Your mention of Citizendium made me curious so I stopped by and checked out a few articles. I came across this one for 'Dinosaurs':
Dinosaurs were a widely distributed and diverse group of large reptiles that were once quite dominant on Earth. Many believe that they were wiped out by a meteor's collision with the planet around 65 million years ago, while others believe they are simply the name given by modern science to dragons, whose co-existence with human beings is attested to by the Bible[1]."
The sole reference is to "Answers in Genesis", a creation "science" organization. Wow. Just... wow, that's just sad.
Sorry, but NO! There was no government business on her Yahoo account, so no law was broken.
Sorry, that's just not true.
Palin's Yahoo account contained emails with subject lines like "Court of Appeals / Executive Director Parole Board / Boards and Commissions", and "FW: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues", and "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax". Check the wikileaks site, it's all laid out for anyone to see.
Palin's account does contain emails that relate to government business. Saying "there was no government business on her account" over, and over, and over, as people seem to be doing in this forum, doesn't change the facts. Although that seems to be a common tactic for their campaign these days: repeat the lie so many times that it starts to sound true, like Palin's "I told them thanks but no thanks" lie about the Bridge to Nowhere.
Personally, I'm fed up with all this "sexist" bullshit that's surrounded her nomination. Sure, nominating a female VP is historic (kinda sorta, since the Dems did it 24 years ago). Are we suddenly supposed to stop asking questions about whether this woman is experienced enough or capable enough to assume the leadership of the United States of America? We are, after all, engaged in two major wars.
And yes, small-town hockey mom becomes vice presidential candidate, that's a good story. It's like a Hollywood script, or a fairy tale where the girl raised on a farm suddenly discovers she's really a princess. Yeah, it's a cute story, and I hate to see a good story spoiled, but our economy is facing the biggest crisis since the crash of 1929. I want somebody smart and experienced ready to take over if anything happens to McCain.
But Palin simply isn't qualified. Her performance during the ABC interview revealed that she had virtually no understanding of American foreign policy. Anyone who regularly reads a serious news magazine like The Economist or a major newspaper like the New York Times or Washington Post would be familiar with the questions that Gibson brought up- the Bush Doctrine, the right of America to strike in Pakistan- but Palin didn't seem to have ever thought about either before. Palin argued, in all seriousness, than being able to see Russia from Alaska somehow gave her some sort of experience. That's like arguing that you're ready to engage in negotiations with Putin because you saw Rocky Balboa fight Ivan Drago in "Rocky IV".
After the ABC interview- watch it on YouTube, if you haven't seen it already- only way you can argue that Palin can be taken seriously is to lower the bar. The only way you can argue that she is qualified is to argue that as a woman, she can't be expected to have the same understanding of foreign policy as the men. Now thatis sexist.
She wasn't using the account for gov business, at least not based on what was posted on wikileaks, or according to the purported "Hacker".
That's actually not true. If you take the time to look at the information posted on wikileaks, you'll notice a number of emails have titles such as "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax", "Court of Appeals / Executive Director Parole Board / Boards and Commissions", "Re: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues", "Court of Appeals Nominations", "FW: CONFIDENTIAL Ethics Matter". Those definitely sound like official state business, although it's impossible to know now that the account has been deleted.
As for the lack of any sort of incriminating information, what does that prove? It's not an official email account. There's no requirement that the information is archived; if any of the emails did contain information that would provide evidence of wrongdoing, Palin can simply delete them at any time. That's the issue: Palin promised transparency in government, but she's done the opposite, and has made herself unaccountable for her actions as Governor.
Hi, umm, moron? I'm sorry you can't read and everything but I'm also sorry that every time I search for info about fast-booting, there's always some pious sh*thead going on about that's not needed. Isn't there some place where you can go and congratulate all the non-booting lusers on not booting and leave those of us who want info on fast booting alone? If I worked for the TSA I would so have you in my queue and pull your g*dd*mned battery out and say "Hmmm, booting, much?"
Dude, you really sound like you don't get laid too often. Even by this crowd's standards- and that's saying something.
Actually, the Georgians were using robots- they were using UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) for reconnaissance. They did lose at least one to the Russians, but UAVS are inexpensive and importantly, the loss of the UAV does not result in the loss of the trained personnel that operate it. The Russians, on the other hand, didn't have any UAVs, and instead were using Tu-22 Backfire bombers for reconnaissance, which resulted in one of the planes being taken down by Georgian air defense.
