If the government, in all its organs, branches, and bodies, conspires to violate that Constitution then the American people have the right and duty to take up arms to defend it.
Right? Possibly. Duty? Hell, no. I and most of the population are not going to start shooting people and risking our own deaths just because someone with a stricter interpretation of the American political process got his panties in a bunch. Violation of perceived rights would have to much, much deeper before inaction is no longer a moral choice.
I forgot to mention that screening on flights to Israel has also succeeded in preventing the boarding of actists who, though they would not attack the plane, would cause damage once they've landed in Israel. That is, the screening is also designed to stop activists who, though they themselves refrain from engaging in violence, want to go to the West Bank to agitate for violent Palestinian resistance.
There have bene high-profile busts like the Hindawi affair, and after that, the rigorous screening in place does a pretty good job of discouraging anyone from attacking flights to/from Israel.
What you are describing is (with the exception of generous holidays) a feature of Western Europe. Come to the EU countries in Central and Eastern Europe and it's not so rosy. I'm in Romania, and I can assure you that business owners are out to screw you any way they can.
Why should anyone care? Do you care about us? What does the union do for anyone besides the union?
In many businesses, unions insist that the same treatment be provided to non-union employees. If you don't join the union and pay your dues, you don't get to participate in collective bargaining sessions, but you still benefit from whatever was achieved by the union in collective bargaining.
In some countries (that can boast a high standard of living), this is how minimum wage is set. The government doesn't get involved in legislating wages, it simply leaves everything to be worked out voluntarily among employers and employees. Isn't capitalism a good thing?
What you are describing is exactly what you get when you fly out of Ben Gurion. However, in spite of the success of the Israeli approach to airport security, it may not scale to the huge flight volumes of, say, Atlanta or LAX, and regrettably the TSA wants the same approach at all airports.
This reminds me. To all you haters saying that the US does nothing but import and it's a suicidal economic structure, read that last line. We import cheap plastic crap and clothes and toys from China and export a gigantic supply of food around the world.
Farming employs a dwindling and already miniscule amount of people in the US. While the US may continue to export things, it does not employ a large amount of people, which is the real concern of those noting the move of manufacturing from the US to other counties.
Stallman has already announced that he is content with Linux as the GNU kernel and that he has lost interest in the Hurd project. Hurd is kept alive now by hobbyists interested in alternative kernel designs, not Free Software demagogues.
In China it's common for people to buy their own phones instead of getting them subsidized from the carrier with a contract. And once they buy those phones, they own them for real: there are no carrier-imposed limits on what apps they can install (or remove), and they are free to jump to another network if they desire. That is what the OP is talking about, I believe.
In European countries where people go to school until the age of 19 or 20, and where trade school pupils have their own track, a university degree programme still lasts five or six years (because an M.A. is considered the basic degree, not a B.A. like in the US). So, longer high school wouldn't necessary lead to shorter university studies.
So, what, the plan is a tribal African family with no running water (let alone Internet) buys a new copy of Windows 8 and gets their children vaccinated?
No, it means that the organizations that get funding to vaccinate children or providing running water, can only spend the money on Microsoft software, and cannot use the funds for other operating systems.
I've not read Dunsany, but I'm willing to read him with an open mind. Lovecraft was certainly an excellent stylist at times, though inconsistent (probably depending on how fast he had to bang out the work for money).
Just because they have unreliable narrators does not make them science fiction when the plot depends entirely on magic and the supernatural. Gene Wolfe has written both science fiction and fantasy. The assertion above that he has not written fantasy is just plain wrong.
The prejudice is very ethnocentric. "Magic realism" from Latin America is lionized, but the literary equivalent by an English speaking writer is ignored or worse.
Interesting point. In Peter Wright's collection of Gene Wolfe interviews, there's one where the interviewer asks what Wolfe thinks about science fiction, fantasy and magical realism, and Wolfe answers "magical realism is fantasy written by people who speak Spanish".
