There has always been a strong current of Isolationism in the US. Many people have held a strong dislike to seeing the US involved in conflicts overseas since the WWI. However, the US has throughout its history pretty much, been involved in invading other countries to protect the interests of its major corporations. The US has been the most belligerent nation in the world for most of its history. There have been a variety of reasons given to justify the military activities the US has engaged in, but in the end I think it all boils down to the US Government doing the bidding of its major corporate sponsors. You were late to both world wars, primarily due to that isolationist segment of your population in fact.
Precisely. I did the same thing when I was at university, plus of course I recorded songs off the radio prior to that. Like it or not, music listeners have always wanted to shift their music (I buy an album and record it to tape for the car etc) into the most convenient formats for their needs, and a certain amount has always been shared. Honestly I doubt i ever taped someone else's copy of an album that I would have bought otherwise. Buying music has never been a big thing for me. I think I have a total of about 23 songs I have downloaded off the 'tubes on my HD. The music industry never lost many sales from me if any. The modern industry, faced with a changing business paradigm for musicians that will see most of the music industry middlemen eliminated, is struggling to preserve their old business model by legal means, rather than acknowledging that times change and they need to adapt. When I buy a CD, I can accept that it might have taken a few bucks to produce that, and I can see buying it for that plus a reasonable markup (of course no one actually sells them for that plus a reasonable markup, the markup is more likely about 500%), but when I can buy a song or album on the internet - and I am aware that the effective cost of producing that song is at best negligible (and that if my HD dies I may well lose my purchase etc), a few cents is all its worth to me. I currently buy no music at all. I listen to almost no music that isn't on the radio. I seldom listen to the radio:P
Precisely. The US is making a big thing of the SEAL team that went in and took the place and killed OBL, but to be honest it was a one sided fight from the start and the other side stood no chance. Its a great victory for the US to have found him, but not much of a challenge in the execution.
Well the assumption all over much of the internet is that all readers are in the US, and that if something is foreign it needs to be clearly marked that way - this despite the obvious international nature of the internet, the huge numbers of users outside the US currently using it etc. Even/. has to obey this rule it seems.
As a Canadian, I am well aware that we are quite high tech, have invented or helped invent a lot of today's technology etc. I too was surprised to see the Canadian flag on this article though, as I only expect to see something like that when the story specifically involves Canada or our Government.
As for the tech, its kinda neat. I can imagine when this stuff gets into regular public use though, and our already struggling privacy is reduced yet again.
US Foreign Policy is not about promoting the US political system to the rest of the world - its about promoting the US Economy (i.e. US Corporations) in foreign countries so as to benefit the rich and powerful. Otherwise the US would promote democracy in foreign countries, instead of favouring Dictators in most foreign nations. Otherwise they wouldn't mess with foreign countries' democratic process, but let it run its course whatever the results. The US is only apparently a democracy internally, externally its an economic empire that supports its major corporations and their interests over the rights of its citizens, and over any rights of citizens in foreign countries. It pays lip service to promoting democracy from time to time - i.e. in Libya at the moment, but usually has to be dragged kicking and screaming into action and is reluctant to commit itself. I do not like the US system at all. I love democracy.
...DailyKos may not be your cup of tea, but they are pretty solidly in the middle of what is considered the "left" in the U.S., and would be considered "centrist" or even "center right" in Europe.
I think most Americans are unaware or tend to forget, that what is considered Socialist or Left-Wing in the US is usually considered somewhat Right-Wing in the rest of the world. The US seems to be, generally speaking, and extremely conservative country, far right wing in its politics and attitude, and I think this only serves to distort their views on politics in other countries.
I live in Canada. Our politics are slowly Finlandizing to be like those of the US - our Conservative Party under Stephen Harper is far more right-wing and authoritarian than I can recall any Canadian political party ever being, and Harper seems to worship at the feet of the Republicans IMHO. Our Liberal party - normally defined as centre of the road - is in fact leaning heavily to the right. Our current NDP party - National Democratic party - normally considered slightly left wing, is pretty centrist at the moment. To citizens in the US these would likely all seem like they are "Communist" or something I am sure.
I generally find the politics in the US to be extremely frightening:P
Exactly. The average person out there is overwhelmed when faced with a computer. When they do use one, they barely scratch the surface of what they could be doing with it, and usually limit themselves to a few basic applications that serve their needs. There is of course, nothing wrong with that: they have a tool and they use it. The problem is the computer is more complex than they need. When something goes wrong they are lost as to how to fix the problem. The general solution - thanks in large part to Microsoft's user experience - is to reboot and hope that fixes the problem.
