Maybe it's a reaction to a lack of a better word. I can't think of a word that has the same sort of "force" as the term racism, but which refers to discrimination against people from a particular country.
It's a bit off a dodgy term really. I prefer the term racism, but it's not quite correct because it refers to races, not countries. People do hate what the US is doing right now, but that's really not the same thing as hating all of the US people.
We're damned for not stopping the Rwanda genocide
The French government was involved in blocking any action as well. The word "Genocide" was prevented from entering UN documents since if it did, it would have required immediate action. Actually it's the UN that routinely gets the blame over Rwanda. Most people are unaware that the US and France are really the culprits of the UN's inaction.
Wow. You managed to blame the origin of French-bashing on President Bush
Starting off with such a blatant Straw-Man is quite impressive. I never mentioned Bush. I did mention Rumsfeld.
Then you move on to the standard exaggeration part...
Now, if you can do that for global warming on Mars, the heartbreak of psoriasis the Black Plague and rap it will be official that everything bad that has ever happened is Bush's fault.
...was compromised by the fact that they were on the take from Saddam.
What do you mean "they were on the take"?. Certainly individuals were accused of corruption with regard to the oil for food program, but it wasn't the whole government. The US company Bayoil was also involved and Senate reports showed that the US Government was well aware of the corruption all along, but allowed it to continue.
There are many more reasons I could list, but it has always appeared to me that the French government behaves as if it resents the fact that France is no longer a major world power, and they will do everything they can to appear influential, even if most of it is merely throwing a wrench into things.
So rather than looking at the objections France raised, you instead focus on France itself and how it "resents" it is no longer a world power. This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about.
In the strictest sense, even the traditional concept of races is now on shaky grounds. What alternative (and non-awkward) word would you offer as a replacement? Countryist?
I'm not entirely sure why the France bashing continues.
Well it was encouraged from the highest levels of Government. First of all you had Rumsfeld etc al, dismissing France as "old Europe". This was effectively an ad-hominem attack. Rather than dealing with the important issues it raised, France was effectively the subject of name calling. Then you had the "Freedom Fries" escapade in the House Of Representatives where all the menus were changed. France was then routinely accused of anti-Americanism in the media. All of this kept peoples attention away from Frances actual objections to military action, amongst which were that it did not believe there was an imminent danger from WMDs, that invading Iraq had nothing to do with fighting terrorism and that a war would destabilize the Middle East.
The whole racist tirade against France in the US was/is interesting, especially at a time when there is so much discussion about anti-Americanism. Renaming French Fries to freedom fries is definitely anti-French, but is criticising US actions in Iraq or other foreign policy issues, Anti-American? I think not. It seems to me that currently the concept of anti-Americanism is being used as propaganda. Americans are being encouraged to feel that they themselves are being targeted in some racist way, when it is in fact government policy that is being criticised. The result of this is that people are more likely to rally behind their government when confronted with such criticism. The Russian government uses the same trick when it's policies are criticised. The Russian people are deliberately made to feel that everyone is against them.
When you are angry with a country because of specific military or political issues, you should address those specific issues and argue your case. It's all to easy to be dragged into name calling by government and the media.
It seems to me that you have a lot of drug companies spending billions on secretive research and probably duplicating a lot of each others work. Countries are then paying a fortune to these companies, funding the secretive and duplicate research. It would make a lot more financial sense if countries just banded their resources together and formed some kind of altruistic non-profit drug company.
When companies themselves are under threat from cheaper foreign rivals, they routinely go crying to government and suddenly economic protectionism leaps into action. Yet this protectionist attitude miraculously vanishes when it comes to protecting the jobs of the average citizen. For us, having a foreign competitor (i.e. a guy who will work for 1/10 of what you will) is just tough and we have to deal with it.
I agree. Our first past the post system makes it very difficult for new parties to establish themselves as well as rendering many peoples votes totally wasted. Labour acutally promised to look at PR, but they never have.
Actually anything you wrote in VB6 will still work.