The very influential critic Edmund Wilson, prominent beginning around 1920, is the apparent source of this prejudice - he despised Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Lord Dunsany, Lovecraft - really all recent or contemporary fantastic literature being written in English (if it was old enough, Swift for example, it might get a pass).
I think critics' low opinion of some of those authors was deserved, because while those authors were masters of world-building, they were not masters of prose style. Their use of the English language feels flat and unimaginative. In spite of the rich detail of Middle Earth, Tolkien's prose, for example, is just as much uncreative aping of English epic writing as the Book of Mormon was Joseph Smith's aping of the King James Bible.
One of the reasons I admire Wolfe's writing of the 1970s and recommend it to my friends who "don't read science fiction", is that Wolfe's prose in The Fifth Head of Cerberus and Peace is just as powerful as anything by Proust or Nabokov. Unfortunately, Wolfe's rich feel for the English language disappeared in the 1980s and some of his recent novels and short stories sound as bad any most genre fiction.
Neil Gaiman would agree that Peace is fantasy. He too has unlocked the three layers of the plot (which I won't spoil here), and the plot still depends on the supernatural and not technology.
Do you understand how most parliamentary governments work? Parties dedicated to individual themes come together and form larger coalitions. Unlike in countries with a two-party system, parties aren't under pressure to be all things to all people.
...enviromental degradation...
The Greens are usually seen as a natural partner for The Pirate Party in any coalition.
Nope just SF, Gene Wolfe has never written in the fantasy genre although some of his books appear to be.
Peace is a fantasy work (the workings of the plot are based on magic and the supernatural, not technology). Most would have the same opinion about There are Doors and Castleview. Wolfe has indeed written fantasy.
I suppose it's easier than improving the algorithm, which is just pathetically bad at this point in time.
The algorithm is continually being improved.
In any event, it appears that the algorithm is just fine for an increasing number of people. I work in the translation field, and my fellow professionals and I have seen a significant fall in the amount of contracts companies are sending out. Sure, for manuals, advertising and other stuff meant to be seen by the general public, companies want the kind of polish that only a human being can do. But for e.g. business-internal communication within multinationals, which previously were sent to be professionally translated and would bring us a lot of money, companies would now rather put it through Google Translate for free than hire the expensive services of a translator. The quality isn't good, but it's good enough.
A company that would send usernames and passwords over Skype instead of its own company-internal messaging setup, deserves to lose 50 grand for its stupidity.
OpenSecret.org has been around for what, nearly two decades now, and the American people have shown that they are not interested. Apparently the system works, as angry as it may make a few slacktivists. Give it up already with trying to manufacture outrage.
Never been to India? Members of the Brahmin caste in Hinduism have survived on a pure vegetarian diet for forever. Fat can be had from milk. Indian cuisine prominently features vegetables like lentils that are high in protein.
Surviving on a purely vegan diet has not been possible for the human race until recently. However, there are centuries of evidence to show that populations can survive on a pure vegetarian diet.
I've recently been musing on the idea that the reason for the Fermi Paradox and a huge point against Kurweilz's optimism that we'll reach the Singularity in a just couple of decades, is that a civilization's regulatory agencies are so slow to react to technological advances. If lawmakers don't allow 3D printers to flourish, then there won't be the consumer demand that motivates the next generation of printer, and the one after that, etc. Eventually the environment will be too fucked and the natural resources exhausted before humanity can develop the technology to transcend its limitations.
There's no snob like a geek who's learned Japanese.
I'm not your typical "geek who's learned Japanese". I don't have much of an interest in Japan, and I know something about the language only because I have worked with neighbouring languages. But the fact that chi- derives from earlier *ti is, I think, pretty elementary. For example, beginner's introductions to the Japanese syllabic writing systems point out how the symbols for chi are in the same family of graphemes as syllables with initial t-.
