Vapid, self-obsessed, score-keeping emo-inanities will now be even easier to find! And that's just the garage bands.
Wait... did you feel that? A great disturbance in the workforce, like millions of voices crying out... like it just became easier than ever for HR departments around the world to sift through that stack of resumes.
Why not fix the software and/or its default configuration so that it is safe to use?
That doesn't address sites that deliberately link people to executables that they delibrately download and run because they think they're about to see a 3D holographic movie of unicorns actually producing rainbows in the shape of guardian angel puppies protecting endangered species that are making jokes about the president.
The point is that if Google finds sites polluted by such malware - not just some plugin-abusing bit of blinking nonsense - then they're going to give you the heads up on the link. I think it's great - but it will just make the bad guys get involved in another hide-the-malware arms race.
But even if it is, there should still be something near it.
Earth is round, but there's moon next to it
Earth belogs to the Solar system too
So the universe itself should be near something too (another universe?) Or is it endless? If so, hwo can that be possible?
It's a little tricky making the mental jump to the extra dimension, but the old balloon analogy works pretty well. From the point of view of a 2-D person on the surface of a balloon, the surface is infinite, but eventually repeats itself. You don't run into the "edge" no matter where or how far you go. In your example of the earth being "next to" the moon, that's like saying there is one dot on the balloon next to another, smaller dot on the balloon. Yes, there is a distance between them, but if you go far enough from either of them you'll still wind up back where you started again.
Of course, with the larger universe, things are expanding (like an inflating balloon), so setting out from the dot on the surface of the balloon, your "straight path" around the universe would be pushed and pulled by distortions in space-time (from gravity) and the stretching effect of accelerating expansion. It doesn't really matter, though, since you could never travel any faster than light, and thus never make the whole trip anyway.
beeing good 99% of the time hardly excuses the last 1%...
Do you really (really?) think that 99% of military spending and operations is evil? Be sure to check in with the people who benefit from the billions we spend on peacekeeping operations all around the world, on the constant supply of material goods (ferried by the military), on the helicopter fly-outs from places like New Orleans, on the tsunami victims who only got their first round of support because the US Navy was there with shiploads of material, personnel, communications gear and aircraft, and so on. Or ask an acquaintence who serves in the Coast Guard. Ah... I bet you don't know any, which would explain a lot.
This is like sueing Remington because guns make it easier to kill people.
Not really. Companies like Remington go to enormous lengths to label everything they ship, and infuse every bit of their marketing message with the "don't hurt people with our products, please." They pump lots of money and support into law enforcement, safety training for hunters and sport shooters, and they expressly fund programs that teach kids how to be safe with a firearm if they get involved in such sports.
Suing such a manufacturer for a criminal's misuse of their product isn't even a little bit like suing the provider of a service that deliberately cultivates a culture of users that traffic in warez, entertainment that's been ripped off, and specifically builds such traffic into their revenue model. Remington doesn't woo, encourage, and project profits based upon the actions of murderers buying their products - and you've made a poor analogy.
starting up more neutral ISPs if none exist in an area
But what if you want to start up an ISP that is not more neutral? What if your purpose in doing so is to woo certain end users that fit a particular business profile or that require a certain type of customer service or payment mechanism? I should be able to start up an ISP as I see fit, and serve those customers that I choose in the manner and at the price that I choose to. My service may turn out to be neutral, or it may not... but it's my service. And any legal change that forces me to do it in a certain way, or for certain users in such a particular way, is the opposite of neutral: it's government telling me how my new business must relate to my customers.
I have one minor correction to your generalization though: New Hampshire (so far, though this is sadly changing) is an island of civility and sanity, with a well-behaved government that actually acts like it believes in public service (rather than public baby-sitting). I lived there for 13 wonderful years. Highway projects get done quickly, with minimal disruption to the public, and on time. Government offices are actually open at night to accomodate people who work. The roads are meticulously cared for (the contrast in road quality when you cross over the MA-NH state line, especially in the winter, is stunning). And they manage to do this with no sales tax and no income tax.
Well then, next road-trip vacation is to NH for some scouting. Since I currently live in the People's Republic Of Maryland, your description is sounding pretty enticing. Still, I have to drive dangerously close to Kennedy family members in their cars to get there, so I don't know if the risk is worth it...
very progressive [Boston]... Alabama or Arkansas, where civil liberties and evolution stalled out hundreds of years ago
What exactly is Boston progressing too, if that's what its residents believe? I actually find people from New England to be more elitist, more close-minded, less inclinded to get along with people they've just met, and vastly, vastly ruder and more abrasive than people from down south. You've just reinforced that observation. "Progressive"... heh. The irony is delicious, I must say. If hope that you choke on it, but that only works if you have the intellect to detect it, which means you're safe.