Really? Are you sure there are no issues at all on Vista? Once a language is no longer supported, customers will have no confidence in a product written in that language.
You can still install the VB6 development system and edit it as much as you like.
I have heard various reports that the development environment itself has problems installing on Vista.
I personally hate VB6 and am glad it has been send back to the fiery pit from whence it came. I highly prefer the.NET languages over it. 99% of the code I wrote in 1.0 is still working in 2.0. Now that 2.0 reintroduced a serial port class, we can completely drop VB6.
I agree that.NET is much better than VB6, but that's not the point. If your company has spent years and hundreds of thousands developing products in VB6, it's a bit of a bummer when Microsoft ditches the language. Many small companies are still clinging onto their VB6 products because they do not have the time or money for rewrites. Moving over to a new language should be a business decision, not one forced on you by Microsoft.
Why does Microsoft win the development environment war so often, when we all know it's a lifetime lock-in
It's not a lifetime lock-in when they discontinue your entire development environment and language. Yep, by discontinuing the VB6 language they saved us from that terrible lock-in. Now we are free to re-type those millions of lines of code (and years of effort) in another language on any platform we like. How thoughtful of them.
Chief Astronomer Zantooli
Emperor Clantos! I have disturbing news.
Emperor Clantos
Oh no. Not another android strike?
Chief Astronomer Zantooli
No your magnificence. Our automated tachyon telescope has locked on to a planet called Earth. It has detected our presence. Worse still, it has intelligent life and we are also detecting atom power weapons.
Emperor Clantos
Atom power weapons! My gods. They might use them against us! We must send a fleet of space troopers at once to confiscate them.
Chief Astronomer Zantooli
That's a bit risky. They might see them coming and kill a few of them. That won't do anything for your popularity.
Emperor Clantos
Hmm, you're right.
Chief Astronomer Zantooli
I suggest that we just vaporise the whole planet immediately. It's the safest way.
Emperor Clantos
Vaporise them!? Shouldn't we at least try to evacuate all their civilians first?
Chief Astronomer Zantooli
Not a good idea your magnificence. Again it puts our space troops at risk from enemy fire. Also, it would alert them and give them time to move their weapons somewhere else.
Emperor Clantos
But our people will surely complain about our killing so many civilians.
Chief Astronomer Zantooli
I'm not so sure. Who really cares about people so far away? If anyone kicks up a fuss we'll just say it's their government's fault for hiding the weapons amongst the population. Anyway, they use the same argument themselves all of the time when it comes to these people they call "terrorists". Whenever they detect them in an area, they just vaporise it without warning. If anyone complains about civilian deaths, they just blame it on the terrorists for "Hiding amongst the population".
Emperor Clantos
Hmmm. A clever transferral of blame indeed. These Earth people sound just like us. It's a shame we have to destroy them.
When a brutal dictator says "I'm going to make life horrible for my own citizens" its ok
Only if you are evil and also want to have the entire population as an enemy for a generation or two.
"I'm going to nuke [Israel, US, any evil Western country] as soon as I get the chance because it is my duty to God"
Ahmadinejad has not said many of the things attributed to him. For example, the famous "Wipe of the map" quote was totally mistranslated. You particularly need to watch anything coming out of MEMRI (http://www.memri.org/). It's run by a former colonel with Israeli intelligence. So I would like to see the source of this "nuke Israel" quote.
Some of the same officials who are strongly opposed to the Iranian nuclear program now, were advocating it back in the 70s when the Shah was in power. So it's ok for a brutal dictator but not for a theocracy? The nuclear issue is really a distraction. The US government is opposed to the current theocratic regime just as it was opposed to the democratic regime under Mossadegh. The internal nature of the regime is not a concern, only it's stance towards US interests. It's a question of control.
How about a song for the thousands of victims tortured and killed under Castro's regime?
Fine, good idea. We can also write a song about US support for his brutal predecessor Batista, another one about supporting the murdering contras and mining Nicaragua's harbours and being condemned by the world court. Another song about assassinating Chilean generals who stand in the way of US-Backed coups. Another song about overthrowing the Guatemalan government just so that United Fruit can keep it's profits high. The list goes on and on.