I would argue that yes, robots, in the form of UAVs and UCAVs can help level the playing field. It all comes down to money. A MiG-29 Fulcrum might cost $25 million and a Su-27 Flanker costs $35 million. A Predator UCAV (Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle) costs a mere $8 million and can be armed with laser-guided bombs, Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, and there are tests underway to outfit them with Stinger air-to-air missiles. Now, a Predator might not be as effective as a MiG-29 or a Su-27, but you can buy 3 or 4 for the same price, and take risks with them since you don't have to worry about losing the pilot. Keep in mind that training a pilot for a fighter or attack aircraft takes millions of dollars and years of time, so they are not easy to replace; and their capture creates all sorts of political headaches. A handful of Predator drones (or their equivalents) might not win a war, but it would force your enemy to reconsider their plans a bit. Of course, a U.S. F-22 costs $137 million, and the F-35 costs $83 million... so the leveling of the playing field affects the US as much, if not more, than the Russians.
As for ground-based robots, I doubt they would be very useful for a small nation like Georgia. Again, it comes down to money. Say a robot costs 1 million dollars. For that price you might be able to get 1,0000 M-16s or 5,000 AK-47s and hand them out to civilians to form a militia. Any one of them will be smarter, more mobile, more adaptible, and more stealthy than your robot. One gets shot, have the next pick up his rifle. If you're being invaded by your larger neighbor, there probably won't be a shortage of young, testosterone-fueled kids with more balls than brains who are willing to defend the homeland. One man suitably motivated by nationalism or religion, and willing to risk/sacrifice his life to take out his target, can take out millions of dollars worth of high-tech gadgetry, as we've seen in Iraq and Vietnam.
Considering how hard McCain has been working to pander to the evangelical right, I would have a hard time expecting him to keep religion out of politics. And of course religion wants to regulate science, so feel free to connect the dots. Add to that his new hard-core anti-abortion VP candidate, and it shouldn't be hard to predict his stance on stem cell research.
Sarah Palin has said that she's in favor of teaching creationism in schools alongside evolution, and that she's not convinced that global warming is caused by human activity. So we've now got a VP candidate who wants to teach religion in science class, and who rejects scientific consensus where it is inconvenient or inconsistent with her ideology. McCain, of course, may have his own views, but his VP choice shows that he's more interested in appeasing the religious right and radical conservatives than insisting that his administration's policies are based on the best scientific evidence available.
Ah, but it's not about the base. It's about the swing voters. In this case, stealing dissatisfied Clinton voters.
If that is the strategy, I don't think that it is going to work particularly well. Sure, Sarah Palin is a woman, but that's where the resemblance to Hillary Clinton starts and ends. She's an evangelical Christian who thinks that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the classroom. She says she's not convinced that global warming is the result of human activity. She opposes abortion even in the case of incest or rape. When the environment and industry are at odds, she's squarely on the side of industry. She does have good qualities, but she actually pushes the ticket to the right in terms of values and issues. As a centrist Democrat, the chances of me voting for McCain have just gone from slim to none.
Of course, that may be intentional: McCain may be trying to shore up his support on the right. If so, then that's a bad sign. The Democrats are enthusiastic and Obama has built a powerful political machine; that McCain is still trying to figure out how to generate enthusiasm this late in the game is not a good sign.
Re:Every country has a different threshold
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China Blocks iTunes
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Not everyone agrees with us enlightened, progressive, "free" Westerners. Get over it and get over yourselves. There's no scientific proof that our way is the universal right!
The West kicked the ass of the totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany and Italy in WWII, and then watched communism crumble into the ground. Politically free, free market societies simply tend to do better in the long run than repressive, totalitarian societies. Or look at the Arab dictatorships of the Middle East: sure, a lot of them are wealthy, but they're basically all failures. In scientific terms they have produced nothing, in economic terms they produce nothing except oil, and in military terms, none of them could take on Israel in a fight.