Users on/. don't really seem to get just how deeply mysterious computers are to the average person, or that that individual has little or no interest in figuring out how they work. They don't care, they just want to use it for what they want to do.
The secret of new tech like the iPad is simply that its a simple device with simple applications and a simple purpose. Its very flexible, and easy to use, and while limited in its capabilities, those limitations are seldom encountered by the typical user using it for what it was designed for. Its the confluence of the computer, the cellphone and the PIM. I don't own one, but only because I have to spend my cash elsewhere at the moment. I will likely get one as I can see using it for some things.
As for the folks who keep saying - but it doesn't have a keyboard - well no it doesn't other than the onscreen one. They are available of course, but I expect you are likely missing the point: its not a computer, it doesn't really need a keyboard. If you find you need a keyboard to use it, then you likely want a laptop because your needs are more serious than the iPad is designed to handle.
As for the appeal of Apple, well in my opinion its pretty simple: they make very high quality products, that are very reliable, perform well, look great, feel great, and are simple and userfriendly. Comparable products running Windows, or from other manufacturers seem amateur by comparison. I used Windows, Linux, FreeBSD etc for many years, but when I finally bought an iMac desktop system I was converted. Not in starry-eyed mindless love, but because everything worked really well and it was a great piece of hardware. OS/X is amazingly easy and logical to use overall. I had no difficulty adapting to it. Even Windows 7 now seems klunky although greatly improved over XP. I am using a (borrowed) Gateway computer that is pretty good overall but its still not as good as my iMac (which needs to go into the shop).
Same thing with mp3 players, everything other than the iPod seems klunky. Apple just has style down pat, and everyone else is trying to catch up. The average person is picking style over function - whereas the average/.er will immediately look to see the stats and functionality of a computing device and ignore the styling - or dismiss it as irrelevant:P
The police will manufacture a way and reason to test this puppy out there without any doubt. Just like they did in Toronto when they gave the police ample opportunity to train in using all the new toys they bought them - without any justifiable reasons required.
We may say we support democracy here in North America (I am Canadian) but we don't really, because when people go out in the streets to protest and make their opinion known, we arrest them without a warrant and treat them worse that we are allowed to treat criminals. There is a reason people protest at those events - they don't like the policies that are being promulgated by their elected representatives.
Now, the anarchists that try to stir up trouble and cause distruction - sure, arrest them, they expect it. But the peaceful protestors? They have a right to protest. Let them. In Toronto the police were using undercover police officers to try to encite a riot, and when that failed they just arrested people without cause anyways. Their justification: violation of a law that the police knew didn't exist - the police chief admitted it after the fact.
Telus is also in competition with regards to lousy service, but then so is Shaw.
What is a shame is that the various cable/internet providers have been allowed to carve up the market in such a manner as to avoid competition for the most part. Here in Victoria, your choices are Shaw or Telus. By agreement Rogers does not compete in the internet market here, just as Shaw agreed to not compete in other cities. They divvied up the market between them and for the longest time there was no competition at all. Telus jumped in a few years ago (they also provide TV over the phone lines now of course) and that has provided competition, but if anything the prices for both Shaw and Telus have gone up, so not much evidence of any competition. Shaw's internet is so/so in terms of quality but being a cable company there TV is superior to Telus. Telus's internet is pretty decent overall, but being a phone company their TV is pretty so/so.
Personally I would like to see our internet providers all put out of business and be replaced with a Crown Corporation charged to provide the best service at the cheapest price. Canadian's pay an exorbitantly high fee for all of our communications services generally, far higher than other nations from what I understand. The reason is that the CRTC seems to just rubberstamp whatever the providers ask them to.
Thankfully Bell has apparently dropped its push to go for metered billing...
Yes, as the volume of information on the web is going up, the quality and relevance of it is decreasing. I no longer read the newspaper for the most part because I can get the information I want for free on the web - and usually faster. However, as the quality of the information on the web drops - or is lost in a sea of filler content surrounded by ads - the focused nature of the newspaper might become more attractive, but only insofar as they don't start padding it out with dreck like the stuff you listed.
to make it look like government fights corruption - at home or abroad - while waiting for the next "political contribution" from the same companies. Bribery is the norm in many countries abroad, here its just got a different name...