You are always going to have crazy people, and yes they will perhaps obsess over violence in films, games, TV, or news footage from various wars. There is no way you can ban all of the possible different violent influences that may effect someone. What you can do though is minimise peoples access to firearms. The problem is firearms make it very easy to kill a lot of people in a short space of time.
If you really feel like you need to defend your home with some kind of weapon, a Tazer gun seems like a good compromise. Certainly someone might go crazy with a Tazer gun, but he/she would soon be bundled to the ground without too much damage being done. If you feel you need a gun to fight against any future repressive US governments, I suggest that you instead stop voting for them in the first place. Besides which, if you do end up with a repressive government in the future, sympathetic countries will smuggle in Ak47s, RPGs, Semtex and all sorts of deadly goodies to help you in your fight for freedom, but you don't need them right now.
And to this day, US citizens generally understand that if the government ever becomes tyrannical and repressive, "we the people" have the right (and must have the means) to overthrow it.
Small arms won't do it though. Iraq is a pretty good example. To stand up against a military force you need lots of explosives, RPGs etc. Anyway, both the governments of the US and UK have already moved their drinks cabinets 6 inches closer to tyranny. We didn't need to shoot anyone or set up any IEDs. All we had to do was vote them out, but we couldn't even manage that.
Imagine I make two DVDs. In the first DVD I argue that it was quite right and proper for NATO to bomb the Serbian TV station during the Kosovo crisis. I argue that although some 15 civilians were killed, it was a legitimate target since it was a Serbian propaganda tool (which is what NATO argued). On the second DVD I argue that it was quite right and proper for the IRAQ to bomb the BBC because the BBC is a tool of British propaganda.
Both should be condemned as terrorist acts and their justifications dismissed. Governments are just as capable of committing terrorist acts as small non-government groups are. The problem is we allow governments to get away with it time and time again, whereas we actually make some effort to pursue the "small guys".
I feel that if Bill Gates does travel into space, the guidance system of the vehicle he travels in should be changed over to run on Microsoft Windows in his honour.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe it's a reaction to a lack of a better word. I can't think of a word that has the same sort of "force" as the term racism, but which refers to discrimination against people from a particular country.
It's a bit off a dodgy term really. I prefer the term racism, but it's not quite correct because it refers to races, not countries. People do hate what the US is doing right now, but that's really not the same thing as hating all of the US people.
We're damned for not stopping the Rwanda genocide
The French government was involved in blocking any action as well. The word "Genocide" was prevented from entering UN documents since if it did, it would have required immediate action. Actually it's the UN that routinely gets the blame over Rwanda. Most people are unaware that the US and France are really the culprits of the UN's inaction.
Starting off with such a blatant Straw-Man is quite impressive. I never mentioned Bush. I did mention Rumsfeld. Then you move on to the standard exaggeration part...
Now, if you can do that for global warming on Mars, the heartbreak of psoriasis the Black Plague and rap it will be official that everything bad that has ever happened is Bush's fault.
...was compromised by the fact that they were on the take from Saddam.What do you mean "they were on the take"?. Certainly individuals were accused of corruption with regard to the oil for food program, but it wasn't the whole government. The US company Bayoil was also involved and Senate reports showed that the US Government was well aware of the corruption all along, but allowed it to continue.
There are many more reasons I could list, but it has always appeared to me that the French government behaves as if it resents the fact that France is no longer a major world power, and they will do everything they can to appear influential, even if most of it is merely throwing a wrench into things.
So rather than looking at the objections France raised, you instead focus on France itself and how it "resents" it is no longer a world power. This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about.
In the strictest sense, even the traditional concept of races is now on shaky grounds. What alternative (and non-awkward) word would you offer as a replacement? Countryist?