With the skyrocketing prices of homes many are finding themselves priced out of the market entirely, including those with $100K+ salaries
That's for-real true. The DC 'burbs are nigh on impossible to buy into these days, unless you've got a pair of people with combined income of at least $150k. Anything less, and you're in for either a 2-hour daily commute, or living in a one-bedroom apartment for $1200/month. So, the key to the DC area is being very valuable to your employer. A clearance helps, too. A lot.
But it's a pretty cool town, in terms of stuff to do/see. You're a not very long drive into the mountains, over to the shore, or into farmland of all sorts. But the traffic's getting worse every year, so telecommuting is the magic thing.
51 million in research.... plus who knows what the cost per tourniquet would be.... it is not just whether the amount of effectiveness versus a 25 cent strip of cloth going to save X number of lives, but whether you could have saved more lives by spending that money on something more practical, be it medical or otherwise.
You're not seeing the big pictre. Just like with NASA's programs, devices and techniques like this, developed for their most aggessive and necessary settings, can still have broad use in a more traditional, civilian setting. $51M is nothing compared to the R&D that's spent on routine medical devices and products for use in everyday hospitals. The science involved in this (including a better understanding of clotting, and in using devices that don't literally squeeze the blood flow out of tissue) has to be useful in lots of other ways, too. Cost is the bottom line, but in this case you have to way the cost against a much, much larger set of returns.
I'm talking about the only real current threat to world peace - the Fascist States of America. The similarities with Nazi Germany in the 30's is spot on.
(You're still clueless btw, but I guess you use Fox News as your single news source on world affairs)
No, I talk to my friends that travel in the middle east, pour through news as reported by the BBC, Reuters, or even spun-up stuff like that from Al Jazeera. It really doesn't matter which sources you watch: that doesn't change the actual facts. Which, of course, you're not addressing. You are exhibiting one of the funniest bits of recurring rhetorical weakness that keeps showing up in this venue: rather than actually illustrating real information, you just say "Fox News! Fox News! Fox News!" like some sort of mantra that's supposed to relieve you of any need to back up what you say. The irony is delicious: in order to try to try to make someone sound uniformed, you jump right into an uninformed and just silly sounding posture that shows how desparate you are to avoid talking about anything of substance.
But I suppose I should have taken your use of the cliched "it's spot on" phrase to be a clue that you're hoping your use a slightly non-standard bit of sage-sounding observation-speak to, again, spare you from needing to say in what way (if at all) something is true. 1930's Germany? The parallels are in your mind because it reinforces whatever political axe you're grinding. As soon as you realize that mumbling "Nazis! Fox News! Nazis! Fox News!" isn't an incantation that actually counts as debate or information, you'll see that you're the actual example of the intellectual weakness you're hoping to identify in your opponents. Get a grip.
Oh, btw, "Iraq" and "Iran" are two very different countries. You.. mixed them up.
No, that was a typo. Obviously Iran is the one busy building nukes.
Oh my god you're clueless. You're actively cheering on the closest thing to a repeat of the nazi craze of the 30's - the current US fascist administration - and you BELIEVE all the crap as well.
What the hell are you talking about? I was responding to the guy that says that since we used two nukes to shut down the war with Japan without any further (and much worse) loss of life than otherwise would have occurred, that somehow the world has more to fear (in terms of nuclear attack) from the US.
You seem to be unable to process a bit of rhetorical sarcasm, so I'll explain: I pointed out that if he's right (that taking past actions as some sort of context-less predictor of future events), that we should therefore fear a new round of Japanese aggression and all of the atrocities that they committed leading up to WWII. Do you really think that my citing what happened is "cheering on" some Nazi-like process? The only Nazi-like, fascist storm brewing is the one coming out of Iran, as seen in their strategic, financial, and logistical support of crazies like Hezbollah, and their encouragement to wipe Israel off the map. So, again, what the hell are you talking about?
IRAN not Iraq unless you meant when Saddam was in power. If things continue on the present path I'd say Iran will have small nukes in 5 yrs, maybe less.
Of course. Fantastic typo on my part! Good thing I don't work at the State Department!:P
The USA is hardly in a position to condemn anyone for weapons development. Remember that the only country that ever used an atomic weapon against another country, is the USA. And it was for a doubtful purpose. So, anyone who fears that another country will lob a nuke, should (looking at history) most fear the USA.
Ah. So, the only country we have to fear when it comes to starting an conflict that required the use of two small nukes to greatly reduce the loss of life it would otherwise have required to end the conflict is... Japan? I mean looking at history, we'd better be expecting them to once again try to take over the entire Pacific Rim, attempt to disable the US Navy, and run giant rape camps, right?
Or, is it possible, Mr. A. Coward, that you know you're a trolling idiot, and actually do understand that the leadership in Iraq is working hard to acquire nukes, and regularly makes speeches that mention little pleasantries like removing other countries from the face of the earth?