According to this link: Why Pwn2Own doesn't target linux (linked in another post), Pwn2Own only targets systems running MS Windows 7. If that is the case then this must have been Safari running on Win7, not OS/X.
I accept that OS/X likely has security holes - the same hole that permitted this exploit might work in the OS/X version of Safari as well after all - but I don't want to read endless MS Fanboi posts about how pathetic OS/X is, if the exploited system was running MS Windows 7
You are not the only one. When I get saturated with advertising for a product - I remember the product, and avoid buying it afterwards. So they achieve their goal of having me remember their product, but they also piss me off so much I won't ever be a customer.
Yes, if it really was the US Government, they would just extraordinary rendition the Icelandic MP to somewhere in Czechoslovakia or Egypt and get all the info they could provide on Wikileaks using officially sanctioned torture, as the US has evidently done many times in the past.
As a Canadian, I have always had mixed opinions on US foreign policy. Sometimes I agree completely with decisions made south of the border, sometimes I think you are all a bunch of wingnuts, and can't understand your government at all. Generally, the US seems very right wing in its political perspectives, what you folks call "Liberals" down there would often be conservatives up here in Canada, although our political leanings are moving more and more to the right as well (our one time "Liberal" party is now as conservative as our old Conservative party, which has moved farther to the right). While the US might look at Mexico and take over at least the northern part to provide a secure buffer state which they can then police heavily to limit the drug and human trafficking trades, I suspect a new RightWing USA First! government would look north and decide to absorb Canada first. Mexico almost certainly has a larger armed forces than Canada, and we are only 1/10th the population, with probably double the resources of the continental US, including a fair amount of oil in Alberta and the north. I don't think it bodes well for the future of Canada to have the US economy tank in another depression - and I think that China is going to surpass the US as a geopolitical and economic power some time in the next decade (while remaining far weaker militarily), which bodes poorly for future peace as well. I expect a war between the US and China over Taiwan soon. They want it badly.
Joe the plumber is getting more calls than he can handle, so he hires an employee - under the table, calling him a subcontractor. This new subcontractor, unable to get work for over a year (and disappearing off the Unemployment statistics because they ran out, making it look like employment is better), accepts the deal Joe offers even though it sucks: He will be paid a little over minimum wage, and use his own truck, putting magnetic stickers advertising Joe's business on the side every time he goes on a job. He doesn't have a pension plan, he only contributes to it if he voluntarily does so, and although he makes some money, its not really enough. As a result he sticks with this situation until he can find something better.
The reality is that Big Government costs too much, but also that a lot of these incentives to businesses to hire new people etc, never trickle down to the people actually working. Corporations get bigger, the people in charge make their bank, but the folks on the bottom end still have major problems.
If Microsoft can be investigated for tying IE to their operating system in an attempt to dominate the browser market, why can't Apple be investigated for tying iTunes to Quicktime updates. Every time my browser or OS decides it needs to update Quicktime, I get prompted to install fucking iTunes.
Apple: I got news for you: I don't listen to music. I have no need of iTunes, ever, period.
If you have no tastebuds. Each type of meat has a distinct taste, definitely different from other types of meat. There is a massive difference between say Lamb and Bison, Moose and Rabbit, Venison and Chicken, Turkey and Beef. If you can't taste any difference between them, then either you are completely without with the required tastebuds to make the distinction, or you are letting a moral stand against being a carnivore cloud your judgment. You may choose to be a vegetarian, but its not natural to our species, who are omnivores by design. Personally, the first solid food I ate was moose meat and I have never looked back. I will grant you that spices and sauces and things like that can dramatically alter the base taste of the meat, but claiming that all meat tastes the same is pure speciousness/bullshit.
Now, as to veggies, I recognize that eating them is part of a balanced diet, but I can't think of a single one that I would prefer to eat over meat, they are always secondary aspects of any meal to me. Not that I eat a lot of meat, its just that for me a meal generally consists of "Meat, plus some other stuff" in the back of my mind.
Slashdot Mirror
:P
There has always been a strong current of Isolationism in the US. Many people have held a strong dislike to seeing the US involved in conflicts overseas since the WWI.
However, the US has throughout its history pretty much, been involved in invading other countries to protect the interests of its major corporations. The US has been the most belligerent nation in the world for most of its history. There have been a variety of reasons given to justify the military activities the US has engaged in, but in the end I think it all boils down to the US Government doing the bidding of its major corporate sponsors. You were late to both world wars, primarily due to that isolationist segment of your population in fact.