Suppressing political discourse and reporting basically means that the government is no longer accountable for its failures. For instance, if a family protests the fact that a school collapsed in an earthquake and killed their daughter, and you arrest the family (which is the kind of shit the Chinese government is currently doing), well sure it helps the government maintain control. But it also means that the corrupt people who built the substandard schools go free and the problem doesn't get fixed. Perhaps you get stability, but in the long run the lack of government accountability means that the system lacks the ability to improve itself and adapt to changing conditions. Basically, you're saying that the ideas and opinions of 99% of your population aren't worth listening to. That's just a stupid way to run a society. And keep in mind that for all of China's impressive economic growth, the vast majority of the country is still dirt poor. They've managed to create a middle and upper class, but it remains to be seen whether the rest of the country can share in the gains.
If its history we're talking about, then what about America's history of human rights abuse (slave trade anyone?), or the UK (slaves again, plus that whole empire thing, and navvies). In fact almost all western countries have just as bad a record as China, only for us a lot of it is in the past. for the US that past isn't too far back, we are in fact talking just decades since the 'not slaves any more honest' were fully accorded the rights they were promised by Lincoln.
The difference is not that the United States has made no mistakes- it's made some pretty awful ones. The difference is that when society feels that these mistakes need to be corrected, the government sooner or later has to respond, because citizens are free to voice their opinions and influence the debate. That happened with the abolition of slavery, and that happened again with the civil rights movement. Elements of the government did try to fight the civil rights movement, but ultimately Martin Luther King was not sent off to a labor camp for re-education. That meant he was able to keep speaking out to persuade our society and our government to try to do the right thing.
Georgia was bear-baiting Russia.It was only a matter of time before they responded.
Now, it may be true that Georgia was provoking Russia. But at a moment's notice, Russia launched a well-coordinated, overwhelming assault involving their army, navy, and air force, with fronts opened in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The military assault was coordinated with computer attacks and a media propaganda campaign (see, for instance, the "2,000 dead" figure the Russian media kept repeating without ever providing any source or photographs to back up their claims). You simply cannot do what Russia did overnight. It takes weeks or months of planning. Georgia provided the trigger for the war, true, but Russia was clearly waiting for an excuse.
Russia/Georgia, Please solve this quickly.
Here's the underlying issue. Russia (or at least Putin) feels like border states, such as the Ukraine and Georgia, should be subservient to Russia, and not pursue political or military ties to the West. So as far as Russia is concerned, this is very much about the West (EU and NATO). And by invading and occupying a country that is on the flank of Europe, and with close political ties to the U.S., Russia is trying to threaten and intimidate the West. Now the West is in a delicate position- they can't really let this stand, but it's not clear how they can punish Russia either. Regardless, relationships between Russia and the U.S./EU have fundamentally shifted. It's not that a new conflict has started, it's that Europe and the United States are finally waking up and realizing that they're already in the middle of a conflict.
In a way, the brain has always been the battlefield. The ancient Chinese military expert Sun Tzu gives an example. On the first night, a general has his troops build 100,000 campfires. On the second night, they build 50,000 campfires. And on the third night, they build 20,000. Watching the fires on the horizon dwindle over three nights, the opposing general believes that the enemy forces are deserting, and so he marches into battle confident that he faces a small, demoralized army. He marches straight into an army 100,000 strong and is soundly defeated.
Sun Tzu argued that you have to know your enemy in detail, but prevent your enemy from knowing you: pretend that you are weak where you are strong, and pretend that you are strong where you are weak. Information and deception have always been integral to warfare, and always will be. More modern examples include the Allies managing to trick Hitler into believing that they will invade at Calais, rather than Normandy, and Saddam Hussein pretending that his WMD programs are much stronger than they are (a ploy that backfired, in his case). But I'm not sure technology really changes this that much. It changes how we can collect and disseminate information, but at the end of the day, you need to have smart, educated, capable guys sifting through this information with their brains and giving good advice to their Commander-in-Chief... and a Commander-in-Chief with the brains to listen.
also of note is the fact, that georgia borders chechnya where lots of russian troops are waiting for any action.
Keep in mind that Russia attacked on two fronts: one in South Ossetia, and one in Abkhazia, and it took place on land, on air, at sea, and electronically. From a tactical standpoint, the electronic warfare campaign probably didn't do much, Georgia isn't heavily wired like other countries. What is unsettling is that, according to a New York Times piece, the information attacks began weeks before the actual hostilities. It's clear that the Russians were just waiting for an excuse to go into Georgia.