Again, an argument appealing irrationally to emotion.
Exactly, precisely incorrect. You're ignoring actual practicalities that make your position unworkable.
if they park a missile platform below a peacekeeping station, then you use a team of special forces to kill the crew and disable/disarm the truck, you dont just shell the peacekeeping station.
Hezbollah's speciality is arriving at a location with a launcher, setting up, firing, and being gone in a matter of minutes - no way for a team of people to helicopter in and catch them in the act. The only way that "special forces" could deal with Hezbollah's intermittent appearance on the grounds next to a UN post (that should have been abandoned - what were they thinking?) would be to have said special forces sitting there, waiting for them. What: for days? With what sort of support? That's not a "surgical strike," it's re-occupation of that piece of Lebanon. And Hezbollah simply would have set up shop somewhere else along the border for that round of launches.
Only immediate (within moments) attack from the air or from long-range big guns can catch the guys with the launchers on the spot, and prevent them from ever doing it again. That, or you prevent that piece of land from being used in that way at all - and the only way to enforce that is to station troops on it... and remember that that's exactly what Israel used to do, specifically to prevent these exact sort of attacks. And, when they pulled their troops out of southen Lebanon, it just started right back up. It would appear that they're done putting up with it.
Then maybe we should have done the same to the chicago mafia in the 30's...
just shelled their places of business and damn the consequences...
Again, a non-workable analogy. The people smuggling whiskey and evading taxes in the 30's weren't launching missles from Chicago into Toledo, or proclaiming that only the destruction of Illinois is acceptable to them. They didn't randomly kill women and children, year after year, just to stoke things up (they just killed each other in a turf war over the smuggling market and related "industries").
The mafia wasn't a militant front for an oil-rich retrograde fascist theocracy that was shipping them millions of bucks and thousands of missiles.
It doesnt make sense to use millitary weaponry when surgical strikes on the ground would get things done.
If the Israelis stopped using precision weapons, you'd see the civilian deaths in the areas where Hezbollah keeps parking their weapons and launchers go from a few hundred to thousands and thousands over night. You do understand that you can't just march Israeli troops back into all of Lebanon and surgically remove Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure from the middle of the civilian presence in which they hide without an enormous invasion, right? It takes a gigantic supply chain, tons of armour, and thousands of soldiers - and it would take months and months, and many more Israeli deaths, which is exactly what Hezbollah would like to force them to have to do.
Hezbollah has had an uninterrupted six years to build bunkers, to booby-trap and mine their weapons storage sites, and to make sure that their personnel are woven completely into the fabric of the civilian population of Lebanon. Israel is being smart, and taking out the tools Hezbollah will need to re-supply themselves with weapons. Eventually they will run out, or Iran will have to more clearly show their hand by visibly pushing new weapons into the area by air - and they don't want to have that light shown on them just now. In the meantime, when Hezbollah pops out of a basement with a missle launcher, Israel hits that spot immediately, to destroy the cache that's there. They have no choice, other than to just tolerate more missles raining down on Haifa and beyond.
I'm sure a greater number of americans than 6 have been abducted or killed by canadian criminals on our northern border, maybe we should attack canada?..
At least use a better analogy (since that isn't even close). There is no political party in Canada that has a formal platform specifically calling for the destruction of the United States. The UN didn't pass a resolution years ago demanding the disarmament of a group of thousands of militarized Canadians that have been launching flesh-shredding ball-bearing-laden, imprecise missiles randomly over the border for years. Any cross-border murders/killings from Canada don't appear to be well organized by a militia that doesn't allow that country's police and military into the southern part of the country, and which receives a continual flow of arms, cash, and weapons training from Iran and Syria.
If Michigan had been continually hit with rockets from Canada, would you think any differently? If the RCMP was afraid to enter the entire southern half of Quebec to stop hundreds of members of a group dedicated to the deaths of all Americans from launching missles from schoolyards, would you expect the U.S. to just shrug and let it keep happening? If an armed incursion from that area came across the border, shot up a bunch of our border guards and kidnapped some, and the Canadian government just said, "Oh well - we can't stop it or do anything about it," would that feel the same?
And if you knew that the group doing that stuff was receiving millions of dollars and truckloads of weapons from another country that's also talking in terms of "wiping your country from the face of the earth" (um, while also scrambling to build a nuke program)... still no reason to deprive that group of their entrenched position along your border?
