But here's the proof, imho : in the US, where you can pretty much say any old darn thing short of direct calls to violence, neo-nazi, KKKs and other white supremacist groups exist, express themselves (much to the dismay of the local populace around them) and... they look like a small group of retards. On the other hand, in Europe, where you can't say something even remotely critical of the jews, and where naziism has become taboo to the point where it's not even possible to discuss the official head count of the holocaust without landing in the pokey, antisemitism, racism and extreme-right groups are growing at an alarming rate. Why? because these people stay hidden, embedded in the general population, by force of law, instead of coming out and showing themselves as the numbskulls they are like in the US.
This is non-sense. In most European countries you can express antisemitic views without fearing retribution from the law, and you can openly deny the Holocaust (except for in a few countries) without ending up in jail. There is a definite difference, in the eyes of the law (of most European countries), to deny the Holocaust, and advocating another one.
European antisemitism must be explained some other way.
OK, so ethnic cleansing (i.e. burning people's houses and forcing them to move or starve to death) is now OK?
I didn't pass a moral judgement. I just told what "international law" says on the matter. And they seem to be quite fine with most cases of ethnic cleansing. There aren't really any yearly resolutions passed in the UN on the rights of the Volksdeutsche of the East. The interests of the pieds noirs to get back their property in Algeria doesn't seem to break many hearts either. And so on.
You might notice, that such cleanings rarely solve problems: India and Pakistan, Israel and Palesting, Georgia and Abkhazia, etc.
As we only have one world it is difficult to make experiments. But I claim that ethnic cleansings often reduce tensions and lessen the total suffering (however that is measured). India and Pakistan are actually a good example of this. Without the exchange of population, a much larger portion of the area would have been like Kashmir. And India and Pakistan are not trying to reverse the population exchange. So that problem is solved. Kashmir is just an unfinished job.
All the same, in the real world, you rarely "solve problems", you make them smaller and try to live with what remains.
Again this is not a moral judgement. And I am not particularly arguing for ethnic cleansings as a method to solve problem. But I definitely can see how people can arrive at ethnic cleansings as the lesser of two evils (where the larger evil is genocide or major war).
And it will be OK for Iran to force Israel (using nuclear and biological weapons threat) to move somewhere else so Palestinians can live freely?
Where did I suggest that? (And no, I think the Palestinian can live freely right now, if they choose to do it. But that is a different discussion.)
Genocide is the killing of a significant portion of an ethnic group with the intent of wiping the said group out. It is killing a culture, not killing the individuals. Ethnic cleansing which kills a lot of people, but where it is clear that the ethnic group will survive and be able to sustain its culture is clearly different from genocide.
E.g. tribe A displaces tribe B from their homeland into the desert. Tribe B dies of because of the thirst (die-off may be slow, stretching for several generations). (by the way, I've read that in israeli/palestinian conflicts there were some dirty games played with access and use of water - very relevant)
Is your implication that the Israelis are somehow involved in a genocide on the Palestinians? It must be a very ineffective genocide. Over the past 60 years the numbers of Palestinians have at least quintupled.
Albanians permitted large scale ethnic cleanings which are also prohibited by international law.
International law is not comparable to national laws. It is comprised of a large number of international treaties and traditions, which are not free of contradictions.
Ethnic cleansing, while forbidden in the Geneva Convention (and similar treaties), is largely accepted by the world community. The recent history is full of exchanges of population. 12 million Germans were forced to leave Eastern and Central Europe in the aftermath of WW2. The partition of India led to an exchange of a similar amount of people. A large number of Greeks were forced out of minor Asia in the 1920's, and Turks left Greece. These were all horrible events, and certainly not bloodless. But no mainstream politician suggest that they should be reversed. The reason is of course that these events are assumed to have significantly lessened the ethnic tensions and reduced the risks of war and genocide. Greeks and Turks have probably been happier as a net result. Those are effects on a statistic level, and are of course difficult to commensurate with personal experiences of expulsion.