Did Georgia behave irresponsibly? Sure. But Russia's response- launching a second front in Abkhazia, driving deep into Georgia and cutting the country in half by occupying Gori, bombing the airport in Tblisi, and hitting civilian targets (intentionally or not)- is disproportionate. It would be as if you challenged someone to a fistfight and then he beat you with a baseball bat so badly you ended up in the hospital, and kept beating you after you asked for mercy. And it's one thing when a tiny nation of 30 million does something irresponsible, but Russia is a major economic and military power.
What's reallydisturbing about Russia's behavior in Georgia is that it isn't an exception, it's part of a pattern. Look at what we've seen recently: poisoning of a dissident with radioactive Polonium, the media put under strict government control, political dissent largely crushed, the poisoning of an opposition candidate in the Ukraine with dioxin, and now a major military offensive into Georgia. Of course, the way that the Bush Administration has behaved in recent years- suspending the rule of law, 'regime change', domestic spying, and torture- means that America isn't in much of a position to lecture other countries on how to behave. On the other hand, America's international policy is almost guaranteed to improve in November, whereas there is no indication that Putin is surrendering his grasp on power anytime soon.
You know, for all the years of their unique brand of humor, WITHOUT ads, without a subscription, and without resorting to having strongbad basically beg you to buy his merchandise, think of it as a $10 donation to the chaps bros.
Seriously, all that animation must take an assload of work
Oh come on. The games they have on the site look like something that you would have played on a Commodore 64 or an Atari.
Georgia is a small republic with very little traffic to web resources under normal conditions. Now they are getting likely several orders of magnitude more traffic. And these are the consequences. But of course the "cyberwarfare" is much juicier piece for journalists to chew on.
By all accounts, Russia and Georgia are both to blame for what's going on here. But if you look at the pattern of behavior in the past few years... well, we've seen Russian dissidents poisoned with radioactive sushi, Russian journalists assassinated, an opposition leader in the Ukraine poisoned with dioxin... Jesus H. Christ, wake up and smell the coffee already. Maybe we don't think we're in the next phase of the Cold War, but Putin pretty clearly does, and he's acting accordingly.
America has enough enemies in the world that we don't need to make another one out of Russia. And as an American, I don't see any real reason that the United States and Russia can't be allies, rather than enemies. But that doesn't matter; Putin quite clearly thinks otherwise, and that is the only thing that matters. Russia sees the West as a threat, and they are treating us (and the Western-allied Georgia) accordingly. This is not just Russia vs. Georgia, this is Russia vs. Georgia + EU + USA. And the question is, what are the EU and the USA going to do about it? The last thing the United States needs is more conflict and war, of course. But appeasing tyrants is generally not a good move, either.
simple question, the guy claims he speaks russian, has friends locally, so he's going to be a ton better informed than your average./er, what is *your* claim to authority ? It would seem to me that someone with an ear on the ground is better informed than someone that simply reads the filtered and processed media
Question: how does following Russian news media make you in any way, shape, or form "better informed"? You're "better informed" because you can listen to Russian government propaganda without translation? I'm a die-hard Democratic liberal and I trust Fox News far more than I'd trust the Russian news media, given that they tend to silence/censor/murder anyone who reports anything that Putin doesn't like. I would trust pretty much any foreign news service- BBC, NPR, or the like- far more than I would trust Russian news. The Russian media are no better than the state-controlled Soviet media at this point. The Western news media has had some pretty disappointing failures (the New York Times and its parroting of White House allegations on WMD come to mind) but given the authoritarian, Stalinist turn that Russia has taken the past few years, my tendency is to treat anything that comes out of Russia as pure government-controlled nationalist propaganda, nothing more. I'm not saying that makes Georgia right and Russia wrong. But the Russian media has about as much credibility as the Weekly World News with its stories about "Bat Boy" and alien abductions.
Yep... Bin Laden is about to be upstaged by a supercollider. The whole war on terror to avenge the destruction of the a few buildings in NYC will seem moot after a couple of european scientists accidentally suck the entire state into a black hole.
Maybe we've finally figured out why we haven't had any luck with SETI yet? Perhaps any civilization advanced enough to begin broadcasting in the radio spectrum will, within 100 years, start running scientific experiments that are sufficiently dangerous to cause the extinction of the species? Is that possible?