Israel sustained 1,500 missile attacks from Hezbollah in the period preceeding the abductions that were the last straw. That group's willingness to park their Iranian and Chinese weapons in the basements of residences and apartment buildings, and to set up launchers under the cover of a UN peacekeeping station specifically to draw fire towards targets they hope will further inflame the situation - that's hardly the same as your random Canadian sociopath, is it? Would you recommend that every time Hezbollah uses "their" part of Lebanon to launch a made-for-terror-and-only-for-terror ball-bearing bomb into where it will randomly land in Israel, that Israel should just be "porportionate" and do one of the same? How about just ending that Iranian-backed group's ability to hijack the Lebanese land, infrastructure, and convenient human-shield population, once and for all? The Lebanese government hasn't been willing to do it. The UN's toothless resolution has accomplished nothing. What would you do? Just have Israel take the missle hits, for years and years, and not act to end it? Assume that a certain number of cross-border raids and Hezbollah-inflicted deaths are just going to happen, and not mind it?
Really: you don't see the difference between that scenario, and your counter example? Israel doesn't call for the destruction of any country. They scatter pamphlets in areas where they're about to attack Hezbollah missle-launching sites to warn civilians to get out of the fight. They use very expensive precision weapons to minimize damage beyond what they're shooting at. The Hezbollah militants, on the other hand - whom you've just compared to a few hypothetical individual murderers from Canada - attack without warning, directly against civilians, and routinely proclaim that only the destruction of Israel as a country will suffice - and they're taking action to try accomplish it. Use a different analogy, or brush up on the background, here. If the same thing did happen to US citizens near the border with another country, for years on end, putting a stop to it wouldn't feel "disporportionate" at all.
For many in the non-stop-gaming demographic, a female avator is the closest they'll come to having any personal influence over where, and up to what, a relatively large pair of breasts will be.
In languages, usage defines correctness. Therefore it is correct, whether you like it or not. QED.
Sorry, no. Take for example the lazy use of "I could care less," when the speaker actually means, "I couldn't care less."
There's absolutely no ambiguity about the meaning of these words:
"I"
"could"
"care"
and, "less"
Except, because people don't actually think about what they hell they're saying, they mumble "could" when they mean "couldn't" in the same way that they sing along with a song, uttering words that they know make no sense (but which they've been too lazy to actually look up), just because they think that's the sounds to sing. Phrases have meaning, and the more complex the phrase, the more precise the meaning. Plenty of people use phrases that mean the opposite of what they're trying to say... but their doing so doesn't mean we could flip around the meaning of "not" to its opposite. "I could not care less" doesn't mean the same thing as "I could care less," no matter how many people say it because their friends do. Un-QED. Back to you.
There's no chance of repeat business or building any kind of brand when selling through Amazon.
Out of curiosity, do you (as the third-party merchant) get to see enough information about the end-using buyer to market to them directly at a later time? Meaning, is it against the Amazon terms/conditions to follow up those sales with an e-mail or postcard or other communication to the person with whom you ultimately did business? Just wondering.
Maybe we should invade its surface, kill its plasma and convert it to black holeness.
Maybe we should just ask it how it feels to think that it's a MECO, and no matter what it says, start up a government program designed to empower its sense of communinity with the black holes. Then, if Kofi Annan decides that the arrangement is suitably free of human suffering that no one in Europe will notice, we can assign a series of attractive Hollywood types to set the tone for more research by doing some short publicity pieces that will help all MECOs feel better about ejecting mass, even if it hurts other stellar objects (which isn't their fault, since the laws of physics are really just The Establishment and Hawking is just The Man, running Big Physics from his position of authority-backed, but morally weak institutional power).
Communism (as implemented, less in theory) has very strong bonds in both directions.
Bonds? Shackles, is more like. In a communist setting, you've got the more productive people being slaves to the less productive people. Those are the bonds of dependency (of the less productive on the more productive), and of ownership (of the more productive by the less productive). Your use of the word "bonds" connotes something like "family bonds," but that couldn't be farther from the truth.
Republicans currently seem to be very much on the side of high government control of citizens (wiretaps, air travel restrictions, prayer in school)
Which wiretaps, now? The ones that involve overseas calls to/from destinations that are identified as likely terror finance/operations participants or which are included in the call patterns of others that are? Do those calls go through, anyway? By the untold thousands? Yes. Are your actions, here in the US, altered by the possibility that your call to a private finance guy in northern Pakistan might be matched up other calls he makes to a group of students who all attend the same mosque in Germany? Why?
Has your air travel been restricted? How?
Has prayer in school been put into place in any public school you can identify? Where?
Democrats often follow a more "Liberal" philosophy. In this, the government has many more responsibilities toward the individual and the philosophical intent is to empower individuals.
By "has many more responsibilities" you actually mean "has more involvement in each person's life," and by "government," you actually mean "taxpayers, who don't have a choice." There is no "government" separately from the people that have to pay for it. More government programs involved in more people's day-to-day activities doesn't "empower" the people who "receive" those services, it makes them more dependent on the people who have to pay for those services, and that depowers both of them.
Slashdot Mirror
I think this is more like remembering Perl Harbor.
Thanks, I'll be here all week. Oh, and try the Flash-Fried Content, and don't forget to tip your web servers. Ba-da-bing!
