Here's how I deal with my Blackberry: Number one, it's always on buzz. Makes it easier to ignore. Number two, if I'm in a meeting, need to focus on something, or there is something that is a priority, the Blackberry is silent. Yes, I occasionally forget to turn it back on immediately, but that's very rarely a problem.
This leaves me with a device that notifies me of stuff when I want to, gives me the ability to always be in touch (when people pay 7 figures for your software, they expect to have someone they can bitch out if something goes wrong), and makes downtime actually productive (you'd be amazed how annoying the bus trips from the airport to the car lot become if you do it more than once a week).
Here's the important thing: I switch the damn thing off if it bugs me. I'm its master, not the other way around. Anybody who complains that the Blackberry doesn't let them focus has not grasped that concept.
You completely missed the goal of this exercise. This is not about creating bots that know stuff. That part is trivial. If knowledge is your measure of AI, then the Googlespider has already reached Godhood. This is about understanding a question on a more fundamental level, and being able to answer it in a personal fashion. You're right, things haven't progressed much beyond ELIZA in the 80s. That's because this stuff is hard - much, much harder than vision or pattern recognition. No one has a working theory on how we do it, much less an idea on how to translate it into code.
Patience, grasshopper. The day will come when bots will be uncomfortably smart.
It's a popular modern quirk to consider ones time so unique and so different from any other time, but the reality is that people are people and we haven't really changed.
Even that's a very old quirk. You can find quotes from Greek philosophers and Roman politicians about how the youth of their days are just not like in the old days, and how the old days were just generally so much better. How the times don't change.
And then you'll find out on your wedding night that for some odd reason, sex isn't all it's cracked up to be. You're fumbling around, she's fumbling around, and about 30 seconds later it's all over. Being a virgin is overrated. Especially by men.
Because it would have cost less "public money" to research it before hand?:p
Yes - because public servants that are doing some basic research are less expensive than lawyers filing subpoenas to get others to do the same work.
You'll take any excuse that you can find to bash Bush and this one is no different.
And I'm sure you know this because.... you're psychic? Have tracked all my posts and organized them in a little database? Are just plain making stuff up? I take it you're out of brainpower to argue the main point rationally and are down to making random personal comments. Way to go.
Completely, utterly, 100% factually correct. And at the same time, completely, utterly, 100% besides the point. The legality of the subpoena has nothing to do with whether the federal government was or was not completely off its collective rocker when it passed COPA and how it goes about defending it. The latest subpoenas are nothing if not an admission that they didn't do the proper research before passing the act and that they are providing a legislative solution to what is a technical and private problem. Fuck Bush, fuck every one of his little AGs he put into office, fuck everyone who voted for this travesty and who is now spending public money to to research stuff they ought to have known before voting on this act.
a subpoena can indeed be used in any legal proceeding where there is the assumption that someone has information to the lawsuit, investigation or legal proceeding in question, but doesn't want to give it up. So far, so good. But it doesn't mean that anyone can just walk up to anybody and say "Here's a subpoena for your SSN. Fork it over." And please don't get into semantics of whether someone can do it, as opposed to whether someone ought to do it. Otherwise you're just feeding your troll status.
This means that your blanket statement that "private information can be subpoena'd" is incorrect, as it completely neglects context.
Now to put it in context....
please tell what the current technological state of filtering software and personal surfing habits of random people has to do with the formulation of what is essentially an eternal (I'll take any bet that if this law gets passed, it won't get repealed before I die) law that will be applied far into a future whose technology will make that law nothing but a nuisance law?
You might know the definition of a subpoena, but you still lack the brainpower to apply it properly. Now go away before I taunt you a third time.
Troll. Private information can be subpoena'd if a crime has been committed. What crime exactly has been committed here? The only thing being mentioned is that this information will be used to figure out how to better fight a crime that has not yet been committed by someone they don't know. In other words, they are using a legal tool originally designed to help on-going investigations for nothing but a witch hunt.
I hate child porn and everybody engaged in it with a passion, but that doesn't mean that I turn off my brain everytime someone mentions that they're doing "it" to fight child porn. Grow a brain. Or even a brain stem. But stop bending over everytime someone wants something from you.
Uh.... I'll stay polite and simply say that your opinion seems to be a minority opinion. Not having read Butler, I can't compare the two, but I doubt that I would find her better. Lem's writing wasn't so much about science or even fiction as it was about the human mind. I have not found an author anywhere yet who had his command of language and his insights into human nature. Or his caliber of translators, but that's a different story.