The time is not right in Turkey, or many other nations, for full freedom of speech. Like it or not, there are some very heated passions in that part of the world. They are forcibly integrating peoples and ethnic groups who don't want to be integrated, and that will take time. Generations, maybe centuries, will pass but to see thru their development as a modern, peaceful, enlightened, secular and democratic nation they believe the vision of the Ataturk is the best path. That vision is still young and fragile.
Why should we be interested in Turkey "integrating" people?
No, they're voting a friggin' name. Pluto is a big round ball of matter that orbits the sun at a mind-boggling distance, and no one's questioning that. NM just wants to call it a "planet", which is well within their prerogative. they could also pass a law whereby you would be referred to as "the one who does not understand the law", and that'd be just fine as well.
I suppose it is possible in New Mexico, but many legislations prohibits "special laws", that is, laws that only apply to one or a few named individuals or companies.
During those 8 centuries Moors and Christian and Jew people lived together. They had their spaces, but also had interaction, trade,... . Christian were not obligated to convert to Islam, etc. After Christian re-conquest Moors and Jew were ejected from the territory (or obligated to convert to Christianism- nevertheless I'm not sure they had the same rights than Christians after doing that)
I'm sorry to tell you that Christians and Jews were indeed forced to convert to Islam (or die or go into exile). Now, Moorish Spain was not one state, so conditions varied over time, and at times conditions were quite liveable (although Christians and Jews did have to pay special taxes, wear distinctive clothes etc). But tolerant, the Moors were not. I could list events of forced conversions and expulsions by the Moors against Jews and Christians, but you would do better actually reading some history books. Yes, really. (But consider: Where was Maimonides born? When and why did he leave that city? Just to put a human face to historical events.)
The golden age of Al-Andalus is a European 19th century orientalism fantasy. It became popular with West European Jews who wanted to paint a contrast to the intolerant European society of the day. But it is nevertheless a fantasy. The Jewish nostalgia for Al-Andalus is of course the large cultural heritage in terms of philosophy, science and literature that was produced in Spain. This has little to do with any tolerance on the part of the Moors though, and more todo with the fact that 80% of the world Jewry lived in Spain at the time. After the dispersion of the Spanish Jewry it would take three hundred years until a similar center of Jewish learning (and demography) arised.
The peak of that Islamic civilisation seems to have been the Kingdom of Granada in Spain, which had an advanced society, religious tolerance (not only were Jews and Christians welcome, but a Hebrew prayer book for women has been discovered there) and advanced technology. There is some evidence that they learned more from the Hindus than the Greeks, as books on the history of numbers point out. There are writings from that society that sound almost modern in outlook.
Oh, give me a break. Al-Andalus wasn't bad, on a historical scale, but it was a far cry from a tolerant society. In fact, tolerance as defined in western democracies today did not exist in Al-Andalus, or practically anywhere else in the islamic world. Yes, the Jews weren't butchered up as often as in the christian world, but it did happen. Conversion or death was not a method brought to Spain by Los Reyes Católicos. Jews and Christians were forced to pay a special tax, wear distinctive clothing and could not hold public office. These were the laws. Sometimes and in some places the laws were not particularly well enforced and Jews and Christians could rise to important offices, but it was not for any longer periods (on a historical scale). As I mentioned, from time to time Jews were expelled when a new kalif came to town, and had to flee to other areas. Sometimes the refugees went to neighbouring christian states.
As for the Hebrew prayer book for women -- in what way is that significant?
It is important to note that the sentence term of 2 years was not chosen at random. When a crime carries this sentence as a possiblity, the Swedish police gets greater powers to use surveillance, wiretapping and raids to secure evidence such as the identity of person using a specific IP address.
Also, if you catch someone in the act of committing, or appearantly fleeing from the scene of crime of, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of more than two years, you may make a "citizen's arrest", that is grab and hold a person until the police arrives.