Precisely. I did the same thing when I was at university, plus of course I recorded songs off the radio prior to that. :P
Like it or not, music listeners have always wanted to shift their music (I buy an album and record it to tape for the car etc) into the most convenient formats for their needs, and a certain amount has always been shared. Honestly I doubt i ever taped someone else's copy of an album that I would have bought otherwise. Buying music has never been a big thing for me. I think I have a total of about 23 songs I have downloaded off the 'tubes on my HD. The music industry never lost many sales from me if any.
The modern industry, faced with a changing business paradigm for musicians that will see most of the music industry middlemen eliminated, is struggling to preserve their old business model by legal means, rather than acknowledging that times change and they need to adapt.
When I buy a CD, I can accept that it might have taken a few bucks to produce that, and I can see buying it for that plus a reasonable markup (of course no one actually sells them for that plus a reasonable markup, the markup is more likely about 500%), but when I can buy a song or album on the internet - and I am aware that the effective cost of producing that song is at best negligible (and that if my HD dies I may well lose my purchase etc), a few cents is all its worth to me.
I currently buy no music at all. I listen to almost no music that isn't on the radio. I seldom listen to the radio
Precisely. The US is making a big thing of the SEAL team that went in and took the place and killed OBL, but to be honest it was a one sided fight from the start and the other side stood no chance. Its a great victory for the US to have found him, but not much of a challenge in the execution.
Well the assumption all over much of the internet is that all readers are in the US, and that if something is foreign it needs to be clearly marked that way - this despite the obvious international nature of the internet, the huge numbers of users outside the US currently using it etc. Even /. has to obey this rule it seems.
As a Canadian, I am well aware that we are quite high tech, have invented or helped invent a lot of today's technology etc. I too was surprised to see the Canadian flag on this article though, as I only expect to see something like that when the story specifically involves Canada or our Government.
As for the tech, its kinda neat. I can imagine when this stuff gets into regular public use though, and our already struggling privacy is reduced yet again.
Now, lets go find an old veck, razrez his platties, and take a malenky bit of cutter...
(Mozilla's spellchecker doesn't think much of the above sentence), that was pretty much the first thing I thought of when I saw the picture.
They are under the cushions on the couch, try the leftmost one first.
I have to speak up in support of resurrecting old forms of the English language plural, "Viren" sounds good to me as well. :P
US Foreign Policy is not about promoting the US political system to the rest of the world - its about promoting the US Economy (i.e. US Corporations) in foreign countries so as to benefit the rich and powerful. Otherwise the US would promote democracy in foreign countries, instead of favouring Dictators in most foreign nations. Otherwise they wouldn't mess with foreign countries' democratic process, but let it run its course whatever the results. The US is only apparently a democracy internally, externally its an economic empire that supports its major corporations and their interests over the rights of its citizens, and over any rights of citizens in foreign countries. It pays lip service to promoting democracy from time to time - i.e. in Libya at the moment, but usually has to be dragged kicking and screaming into action and is reluctant to commit itself.
I do not like the US system at all. I love democracy.
...DailyKos may not be your cup of tea, but they are pretty solidly in the middle of what is considered the "left" in the U.S., and would be considered "centrist" or even "center right" in Europe.
I think most Americans are unaware or tend to forget, that what is considered Socialist or Left-Wing in the US is usually considered somewhat Right-Wing in the rest of the world. The US seems to be, generally speaking, and extremely conservative country, far right wing in its politics and attitude, and I think this only serves to distort their views on politics in other countries.
I live in Canada. Our politics are slowly Finlandizing to be like those of the US - our Conservative Party under Stephen Harper is far more right-wing and authoritarian than I can recall any Canadian political party ever being, and Harper seems to worship at the feet of the Republicans IMHO. Our Liberal party - normally defined as centre of the road - is in fact leaning heavily to the right. Our current NDP party - National Democratic party - normally considered slightly left wing, is pretty centrist at the moment. To citizens in the US these would likely all seem like they are "Communist" or something I am sure.
I generally find the politics in the US to be extremely frightening :P
Exactly. The average person out there is overwhelmed when faced with a computer. When they do use one, they barely scratch the surface of what they could be doing with it, and usually limit themselves to a few basic applications that serve their needs. There is of course, nothing wrong with that: they have a tool and they use it. The problem is the computer is more complex than they need. When something goes wrong they are lost as to how to fix the problem. The general solution - thanks in large part to Microsoft's user experience - is to reboot and hope that fixes the problem.
