicacy. Also, raw oysters, steak tartare... I'll grant that raw dead animals were never as prominent on the European menu as in Japanese cuisine, but they were certainly there before the current wave of Asian food started.:-)
All this talk of getting a few people offworld is pretty unconvincing, too, as long as we can't demonstrate the ability to create a self-sustaining environment first. Let me see a project like Biosphere that actually manages to thrive in complete isolation for several years. Do that, and *then* maybe we should start building rockets and sending people off to live on the moon or on Mars or wherever. Until then, our eggs are in one basket anyway, and we may as well focus on managing this particular basket better.
We just aren't ready to colonize the planets yet, and right now, a mission to Mars would be just as pointless as going to the moon was in 1969. Impressive, sure, a nice feelgood project if you will, but the practical significance is close to zero. Despite all the rhetoric, Neil Armstrong was not the Columbus of the 20th century; being stranded on the moon is, at present, still a death sentence. Let's do something about that before building more and bigger rockets...
The iPhone is a non-starter because of Apple's closed system and their apparent willingness to append their own marketing to messages (hardly a professional image for a work phone!).
In case you're referring to the "Sent from my iPhone" footer you see on a lot of emails from iPhone users, that's just the default signature appended by the email app. You can change that to whatever you want, including nothing (one of the first things I did while setting up email on mine).
iPhone has IM applications, but at least until a few months ago, couldn't run anything in the background to get notifications
The Yahoo! Messenger client for iPhone uses notifications; once you're signed in you will be notified when a message comes in, even if the phone is on standby or if you're in another app. This type of notification support was added in iPhone OS 3.0, I think. Dunno if other IM clients use this, but I'm pretty pleased with the Yahoo! one.
The point being: If someone objects to abortion on the grounds that it is killing an innocent human, then it would be hideous for that person simply to say, "I won't do it myself, but I won't try to force that on you." It is literally--and I mean that word precisely--no different from saying, "I won't beat women myself, but you're welcome to do it."
Amen!
What you're saying is that pro-choice people argue that abortion is a justified homicide. If that's the case, it doesn't change the silliness of "Just don't do it yourself" as an argument to tell pro-lifers to shut up.
Again, I agree. With both points.
I don't think that any argument will shut up right-to-lifers, nor do I think that any argument will shut up pro-choicers. Both camps have good points on their side; it just happens that their priorities are different (the rights of the unborn vs. the rights of the woman whose uterus the unborn is living in), and there simply isn't any way to arrive at a compromise between the two. It is one of that rare species of truly black-and-white issues.
(But it's not quite true that the pro-choice camp sees the question that way. Some may--but many (most?) don't agree that we're talking about a homicide at all.)
True, I over-simplified, and presented my own point of view as if it were the point of view of pro-choicers in general. Some do indeed simply take the position that life doesn't begin until birth, and under that interpretation, abortion cannot be a homicide, by legal definition. I doubt that that is really the way that most pro-choicers think, though -- and even if it were, they will have to do some serious soul-searching, if and when the countries they live in adopt laws that define the start of a human life to be at conception! Personally, I think that laws should represent a country's values, not define them, but that's another subject for discussion without end.
It wasn't until Beethoven that the idea of making money off of copies of musical works even really took off.
[citation needed]
Seriously, it seems to be a very popular meme on/. that copyright is somehow a very recent invention, and that in some mythical past the only way people made money from music and other performance arts was by performing live. In reality, copyright is almost as old as the industry that prompted its invention, namely, printing and publishing. Also, the advent of digital media, which has made it possible to create lossless copies ad infinitum and at negligible cost, makes copyright more important, not less, despite what/. naysayers may feel about the publishing industry's "outdated business model".
Which is precisely the question with abortion: Whether an actual person is being harmed by another.
That's the way the question is usually posed by right-to-lifers; the pro-choice camp sees the question as "which is the greater harm: allowing the killing of an unborn child, or denying the mother the right to self-determination regarding her own body?"
Not that that has anything to do with the pre-implantation screening process, unless you object to discarding viable in-vitro fertilized ova -- in which case you'd have to be opposed to the way IVF is currently done in general, and the screening issue would be a moot point.
It does, actually. Assuming the number you're calling is a domestic land line, and you're calling during evening hours, chances are good that if you call an hour later, another member of the household will pick up.