Vapid, self-obsessed, score-keeping emo-inanities will now be even easier to find! And that's just the garage bands.
Wait... did you feel that? A great disturbance in the workforce, like millions of voices crying out... like it just became easier than ever for HR departments around the world to sift through that stack of resumes.
Why not fix the software and/or its default configuration so that it is safe to use?
That doesn't address sites that deliberately link people to executables that they delibrately download and run because they think they're about to see a 3D holographic movie of unicorns actually producing rainbows in the shape of guardian angel puppies protecting endangered species that are making jokes about the president.
The point is that if Google finds sites polluted by such malware - not just some plugin-abusing bit of blinking nonsense - then they're going to give you the heads up on the link. I think it's great - but it will just make the bad guys get involved in another hide-the-malware arms race.
But even if it is, there should still be something near it. Earth is round, but there's moon next to it Earth belogs to the Solar system too So the universe itself should be near something too (another universe?) Or is it endless? If so, hwo can that be possible?
It's a little tricky making the mental jump to the extra dimension, but the old balloon analogy works pretty well. From the point of view of a 2-D person on the surface of a balloon, the surface is infinite, but eventually repeats itself. You don't run into the "edge" no matter where or how far you go. In your example of the earth being "next to" the moon, that's like saying there is one dot on the balloon next to another, smaller dot on the balloon. Yes, there is a distance between them, but if you go far enough from either of them you'll still wind up back where you started again.
Of course, with the larger universe, things are expanding (like an inflating balloon), so setting out from the dot on the surface of the balloon, your "straight path" around the universe would be pushed and pulled by distortions in space-time (from gravity) and the stretching effect of accelerating expansion. It doesn't really matter, though, since you could never travel any faster than light, and thus never make the whole trip anyway.
Hope my clumsy use of that analogy has helped.
Er... right. See, that's just the sort of evil we're dealing with here! It boggles the mind. Woops!
beeing good 99% of the time hardly excuses the last 1%...
Do you really (really?) think that 99% of military spending and operations is evil? Be sure to check in with the people who benefit from the billions we spend on peacekeeping operations all around the world, on the constant supply of material goods (ferried by the military), on the helicopter fly-outs from places like New Orleans, on the tsunami victims who only got their first round of support because the US Navy was there with shiploads of material, personnel, communications gear and aircraft, and so on. Or ask an acquaintence who serves in the Coast Guard. Ah... I bet you don't know any, which would explain a lot.
If only some of that DoD money could be spent on something other than killing innocents... oh, wait.
This is like sueing Remington because guns make it easier to kill people.
Not really. Companies like Remington go to enormous lengths to label everything they ship, and infuse every bit of their marketing message with the "don't hurt people with our products, please." They pump lots of money and support into law enforcement, safety training for hunters and sport shooters, and they expressly fund programs that teach kids how to be safe with a firearm if they get involved in such sports.
Suing such a manufacturer for a criminal's misuse of their product isn't even a little bit like suing the provider of a service that deliberately cultivates a culture of users that traffic in warez, entertainment that's been ripped off, and specifically builds such traffic into their revenue model. Remington doesn't woo, encourage, and project profits based upon the actions of murderers buying their products - and you've made a poor analogy.
starting up more neutral ISPs if none exist in an area
But what if you want to start up an ISP that is not more neutral? What if your purpose in doing so is to woo certain end users that fit a particular business profile or that require a certain type of customer service or payment mechanism? I should be able to start up an ISP as I see fit, and serve those customers that I choose in the manner and at the price that I choose to. My service may turn out to be neutral, or it may not... but it's my service. And any legal change that forces me to do it in a certain way, or for certain users in such a particular way, is the opposite of neutral: it's government telling me how my new business must relate to my customers.
I have one minor correction to your generalization though: New Hampshire (so far, though this is sadly changing) is an island of civility and sanity, with a well-behaved government that actually acts like it believes in public service (rather than public baby-sitting). I lived there for 13 wonderful years. Highway projects get done quickly, with minimal disruption to the public, and on time. Government offices are actually open at night to accomodate people who work. The roads are meticulously cared for (the contrast in road quality when you cross over the MA-NH state line, especially in the winter, is stunning). And they manage to do this with no sales tax and no income tax.
Well then, next road-trip vacation is to NH for some scouting. Since I currently live in the People's Republic Of Maryland, your description is sounding pretty enticing. Still, I have to drive dangerously close to Kennedy family members in their cars to get there, so I don't know if the risk is worth it...
very progressive [Boston] ... Alabama or Arkansas, where civil liberties and evolution stalled out hundreds of years ago
... heh. The irony is delicious, I must say. If hope that you choke on it, but that only works if you have the intellect to detect it, which means you're safe.