He should have made a backup of that tablet. Well, as it was, as anyone who was there can tell you, Moses' first two tablets were lost in an "accident" (Exodus 32:19), but were restored from backup (Exodus 34:28).
It's theatre. The court he was tried in has no legal standing over crimes that were perpetuated before the court was created. It was in every sense of the word a kangaroo court. He should have been tried in The Hague at the International Court of Justice. The problem with trying him there is that the US would lose control over the proceedings and would not be able to use the trial for their own political gain.
The International Court of Justice doesn't try people, it arbitrates between states. You are probably thinking of the Internation Criminal Court, but it can't prosecute cases concerning events before July 1, 2002. Iraq is not a party to the court, because Saddam didn't sign (I repeat, that's Saddam not signing, not Bush) so it can't prosecute his actions after 2002 either.
On the other hand, he did commit crimes under Iraqi law, so he can be tried under Iraqi law, by an Iraqi court. The Iraqi court could of course appoint foreign judges, in effect making it an international tribunal.
But why? There's a lot of talk about how he would embarass the US by exposing their support for him during the Iran-Iraq war etc., but that's irrelevant. What is tried at Saddam's trial are Saddam's actions, not those of the United States. If he wants to talk about the United States, or politics, or whatever, he has to chose a different arena. Perhaps that arena should be a trial of George Herbert Walker Bush, I don't know. Or perhaps he could just write a play about it.
Actually, classing them as Arabic isn't much better either since the bulk of Morocco's population is Berberr with only about 10% being "pure" Arabs, Algeria's genetic makeup is not too much different than that of Morocco and Libya is even named after a Berber tribe.
Of course the Arab armies did not supplant the existing populations, they subdued them and taught them a new language. This is much the same as the Romans did. France and Romania didn't get "their genes" from Rome, but they learned the language of the conqueror (and it can go fast -- Dacia was a Roman province for about one hundred years).
Being Arab is more of a linguistical and cultural thing. It is above all an identity thing, meaning that it is the Arab themselves who get to decide if they are Arab or not. It seems to me that being Arab is so cool that you can stretch this language and cultural thing quite a bit, which is why countries like Mauretania and Somalia like to think of themselves as Arab countries.
(Arab country usual means "member of the Arab League", but that would mean that there is at least some elite in the country thinking of themselves as Arabs).
I am not sure what you mean. That people were people already in biblic times? I believe so, but I can't be sure. That there is long list of marriages outside "the tribe" in the Bible? Yes. That Hebrews married outside "the tribe"? I believe that is supported by modern DNA research. IIRC the yemenite jews are thought to be descendants of Jewish (male) traders and local women. Similarly for Ethiopian Jews.
Even in the absence of hard evidence, it would seem reasonable: If Moses married a black women, why shouldn't some ordinary Hebrew marry a Canaanite?
Our dominant economic system, capitalism, simply isn't sustainable because its predicated on maximizing growth which is devastating our finite habitat and again its concentrating ever more wealth in ever fewer hands and that probably isn't sustainable, before there is revolt.
Economic growth does not imply depleting natural resources. Mostly it means making more with less (less time, less raw material). Look around, many systems and stuff are a lot more energy efficient today and use less material to build than they were, say, twenty years ago. More mileage out of cars per gallon, lighter aircrafts, thinner plastic bags etc etc, more free time with sustained or improved living standards. All because of capitalism!
There's this book called The Bible (author; disputed, age; roughly 2500 years?) that tells the story of an ancient nomadic race of goat-herders called the Hebrews. One of their laws was to discourage marriage outside their own race. Only the Hebrews were the Creator's favored race, and the rest were damned.