Finally, I don't appreciate being called a snob just because I recommended that the OP pick up one of the several accessible and friendly introductions to Japanese in a diachronic perspective. What, is it suddenly wrong to encourage other people to learn and expand their horizons?
You will note (or maybe you won't) that I added 'phone' to the list of contact methods. Surprisingly enough even non games know what that one is and how to use it.
And what about those old friends a continent away whom you'd like to keep in contact with, want to pay for long-distance phone calls just to maintain that acquaintance? When those long-distance friends are younger people who grew up on electronic communication, you can't even ask them to maintain a paper correspondence any more: the concept of the post baffles them and few are willing to regularly pay for postage. Facebook has become entrenched for these social circles.
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Right? Possibly. Duty? Hell, no. I and most of the population are not going to start shooting people and risking our own deaths just because someone with a stricter interpretation of the American political process got his panties in a bunch. Violation of perceived rights would have to much, much deeper before inaction is no longer a moral choice.
I forgot to mention that screening on flights to Israel has also succeeded in preventing the boarding of actists who, though they would not attack the plane, would cause damage once they've landed in Israel. That is, the screening is also designed to stop activists who, though they themselves refrain from engaging in violence, want to go to the West Bank to agitate for violent Palestinian resistance.
There have bene high-profile busts like the Hindawi affair, and after that, the rigorous screening in place does a pretty good job of discouraging anyone from attacking flights to/from Israel.
What you are describing is (with the exception of generous holidays) a feature of Western Europe. Come to the EU countries in Central and Eastern Europe and it's not so rosy. I'm in Romania, and I can assure you that business owners are out to screw you any way they can.
In many businesses, unions insist that the same treatment be provided to non-union employees. If you don't join the union and pay your dues, you don't get to participate in collective bargaining sessions, but you still benefit from whatever was achieved by the union in collective bargaining.
In some countries (that can boast a high standard of living), this is how minimum wage is set. The government doesn't get involved in legislating wages, it simply leaves everything to be worked out voluntarily among employers and employees. Isn't capitalism a good thing?
What you are describing is exactly what you get when you fly out of Ben Gurion. However, in spite of the success of the Israeli approach to airport security, it may not scale to the huge flight volumes of, say, Atlanta or LAX, and regrettably the TSA wants the same approach at all airports.
Farming employs a dwindling and already miniscule amount of people in the US. While the US may continue to export things, it does not employ a large amount of people, which is the real concern of those noting the move of manufacturing from the US to other counties.
Stallman has already announced that he is content with Linux as the GNU kernel and that he has lost interest in the Hurd project. Hurd is kept alive now by hobbyists interested in alternative kernel designs, not Free Software demagogues.
In China it's common for people to buy their own phones instead of getting them subsidized from the carrier with a contract. And once they buy those phones, they own them for real: there are no carrier-imposed limits on what apps they can install (or remove), and they are free to jump to another network if they desire. That is what the OP is talking about, I believe.
In European countries where people go to school until the age of 19 or 20, and where trade school pupils have their own track, a university degree programme still lasts five or six years (because an M.A. is considered the basic degree, not a B.A. like in the US). So, longer high school wouldn't necessary lead to shorter university studies.
No, it means that the organizations that get funding to vaccinate children or providing running water, can only spend the money on Microsoft software, and cannot use the funds for other operating systems.
I've not read Dunsany, but I'm willing to read him with an open mind. Lovecraft was certainly an excellent stylist at times, though inconsistent (probably depending on how fast he had to bang out the work for money).
Just because they have unreliable narrators does not make them science fiction when the plot depends entirely on magic and the supernatural. Gene Wolfe has written both science fiction and fantasy. The assertion above that he has not written fantasy is just plain wrong.
Interesting point. In Peter Wright's collection of Gene Wolfe interviews, there's one where the interviewer asks what Wolfe thinks about science fiction, fantasy and magical realism, and Wolfe answers "magical realism is fantasy written by people who speak Spanish".