On second thought... that's a silly theory, never mind! I'm going to go back to my very important medical experiments. It's pretty cool stuff, actually. I'm using virus-borne DNA to reanimate dead cells to help critically ill people. I think I'm on the verge of a breakthrough but they're going to cut off my funding if I don't get any results soon! Maybe I'll have to take a few shortcuts... use highly unstable, mutation-prone RNA instead of DNA... maybe skip straight to the human testing phase using this cadaver I have lying around my lab...
I've already got a quasiquasicrystal, partway between crystal and not-crystal, in my garage. See, I accidentally mixed a bunch of salt into this big tub of vaseline...
In the wake of the tragic earthquake that hit China, I'd be tempted to go a little easier on China during the games. But now the government is using bribery and intimidation by the police to try to silence the parents of those children killed by faulty school construction.
I can't imagine any worse torture than that. Your child was killed by a substandard building, put up by a corrupt government. And every month, you get a cash payment, a pension that reminds you of that fact. And it reminds you that instead of seeking justice, instead of standing up for what was right and for your child, you've taken the easy way out. Maybe you're a good citizen, but by signing that form, you've admitted you've abandoned all attempts to be a good parent. I mean, I would want my parents to move on past my death, but I wouldn't want them to be bought off either, I'd want them to tell the government "hey, fuck you buddy". And if I lost a child, I'd want to fight to fix whatever led to that, not just sit there in silence. I don't know. I'd like to think that's what I'd do, anyway, but with a whole nation telling me to be silent, would I have the strength?
I don't know the answer, but this just makes me despise the Chinese government with a renewed passion. And for anyone who cares to stand up and protest this while the Olympics are happening- for the Chinese government's attempt to paint a big happy face over all its atrocities and indecencies against its people and against the human condition, I applaud you, and I wish you well.
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The sole reference is to "Answers in Genesis", a creation "science" organization. Wow. Just... wow, that's just sad.
Sorry, that's just not true.
Palin's Yahoo account contained emails with subject lines like "Court of Appeals / Executive Director Parole Board / Boards and Commissions", and "FW: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues", and "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax". Check the wikileaks site, it's all laid out for anyone to see.
Palin's account does contain emails that relate to government business. Saying "there was no government business on her account" over, and over, and over, as people seem to be doing in this forum, doesn't change the facts. Although that seems to be a common tactic for their campaign these days: repeat the lie so many times that it starts to sound true, like Palin's "I told them thanks but no thanks" lie about the Bridge to Nowhere.
And yes, small-town hockey mom becomes vice presidential candidate, that's a good story. It's like a Hollywood script, or a fairy tale where the girl raised on a farm suddenly discovers she's really a princess. Yeah, it's a cute story, and I hate to see a good story spoiled, but our economy is facing the biggest crisis since the crash of 1929. I want somebody smart and experienced ready to take over if anything happens to McCain.
But Palin simply isn't qualified. Her performance during the ABC interview revealed that she had virtually no understanding of American foreign policy. Anyone who regularly reads a serious news magazine like The Economist or a major newspaper like the New York Times or Washington Post would be familiar with the questions that Gibson brought up- the Bush Doctrine, the right of America to strike in Pakistan- but Palin didn't seem to have ever thought about either before. Palin argued, in all seriousness, than being able to see Russia from Alaska somehow gave her some sort of experience. That's like arguing that you're ready to engage in negotiations with Putin because you saw Rocky Balboa fight Ivan Drago in "Rocky IV".
After the ABC interview- watch it on YouTube, if you haven't seen it already- only way you can argue that Palin can be taken seriously is to lower the bar. The only way you can argue that she is qualified is to argue that as a woman, she can't be expected to have the same understanding of foreign policy as the men. Now thatis sexist.
That's actually not true. If you take the time to look at the information posted on wikileaks, you'll notice a number of emails have titles such as "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax", "Court of Appeals / Executive Director Parole Board / Boards and Commissions", "Re: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues", "Court of Appeals Nominations", "FW: CONFIDENTIAL Ethics Matter". Those definitely sound like official state business, although it's impossible to know now that the account has been deleted.