Wrong on all accounts. The Hebrews didn't exactly believe themselves to be favoured. They believed that they were God's tool to bring salvation to all of humanity. They also didn't believe that this made them any better than the rest of humanity (but it did bring a lot of punishment from God for not being). Sometimes it worked, Jonah, who wasn't exactly a role model, but perhaps more of a warning example, brought God's message to the citizens of Nineve, who turned away from their wicked ways and were saved. And so on.
And, as you probably know, marriage between prominent Hebrews and outsiders weren't exactly rare. Even moabite (supposedly the worst people Israel knew of) married into Israel. Jacob married Arameans, Josef an Egyptian. The wife of Moses is widely held to have been a black women (a cushite). And Boaz' wife Ruth is the role model of all women who marry into the Jewish people today. (The list is much longer, and I seem to remember that it didn't always work out well, but people were people even in biblic times.)
And finally, the Hebrews weren't a race of goat-herders. They did a lot of things (including herding goats, of course)!
They just get smaller, lighter, and flimsier. I'm sure they're move efficient and cost less to produce and ship (by dint of being lighter) but I'd rather trade a little efficiency for 2-3x the lifespan (and with that, less-used landfills) and some user-serviceable parts.
The material needed to make an appliance is not the only parameter, it is also how much resources it consumes. If your new washer uses half the water, it makes good sense to replace the old still functioning washer.
What with China's political purges (50 million dead there), harvesting of political prisoners (millions dead there) for body parts, the citizens slaughtering their baby girls (200 million dead there), China is in every POSSIBLE way worse than Nazi Germany.
Oh, give me a break here. China is better than Nazi Germany in every POSSIBLE way. Except for perhaps beer, but I would be willing to make do without if it came down to that.
Your comment about "200 million baby girls" makes me guess you are one of those "prolife" people. And guess what, Hitler was "prolife", so I can really see how you arrive at your conclusion.
(And noone is denying there are human rights violations in China. I would be the first one to advocate sanctions against China for it, but you give me second thoughts...)
I personally trust a computer more to "stop for a red signal" than a driver, that maybe had a fight with his dear one the night before.
Well, you don't need driverless trains for that. Most modern railways, trams etc use automatic train control that will bring trains to a halt if there is a red signal (or another train on the same control section etc etc). Of course these systems have problems braking for people, cars, deers and other obstacles that don't have transponders which is why you still require drivers on many trains.
I suppose "audible captchas" should be feasible. That is, if you can't see the picture, the captcha server also has an audio file with the same information. I'd be surprised if this doesn't exist already in some form.
But if their literacy rate is approaching zero, why not teach the kids english alongside their language? English is the lingua franca of the world and they will have a lot more content at their hands than if they simply learned their language.*
I'm not saying that they shouldn't learn their language, it is important that they do to keep their culture alive. However, there is not one African language, but many - a ton of local language, moreso than Europe. A common English language will also help them communicate with each other better and will be a win/win for all concerned.
It is not controversial at all.
There are quite a few languages in Africa, that, for all practical purposes, do not exist in a written form. As peculiar as this may seem there is little interest to change that. In countries where there are perhaps ten major ethnic groups with distinct languages, there is a point in that the written language is that of the former colonial power (normally French or English). Elevating one of the domestic languages to official status could be recipe for disaster (unless this one language is dominant enough).
4. Leave it for the next administration to sort out, the most likely scenario.
5. Try to leverage ethnic tensions. Depending on who counts the Persians only constitute half or one third of the population. The Azeris are almost as many, and aren't altogether happy with the Persian dominance. There are a number of smaller minorities (Kurds, Armenians, Arabs). Iran isn't any more homogeneous than Iraq is.
Slashdot Mirror
But here's the proof, imho : in the US, where you can pretty much say any old darn thing short of direct calls to violence, neo-nazi, KKKs and other white supremacist groups exist, express themselves (much to the dismay of the local populace around them) and... they look like a small group of retards. On the other hand, in Europe, where you can't say something even remotely critical of the jews, and where naziism has become taboo to the point where it's not even possible to discuss the official head count of the holocaust without landing in the pokey, antisemitism, racism and extreme-right groups are growing at an alarming rate. Why? because these people stay hidden, embedded in the general population, by force of law, instead of coming out and showing themselves as the numbskulls they are like in the US.