Also, getting a driver's license doesn't necessarily involve taking a driving test at all, if you already hold a recognized license from another state or country. For example, when I first came to the U.S. from the Netherlands 11 years ago, I went to the nearest DMV (in New Jersey, where I live), and upon showing them my Dutch driver's license, accompanied by a matching International driver's license (which is basically just an official translation of your "real" license), I could get an NJ driver's license after taking only the eye test and the theoretical exam.
The theoretical exam was considerably harder than the one described by parent, though. A Texan moving to NJ may be able to hit the road without their actual driving skills ever having been properly examined, but at least their knowledge of the rules of the road is tested fairly well.
Last I checked, Microsoft didn't have a monopoly on operating systems, either. Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD? Sounds like competition to me.
They don't have a monopoly on web browsers, either. Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari? You can install any browser you want in any current version of Windows, and even make them the "default" browser so they'll pop up when you click a link in some email or whatever. What exactly is the issue here?
Maybe Microsoft has a "near-monopoly" in one area or other, but I won't be able to make up my mind about that until I find out just what a "near-monopoly" is supposed to be, exactly.
If I hear some music I like, on the radio, and I then buy the CD, the artist makes some money; if a friend of mine already has the CD and I make a copy, the artist gets stiffed. *I* still get the music, but the people who made it don't get paid.
I totally understand that artists, the **AA, the IP lobby, etc., have a problem with piracy. It may not be "theft" in the same sense as "stealing someone's car", but it is still a breach of the social contract. Artists spend a lot of time and effort creating art (music, novels, TV shows, whatever), and if we all want to continue to enjoy that art, we're going to have to pay for it. Trying to get it for free is cheating, plain and simple.
On the other hand, for the IP lobby to claim that every illegal copy of a $10 CD represents a $10 loss to the economy is just fucked up. That $10 is going to get spent elsewhere. With the exception of a small handful of filthy rich people, everyone spends every cent they make; maybe not the same day they receive their paychecks, but the next month, or maybe next year. If some kid doesn't spend $10 on the latest Britney Spears CD, because they got a free illegal download instead, they're going to spend it on a movie ticket, a haircut, a book, maybe some gas for their car.
We should all be promoting copyright violations, because local businesses would run out of teenage customers otherwise.
Come on, people Vista was released OVER TWO YEARS AGO, please update the rhetoric.
I wasn't criticizing Vista! FWIW, I'm still using XP myself. Using XP because it works and I like it.
Not sure what "rhetoric" you're complaining about.
Second, to parent, as the first response mentioned, this is an issue of leveraging a monopoly to get an unfair advantage in the market, which MS did.
What monopoly? The U.S. Postal Service has a monopoly on delivering mail into my mailbox; it is a federal offense for anyone else to do that. Microsoft, on the other hand, has no such protection-enshrined-in-law against competition in the marketplace for PC operating systems. Microsoft's OS products have always had competition, and they still do today. How do they have a monopoly -- or maybe I should ask, what do you think they have a monopoly on?
Even if I were to agree that Microsoft has an OS monopoly -- which I don't -- I still don't see why the EU (or anyone else) has a problem with them bundling IE. It's not as though you can't install another browser if you so choose; I have done exactly that ever since I first started using Windows 14 years ago.
I suppose the silver lining is that we'll still be able to open any old Explorer window (you know, the file manager thingy, not IE) and just type a URL there. IE is too deeply tied into Windows to really remove it altogether; my guess is that the only change will be the disappearance of the blue "e" icon.
It's still stupid, though. I guess it all started with the Netscape vs. Microsoft lawsuit in the '90s, and IMHO even that lawsuit was stupid. WTF can the legal basis be for forbidding any OS vendor from adding functionality to their products? What's next, <car analogy> Honda can't put their own brand of radio in the new cars they sell because it hurts the sales of Blaupunkt? </car analogy>
You're still not answering. When you said "Three words for you, you pompous and ill-informed windbag: NULL POINTER EXCEPTION", what was that supposed to be a reply to? And don't just say "post #28146789", how about telling me what part of that post? I'm curious what you're so pissed about.
If you can't answer a simple question like that, have a valium and get an early night already. Sheesh!
Exactly! Thank you. That system isn't exactly a monument to liberty, is it?