As for the lack of any sort of incriminating information, what does that prove? It's not an official email account. There's no requirement that the information is archived; if any of the emails did contain information that would provide evidence of wrongdoing, Palin can simply delete them at any time. That's the issue: Palin promised transparency in government, but she's done the opposite, and has made herself unaccountable for her actions as Governor.
For the complete list of emails, see: http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_Yahoo_inbox_2008i
Dude, you really sound like you don't get laid too often. Even by this crowd's standards- and that's saying something.
I would argue that yes, robots, in the form of UAVs and UCAVs can help level the playing field. It all comes down to money. A MiG-29 Fulcrum might cost $25 million and a Su-27 Flanker costs $35 million. A Predator UCAV (Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle) costs a mere $8 million and can be armed with laser-guided bombs, Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, and there are tests underway to outfit them with Stinger air-to-air missiles. Now, a Predator might not be as effective as a MiG-29 or a Su-27, but you can buy 3 or 4 for the same price, and take risks with them since you don't have to worry about losing the pilot. Keep in mind that training a pilot for a fighter or attack aircraft takes millions of dollars and years of time, so they are not easy to replace; and their capture creates all sorts of political headaches. A handful of Predator drones (or their equivalents) might not win a war, but it would force your enemy to reconsider their plans a bit. Of course, a U.S. F-22 costs $137 million, and the F-35 costs $83 million... so the leveling of the playing field affects the US as much, if not more, than the Russians.
As for ground-based robots, I doubt they would be very useful for a small nation like Georgia. Again, it comes down to money. Say a robot costs 1 million dollars. For that price you might be able to get 1,0000 M-16s or 5,000 AK-47s and hand them out to civilians to form a militia. Any one of them will be smarter, more mobile, more adaptible, and more stealthy than your robot. One gets shot, have the next pick up his rifle. If you're being invaded by your larger neighbor, there probably won't be a shortage of young, testosterone-fueled kids with more balls than brains who are willing to defend the homeland. One man suitably motivated by nationalism or religion, and willing to risk/sacrifice his life to take out his target, can take out millions of dollars worth of high-tech gadgetry, as we've seen in Iraq and Vietnam.
Sarah Palin has said that she's in favor of teaching creationism in schools alongside evolution, and that she's not convinced that global warming is caused by human activity. So we've now got a VP candidate who wants to teach religion in science class, and who rejects scientific consensus where it is inconvenient or inconsistent with her ideology. McCain, of course, may have his own views, but his VP choice shows that he's more interested in appeasing the religious right and radical conservatives than insisting that his administration's policies are based on the best scientific evidence available.
If that is the strategy, I don't think that it is going to work particularly well. Sure, Sarah Palin is a woman, but that's where the resemblance to Hillary Clinton starts and ends. She's an evangelical Christian who thinks that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the classroom. She says she's not convinced that global warming is the result of human activity. She opposes abortion even in the case of incest or rape. When the environment and industry are at odds, she's squarely on the side of industry. She does have good qualities, but she actually pushes the ticket to the right in terms of values and issues. As a centrist Democrat, the chances of me voting for McCain have just gone from slim to none.
Of course, that may be intentional: McCain may be trying to shore up his support on the right. If so, then that's a bad sign. The Democrats are enthusiastic and Obama has built a powerful political machine; that McCain is still trying to figure out how to generate enthusiasm this late in the game is not a good sign.
The West kicked the ass of the totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany and Italy in WWII, and then watched communism crumble into the ground. Politically free, free market societies simply tend to do better in the long run than repressive, totalitarian societies. Or look at the Arab dictatorships of the Middle East: sure, a lot of them are wealthy, but they're basically all failures. In scientific terms they have produced nothing, in economic terms they produce nothing except oil, and in military terms, none of them could take on Israel in a fight.
Suppressing political discourse and reporting basically means that the government is no longer accountable for its failures. For instance, if a family protests the fact that a school collapsed in an earthquake and killed their daughter, and you arrest the family (which is the kind of shit the Chinese government is currently doing), well sure it helps the government maintain control. But it also means that the corrupt people who built the substandard schools go free and the problem doesn't get fixed. Perhaps you get stability, but in the long run the lack of government accountability means that the system lacks the ability to improve itself and adapt to changing conditions. Basically, you're saying that the ideas and opinions of 99% of your population aren't worth listening to. That's just a stupid way to run a society. And keep in mind that for all of China's impressive economic growth, the vast majority of the country is still dirt poor. They've managed to create a middle and upper class, but it remains to be seen whether the rest of the country can share in the gains.