What exactly is Boston progressing too, if that's what its residents believe? I actually find people from New England to be more elitist, more close-minded, less inclinded to get along with people they've just met, and vastly, vastly ruder and more abrasive than people from down south. You've just reinforced that observation. "Progressive"
With the skyrocketing prices of homes many are finding themselves priced out of the market entirely, including those with $100K+ salaries
That's for-real true. The DC 'burbs are nigh on impossible to buy into these days, unless you've got a pair of people with combined income of at least $150k. Anything less, and you're in for either a 2-hour daily commute, or living in a one-bedroom apartment for $1200/month. So, the key to the DC area is being very valuable to your employer. A clearance helps, too. A lot.
But it's a pretty cool town, in terms of stuff to do/see. You're a not very long drive into the mountains, over to the shore, or into farmland of all sorts. But the traffic's getting worse every year, so telecommuting is the magic thing.
51 million in research.... plus who knows what the cost per tourniquet would be.... it is not just whether the amount of effectiveness versus a 25 cent strip of cloth going to save X number of lives, but whether you could have saved more lives by spending that money on something more practical, be it medical or otherwise.
You're not seeing the big pictre. Just like with NASA's programs, devices and techniques like this, developed for their most aggessive and necessary settings, can still have broad use in a more traditional, civilian setting. $51M is nothing compared to the R&D that's spent on routine medical devices and products for use in everyday hospitals. The science involved in this (including a better understanding of clotting, and in using devices that don't literally squeeze the blood flow out of tissue) has to be useful in lots of other ways, too. Cost is the bottom line, but in this case you have to way the cost against a much, much larger set of returns.
I'm talking about the only real current threat to world peace - the Fascist States of America. The similarities with Nazi Germany in the 30's is spot on.
(You're still clueless btw, but I guess you use Fox News as your single news source on world affairs)
No, I talk to my friends that travel in the middle east, pour through news as reported by the BBC, Reuters, or even spun-up stuff like that from Al Jazeera. It really doesn't matter which sources you watch: that doesn't change the actual facts. Which, of course, you're not addressing. You are exhibiting one of the funniest bits of recurring rhetorical weakness that keeps showing up in this venue: rather than actually illustrating real information, you just say "Fox News! Fox News! Fox News!" like some sort of mantra that's supposed to relieve you of any need to back up what you say. The irony is delicious: in order to try to try to make someone sound uniformed, you jump right into an uninformed and just silly sounding posture that shows how desparate you are to avoid talking about anything of substance.
But I suppose I should have taken your use of the cliched "it's spot on" phrase to be a clue that you're hoping your use a slightly non-standard bit of sage-sounding observation-speak to, again, spare you from needing to say in what way (if at all) something is true. 1930's Germany? The parallels are in your mind because it reinforces whatever political axe you're grinding. As soon as you realize that mumbling "Nazis! Fox News! Nazis! Fox News!" isn't an incantation that actually counts as debate or information, you'll see that you're the actual example of the intellectual weakness you're hoping to identify in your opponents. Get a grip.
Oh, btw, "Iraq" and "Iran" are two very different countries. You .. mixed them up.
No, that was a typo. Obviously Iran is the one busy building nukes.
Oh my god you're clueless. You're actively cheering on the closest thing to a repeat of the nazi craze of the 30's - the current US fascist administration - and you BELIEVE all the crap as well.
What the hell are you talking about? I was responding to the guy that says that since we used two nukes to shut down the war with Japan without any further (and much worse) loss of life than otherwise would have occurred, that somehow the world has more to fear (in terms of nuclear attack) from the US.
You seem to be unable to process a bit of rhetorical sarcasm, so I'll explain: I pointed out that if he's right (that taking past actions as some sort of context-less predictor of future events), that we should therefore fear a new round of Japanese aggression and all of the atrocities that they committed leading up to WWII. Do you really think that my citing what happened is "cheering on" some Nazi-like process? The only Nazi-like, fascist storm brewing is the one coming out of Iran, as seen in their strategic, financial, and logistical support of crazies like Hezbollah, and their encouragement to wipe Israel off the map. So, again, what the hell are you talking about?
IRAN not Iraq unless you meant when Saddam was in power. If things continue on the present path I'd say Iran will have small nukes in 5 yrs, maybe less.
:P
Of course. Fantastic typo on my part! Good thing I don't work at the State Department!
The USA is hardly in a position to condemn anyone for weapons development. Remember that the only country that ever used an atomic weapon against another country, is the USA. And it was for a doubtful purpose. So, anyone who fears that another country will lob a nuke, should (looking at history) most fear the USA.
Ah. So, the only country we have to fear when it comes to starting an conflict that required the use of two small nukes to greatly reduce the loss of life it would otherwise have required to end the conflict is... Japan? I mean looking at history, we'd better be expecting them to once again try to take over the entire Pacific Rim, attempt to disable the US Navy, and run giant rape camps, right?