Well it was encouraged from the highest levels of Government. First of all you had Rumsfeld etc al, dismissing France as "old Europe". This was effectively an ad-hominem attack. Rather than dealing with the important issues it raised, France was effectively the subject of name calling. Then you had the "Freedom Fries" escapade in the House Of Representatives where all the menus were changed. France was then routinely accused of anti-Americanism in the media. All of this kept peoples attention away from Frances actual objections to military action, amongst which were that it did not believe there was an imminent danger from WMDs, that invading Iraq had nothing to do with fighting terrorism and that a war would destabilize the Middle East.
The whole racist tirade against France in the US was/is interesting, especially at a time when there is so much discussion about anti-Americanism. Renaming French Fries to freedom fries is definitely anti-French, but is criticising US actions in Iraq or other foreign policy issues, Anti-American? I think not. It seems to me that currently the concept of anti-Americanism is being used as propaganda. Americans are being encouraged to feel that they themselves are being targeted in some racist way, when it is in fact government policy that is being criticised. The result of this is that people are more likely to rally behind their government when confronted with such criticism. The Russian government uses the same trick when it's policies are criticised. The Russian people are deliberately made to feel that everyone is against them.
When you are angry with a country because of specific military or political issues, you should address those specific issues and argue your case. It's all to easy to be dragged into name calling by government and the media.
It seems to me that you have a lot of drug companies spending billions on secretive research and probably duplicating a lot of each others work. Countries are then paying a fortune to these companies, funding the secretive and duplicate research. It would make a lot more financial sense if countries just banded their resources together and formed some kind of altruistic non-profit drug company.
Reiser is a smart guy. Couldn't he just write an unMurder tool anyway?
When companies themselves are under threat from cheaper foreign rivals, they routinely go crying to government and suddenly economic protectionism leaps into action. Yet this protectionist attitude miraculously vanishes when it comes to protecting the jobs of the average citizen. For us, having a foreign competitor (i.e. a guy who will work for 1/10 of what you will) is just tough and we have to deal with it.
I've heard the Tiananmen Square Tank-Dodgems are really popular, although I think most children go to see the big cuddly cat, Chairman Meow.
Imagine instead that you are a solider who has been given illegal orders. Are you going to shoot the civilians or disregard the order and make a fuss?
RIAA, Potes meos suaviari clunes!
ix ccil xvii ii clvii cxvi ccxxvii xci ccxvi lxv lxxxvi cxcvii ic lxxxvi cxxxvi cxcii
P.S. Slashdot does not like long Roman numbers. It thinks you are shouting and stops your post.
I agree. Our first past the post system makes it very difficult for new parties to establish themselves as well as rendering many peoples votes totally wasted. Labour acutally promised to look at PR, but they never have.
I'll take that as a compliment on the possibility it may annoy you :)
Really? Are you sure there are no issues at all on Vista? Once a language is no longer supported, customers will have no confidence in a product written in that language.
You can still install the VB6 development system and edit it as much as you like.
I have heard various reports that the development environment itself has problems installing on Vista.
I personally hate VB6 and am glad it has been send back to the fiery pit from whence it came. I highly prefer the
I agree that
It's not a lifetime lock-in when they discontinue your entire development environment and language. Yep, by discontinuing the VB6 language they saved us from that terrible lock-in. Now we are free to re-type those millions of lines of code (and years of effort) in another language on any platform we like. How thoughtful of them.
Chief Astronomer Zantooli
Emperor Clantos! I have disturbing news.
Emperor Clantos
Oh no. Not another android strike?
Chief Astronomer Zantooli
No your magnificence. Our automated tachyon telescope has locked on to a planet called Earth. It has detected our presence. Worse still, it has intelligent life and we are also detecting atom power weapons.
Emperor Clantos
Atom power weapons! My gods. They might use them against us! We must send a fleet of space troopers at once to confiscate them.
Chief Astronomer Zantooli
That's a bit risky. They might see them coming and kill a few of them. That won't do anything for your popularity.
Emperor Clantos
Hmm, you're right.
Chief Astronomer Zantooli
I suggest that we just vaporise the whole planet immediately. It's the safest way.
Emperor Clantos
Vaporise them!? Shouldn't we at least try to evacuate all their civilians first?