The difference is not that the United States has made no mistakes- it's made some pretty awful ones. The difference is that when society feels that these mistakes need to be corrected, the government sooner or later has to respond, because citizens are free to voice their opinions and influence the debate. That happened with the abolition of slavery, and that happened again with the civil rights movement. Elements of the government did try to fight the civil rights movement, but ultimately Martin Luther King was not sent off to a labor camp for re-education. That meant he was able to keep speaking out to persuade our society and our government to try to do the right thing.
Now, it may be true that Georgia was provoking Russia. But at a moment's notice, Russia launched a well-coordinated, overwhelming assault involving their army, navy, and air force, with fronts opened in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The military assault was coordinated with computer attacks and a media propaganda campaign (see, for instance, the "2,000 dead" figure the Russian media kept repeating without ever providing any source or photographs to back up their claims). You simply cannot do what Russia did overnight. It takes weeks or months of planning. Georgia provided the trigger for the war, true, but Russia was clearly waiting for an excuse.
Russia/Georgia, Please solve this quickly.
Here's the underlying issue. Russia (or at least Putin) feels like border states, such as the Ukraine and Georgia, should be subservient to Russia, and not pursue political or military ties to the West. So as far as Russia is concerned, this is very much about the West (EU and NATO). And by invading and occupying a country that is on the flank of Europe, and with close political ties to the U.S., Russia is trying to threaten and intimidate the West. Now the West is in a delicate position- they can't really let this stand, but it's not clear how they can punish Russia either. Regardless, relationships between Russia and the U.S./EU have fundamentally shifted. It's not that a new conflict has started, it's that Europe and the United States are finally waking up and realizing that they're already in the middle of a conflict.
Sun Tzu argued that you have to know your enemy in detail, but prevent your enemy from knowing you: pretend that you are weak where you are strong, and pretend that you are strong where you are weak. Information and deception have always been integral to warfare, and always will be. More modern examples include the Allies managing to trick Hitler into believing that they will invade at Calais, rather than Normandy, and Saddam Hussein pretending that his WMD programs are much stronger than they are (a ploy that backfired, in his case). But I'm not sure technology really changes this that much. It changes how we can collect and disseminate information, but at the end of the day, you need to have smart, educated, capable guys sifting through this information with their brains and giving good advice to their Commander-in-Chief... and a Commander-in-Chief with the brains to listen.
I say we nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Personally, I think the major reason that pirates steal games is that gold-laden Spanish galleons are now awful hard to come by.
Did you pay royalties to repeat that line from the summary? I thought not, you dirty pirate.
Keep in mind that Russia attacked on two fronts: one in South Ossetia, and one in Abkhazia, and it took place on land, on air, at sea, and electronically. From a tactical standpoint, the electronic warfare campaign probably didn't do much, Georgia isn't heavily wired like other countries. What is unsettling is that, according to a New York Times piece, the information attacks began weeks before the actual hostilities. It's clear that the Russians were just waiting for an excuse to go into Georgia.
Did Georgia behave irresponsibly? Sure. But Russia's response- launching a second front in Abkhazia, driving deep into Georgia and cutting the country in half by occupying Gori, bombing the airport in Tblisi, and hitting civilian targets (intentionally or not)- is disproportionate. It would be as if you challenged someone to a fistfight and then he beat you with a baseball bat so badly you ended up in the hospital, and kept beating you after you asked for mercy. And it's one thing when a tiny nation of 30 million does something irresponsible, but Russia is a major economic and military power. What's reallydisturbing about Russia's behavior in Georgia is that it isn't an exception, it's part of a pattern. Look at what we've seen recently: poisoning of a dissident with radioactive Polonium, the media put under strict government control, political dissent largely crushed, the poisoning of an opposition candidate in the Ukraine with dioxin, and now a major military offensive into Georgia. Of course, the way that the Bush Administration has behaved in recent years- suspending the rule of law, 'regime change', domestic spying, and torture- means that America isn't in much of a position to lecture other countries on how to behave. On the other hand, America's international policy is almost guaranteed to improve in November, whereas there is no indication that Putin is surrendering his grasp on power anytime soon.