I first read the story in German, and there as well, the poems he wrote were translated perfectly. I don't know what it was about Lem that brought out the best translators to do their greatest work, but I'm glad that it was so.
Rest in Peace. Trurl and Klapauzius, Ijon and the machine that could build everything starting with n, you'll be his voice for ages for to come. May you continue to enlighten us.
Hamilton is the little guy? I thought he was the fat guy. Mmmh. My bad indeed. Though I can get from SF to LA on about $60 - not sure if that qualifies as a few Hamiltons or not.
Don't know where the Space Coast is, but I can go from California to Virginia and back for a few Hamiltons. I'd suspect that you can probably do the same.
There's two types of bullies: the insecure/asshole ones who just need a target to feel better, and the truly violent and sadistic ones. For the first group, administrating them a beating will get you a lifetime get-out-of-bullying card. However, the second group will kill you if you fight back. See some of the other stories here. They are in it for the violence itself, for the ghetto thing, for whatever gets them hot. Fighting them will indeed make things worse, and there is indeed only one thing to do - go straight to the cops.
I guess the hard part is figuring out who you're dealing with. Is it just someone who wants some easy money? Do they have a support group? Is the group known to be violent? Base your decision on that. Just taking it though will never help.
Let me ask you this: in 3 words or less, what do pirates do? In 3 words or less, how should pirates be treated? Now try the same exercise with copyright infringers. What's the end result? How do your answers differ? I'll bet you dollars to donuts that they differ. Try it on your friends, too. Get a sample. Then come back.
I've never sat there and thought, "those damn pirates, I wish they would all die. They are making the high seas unsafe" because pirates of those types aren't around and haven't been a big issue in US waters for over 100 years.
Sheesh.... do I have to explain "emotional response" to you? Associative images? Tell you what. Read up on them (Wikipedia is always a good start), continue maybe to the interference of associations with pattern recognition, and then we'll talk again. Deal?
If your defense or attack on copyright infringement/piracy is so weak it rests on the idea of eliciting emotions of some activity that hasn't been experienced en masse in well over one hundred years, you are in real trouble.
Reading comprehension is your friend. Again, for the umpteenth time. "Piracy" vs "copyright infringement" is not about the fundamental issue of whether the current copyright law is good or bad. It's about making the debate about the topic more level. See above for why.
Sigh. You're still missing the point. This is not about historically proper usage or whether people think of men with sabers and parrots on their shoulders when they hear the word "piracy". This is about preventing groups from abusing an emotionally charged word (sort of like "Nazis", except less so) to further their own short term dreams.
Again, this is not about what's historically accurate. Or what's in the dictionary. It's about being able to discuss copyright infringement on level terms.
I know, I know, this is my third post on this topic. But this is far too important to just dismiss. As Orwell and others pointed out, language does influence reasoning. It will be a lot easier to have a productive discussion on copryrights if you don't have to first wade through all the emotions attached to the "piracy".
And you still missed the point why this fight to recenter the word is important. I won't plagiarize my own post from about 2 seconds ago, but the point is that piracy has an emotional baggage to it that the RIAA/MPAA are taking advantage of. Copyright infringement doesn't. Which is why its important that this gets repeated everywhere and everytime.
So - repeat after me. Copyright infringement is not piracy. Copyright infringement is not piracy. Copyright infringement is not piracy. Now, go forth and spread the word. Maybe one day we'll be able to shift this debate back to where it belongs - into the realm of copyright law.
You missed the point of the original poster. Too bad. Otherwise you'd understand that insisting on calling copyright infringement "copyright infringement" and not "piracy" is so that the RIAA/MPAA can't create the emotional response of "hang 'em high!" when they ask what should be done with P2P downloaders.
This is not some academic exercise in language purity. This is a fight to keep the debate about copyright infringement right where it belongs - in the realm of copyright law, not violent takeover of personal property.
One small problem in your math: PS2 users basically can't go online, even if they wanted to. As a result, the sample size is about half, which means the percentage just doubled. At this point, you're not talking sampling error anymore (which is irrelevant anyway, since this is not statistical sampling), but a significant fraction. If you add to it that Online game play is available seriously only on a small fraction of games, and online gameplay suddenly becomes very important. Yes, there is still a significant market for off-line only games. But to say that people don't want to play online is to disregard market reality.