Chief Astronomer Zantooli
Not a good idea your magnificence. Again it puts our space troops at risk from enemy fire. Also, it would alert them and give them time to move their weapons somewhere else.
Emperor Clantos
But our people will surely complain about our killing so many civilians.
Chief Astronomer Zantooli
I'm not so sure. Who really cares about people so far away? If anyone kicks up a fuss we'll just say it's their government's fault for hiding the weapons amongst the population. Anyway, they use the same argument themselves all of the time when it comes to these people they call "terrorists". Whenever they detect them in an area, they just vaporise it without warning. If anyone complains about civilian deaths, they just blame it on the terrorists for "Hiding amongst the population".
Emperor Clantos
Hmmm. A clever transferral of blame indeed. These Earth people sound just like us. It's a shame we have to destroy them.
Why doesn't he just travel on a normal passenger jet like everyone else? Bloody show-off!
Only if you are evil and also want to have the entire population as an enemy for a generation or two.
"I'm going to nuke [Israel, US, any evil Western country] as soon as I get the chance because it is my duty to God"
Ahmadinejad has not said many of the things attributed to him. For example, the famous "Wipe of the map" quote was totally mistranslated. You particularly need to watch anything coming out of MEMRI (http://www.memri.org/). It's run by a former colonel with Israeli intelligence. So I would like to see the source of this "nuke Israel" quote.
Some of the same officials who are strongly opposed to the Iranian nuclear program now, were advocating it back in the 70s when the Shah was in power. So it's ok for a brutal dictator but not for a theocracy? The nuclear issue is really a distraction. The US government is opposed to the current theocratic regime just as it was opposed to the democratic regime under Mossadegh. The internal nature of the regime is not a concern, only it's stance towards US interests. It's a question of control.
Fine, good idea. We can also write a song about US support for his brutal predecessor Batista, another one about supporting the murdering contras and mining Nicaragua's harbours and being condemned by the world court. Another song about assassinating Chilean generals who stand in the way of US-Backed coups. Another song about overthrowing the Guatemalan government just so that United Fruit can keep it's profits high. The list goes on and on.
You are always going to have crazy people, and yes they will perhaps obsess over violence in films, games, TV, or news footage from various wars. There is no way you can ban all of the possible different violent influences that may effect someone. What you can do though is minimise peoples access to firearms. The problem is firearms make it very easy to kill a lot of people in a short space of time.
If you really feel like you need to defend your home with some kind of weapon, a Tazer gun seems like a good compromise. Certainly someone might go crazy with a Tazer gun, but he/she would soon be bundled to the ground without too much damage being done. If you feel you need a gun to fight against any future repressive US governments, I suggest that you instead stop voting for them in the first place. Besides which, if you do end up with a repressive government in the future, sympathetic countries will smuggle in Ak47s, RPGs, Semtex and all sorts of deadly goodies to help you in your fight for freedom, but you don't need them right now.
Check out Apples' parody-tastic new product.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzBmHY3URWs
Small arms won't do it though. Iraq is a pretty good example. To stand up against a military force you need lots of explosives, RPGs etc. Anyway, both the governments of the US and UK have already moved their drinks cabinets 6 inches closer to tyranny. We didn't need to shoot anyone or set up any IEDs. All we had to do was vote them out, but we couldn't even manage that.
Imagine I make two DVDs. In the first DVD I argue that it was quite right and proper for NATO to bomb the Serbian TV station during the Kosovo crisis. I argue that although some 15 civilians were killed, it was a legitimate target since it was a Serbian propaganda tool (which is what NATO argued). On the second DVD I argue that it was quite right and proper for the IRAQ to bomb the BBC because the BBC is a tool of British propaganda.
Both should be condemned as terrorist acts and their justifications dismissed. Governments are just as capable of committing terrorist acts as small non-government groups are. The problem is we allow governments to get away with it time and time again, whereas we actually make some effort to pursue the "small guys".
I feel that if Bill Gates does travel into space, the guidance system of the vehicle he travels in should be changed over to run on Microsoft Windows in his honour.