OK, so you don't like the fact that some of the taxes you have to pay are used to support the unemployed.
Fine. So vote for someone who will get rid of Social Security.
Your problem seems to be that you don't like how your taxes get spent. Fair enough! But your problem is not that there isn't enough freedom where you live; your problem is that the politicians that got elected don't do what you want them to do. Tough shit, bro! But you're still able to vote for whomever you like in the next election, and until then, you're free to try to convince people to see things your way.
Being able to campaign for the policies you want: that's freedom.
Being able to vote for whomever you want to vote for: that's freedom.
Being able to run for public office yourself, if you don't like any of the other candidates: that's freedom.
Having to put up with policies you don't like, because the politicians you like lost the election: well, that's freedom, too. Deal with it.
"Dictatorship" isn't really the right word. "Totalitarianism" would be a better fit. Though the "benign" dictatorship of western European countries, which provide dubious cradle-to-grave "care" for their hugely taxed citizens is paternalistic and unavoidable if you're born there.
I was born there (Western Europe) and I've also lived here (United States) for 10 years. Call me brainwashed, but I don't think that either of those places is ruled by a dictatorship or a totalitarian government. When people get fed up, they vote for someone else. The fact that people in Europe tend to support slightly more "liberal" or "socialist" governments, compared to the U.S., is not because they are forced to... it's just a choice they make.
And it is a choice that they get to reconsider every four years. Free elections, you know?
a testament to our free media and our democracy; it has nothing to do with our economic system
You cannot separate the two. Take away the opportunities to take risk and thrive (by forming a Nanny State, instead), and you also chip away at democracy and freedom.
I don't think I understand what you're trying to say here. There are plenty of examples of socialist policies being implemented in democratic countries -- Social Security in the U.S. is one example among many.
When the electorate in those countries lose faith in those policies, they are free to elect a government that eliminates them.
Last I heard, Social Security is not enshrined in the U.S. constitution, and even if it were, the constitution can always be amended. It's not like that has never happened before.
I must confess that I've never really understood the mentality that seems to equate "socialism" with "dictatorship". Yes, the Soviet Union and its satellite states did combine the two, but there are plenty of examples where there is socialism without dictatorship (e.g., in Western Europe) and dictatorship without socialism (e.g., in South America and Africa).
Indeed. The environment is at its most trashed in places where socialist governments run the show. See the train wreck that happened in eastern Europe under the helpful central control of the Soviets, or the rapidly worsening disaster that is China.
I'd modify that statement a bit and say that the environment is at its most trashed in places where, firstly, industrialization is pushed hard, and secondly, where there is no free press to report about the negative side effects that industrialization often has, and thirdly, where there is no democracy that would allow policy changes without bloodshed.
The western world with its oh-so-perfect capitalism was ruining its environment just as badly as the commies, but in the free world, environmentalists started making a stink, and public opinion slowly turned around. The fact that the western world has become cleaner in recent decades, despite populations and consumption that continue to grow, is a testament to our free media and our democracy; it has nothing to do with our economic system.
It was impossible to write messages in different languages before that without everything being "corrected" to English.
Go to Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> International Keyboards, and select all the languages that you use regularly. When you have more than one language selected, the pop-up keyboards will have a little "globe" icon to the left of the space bar, that lets you switch languages as you type. I use this to switch between English and Dutch and I find it's pretty convenient.
(I use a 2nd generation iPod touch, but I'd expect the 1st gen, and the iPhones, to have the keyboard settings in the same place.)
Slashdot Mirror
Disclaimer: I'm not trying to discredit the dangers of biodiversity loss, but I have real trouble assigning any real meaning to the notion of "millions of species", and I don't think that those numbers are doing much to win over eco-skeptics either. The real issue to me seems to be overall genetic diversity and the need to preserve it; how many "species" you pigeonhole that diversity into has very little practical relevance and is probably impossible to do properly anyway.
It makes a huge difference whether you remove water by freezing or by distilling. The heat used in distillation causes chemical changes that do not happen when freezing; also, in distillation, much more than just water is left behind in the heated vessel, only the substances that can travel with the alcohol fumes end up in the distillate. This is why beer , even the really strong stuff, tastes nothing like whisky, and why even fortified wine tastes nothing like brandy.