Many places in Europe, IIRC, you can't just fire anyone for any reason
Correct. And this being France, there are some very strict laws about when someone can be fired. The net result of this is that lawsuit about being fired are common, companies are afraid to hire people, and companies can't weather downturns or adapt by firing people. Gee, and the French wonder why their economy isn't as strong as they want it to be.
Before anyone says anything - I actually grew up there and still have family there. Which is one of the reasons why I'm so pissed off about this situation. They're shooting themselves in the foot and don't want to realize it.
I think I know where this is going - "I have no idea about culture, so I'll make myself feel better by putting down culture in general and talks about it." Eh.....
Let's start with your straw man that truly appreciating Shakespeare means only reading him in his original english dialect. Please. Shakespeare isn't still performed today because of the awesomeness of the language he uses. It's because, as someone else already pointed out, his themes still resonate today with people today. His language might have been different, but his ideas are very well presented. Again - it's not the language, it's the ideas.
As for the fact that a lot of people have spoken about the human condition and few are remembered, you're right. Shouldn't that tell you something? Namely that the fella might have said something that was and is still more interesting than what a lot of other people have said? But noooo..... according to you, it means that some people decided to elevate him because they needed to elevate somebody. I'm strangely reminded of various reality-distortion field theories, head-in-the-sand syndromes and other images of people trying to rework reality to match their preconceived ideas.
Seriously, did some English Major bully you in middle school? Chase you with a copy of Hamlet? Leave the conspiracies alone and broaden your mind. You might learn something.
Good god. I alwasy knew you were a bit on the fringe of rationality, but now you just blew straight past the fine line and right into lunacy. Let's look at some your theories, shall we?
1) People don't chase money. People chase goods. Money is simply a standardized means of exchange for goods and services. This means that in a world with a fixed money supply, you won't get more goods and services for the same amount of money. You'll get more people using a static money supply to trade for goods. End result? Money becomes more expensive, and people can afford less. Fortunately, money is not static, not even gold. More expensive money simply means that it buys more, and the effect offsets itself. End result though is that there is no wealth creation, but simply wealth redistribution. History corroborates this. Just take a gander at pretty much all of history until the turn of the century. Wealth was only created by discovering new raw materials, or exchanging time for money.
2) The idea of saving $1 because it will be worth more in the future is already being felt by one country: Japan. And it would love nothing more than to get rid of this pest, as this means guaranteed stagnation. What do you think happens to that dollar that someone doesn't spend? Nothing. Loans are unpopular because any loan that you take will be more expensive to pay back later, even if you just count principal. So nobody lends, nobody buys, everybody stagnates. Hey, look, it's really like Japan! You know, you might learn something if you'd look at the real world rather than how stuff should work in your head.
3) Higher interest rates do not create money by themselves. After all, if we're talking about a static money supply, where does that money come from. And as for inflation confusing entrepreneurs.... good lord, how stupid do you think they are? You seem to not think them too bright. Or do you really think that the concept of adding 2% to everything every year to keep real costs identical is a complex concept? Sheesh, you just might.
Finally, there is a reason the gold standard was abandoned: it's because it is impossible to grow beyond your gold reserves. Furthermore, any sudden discovery of more raw material produces a massive shock to the system that is impossible to foresee and impossible to mitigate. Read up on what happened to the spaniards when they did bring all that gold back from South America.... hyperinflation before hyperinflation was a fancy term bandied around by politicians with an axe to grind.
I do agree that there are certain problems associated with spending more than you make, but they have nothing to do with abandoning the gold standard, and they will certainly be made worse by going back to it. Oh, and try talking to some people who lived through WW2 and see what they think of your idea that WW2 was about saving banks. I'd be surprised if they don't run you out of town with a good ol' mob with pitchforks and stuff.
Seriously, you might want to check your theories against reality. Cuz right now, your reality-distortion field is pounding Jobs' into submission.
Instead of voting, I think we need to start pitching money in a hat to buy rope for those who violate their oath to uphold the Constitution.
Nonono - you got that all wrong. It's "we need to start pitching money in a hat to buy our own senators". Don't vote with a voting box - vote with your dollar! Isn't that the american way anyway?
Meanwhile in many sections of Iraq, people have their first clean water, their first reliable electricity, their first real sewer system, ever. Hundreds of schools, dozens of hospitals exist where no service was available for at least 20 years.