This is non-sense. In most European countries you can express antisemitic views without fearing retribution from the law, and you can openly deny the Holocaust (except for in a few countries) without ending up in jail. There is a definite difference, in the eyes of the law (of most European countries), to deny the Holocaust, and advocating another one.
European antisemitism must be explained some other way.
OK, so ethnic cleansing (i.e. burning people's houses and forcing them to move or starve to death) is now OK?
I didn't pass a moral judgement. I just told what "international law" says on the matter. And they seem to be quite fine with most cases of ethnic cleansing. There aren't really any yearly resolutions passed in the UN on the rights of the Volksdeutsche of the East. The interests of the pieds noirs to get back their property in Algeria doesn't seem to break many hearts either. And so on.
You might notice, that such cleanings rarely solve problems: India and Pakistan, Israel and Palesting, Georgia and Abkhazia, etc.
As we only have one world it is difficult to make experiments. But I claim that ethnic cleansings often reduce tensions and lessen the total suffering (however that is measured). India and Pakistan are actually a good example of this. Without the exchange of population, a much larger portion of the area would have been like Kashmir. And India and Pakistan are not trying to reverse the population exchange. So that problem is solved. Kashmir is just an unfinished job.
All the same, in the real world, you rarely "solve problems", you make them smaller and try to live with what remains.
Again this is not a moral judgement. And I am not particularly arguing for ethnic cleansings as a method to solve problem. But I definitely can see how people can arrive at ethnic cleansings as the lesser of two evils (where the larger evil is genocide or major war).
And it will be OK for Iran to force Israel (using nuclear and biological weapons threat) to move somewhere else so Palestinians can live freely?
Where did I suggest that? (And no, I think the Palestinian can live freely right now, if they choose to do it. But that is a different discussion.)
Genocide is the killing of a significant portion of an ethnic group with the intent of wiping the said group out. It is killing a culture, not killing the individuals. Ethnic cleansing which kills a lot of people, but where it is clear that the ethnic group will survive and be able to sustain its culture is clearly different from genocide.
E.g. tribe A displaces tribe B from their homeland into the desert. Tribe B
dies of because of the thirst (die-off may be slow, stretching for several generations).
(by the way, I've read that in israeli/palestinian conflicts there were some dirty
games played with access and use of water - very relevant)
Is your implication that the Israelis are somehow involved in a genocide on the Palestinians? It must be a very ineffective genocide. Over the past 60 years the numbers of Palestinians have at least quintupled.
Albanians permitted large scale ethnic cleanings which are also prohibited by international law.
International law is not comparable to national laws. It is comprised of a large number of international treaties and traditions, which are not free of contradictions.
Ethnic cleansing, while forbidden in the Geneva Convention (and similar treaties), is largely accepted by the world community. The recent history is full of exchanges of population. 12 million Germans were forced to leave Eastern and Central Europe in the aftermath of WW2. The partition of India led to an exchange of a similar amount of people. A large number of Greeks were forced out of minor Asia in the 1920's, and Turks left Greece. These were all horrible events, and certainly not bloodless. But no mainstream politician suggest that they should be reversed. The reason is of course that these events are assumed to have significantly lessened the ethnic tensions and reduced the risks of war and genocide. Greeks and Turks have probably been happier as a net result. Those are effects on a statistic level, and are of course difficult to commensurate with personal experiences of expulsion.
The time is not right in Turkey, or many other nations, for full freedom of speech. Like it or not, there are some very heated passions in that part of the world. They are forcibly integrating peoples and ethnic groups who don't want to be integrated, and that will take time. Generations, maybe centuries, will pass but to see thru their development as a modern, peaceful, enlightened, secular and democratic nation they believe the vision of the Ataturk is the best path. That vision is still young and fragile.