But hey, if you want to call everything that was made from barley or wheat and has a high alcohol content "whisky", feel free to try and rewrite the dictionary -- while the rest of us continue to use words like "strong beer", "vodka", "aquavit", "jenever", and whatnot. Cheers!
Amm ... a society with one child per family may not be sustainable. You are making the same mistake everybody that thinks that there is an obvious solution.
Imagine in a few generations a single great grandchild will have to support his parents and their parents and considering life expectancy ... maybe some of his great grand parents.
No, you, sir, are making the mistake everyone makes. In game theory, it's called the Horizon Effect: where you fail to make the move that produces the best long-term result, because you aren't looking far enough ahead to see the disaster that will ensue if you keep on minimizing short-term losses.
Yes, lowering birthrates will mean that the generation that decided to have only one child per couple will have fewer children and grandchildren to take care of them. *Not* lowering birthrates leads to a world where natural resources are so depleted that your large number of grandchildren will have nothing to support you with.
We're already collectively screwed; the longer we stay in denial about this, the worse the pain will be when starvation forces population growth to zero or less.
Ultimately censorship will be killed by end to end encryption and onion routing.
I'm sure any government that is serious about censorship will eventually also ban encryption, or at least restrict it to only algorithms that they have a back door to. Such a ban is easy to enforce by forcing ISPs to pass only government-whitelisted protocols and nothing else.
Someone should probably mention this to Munich
FYI, the German federal government is in Berlin, and the high court (Bundesgerichtshof) is in Karlsruhe.
There was a time in the Western world, before sushi had ascended to its current status, that it was much easier to sell fish & chips than it was to sell sushi. People were actually grossed out by the idea
People in the Netherlands, northern Germany, and Scandinavia eat raw herring and have done so for ages -- it's a delicacy. Also, raw oysters, steak tartare... I'll grant that raw dead animals were never as prominent on the European menu as in Japanese cuisine, but they were certainly there before the current wave of Asian food started. :-)
All this talk of getting a few people offworld is pretty unconvincing, too, as long as we can't demonstrate the ability to create a self-sustaining environment first. Let me see a project like Biosphere that actually manages to thrive in complete isolation for several years. Do that, and *then* maybe we should start building rockets and sending people off to live on the moon or on Mars or wherever. Until then, our eggs are in one basket anyway, and we may as well focus on managing this particular basket better.
We just aren't ready to colonize the planets yet, and right now, a mission to Mars would be just as pointless as going to the moon was in 1969. Impressive, sure, a nice feelgood project if you will, but the practical significance is close to zero. Despite all the rhetoric, Neil Armstrong was not the Columbus of the 20th century; being stranded on the moon is, at present, still a death sentence. Let's do something about that before building more and bigger rockets...
The iPhone is a non-starter because of Apple's closed system and their apparent willingness to append their own marketing to messages (hardly a professional image for a work phone!).
In case you're referring to the "Sent from my iPhone" footer you see on a lot of emails from iPhone users, that's just the default signature appended by the email app. You can change that to whatever you want, including nothing (one of the first things I did while setting up email on mine).
iPhone has IM applications, but at least until a few months ago, couldn't run anything in the background to get notifications
The Yahoo! Messenger client for iPhone uses notifications; once you're signed in you will be notified when a message comes in, even if the phone is on standby or if you're in another app. This type of notification support was added in iPhone OS 3.0, I think. Dunno if other IM clients use this, but I'm pretty pleased with the Yahoo! one.
The point being: If someone objects to abortion on the grounds that it is killing an innocent human, then it would be hideous for that person simply to say, "I won't do it myself, but I won't try to force that on you." It is literally--and I mean that word precisely--no different from saying, "I won't beat women myself, but you're welcome to do it."
Amen!
What you're saying is that pro-choice people argue that abortion is a justified homicide. If that's the case, it doesn't change the silliness of "Just don't do it yourself" as an argument to tell pro-lifers to shut up.
Again, I agree. With both points.
I don't think that any argument will shut up right-to-lifers, nor do I think that any argument will shut up pro-choicers. Both camps have good points on their side; it just happens that their priorities are different (the rights of the unborn vs. the rights of the woman whose uterus the unborn is living in), and there simply isn't any way to arrive at a compromise between the two. It is one of that rare species of truly black-and-white issues.