Users on /. don't really seem to get just how deeply mysterious computers are to the average person, or that that individual has little or no interest in figuring out how they work. They don't care, they just want to use it for what they want to do.
The secret of new tech like the iPad is simply that its a simple device with simple applications and a simple purpose. Its very flexible, and easy to use, and while limited in its capabilities, those limitations are seldom encountered by the typical user using it for what it was designed for. Its the confluence of the computer, the cellphone and the PIM. I don't own one, but only because I have to spend my cash elsewhere at the moment. I will likely get one as I can see using it for some things.
As for the folks who keep saying - but it doesn't have a keyboard - well no it doesn't other than the onscreen one. They are available of course, but I expect you are likely missing the point: its not a computer, it doesn't really need a keyboard. If you find you need a keyboard to use it, then you likely want a laptop because your needs are more serious than the iPad is designed to handle.
As for the appeal of Apple, well in my opinion its pretty simple: they make very high quality products, that are very reliable, perform well, look great, feel great, and are simple and userfriendly. Comparable products running Windows, or from other manufacturers seem amateur by comparison. I used Windows, Linux, FreeBSD etc for many years, but when I finally bought an iMac desktop system I was converted. Not in starry-eyed mindless love, but because everything worked really well and it was a great piece of hardware. OS/X is amazingly easy and logical to use overall. I had no difficulty adapting to it. Even Windows 7 now seems klunky although greatly improved over XP. I am using a (borrowed) Gateway computer that is pretty good overall but its still not as good as my iMac (which needs to go into the shop).
Same thing with mp3 players, everything other than the iPod seems klunky. Apple just has style down pat, and everyone else is trying to catch up. The average person is picking style over function - whereas the average /.er will immediately look to see the stats and functionality of a computing device and ignore the styling - or dismiss it as irrelevant :P
Wikipedia link by way of adding information to my original post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_G-20_Toronto_summit_protests
The police will manufacture a way and reason to test this puppy out there without any doubt. Just like they did in Toronto when they gave the police ample opportunity to train in using all the new toys they bought them - without any justifiable reasons required.
We may say we support democracy here in North America (I am Canadian) but we don't really, because when people go out in the streets to protest and make their opinion known, we arrest them without a warrant and treat them worse that we are allowed to treat criminals. There is a reason people protest at those events - they don't like the policies that are being promulgated by their elected representatives.
Now, the anarchists that try to stir up trouble and cause distruction - sure, arrest them, they expect it. But the peaceful protestors? They have a right to protest. Let them. In Toronto the police were using undercover police officers to try to encite a riot, and when that failed they just arrested people without cause anyways. Their justification: violation of a law that the police knew didn't exist - the police chief admitted it after the fact.
Telus is also in competition with regards to lousy service, but then so is Shaw.
What is a shame is that the various cable/internet providers have been allowed to carve up the market in such a manner as to avoid competition for the most part. Here in Victoria, your choices are Shaw or Telus. By agreement Rogers does not compete in the internet market here, just as Shaw agreed to not compete in other cities. They divvied up the market between them and for the longest time there was no competition at all. Telus jumped in a few years ago (they also provide TV over the phone lines now of course) and that has provided competition, but if anything the prices for both Shaw and Telus have gone up, so not much evidence of any competition. Shaw's internet is so/so in terms of quality but being a cable company there TV is superior to Telus. Telus's internet is pretty decent overall, but being a phone company their TV is pretty so/so.
Personally I would like to see our internet providers all put out of business and be replaced with a Crown Corporation charged to provide the best service at the cheapest price. Canadian's pay an exorbitantly high fee for all of our communications services generally, far higher than other nations from what I understand. The reason is that the CRTC seems to just rubberstamp whatever the providers ask them to.
Thankfully Bell has apparently dropped its push to go for metered billing...
Yes, as the volume of information on the web is going up, the quality and relevance of it is decreasing. I no longer read the newspaper for the most part because I can get the information I want for free on the web - and usually faster. However, as the quality of the information on the web drops - or is lost in a sea of filler content surrounded by ads - the focused nature of the newspaper might become more attractive, but only insofar as they don't start padding it out with dreck like the stuff you listed.