Why should we be interested in Turkey "integrating" people?
There used to be such a thing. But the west left Istanbul in the twenties.
No, they're voting a friggin' name. Pluto is a big round ball of matter that orbits the sun at a mind-boggling distance, and no one's questioning that. NM just wants to call it a "planet", which is well within their prerogative. they could also pass a law whereby you would be referred to as "the one who does not understand the law", and that'd be just fine as well.
I suppose it is possible in New Mexico, but many legislations prohibits "special laws", that is, laws that only apply to one or a few named individuals or companies.
During those 8 centuries Moors and Christian and Jew people lived together. They had their spaces, but also had interaction, trade, ... . Christian were not obligated to convert to Islam, etc. After Christian re-conquest Moors and Jew were ejected from the territory (or obligated to convert to Christianism- nevertheless I'm not sure they had the same rights than Christians after doing that)
I'm sorry to tell you that Christians and Jews were indeed forced to convert to Islam (or die or go into exile). Now, Moorish Spain was not one state, so conditions varied over time, and at times conditions were quite liveable (although Christians and Jews did have to pay special taxes, wear distinctive clothes etc). But tolerant, the Moors were not. I could list events of forced conversions and expulsions by the Moors against Jews and Christians, but you would do better actually reading some history books. Yes, really. (But consider: Where was Maimonides born? When and why did he leave that city? Just to put a human face to historical events.)
The golden age of Al-Andalus is a European 19th century orientalism fantasy. It became popular with West European Jews who wanted to paint a contrast to the intolerant European society of the day. But it is nevertheless a fantasy. The Jewish nostalgia for Al-Andalus is of course the large cultural heritage in terms of philosophy, science and literature that was produced in Spain. This has little to do with any tolerance on the part of the Moors though, and more todo with the fact that 80% of the world Jewry lived in Spain at the time. After the dispersion of the Spanish Jewry it would take three hundred years until a similar center of Jewish learning (and demography) arised.
The peak of that Islamic civilisation seems to have been the Kingdom of Granada in Spain, which had an advanced society, religious tolerance (not only were Jews and Christians welcome, but a Hebrew prayer book for women has been discovered there) and advanced technology. There is some evidence that they learned more from the Hindus than the Greeks, as books on the history of numbers point out. There are writings from that society that sound almost modern in outlook.
Oh, give me a break. Al-Andalus wasn't bad, on a historical scale, but it was a far cry from a tolerant society. In fact, tolerance as defined in western democracies today did not exist in Al-Andalus, or practically anywhere else in the islamic world. Yes, the Jews weren't butchered up as often as in the christian world, but it did happen. Conversion or death was not a method brought to Spain by Los Reyes Católicos. Jews and Christians were forced to pay a special tax, wear distinctive clothing and could not hold public office. These were the laws. Sometimes and in some places the laws were not particularly well enforced and Jews and Christians could rise to important offices, but it was not for any longer periods (on a historical scale). As I mentioned, from time to time Jews were expelled when a new kalif came to town, and had to flee to other areas. Sometimes the refugees went to neighbouring christian states.
As for the Hebrew prayer book for women -- in what way is that significant?
It is important to note that the sentence term of 2 years was not chosen at random. When a crime carries this sentence as a possiblity, the Swedish police gets greater powers to use surveillance, wiretapping and raids to secure evidence such as the identity of person using a specific IP address.
Also, if you catch someone in the act of committing, or appearantly fleeing from the scene of crime of, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of more than two years, you may make a "citizen's arrest", that is grab and hold a person until the police arrives.
Now imagine a geek neighbourhood watch!
Why do we drive on the right side of the road in some places, left in others?
[...]
Because sometimes it's easier to stick with a standard.