Oh come on. The games they have on the site look like something that you would have played on a Commodore 64 or an Atari.
Please read the news once in a while. Russia has launched cyberattacks on smaller neighbors before, most notably Estonia. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_on_Estonia_2007
By all accounts, Russia and Georgia are both to blame for what's going on here. But if you look at the pattern of behavior in the past few years... well, we've seen Russian dissidents poisoned with radioactive sushi, Russian journalists assassinated, an opposition leader in the Ukraine poisoned with dioxin... Jesus H. Christ, wake up and smell the coffee already. Maybe we don't think we're in the next phase of the Cold War, but Putin pretty clearly does, and he's acting accordingly.
America has enough enemies in the world that we don't need to make another one out of Russia. And as an American, I don't see any real reason that the United States and Russia can't be allies, rather than enemies. But that doesn't matter; Putin quite clearly thinks otherwise, and that is the only thing that matters. Russia sees the West as a threat, and they are treating us (and the Western-allied Georgia) accordingly. This is not just Russia vs. Georgia, this is Russia vs. Georgia + EU + USA. And the question is, what are the EU and the USA going to do about it? The last thing the United States needs is more conflict and war, of course. But appeasing tyrants is generally not a good move, either.
Question: how does following Russian news media make you in any way, shape, or form "better informed"? You're "better informed" because you can listen to Russian government propaganda without translation? I'm a die-hard Democratic liberal and I trust Fox News far more than I'd trust the Russian news media, given that they tend to silence/censor/murder anyone who reports anything that Putin doesn't like. I would trust pretty much any foreign news service- BBC, NPR, or the like- far more than I would trust Russian news. The Russian media are no better than the state-controlled Soviet media at this point. The Western news media has had some pretty disappointing failures (the New York Times and its parroting of White House allegations on WMD come to mind) but given the authoritarian, Stalinist turn that Russia has taken the past few years, my tendency is to treat anything that comes out of Russia as pure government-controlled nationalist propaganda, nothing more. I'm not saying that makes Georgia right and Russia wrong. But the Russian media has about as much credibility as the Weekly World News with its stories about "Bat Boy" and alien abductions.
Maybe we've finally figured out why we haven't had any luck with SETI yet? Perhaps any civilization advanced enough to begin broadcasting in the radio spectrum will, within 100 years, start running scientific experiments that are sufficiently dangerous to cause the extinction of the species? Is that possible?
On second thought... that's a silly theory, never mind! I'm going to go back to my very important medical experiments. It's pretty cool stuff, actually. I'm using virus-borne DNA to reanimate dead cells to help critically ill people. I think I'm on the verge of a breakthrough but they're going to cut off my funding if I don't get any results soon! Maybe I'll have to take a few shortcuts... use highly unstable, mutation-prone RNA instead of DNA... maybe skip straight to the human testing phase using this cadaver I have lying around my lab...
Anyhow, have a good day everybody!
I've already got a quasiquasicrystal, partway between crystal and not-crystal, in my garage. See, I accidentally mixed a bunch of salt into this big tub of vaseline...
If it's a John Deere brand gravity tractor, yes you do!
I can't imagine any worse torture than that. Your child was killed by a substandard building, put up by a corrupt government. And every month, you get a cash payment, a pension that reminds you of that fact. And it reminds you that instead of seeking justice, instead of standing up for what was right and for your child, you've taken the easy way out. Maybe you're a good citizen, but by signing that form, you've admitted you've abandoned all attempts to be a good parent. I mean, I would want my parents to move on past my death, but I wouldn't want them to be bought off either, I'd want them to tell the government "hey, fuck you buddy". And if I lost a child, I'd want to fight to fix whatever led to that, not just sit there in silence. I don't know. I'd like to think that's what I'd do, anyway, but with a whole nation telling me to be silent, would I have the strength?
I don't know the answer, but this just makes me despise the Chinese government with a renewed passion. And for anyone who cares to stand up and protest this while the Olympics are happening- for the Chinese government's attempt to paint a big happy face over all its atrocities and indecencies against its people and against the human condition, I applaud you, and I wish you well.
I agree COMPLETELY. The beautiful aesthetics of those LEGOs, ruined by those hideous stones.
Yes, and it sounds like this:
click.
click.
clickclick.
click.
clickclickclick.
clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick...