Unfortunately (for the US), it'll be in restrospect, because China or some other eastern or mideastern country will rule the world.
They won't rule the world anymore than the United States currently rules the world or the UK ruled it a few decades ago. They will be an economic force to be reckoned with and will have the military might to back up their interests but we'll still be the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Democracy has seen pretty dark times before and managed to survive. And that was before the advent of nuclear deterrence. I don't think we are going anywhere.
I don't really want countries like Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, China, or Australia
It's pretty sad when you have to lump a member of the Anglosphere in with the likes of North Korea and Saudi Arabia. How the hell did Australia fall so far?
Honestly, the US has shown no real heavy hand in managing DNS, why break it now?
Because the US is the country that everybody loves to hate. Here's hoping that China becomes a global superpower sooner rather than later -- then people will hate them too. Maybe they'll even come to realize that the US wasn't so bad afterall, in spite of our flaws.
That's a really good question. I'm guessing there's something for this in those 10000+ pages of international treaties that form the EU.
See, if the EU was smart, they would first use the power of the purse to ensure that the individual countries are completely dependent upon Brussels for funding. Then when the individual countries refuse to do what you want you just threaten to cut off their funding.
And what do you know? Eventually you've managed to completely destroy the sovereignty of your member states without firing a single bullet.
Suspected terrorists are not prisoners of war. The "war on terror" is a fabrication which can be extended indefinitely as long as there is one nutjob on the planet who has the United States in their sight
Yes, it can. And I find that troubling. More troubling though is the notion that people who aren't citizens and whose only connection to our country is their professed desire to do it harm deserve the full protection of our constitution and criminal justice system.
When non-citizens seek to do us harm from overseas I do not regard that as criminal activity. It's not state-directed activity either and falls somewhere in between. An appropriate response would be to issue letters of marque and treat them like the pirates of old but I suspect that if we actually did this it wouldn't go over very well. Thus we are stuck with the military response.
Given that, I might be tempted to say that perhaps our military should stop trying to take them prisoner. Kill them on the battlefield and the whole debate over how to house/prosecute them becomes a moot point. Some of the higher-ups may have actionable intelligence that we want -- in this case I see nothing wrong with a trial before a military commission after we are done with them. It worked for the German saboteurs from Operation Pastorius.
I was also sorely disappointed when the point of closing guantanomo became divorced from ending indefinite imprisonment.
To think that there would be anything but indefinite imprisonment was pretty naive. Prisoners of War don't have habeas corpus rights and it's generally accepted that they will remain prisoners for the duration of hostilities.
Why do you think a non-expanding government is a fundamental human right?
Because an expanded government starts to stick it's nose into things that should be outside of it's mandate. A good example would be policies designed to protect us from ourselves. Seat belt laws, vice taxes on tobacco/booze, obesity taxes, laws that criminalize you if you put certain substances into your body, etc, etc, etc.
We are supposed to be citizens, not children that need to be fussed over to make sure we are taking good care of ourselves. As far as I'm concerned if my behaviors harm no one but myself they really aren't any business of the Government. And please don't give me some bullshit rationalization like "obesity drives up costs for everyone" -- that's only true when government forces "charity" down our throats and I personally want no part of "charity" that comes with strings attached.
Sometimes politics is like when you dangle a person over a cliff, but then pull them back up and act like the hero.
Reminds me of the old joke about "moderate" Democrats and Republicans:
A moderate is someone who throws you a ten foot rope when you are fifteen feet offshore and later tells all of his friends that he went more than halfway.
Canada had the gun registry that failed miserably [wikipedia.org]. It was supposed to cost about $120mil, but ended up costing the (now poor) tax payers $2 billion. Yep. 2. Billion.
Had as in past tense? I thought it was still around?
Can't say that I'm really surprised. New York State has CoBIS, a program to collect fired brass from all handguns to enter into a ballistic databank. This program has had numerous cost overruns and has solved zero crimes since introduction. So naturally our fearless leaders in Albany want to expand it to cover more types of firearms......
Keeping our civil rights, in otherwise democratic countries, is an eternal struggle.
Fixed that for you. I don't think anyone can look at the "War on Drugs", gun control or just the expansion of Government in general and say that it's only free speech that we need to worry about.
Damn. I'm guessing I'll need to pay for some audit counseling to go with the gun so they'll have the information they need to tune it properly, huh?
Better start saving up some money. I never knew that I was totally depressed until I met those nice folks at the mall. Sure am glad they are gonna be able to help me.
The process of R2-45 specifically pertains to shooting the target with a Colt.45 pistol, causing the victim's "thetan" to leave the body (exteriorization)
Will that work with my Kimber 1911 or do I have to find an original Colt Government Model to destroy my thetan with?;)
your equation would be missing the top speed and longevity portion of efficiency
No, my equation was in response to the remark that a car is more energy efficient than a horse drawn carriage. Obviously the car has many advantages over the carriage. I don't think you can claim that energy efficiency is one of them.
There's no need for horse-drawn carriages either, given that cars are a quicker and more energy efficient means of conveyance
How is hauling >1,000 pounds of steel with an engine that has a thermal efficiency rating of <50% more energy efficient than a lightweight carriage drawn by an animal?
put a damned example on your site, like this: nnn-nn-nnnn
You can put as many examples on your site as you want but your users will still find a way to fuck it up. You need code that checks for this and either corrects their stupidity or kicks it back and makes them re-enter it.
These things don't come cheap -- mostly in terms of legal costs. As in a $5k retainer, $5-10k total for a single patent, more if it takes multiple patents to ensure sufficient protection, and if you want international protection, it can go up to $100k or so.
What makes you think that's anything more than pocket change for IBM?
I'm waiting for the Toilet Paper Czar, who will coordinate government efforts to regulate both the orientation of the roll in the holder as well as the direction of wipe.
Nah, I like the idea I heard in another article. We need a Czar Czar to coordinate the activities of all of the Czar's that we are appointing;)
Why do I suspect that this "czar" will spend about 10% of his time dealing with security issues and 90% of his time finding ways to help big media companies protect their IP from evil pirates, teenagers, and Youtube?
Why do I have a feeling that this "czar" will accomplish nothing on either of those fronts and will prove to be as effective as all the other "czars" that have come before him?
Silly Sony. Don't they know they have to first run their business into the ground and ensure that it's all but worthless before they'll receive a government subsidy?;)
Sorry. My telepathy has been a bit flaky lately, especially when it comes to authoritarian lunatics.
Sorry, I actually could respond to a few of your points but I don't see the value in wasting my time on someone who can't have a conversation without insulting me.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately (for the US), it'll be in restrospect, because China or some other eastern or mideastern country will rule the world.
They won't rule the world anymore than the United States currently rules the world or the UK ruled it a few decades ago. They will be an economic force to be reckoned with and will have the military might to back up their interests but we'll still be the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Democracy has seen pretty dark times before and managed to survive. And that was before the advent of nuclear deterrence. I don't think we are going anywhere.
I don't really want countries like Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, China, or Australia
It's pretty sad when you have to lump a member of the Anglosphere in with the likes of North Korea and Saudi Arabia. How the hell did Australia fall so far?
Wow a comparison to Hitler, I don't really think you know your history.
Well, say what you will about Hilter but I don't think you can make the claim that he was in bed with RIAA ;)
Honestly, the US has shown no real heavy hand in managing DNS, why break it now?
Because the US is the country that everybody loves to hate. Here's hoping that China becomes a global superpower sooner rather than later -- then people will hate them too. Maybe they'll even come to realize that the US wasn't so bad afterall, in spite of our flaws.
I remember reading that only the Earth has the protective magnetic field.
The gas giants all have them too.
That's a really good question. I'm guessing there's something for this in those 10000+ pages of international treaties that form the EU.
See, if the EU was smart, they would first use the power of the purse to ensure that the individual countries are completely dependent upon Brussels for funding. Then when the individual countries refuse to do what you want you just threaten to cut off their funding.
And what do you know? Eventually you've managed to completely destroy the sovereignty of your member states without firing a single bullet.
Indeed, and the UK have already made it illegal to refuse to unencrypt data. And if you've forgotten/lost your key, tough luck.
So much for the theory that you don't need to codify the natural rights of man.....
Suspected terrorists are not prisoners of war. The "war on terror" is a fabrication which can be extended indefinitely as long as there is one nutjob on the planet who has the United States in their sight
Yes, it can. And I find that troubling. More troubling though is the notion that people who aren't citizens and whose only connection to our country is their professed desire to do it harm deserve the full protection of our constitution and criminal justice system.
When non-citizens seek to do us harm from overseas I do not regard that as criminal activity. It's not state-directed activity either and falls somewhere in between. An appropriate response would be to issue letters of marque and treat them like the pirates of old but I suspect that if we actually did this it wouldn't go over very well. Thus we are stuck with the military response.
Given that, I might be tempted to say that perhaps our military should stop trying to take them prisoner. Kill them on the battlefield and the whole debate over how to house/prosecute them becomes a moot point. Some of the higher-ups may have actionable intelligence that we want -- in this case I see nothing wrong with a trial before a military commission after we are done with them. It worked for the German saboteurs from Operation Pastorius.
I was also sorely disappointed when the point of closing guantanomo became divorced from ending indefinite imprisonment.
To think that there would be anything but indefinite imprisonment was pretty naive. Prisoners of War don't have habeas corpus rights and it's generally accepted that they will remain prisoners for the duration of hostilities.
Why do you think a non-expanding government is a fundamental human right?
Because an expanded government starts to stick it's nose into things that should be outside of it's mandate. A good example would be policies designed to protect us from ourselves. Seat belt laws, vice taxes on tobacco/booze, obesity taxes, laws that criminalize you if you put certain substances into your body, etc, etc, etc.
We are supposed to be citizens, not children that need to be fussed over to make sure we are taking good care of ourselves. As far as I'm concerned if my behaviors harm no one but myself they really aren't any business of the Government. And please don't give me some bullshit rationalization like "obesity drives up costs for everyone" -- that's only true when government forces "charity" down our throats and I personally want no part of "charity" that comes with strings attached.
Sometimes politics is like when you dangle a person over a cliff, but then pull them back up and act like the hero.
Reminds me of the old joke about "moderate" Democrats and Republicans:
A moderate is someone who throws you a ten foot rope when you are fifteen feet offshore and later tells all of his friends that he went more than halfway.
Canada had the gun registry that failed miserably [wikipedia.org]. It was supposed to cost about $120mil, but ended up costing the (now poor) tax payers $2 billion. Yep. 2. Billion.
Had as in past tense? I thought it was still around?
Can't say that I'm really surprised. New York State has CoBIS, a program to collect fired brass from all handguns to enter into a ballistic databank. This program has had numerous cost overruns and has solved zero crimes since introduction. So naturally our fearless leaders in Albany want to expand it to cover more types of firearms......
Keeping our civil rights, in otherwise democratic countries, is an eternal struggle.
Fixed that for you. I don't think anyone can look at the "War on Drugs", gun control or just the expansion of Government in general and say that it's only free speech that we need to worry about.
Damn. I'm guessing I'll need to pay for some audit counseling to go with the gun so they'll have the information they need to tune it properly, huh?
Better start saving up some money. I never knew that I was totally depressed until I met those nice folks at the mall. Sure am glad they are gonna be able to help me.
I can't just borrow one from Tom Cruise?
The process of R2-45 specifically pertains to shooting the target with a Colt .45 pistol, causing the victim's "thetan" to leave the body (exteriorization)
Will that work with my Kimber 1911 or do I have to find an original Colt Government Model to destroy my thetan with? ;)
your equation would be missing the top speed and longevity portion of efficiency
No, my equation was in response to the remark that a car is more energy efficient than a horse drawn carriage. Obviously the car has many advantages over the carriage. I don't think you can claim that energy efficiency is one of them.
There's no need for horse-drawn carriages either, given that cars are a quicker and more energy efficient means of conveyance
How is hauling >1,000 pounds of steel with an engine that has a thermal efficiency rating of <50% more energy efficient than a lightweight carriage drawn by an animal?
put a damned example on your site, like this: nnn-nn-nnnn
You can put as many examples on your site as you want but your users will still find a way to fuck it up. You need code that checks for this and either corrects their stupidity or kicks it back and makes them re-enter it.
These things don't come cheap -- mostly in terms of legal costs. As in a $5k retainer, $5-10k total for a single patent, more if it takes multiple patents to ensure sufficient protection, and if you want international protection, it can go up to $100k or so.
What makes you think that's anything more than pocket change for IBM?
I'm waiting for the Toilet Paper Czar, who will coordinate government efforts to regulate both the orientation of the roll in the holder as well as the direction of wipe.
Nah, I like the idea I heard in another article. We need a Czar Czar to coordinate the activities of all of the Czar's that we are appointing ;)
Why do I suspect that this "czar" will spend about 10% of his time dealing with security issues and 90% of his time finding ways to help big media companies protect their IP from evil pirates, teenagers, and Youtube?
Why do I have a feeling that this "czar" will accomplish nothing on either of those fronts and will prove to be as effective as all the other "czars" that have come before him?
I would say its a government subsidy for commerce
Silly Sony. Don't they know they have to first run their business into the ground and ensure that it's all but worthless before they'll receive a government subsidy? ;)
Sorry. My telepathy has been a bit flaky lately, especially when it comes to authoritarian lunatics.
Sorry, I actually could respond to a few of your points but I don't see the value in wasting my time on someone who can't have a conversation without insulting me.
Just saying.....