Or, is it possible, Mr. A. Coward, that you know you're a trolling idiot, and actually do understand that the leadership in Iraq is working hard to acquire nukes, and regularly makes speeches that mention little pleasantries like removing other countries from the face of the earth?
Good little troll, enjoy your snack.
Again, an argument appealing irrationally to emotion.
Exactly, precisely incorrect. You're ignoring actual practicalities that make your position unworkable.
if they park a missile platform below a peacekeeping station, then you use a team of special forces to kill the crew and disable/disarm the truck, you dont just shell the peacekeeping station.
Hezbollah's speciality is arriving at a location with a launcher, setting up, firing, and being gone in a matter of minutes - no way for a team of people to helicopter in and catch them in the act. The only way that "special forces" could deal with Hezbollah's intermittent appearance on the grounds next to a UN post (that should have been abandoned - what were they thinking?) would be to have said special forces sitting there, waiting for them. What: for days? With what sort of support? That's not a "surgical strike," it's re-occupation of that piece of Lebanon. And Hezbollah simply would have set up shop somewhere else along the border for that round of launches.
Only immediate (within moments) attack from the air or from long-range big guns can catch the guys with the launchers on the spot, and prevent them from ever doing it again. That, or you prevent that piece of land from being used in that way at all - and the only way to enforce that is to station troops on it... and remember that that's exactly what Israel used to do, specifically to prevent these exact sort of attacks. And, when they pulled their troops out of southen Lebanon, it just started right back up. It would appear that they're done putting up with it.
Then maybe we should have done the same to the chicago mafia in the 30's...
just shelled their places of business and damn the consequences...
Again, a non-workable analogy. The people smuggling whiskey and evading taxes in the 30's weren't launching missles from Chicago into Toledo, or proclaiming that only the destruction of Illinois is acceptable to them. They didn't randomly kill women and children, year after year, just to stoke things up (they just killed each other in a turf war over the smuggling market and related "industries").
The mafia wasn't a militant front for an oil-rich retrograde fascist theocracy that was shipping them millions of bucks and thousands of missiles.
It doesnt make sense to use millitary weaponry when surgical strikes on the ground would get things done.
If the Israelis stopped using precision weapons, you'd see the civilian deaths in the areas where Hezbollah keeps parking their weapons and launchers go from a few hundred to thousands and thousands over night. You do understand that you can't just march Israeli troops back into all of Lebanon and surgically remove Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure from the middle of the civilian presence in which they hide without an enormous invasion, right? It takes a gigantic supply chain, tons of armour, and thousands of soldiers - and it would take months and months, and many more Israeli deaths, which is exactly what Hezbollah would like to force them to have to do.
Hezbollah has had an uninterrupted six years to build bunkers, to booby-trap and mine their weapons storage sites, and to make sure that their personnel are woven completely into the fabric of the civilian population of Lebanon. Israel is being smart, and taking out the tools Hezbollah will need to re-supply themselves with weapons. Eventually they will run out, or Iran will have to more clearly show their hand by visibly pushing new weapons into the area by air - and they don't want to have that light shown on them just now. In the meantime, when Hezbollah pops out of a basement with a missle launcher, Israel hits that spot immediately, to destroy the cache that's there. They have no choice, other than to just tolerate more missles raining down on Haifa and beyond.
I'm sure a greater number of americans than 6 have been abducted or killed by canadian criminals on our northern border, maybe we should attack canada?..
... still no reason to deprive that group of their entrenched position along your border?
At least use a better analogy (since that isn't even close). There is no political party in Canada that has a formal platform specifically calling for the destruction of the United States. The UN didn't pass a resolution years ago demanding the disarmament of a group of thousands of militarized Canadians that have been launching flesh-shredding ball-bearing-laden, imprecise missiles randomly over the border for years. Any cross-border murders/killings from Canada don't appear to be well organized by a militia that doesn't allow that country's police and military into the southern part of the country, and which receives a continual flow of arms, cash, and weapons training from Iran and Syria.
If Michigan had been continually hit with rockets from Canada, would you think any differently? If the RCMP was afraid to enter the entire southern half of Quebec to stop hundreds of members of a group dedicated to the deaths of all Americans from launching missles from schoolyards, would you expect the U.S. to just shrug and let it keep happening? If an armed incursion from that area came across the border, shot up a bunch of our border guards and kidnapped some, and the Canadian government just said, "Oh well - we can't stop it or do anything about it," would that feel the same?