And in many sections of Iraq, they still do not have the clean water, reliable electricity and sewer system they used to have. Moreover, the clinics and hospitals that do exist are completely overrun, understaffed and out of medecine. Oh the joy of anecdotes and incomplete information. Wake up and smell the stench of death and raw sewage.
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Here's how I deal with my Blackberry: Number one, it's always on buzz. Makes it easier to ignore. Number two, if I'm in a meeting, need to focus on something, or there is something that is a priority, the Blackberry is silent. Yes, I occasionally forget to turn it back on immediately, but that's very rarely a problem.
This leaves me with a device that notifies me of stuff when I want to, gives me the ability to always be in touch (when people pay 7 figures for your software, they expect to have someone they can bitch out if something goes wrong), and makes downtime actually productive (you'd be amazed how annoying the bus trips from the airport to the car lot become if you do it more than once a week).
Here's the important thing: I switch the damn thing off if it bugs me. I'm its master, not the other way around. Anybody who complains that the Blackberry doesn't let them focus has not grasped that concept.
You completely missed the goal of this exercise. This is not about creating bots that know stuff. That part is trivial. If knowledge is your measure of AI, then the Googlespider has already reached Godhood. This is about understanding a question on a more fundamental level, and being able to answer it in a personal fashion. You're right, things haven't progressed much beyond ELIZA in the 80s. That's because this stuff is hard - much, much harder than vision or pattern recognition. No one has a working theory on how we do it, much less an idea on how to translate it into code.
Patience, grasshopper. The day will come when bots will be uncomfortably smart.
Even that's a very old quirk. You can find quotes from Greek philosophers and Roman politicians about how the youth of their days are just not like in the old days, and how the old days were just generally so much better. How the times don't change.
And then you'll find out on your wedding night that for some odd reason, sex isn't all it's cracked up to be. You're fumbling around, she's fumbling around, and about 30 seconds later it's all over. Being a virgin is overrated. Especially by men.
Yes - because public servants that are doing some basic research are less expensive than lawyers filing subpoenas to get others to do the same work.
You'll take any excuse that you can find to bash Bush and this one is no different.
And I'm sure you know this because.... you're psychic? Have tracked all my posts and organized them in a little database? Are just plain making stuff up? I take it you're out of brainpower to argue the main point rationally and are down to making random personal comments. Way to go.
Completely, utterly, 100% factually correct. And at the same time, completely, utterly, 100% besides the point. The legality of the subpoena has nothing to do with whether the federal government was or was not completely off its collective rocker when it passed COPA and how it goes about defending it. The latest subpoenas are nothing if not an admission that they didn't do the proper research before passing the act and that they are providing a legislative solution to what is a technical and private problem. Fuck Bush, fuck every one of his little AGs he put into office, fuck everyone who voted for this travesty and who is now spending public money to to research stuff they ought to have known before voting on this act.
a subpoena can indeed be used in any legal proceeding where there is the assumption that someone has information to the lawsuit, investigation or legal proceeding in question, but doesn't want to give it up. So far, so good. But it doesn't mean that anyone can just walk up to anybody and say "Here's a subpoena for your SSN. Fork it over." And please don't get into semantics of whether someone can do it, as opposed to whether someone ought to do it. Otherwise you're just feeding your troll status.
This means that your blanket statement that "private information can be subpoena'd" is incorrect, as it completely neglects context.
Now to put it in context....
please tell what the current technological state of filtering software and personal surfing habits of random people has to do with the formulation of what is essentially an eternal (I'll take any bet that if this law gets passed, it won't get repealed before I die) law that will be applied far into a future whose technology will make that law nothing but a nuisance law?
You might know the definition of a subpoena, but you still lack the brainpower to apply it properly. Now go away before I taunt you a third time.
Good point. Thanks for pointing it out.
Troll. Private information can be subpoena'd if a crime has been committed. What crime exactly has been committed here? The only thing being mentioned is that this information will be used to figure out how to better fight a crime that has not yet been committed by someone they don't know. In other words, they are using a legal tool originally designed to help on-going investigations for nothing but a witch hunt.
I hate child porn and everybody engaged in it with a passion, but that doesn't mean that I turn off my brain everytime someone mentions that they're doing "it" to fight child porn. Grow a brain. Or even a brain stem. But stop bending over everytime someone wants something from you.