Yes, but we don't climb mountains because it's easy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H
I have read elsewhere on the web that the chemical composition of the mortar is known but that it can't be reproduced today.
Why, yes! And it is yummy too! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charoset
This was a show trial.
The US hand picked the judges and the sentence was a forgone conclusion.
Will Saddam get a chance to talk about how he had US support during the war with Iran? I doubt it.
Saddam shouldn't be executed he should be kept alive in a cell for the rest of his life as a lesson for the Iraqi's to learn from.
Executing Saddam will only turn him into a martyr.
Thoughts?
Nürnberg was a show trial. They aren't necessarily bad.
It's theatre. The court he was tried in has no legal standing over crimes that were perpetuated before the court was created. It was in every sense of the word a kangaroo court. He should have been tried in The Hague at the International Court of Justice. The problem with trying him there is that the US would lose control over the proceedings and would not be able to use the trial for their own political gain.
The International Court of Justice doesn't try people, it arbitrates between states. You are probably thinking of the Internation Criminal Court, but it can't prosecute cases concerning events before July 1, 2002. Iraq is not a party to the court, because Saddam didn't sign (I repeat, that's Saddam not signing, not Bush) so it can't prosecute his actions after 2002 either.
On the other hand, he did commit crimes under Iraqi law, so he can be tried under Iraqi law, by an Iraqi court. The Iraqi court could of course appoint foreign judges, in effect making it an international tribunal.
But why? There's a lot of talk about how he would embarass the US by exposing their support for him during the Iran-Iraq war etc., but that's irrelevant. What is tried at Saddam's trial are Saddam's actions, not those of the United States. If he wants to talk about the United States, or politics, or whatever, he has to chose a different arena. Perhaps that arena should be a trial of George Herbert Walker Bush, I don't know. Or perhaps he could just write a play about it.
Actually, classing them as Arabic isn't much better either since the bulk of Morocco's population is Berberr with only about 10% being "pure" Arabs, Algeria's genetic makeup is not too much different than that of Morocco and Libya is even named after a Berber tribe.
Of course the Arab armies did not supplant the existing populations, they subdued them and taught them a new language. This is much the same as the Romans did. France and Romania didn't get "their genes" from Rome, but they learned the language of the conqueror (and it can go fast -- Dacia was a Roman province for about one hundred years).
Being Arab is more of a linguistical and cultural thing. It is above all an identity thing, meaning that it is the Arab themselves who get to decide if they are Arab or not. It seems to me that being Arab is so cool that you can stretch this language and cultural thing quite a bit, which is why countries like Mauretania and Somalia like to think of themselves as Arab countries.
(Arab country usual means "member of the Arab League", but that would mean that there is at least some elite in the country thinking of themselves as Arabs).
The disclaimer: IANAA
Is that a matter of fact?
I am not sure what you mean. That people were people already in biblic times? I believe so, but I can't be sure. That there is long list of marriages outside "the tribe" in the Bible? Yes. That Hebrews married outside "the tribe"? I believe that is supported by modern DNA research. IIRC the yemenite jews are thought to be descendants of Jewish (male) traders and local women. Similarly for Ethiopian Jews.
Even in the absence of hard evidence, it would seem reasonable: If Moses married a black women, why shouldn't some ordinary Hebrew marry a Canaanite?
Our dominant economic system, capitalism, simply isn't sustainable because its predicated on maximizing growth which is devastating our finite habitat and again its concentrating ever more wealth in ever fewer hands and that probably isn't sustainable, before there is revolt.
Economic growth does not imply depleting natural resources. Mostly it means making more with less (less time, less raw material). Look around, many systems and stuff are a lot more energy efficient today and use less material to build than they were, say, twenty years ago. More mileage out of cars per gallon, lighter aircrafts, thinner plastic bags etc etc, more free time with sustained or improved living standards. All because of capitalism!