And if you knew that the group doing that stuff was receiving millions of dollars and truckloads of weapons from another country that's also talking in terms of "wiping your country from the face of the earth" (um, while also scrambling to build a nuke program)
Israel sustained 1,500 missile attacks from Hezbollah in the period preceeding the abductions that were the last straw. That group's willingness to park their Iranian and Chinese weapons in the basements of residences and apartment buildings, and to set up launchers under the cover of a UN peacekeeping station specifically to draw fire towards targets they hope will further inflame the situation - that's hardly the same as your random Canadian sociopath, is it? Would you recommend that every time Hezbollah uses "their" part of Lebanon to launch a made-for-terror-and-only-for-terror ball-bearing bomb into where it will randomly land in Israel, that Israel should just be "porportionate" and do one of the same? How about just ending that Iranian-backed group's ability to hijack the Lebanese land, infrastructure, and convenient human-shield population, once and for all? The Lebanese government hasn't been willing to do it. The UN's toothless resolution has accomplished nothing. What would you do? Just have Israel take the missle hits, for years and years, and not act to end it? Assume that a certain number of cross-border raids and Hezbollah-inflicted deaths are just going to happen, and not mind it?
Really: you don't see the difference between that scenario, and your counter example? Israel doesn't call for the destruction of any country. They scatter pamphlets in areas where they're about to attack Hezbollah missle-launching sites to warn civilians to get out of the fight. They use very expensive precision weapons to minimize damage beyond what they're shooting at. The Hezbollah militants, on the other hand - whom you've just compared to a few hypothetical individual murderers from Canada - attack without warning, directly against civilians, and routinely proclaim that only the destruction of Israel as a country will suffice - and they're taking action to try accomplish it. Use a different analogy, or brush up on the background, here. If the same thing did happen to US citizens near the border with another country, for years on end, putting a stop to it wouldn't feel "disporportionate" at all.
For many in the non-stop-gaming demographic, a female avator is the closest they'll come to having any personal influence over where, and up to what, a relatively large pair of breasts will be.
In languages, usage defines correctness. Therefore it is correct, whether you like it or not. QED.
Sorry, no. Take for example the lazy use of "I could care less," when the speaker actually means, "I couldn't care less."
There's absolutely no ambiguity about the meaning of these words:
"I"
"could"
"care"
and, "less"
Except, because people don't actually think about what they hell they're saying, they mumble "could" when they mean "couldn't" in the same way that they sing along with a song, uttering words that they know make no sense (but which they've been too lazy to actually look up), just because they think that's the sounds to sing. Phrases have meaning, and the more complex the phrase, the more precise the meaning. Plenty of people use phrases that mean the opposite of what they're trying to say... but their doing so doesn't mean we could flip around the meaning of "not" to its opposite. "I could not care less" doesn't mean the same thing as "I could care less," no matter how many people say it because their friends do. Un-QED. Back to you.
There's no chance of repeat business or building any kind of brand when selling through Amazon.
Out of curiosity, do you (as the third-party merchant) get to see enough information about the end-using buyer to market to them directly at a later time? Meaning, is it against the Amazon terms/conditions to follow up those sales with an e-mail or postcard or other communication to the person with whom you ultimately did business? Just wondering.
Maybe we should invade its surface, kill its plasma and convert it to black holeness.
Maybe we should just ask it how it feels to think that it's a MECO, and no matter what it says, start up a government program designed to empower its sense of communinity with the black holes. Then, if Kofi Annan decides that the arrangement is suitably free of human suffering that no one in Europe will notice, we can assign a series of attractive Hollywood types to set the tone for more research by doing some short publicity pieces that will help all MECOs feel better about ejecting mass, even if it hurts other stellar objects (which isn't their fault, since the laws of physics are really just The Establishment and Hawking is just The Man, running Big Physics from his position of authority-backed, but morally weak institutional power).
Communism (as implemented, less in theory) has very strong bonds in both directions.
Bonds? Shackles, is more like. In a communist setting, you've got the more productive people being slaves to the less productive people. Those are the bonds of dependency (of the less productive on the more productive), and of ownership (of the more productive by the less productive). Your use of the word "bonds" connotes something like "family bonds," but that couldn't be farther from the truth.
Republicans currently seem to be very much on the side of high government control of citizens (wiretaps, air travel restrictions, prayer in school)
Which wiretaps, now? The ones that involve overseas calls to/from destinations that are identified as likely terror finance/operations participants or which are included in the call patterns of others that are? Do those calls go through, anyway? By the untold thousands? Yes. Are your actions, here in the US, altered by the possibility that your call to a private finance guy in northern Pakistan might be matched up other calls he makes to a group of students who all attend the same mosque in Germany? Why?
Has your air travel been restricted? How?
Has prayer in school been put into place in any public school you can identify? Where?
Democrats often follow a more "Liberal" philosophy. In this, the government has many more responsibilities toward the individual and the philosophical intent is to empower individuals.
By "has many more responsibilities" you actually mean "has more involvement in each person's life," and by "government," you actually mean "taxpayers, who don't have a choice." There is no "government" separately from the people that have to pay for it. More government programs involved in more people's day-to-day activities doesn't "empower" the people who "receive" those services, it makes them more dependent on the people who have to pay for those services, and that depowers both of them.