(But it's not quite true that the pro-choice camp sees the question that way. Some may--but many (most?) don't agree that we're talking about a homicide at all.)
True, I over-simplified, and presented my own point of view as if it were the point of view of pro-choicers in general. Some do indeed simply take the position that life doesn't begin until birth, and under that interpretation, abortion cannot be a homicide, by legal definition. I doubt that that is really the way that most pro-choicers think, though -- and even if it were, they will have to do some serious soul-searching, if and when the countries they live in adopt laws that define the start of a human life to be at conception! Personally, I think that laws should represent a country's values, not define them, but that's another subject for discussion without end.
It wasn't until Beethoven that the idea of making money off of copies of musical works even really took off.
[citation needed]
Seriously, it seems to be a very popular meme on /. that copyright is somehow a very recent invention, and that in some mythical past the only way people made money from music and other performance arts was by performing live. In reality, copyright is almost as old as the industry that prompted its invention, namely, printing and publishing. Also, the advent of digital media, which has made it possible to create lossless copies ad infinitum and at negligible cost, makes copyright more important, not less, despite what /. naysayers may feel about the publishing industry's "outdated business model".
*dons asbestos underwear*
Which is precisely the question with abortion: Whether an actual person is being harmed by another.
That's the way the question is usually posed by right-to-lifers; the pro-choice camp sees the question as "which is the greater harm: allowing the killing of an unborn child, or denying the mother the right to self-determination regarding her own body?"
Not that that has anything to do with the pre-implantation screening process, unless you object to discarding viable in-vitro fertilized ova -- in which case you'd have to be opposed to the way IVF is currently done in general, and the screening issue would be a moot point.
It does, actually. Assuming the number you're calling is a domestic land line, and you're calling during evening hours, chances are good that if you call an hour later, another member of the household will pick up.
The theoretical exam was considerably harder than the one described by parent, though. A Texan moving to NJ may be able to hit the road without their actual driving skills ever having been properly examined, but at least their knowledge of the rules of the road is tested fairly well.
They don't have a monopoly on web browsers, either. Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari? You can install any browser you want in any current version of Windows, and even make them the "default" browser so they'll pop up when you click a link in some email or whatever. What exactly is the issue here?
Maybe Microsoft has a "near-monopoly" in one area or other, but I won't be able to make up my mind about that until I find out just what a "near-monopoly" is supposed to be, exactly.
I totally understand that artists, the **AA, the IP lobby, etc., have a problem with piracy. It may not be "theft" in the same sense as "stealing someone's car", but it is still a breach of the social contract. Artists spend a lot of time and effort creating art (music, novels, TV shows, whatever), and if we all want to continue to enjoy that art, we're going to have to pay for it. Trying to get it for free is cheating, plain and simple.
On the other hand, for the IP lobby to claim that every illegal copy of a $10 CD represents a $10 loss to the economy is just fucked up. That $10 is going to get spent elsewhere. With the exception of a small handful of filthy rich people, everyone spends every cent they make; maybe not the same day they receive their paychecks, but the next month, or maybe next year. If some kid doesn't spend $10 on the latest Britney Spears CD, because they got a free illegal download instead, they're going to spend it on a movie ticket, a haircut, a book, maybe some gas for their car.
We should all be promoting copyright violations, because local businesses would run out of teenage customers otherwise.
Come on, people Vista was released OVER TWO YEARS AGO, please update the rhetoric.
I wasn't criticizing Vista! FWIW, I'm still using XP myself. Using XP because it works and I like it.
Not sure what "rhetoric" you're complaining about.
Second, to parent, as the first response mentioned, this is an issue of leveraging a monopoly to get an unfair advantage in the market, which MS did.
What monopoly? The U.S. Postal Service has a monopoly on delivering mail into my mailbox; it is a federal offense for anyone else to do that. Microsoft, on the other hand, has no such protection-enshrined-in-law against competition in the marketplace for PC operating systems. Microsoft's OS products have always had competition, and they still do today. How do they have a monopoly -- or maybe I should ask, what do you think they have a monopoly on?
Even if I were to agree that Microsoft has an OS monopoly -- which I don't -- I still don't see why the EU (or anyone else) has a problem with them bundling IE. It's not as though you can't install another browser if you so choose; I have done exactly that ever since I first started using Windows 14 years ago.