I think critics' low opinion of some of those authors was deserved, because while those authors were masters of world-building, they were not masters of prose style. Their use of the English language feels flat and unimaginative. In spite of the rich detail of Middle Earth, Tolkien's prose, for example, is just as much uncreative aping of English epic writing as the Book of Mormon was Joseph Smith's aping of the King James Bible.
One of the reasons I admire Wolfe's writing of the 1970s and recommend it to my friends who "don't read science fiction", is that Wolfe's prose in The Fifth Head of Cerberus and Peace is just as powerful as anything by Proust or Nabokov. Unfortunately, Wolfe's rich feel for the English language disappeared in the 1980s and some of his recent novels and short stories sound as bad any most genre fiction.
Neil Gaiman would agree that Peace is fantasy. He too has unlocked the three layers of the plot (which I won't spoil here), and the plot still depends on the supernatural and not technology.
Do you understand how most parliamentary governments work? Parties dedicated to individual themes come together and form larger coalitions. Unlike in countries with a two-party system, parties aren't under pressure to be all things to all people.
The Greens are usually seen as a natural partner for The Pirate Party in any coalition.
Peace is a fantasy work (the workings of the plot are based on magic and the supernatural, not technology). Most would have the same opinion about There are Doors and Castleview. Wolfe has indeed written fantasy.
The algorithm is continually being improved.
In any event, it appears that the algorithm is just fine for an increasing number of people. I work in the translation field, and my fellow professionals and I have seen a significant fall in the amount of contracts companies are sending out. Sure, for manuals, advertising and other stuff meant to be seen by the general public, companies want the kind of polish that only a human being can do. But for e.g. business-internal communication within multinationals, which previously were sent to be professionally translated and would bring us a lot of money, companies would now rather put it through Google Translate for free than hire the expensive services of a translator. The quality isn't good, but it's good enough.
A company that would send usernames and passwords over Skype instead of its own company-internal messaging setup, deserves to lose 50 grand for its stupidity.
OpenSecret.org has been around for what, nearly two decades now, and the American people have shown that they are not interested. Apparently the system works, as angry as it may make a few slacktivists. Give it up already with trying to manufacture outrage.
Maybe you should read my post and the OP's again.
Never been to India? Members of the Brahmin caste in Hinduism have survived on a pure vegetarian diet for forever. Fat can be had from milk. Indian cuisine prominently features vegetables like lentils that are high in protein.
Surviving on a purely vegan diet has not been possible for the human race until recently. However, there are centuries of evidence to show that populations can survive on a pure vegetarian diet.
I've recently been musing on the idea that the reason for the Fermi Paradox and a huge point against Kurweilz's optimism that we'll reach the Singularity in a just couple of decades, is that a civilization's regulatory agencies are so slow to react to technological advances. If lawmakers don't allow 3D printers to flourish, then there won't be the consumer demand that motivates the next generation of printer, and the one after that, etc. Eventually the environment will be too fucked and the natural resources exhausted before humanity can develop the technology to transcend its limitations.
I'm not your typical "geek who's learned Japanese". I don't have much of an interest in Japan, and I know something about the language only because I have worked with neighbouring languages. But the fact that chi- derives from earlier *ti is, I think, pretty elementary. For example, beginner's introductions to the Japanese syllabic writing systems point out how the symbols for chi are in the same family of graphemes as syllables with initial t-.
Finally, I don't appreciate being called a snob just because I recommended that the OP pick up one of the several accessible and friendly introductions to Japanese in a diachronic perspective. What, is it suddenly wrong to encourage other people to learn and expand their horizons?
And what about those old friends a continent away whom you'd like to keep in contact with, want to pay for long-distance phone calls just to maintain that acquaintance? When those long-distance friends are younger people who grew up on electronic communication, you can't even ask them to maintain a paper correspondence any more: the concept of the post baffles them and few are willing to regularly pay for postage. Facebook has become entrenched for these social circles.