There's this book called The Bible (author; disputed, age; roughly 2500 years?) that tells the story of an ancient nomadic race of goat-herders called the Hebrews. One of their laws was to discourage marriage outside their own race. Only the Hebrews were the Creator's favored race, and the rest were damned.
Wrong on all accounts. The Hebrews didn't exactly believe themselves to be favoured. They believed that they were God's tool to bring salvation to all of humanity. They also didn't believe that this made them any better than the rest of humanity (but it did bring a lot of punishment from God for not being). Sometimes it worked, Jonah, who wasn't exactly a role model, but perhaps more of a warning example, brought God's message to the citizens of Nineve, who turned away from their wicked ways and were saved. And so on.
And, as you probably know, marriage between prominent Hebrews and outsiders weren't exactly rare. Even moabite (supposedly the worst people Israel knew of) married into Israel. Jacob married Arameans, Josef an Egyptian. The wife of Moses is widely held to have been a black women (a cushite). And Boaz' wife Ruth is the role model of all women who marry into the Jewish people today. (The list is much longer, and I seem to remember that it didn't always work out well, but people were people even in biblic times.)
And finally, the Hebrews weren't a race of goat-herders. They did a lot of things (including herding goats, of course)!
They just get smaller, lighter, and flimsier. I'm sure they're move efficient and cost less to produce and ship (by dint of being lighter) but I'd rather trade a little efficiency for 2-3x the lifespan (and with that, less-used landfills) and some user-serviceable parts.
The material needed to make an appliance is not the only parameter, it is also how much resources it consumes. If your new washer uses half the water, it makes good sense to replace the old still functioning washer.
What with China's political purges (50 million dead there), harvesting of political prisoners (millions dead there) for body parts, the citizens slaughtering their baby girls (200 million dead there), China is in every POSSIBLE way worse than Nazi Germany.
Oh, give me a break here. China is better than Nazi Germany in every POSSIBLE way. Except for perhaps beer, but I would be willing to make do without if it came down to that.
Your comment about "200 million baby girls" makes me guess you are one of those "prolife" people. And guess what, Hitler was "prolife", so I can really see how you arrive at your conclusion.
(And noone is denying there are human rights violations in China. I would be the first one to advocate sanctions against China for it, but you give me second thoughts...)
I personally trust a computer more to "stop for a red signal" than a driver, that maybe had a fight with his dear one the night before.
Well, you don't need driverless trains for that. Most modern railways, trams etc use automatic train control that will bring trains to a halt if there is a red signal (or another train on the same control section etc etc). Of course these systems have problems braking for people, cars, deers and other obstacles that don't have transponders which is why you still require drivers on many trains.
I suppose "audible captchas" should be feasible. That is, if you can't see the picture, the captcha server also has an audio file with the same information. I'd be surprised if this doesn't exist already in some form.
But if their literacy rate is approaching zero, why not teach the kids english alongside their language? English is the lingua franca of the world and they will have a lot more content at their hands than if they simply learned their language.*
I'm not saying that they shouldn't learn their language, it is important that they do to keep their culture alive. However, there is not one African language, but many - a ton of local language, moreso than Europe. A common English language will also help them communicate with each other better and will be a win/win for all concerned.
It is not controversial at all.
There are quite a few languages in Africa, that, for all practical purposes, do not exist in a written form. As peculiar as this may seem there is little interest to change that. In countries where there are perhaps ten major ethnic groups with distinct languages, there is a point in that the written language is that of the former colonial power (normally French or English). Elevating one of the domestic languages to official status could be recipe for disaster (unless this one language is dominant enough).
4. Leave it for the next administration to sort out, the most likely scenario.
5. Try to leverage ethnic tensions. Depending on who counts the Persians only constitute half or one third of the population. The Azeris are almost as many, and aren't altogether happy with the Persian dominance. There are a number of smaller minorities (Kurds, Armenians, Arabs). Iran isn't any more homogeneous than Iraq is.