Uh.... I'll stay polite and simply say that your opinion seems to be a minority opinion. Not having read Butler, I can't compare the two, but I doubt that I would find her better. Lem's writing wasn't so much about science or even fiction as it was about the human mind. I have not found an author anywhere yet who had his command of language and his insights into human nature. Or his caliber of translators, but that's a different story.
I first read the story in German, and there as well, the poems he wrote were translated perfectly. I don't know what it was about Lem that brought out the best translators to do their greatest work, but I'm glad that it was so.
Rest in Peace. Trurl and Klapauzius, Ijon and the machine that could build everything starting with n, you'll be his voice for ages for to come. May you continue to enlighten us.
Hamilton is the little guy? I thought he was the fat guy. Mmmh. My bad indeed. Though I can get from SF to LA on about $60 - not sure if that qualifies as a few Hamiltons or not.
Don't know where the Space Coast is, but I can go from California to Virginia and back for a few Hamiltons. I'd suspect that you can probably do the same.
There's two types of bullies: the insecure/asshole ones who just need a target to feel better, and the truly violent and sadistic ones. For the first group, administrating them a beating will get you a lifetime get-out-of-bullying card. However, the second group will kill you if you fight back. See some of the other stories here. They are in it for the violence itself, for the ghetto thing, for whatever gets them hot. Fighting them will indeed make things worse, and there is indeed only one thing to do - go straight to the cops.
I guess the hard part is figuring out who you're dealing with. Is it just someone who wants some easy money? Do they have a support group? Is the group known to be violent? Base your decision on that. Just taking it though will never help.
Let me ask you this: in 3 words or less, what do pirates do? In 3 words or less, how should pirates be treated? Now try the same exercise with copyright infringers. What's the end result? How do your answers differ? I'll bet you dollars to donuts that they differ. Try it on your friends, too. Get a sample. Then come back.
Sheesh.... do I have to explain "emotional response" to you? Associative images? Tell you what. Read up on them (Wikipedia is always a good start), continue maybe to the interference of associations with pattern recognition, and then we'll talk again. Deal?
If your defense or attack on copyright infringement/piracy is so weak it rests on the idea of eliciting emotions of some activity that hasn't been experienced en masse in well over one hundred years, you are in real trouble.
Reading comprehension is your friend. Again, for the umpteenth time. "Piracy" vs "copyright infringement" is not about the fundamental issue of whether the current copyright law is good or bad. It's about making the debate about the topic more level. See above for why.
Sigh. You're still missing the point. This is not about historically proper usage or whether people think of men with sabers and parrots on their shoulders when they hear the word "piracy". This is about preventing groups from abusing an emotionally charged word (sort of like "Nazis", except less so) to further their own short term dreams.
Again, this is not about what's historically accurate. Or what's in the dictionary. It's about being able to discuss copyright infringement on level terms.
I know, I know, this is my third post on this topic. But this is far too important to just dismiss. As Orwell and others pointed out, language does influence reasoning. It will be a lot easier to have a productive discussion on copryrights if you don't have to first wade through all the emotions attached to the "piracy".
And you still missed the point why this fight to recenter the word is important. I won't plagiarize my own post from about 2 seconds ago, but the point is that piracy has an emotional baggage to it that the RIAA/MPAA are taking advantage of. Copyright infringement doesn't. Which is why its important that this gets repeated everywhere and everytime.
So - repeat after me. Copyright infringement is not piracy. Copyright infringement is not piracy. Copyright infringement is not piracy. Now, go forth and spread the word. Maybe one day we'll be able to shift this debate back to where it belongs - into the realm of copyright law.
You missed the point of the original poster. Too bad. Otherwise you'd understand that insisting on calling copyright infringement "copyright infringement" and not "piracy" is so that the RIAA/MPAA can't create the emotional response of "hang 'em high!" when they ask what should be done with P2P downloaders.
This is not some academic exercise in language purity. This is a fight to keep the debate about copyright infringement right where it belongs - in the realm of copyright law, not violent takeover of personal property.
One small problem in your math: PS2 users basically can't go online, even if they wanted to. As a result, the sample size is about half, which means the percentage just doubled. At this point, you're not talking sampling error anymore (which is irrelevant anyway, since this is not statistical sampling), but a significant fraction. If you add to it that Online game play is available seriously only on a small fraction of games, and online gameplay suddenly becomes very important. Yes, there is still a significant market for off-line only games. But to say that people don't want to play online is to disregard market reality.