It's still stupid, though. I guess it all started with the Netscape vs. Microsoft lawsuit in the '90s, and IMHO even that lawsuit was stupid. WTF can the legal basis be for forbidding any OS vendor from adding functionality to their products? What's next, <car analogy> Honda can't put their own brand of radio in the new cars they sell because it hurts the sales of Blaupunkt? </car analogy>
You're still not answering. When you said "Three words for you, you pompous and ill-informed windbag: NULL POINTER EXCEPTION", what was that supposed to be a reply to? And don't just say "post #28146789", how about telling me what part of that post? I'm curious what you're so pissed about.
If you can't answer a simple question like that, have a valium and get an early night already. Sheesh!
What part of my post is that supposed to be a reply to?
Exactly! Thank you. That system isn't exactly a monument to liberty, is it?
OK, so you don't like the fact that some of the taxes you have to pay are used to support the unemployed.
Fine. So vote for someone who will get rid of Social Security.
Your problem seems to be that you don't like how your taxes get spent. Fair enough! But your problem is not that there isn't enough freedom where you live; your problem is that the politicians that got elected don't do what you want them to do. Tough shit, bro! But you're still able to vote for whomever you like in the next election, and until then, you're free to try to convince people to see things your way.
Being able to campaign for the policies you want: that's freedom.
Being able to vote for whomever you want to vote for: that's freedom.
Being able to run for public office yourself, if you don't like any of the other candidates: that's freedom.
Having to put up with policies you don't like, because the politicians you like lost the election: well, that's freedom, too. Deal with it.
"Dictatorship" isn't really the right word. "Totalitarianism" would be a better fit. Though the "benign" dictatorship of western European countries, which provide dubious cradle-to-grave "care" for their hugely taxed citizens is paternalistic and unavoidable if you're born there.
I was born there (Western Europe) and I've also lived here (United States) for 10 years. Call me brainwashed, but I don't think that either of those places is ruled by a dictatorship or a totalitarian government. When people get fed up, they vote for someone else. The fact that people in Europe tend to support slightly more "liberal" or "socialist" governments, compared to the U.S., is not because they are forced to... it's just a choice they make.
And it is a choice that they get to reconsider every four years. Free elections, you know?
a testament to our free media and our democracy; it has nothing to do with our economic system
You cannot separate the two. Take away the opportunities to take risk and thrive (by forming a Nanny State, instead), and you also chip away at democracy and freedom.
I don't think I understand what you're trying to say here. There are plenty of examples of socialist policies being implemented in democratic countries -- Social Security in the U.S. is one example among many.
When the electorate in those countries lose faith in those policies, they are free to elect a government that eliminates them.
Last I heard, Social Security is not enshrined in the U.S. constitution, and even if it were, the constitution can always be amended. It's not like that has never happened before.
I must confess that I've never really understood the mentality that seems to equate "socialism" with "dictatorship". Yes, the Soviet Union and its satellite states did combine the two, but there are plenty of examples where there is socialism without dictatorship (e.g., in Western Europe) and dictatorship without socialism (e.g., in South America and Africa).
Indeed. The environment is at its most trashed in places where socialist governments run the show. See the train wreck that happened in eastern Europe under the helpful central control of the Soviets, or the rapidly worsening disaster that is China.
I'd modify that statement a bit and say that the environment is at its most trashed in places where, firstly, industrialization is pushed hard, and secondly, where there is no free press to report about the negative side effects that industrialization often has, and thirdly, where there is no democracy that would allow policy changes without bloodshed.
The western world with its oh-so-perfect capitalism was ruining its environment just as badly as the commies, but in the free world, environmentalists started making a stink, and public opinion slowly turned around. The fact that the western world has become cleaner in recent decades, despite populations and consumption that continue to grow, is a testament to our free media and our democracy; it has nothing to do with our economic system.
It was impossible to write messages in different languages before that without everything being "corrected" to English.
Go to Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> International Keyboards, and select all the languages that you use regularly. When you have more than one language selected, the pop-up keyboards will have a little "globe" icon to the left of the space bar, that lets you switch languages as you type. I use this to switch between English and Dutch and I find it's pretty convenient.
(I use a 2nd generation iPod touch, but I'd expect the 1st gen, and the iPhones, to have the keyboard settings in the same place.)