There goes any productivity I might have had today.... :P
to make it look like government fights corruption - at home or abroad - while waiting for the next "political contribution" from the same companies. Bribery is the norm in many countries abroad, here its just got a different name...
According to this link: Why Pwn2Own doesn't target linux (linked in another post), Pwn2Own only targets systems running MS Windows 7. If that is the case then this must have been Safari running on Win7, not OS/X.
I accept that OS/X likely has security holes - the same hole that permitted this exploit might work in the OS/X version of Safari as well after all - but I don't want to read endless MS Fanboi posts about how pathetic OS/X is, if the exploited system was running MS Windows 7
You are not the only one. When I get saturated with advertising for a product - I remember the product, and avoid buying it afterwards. So they achieve their goal of having me remember their product, but they also piss me off so much I won't ever be a customer.
Advertising is just Capitalist propaganda.
Yes, if it really was the US Government, they would just extraordinary rendition the Icelandic MP to somewhere in Czechoslovakia or Egypt and get all the info they could provide on Wikileaks using officially sanctioned torture, as the US has evidently done many times in the past.
As a Canadian, I have always had mixed opinions on US foreign policy. Sometimes I agree completely with decisions made south of the border, sometimes I think you are all a bunch of wingnuts, and can't understand your government at all. Generally, the US seems very right wing in its political perspectives, what you folks call "Liberals" down there would often be conservatives up here in Canada, although our political leanings are moving more and more to the right as well (our one time "Liberal" party is now as conservative as our old Conservative party, which has moved farther to the right).
While the US might look at Mexico and take over at least the northern part to provide a secure buffer state which they can then police heavily to limit the drug and human trafficking trades, I suspect a new RightWing USA First! government would look north and decide to absorb Canada first. Mexico almost certainly has a larger armed forces than Canada, and we are only 1/10th the population, with probably double the resources of the continental US, including a fair amount of oil in Alberta and the north.
I don't think it bodes well for the future of Canada to have the US economy tank in another depression - and I think that China is going to surpass the US as a geopolitical and economic power some time in the next decade (while remaining far weaker militarily), which bodes poorly for future peace as well.
I expect a war between the US and China over Taiwan soon. They want it badly.
Joe the plumber is getting more calls than he can handle, so he hires an employee - under the table, calling him a subcontractor. This new subcontractor, unable to get work for over a year (and disappearing off the Unemployment statistics because they ran out, making it look like employment is better), accepts the deal Joe offers even though it sucks: He will be paid a little over minimum wage, and use his own truck, putting magnetic stickers advertising Joe's business on the side every time he goes on a job. He doesn't have a pension plan, he only contributes to it if he voluntarily does so, and although he makes some money, its not really enough. As a result he sticks with this situation until he can find something better.
The reality is that Big Government costs too much, but also that a lot of these incentives to businesses to hire new people etc, never trickle down to the people actually working. Corporations get bigger, the people in charge make their bank, but the folks on the bottom end still have major problems.
If Microsoft can be investigated for tying IE to their operating system in an attempt to dominate the browser market, why can't Apple be investigated for tying iTunes to Quicktime updates. Every time my browser or OS decides it needs to update Quicktime, I get prompted to install fucking iTunes.
Apple: I got news for you: I don't listen to music. I have no need of iTunes, ever, period.
It does act like a fucking virus in some regards.
Well 2 years to try to correct the damage done by 8 years under Bush Junior. Give him another 6 and see if he can manage to fix things...
If you have no tastebuds. Each type of meat has a distinct taste, definitely different from other types of meat. There is a massive difference between say Lamb and Bison, Moose and Rabbit, Venison and Chicken, Turkey and Beef. If you can't taste any difference between them, then either you are completely without with the required tastebuds to make the distinction, or you are letting a moral stand against being a carnivore cloud your judgment. You may choose to be a vegetarian, but its not natural to our species, who are omnivores by design. Personally, the first solid food I ate was moose meat and I have never looked back.
I will grant you that spices and sauces and things like that can dramatically alter the base taste of the meat, but claiming that all meat tastes the same is pure speciousness/bullshit.
Now, as to veggies, I recognize that eating them is part of a balanced diet, but I can't think of a single one that I would prefer to eat over meat, they are always secondary aspects of any meal to me. Not that I eat a lot of meat, its just that for me a meal generally consists of "Meat, plus some other stuff" in the back of my mind.