Correct. And this being France, there are some very strict laws about when someone can be fired. The net result of this is that lawsuit about being fired are common, companies are afraid to hire people, and companies can't weather downturns or adapt by firing people. Gee, and the French wonder why their economy isn't as strong as they want it to be.
Before anyone says anything - I actually grew up there and still have family there. Which is one of the reasons why I'm so pissed off about this situation. They're shooting themselves in the foot and don't want to realize it.
I think I know where this is going - "I have no idea about culture, so I'll make myself feel better by putting down culture in general and talks about it." Eh.....
Let's start with your straw man that truly appreciating Shakespeare means only reading him in his original english dialect. Please. Shakespeare isn't still performed today because of the awesomeness of the language he uses. It's because, as someone else already pointed out, his themes still resonate today with people today. His language might have been different, but his ideas are very well presented. Again - it's not the language, it's the ideas.
As for the fact that a lot of people have spoken about the human condition and few are remembered, you're right. Shouldn't that tell you something? Namely that the fella might have said something that was and is still more interesting than what a lot of other people have said? But noooo..... according to you, it means that some people decided to elevate him because they needed to elevate somebody. I'm strangely reminded of various reality-distortion field theories, head-in-the-sand syndromes and other images of people trying to rework reality to match their preconceived ideas.
Seriously, did some English Major bully you in middle school? Chase you with a copy of Hamlet? Leave the conspiracies alone and broaden your mind. You might learn something.
Good god. I alwasy knew you were a bit on the fringe of rationality, but now you just blew straight past the fine line and right into lunacy. Let's look at some your theories, shall we?
1) People don't chase money. People chase goods. Money is simply a standardized means of exchange for goods and services. This means that in a world with a fixed money supply, you won't get more goods and services for the same amount of money. You'll get more people using a static money supply to trade for goods. End result? Money becomes more expensive, and people can afford less. Fortunately, money is not static, not even gold. More expensive money simply means that it buys more, and the effect offsets itself. End result though is that there is no wealth creation, but simply wealth redistribution. History corroborates this. Just take a gander at pretty much all of history until the turn of the century. Wealth was only created by discovering new raw materials, or exchanging time for money.
2) The idea of saving $1 because it will be worth more in the future is already being felt by one country: Japan. And it would love nothing more than to get rid of this pest, as this means guaranteed stagnation. What do you think happens to that dollar that someone doesn't spend? Nothing. Loans are unpopular because any loan that you take will be more expensive to pay back later, even if you just count principal. So nobody lends, nobody buys, everybody stagnates. Hey, look, it's really like Japan! You know, you might learn something if you'd look at the real world rather than how stuff should work in your head.
3) Higher interest rates do not create money by themselves. After all, if we're talking about a static money supply, where does that money come from. And as for inflation confusing entrepreneurs.... good lord, how stupid do you think they are? You seem to not think them too bright. Or do you really think that the concept of adding 2% to everything every year to keep real costs identical is a complex concept? Sheesh, you just might.
Finally, there is a reason the gold standard was abandoned: it's because it is impossible to grow beyond your gold reserves. Furthermore, any sudden discovery of more raw material produces a massive shock to the system that is impossible to foresee and impossible to mitigate. Read up on what happened to the spaniards when they did bring all that gold back from South America.... hyperinflation before hyperinflation was a fancy term bandied around by politicians with an axe to grind.
I do agree that there are certain problems associated with spending more than you make, but they have nothing to do with abandoning the gold standard, and they will certainly be made worse by going back to it. Oh, and try talking to some people who lived through WW2 and see what they think of your idea that WW2 was about saving banks. I'd be surprised if they don't run you out of town with a good ol' mob with pitchforks and stuff.
Seriously, you might want to check your theories against reality. Cuz right now, your reality-distortion field is pounding Jobs' into submission.
Nonono - you got that all wrong. It's "we need to start pitching money in a hat to buy our own senators". Don't vote with a voting box - vote with your dollar! Isn't that the american way anyway?
And in many sections of Iraq, they still do not have the clean water, reliable electricity and sewer system they used to have. Moreover, the clinics and hospitals that do exist are completely overrun, understaffed and out of medecine. Oh the joy of anecdotes and incomplete information. Wake up and smell the stench of death and raw sewage.