It's hard to find examples of religious lunatics exercising power in the States recently:P.
I imagine the targets would be different, and the system we've got in place still has enough protection that they can't go out and be quite so blatant about it, but I can easily see a highly religious government in the states doing things like arresting homosexuals for sodomy, or getting a lot more hard line on "christian values."
Most of the older people I know (mid-30's+) aren't even aware Anonymous exists, while most of the younger people I know are aware of it, or actively participating. Even when I go out of my nerdish subset of friends they're aware of it, even if they don't consider anonymous to be particularly relevant.
Anonymous is a clue to the direction the world is heading, spontaneously organized mobs of individuals who become very upset about something, and do something about it. I predict, in the future, this method of organizing people will grow more and more popular as more people people plug into the mentality. One day, we'll start to wonder how we ever lived our lives in any other way.
Sorta've like how the 'net used to be something only basement-dwelling nerds used, now it's mainstream.
Unlawful combatant is a term applied to what would be 'prisoners of war' if they fell into one of the lawful categories of the third Geneva Convention:
"Art 4. A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy: (1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
(2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:[ (a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) that of carrying arms openly; (d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
(3) Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.
(4) Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization, from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.
(5) Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.
(6) Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war."
The idea of this was to prevent Asymmetric warfare from taking place, like what is currently happening in Afghanistan. In a "proper" war, there's a clear winner and loser and while the occupied people may grumble about it a little (or a lot), they won't needlessly prolong the conflict.
Compare\Contrast if a German or Japanese person were to go around killing US soldiers occupying their country, that person would not be a "combatant" allowed to go free at the end of the conflict without any repercussions, he would simply be a "murderer" and subject to normal criminal penalties.
Dyncorp was sponsoring Bacha Bazi parties where this shit goes on, and knew enough about what was actually happening to be scared shitless when a reporter came snooping around.
The procurement and beating of small boys at Bacha parties is not made up
I'm willing to believe employees of Dyncorp didn't intentionally set out to do this, but they (and the US government) turned a blind eye to it happening, and spent a good deal of time covering it up.
Furthermore, if the Persian culture were so beautiful and warm, why does it manage such a convincing pretense of the most grievously hateful, greedy, selfish, violent, sexist, backward, theocratic barbarism outside Africa itself?
It's sorta've like if the Kansas board of education got elected to national office, and started running shit in America. Or like how we Americans are had to be very clear during the Bush years that, yes, our American government is a bunch of assholes, but individual Americans aren't necessarily like that.
A good portion of the population isn't like that, and is embarrassed by it.
I've known enough individual Persians who aren't religious lunatics to know it's not an inherently broken culture. There's just a lot more lunatics per capita.
works for me too, I figured it was because I was on campus though...
From the 'Results' Section:
"Previous studies have shown diffusion potential across the cuticle, with the inside negative with respect to the outside. Digby (1965) has suggested that electrons move through the semiconductive cuticular layer. This process creates calcium carbonate that precipitates in the cuticle. In conclusion, we have presented evidence supporting the hypothesis that the Oriental hornet has evolved a cuticle design to harvest solar energy. RCWA simulations show that the surface structures confer AR and light-trapping properties, enhancing absorption by approximately 5% compared to a flat surface. The xanthopterin pigment found within the cuticle has been proven to be a suitable absorber of light for the harvesting of solar energy by a demonstration of its use in an organic solar cell, with a conversion efficiency of 0.335%. Future work will focus in investigating the complex layered structure observed in the cuticle cross-sections, and its possible role in solar energy harvesting."
It seems like this paper was concerned solely with establishing whether the Wasp actually collects solar energy, not where it goes once it's been collected. The reference to "This process creates calcium carbonate that precipitates in the cuticle. " Is about the only thing I could describe as the 'end result' of the process, and doesn't mean a whole lot to me.
Someone with a better background in chemistry or biology care to comment?
The US did want to help Europe, and was already providing economic assistance. Entering a European war was an unpopular idea to many people in the United States at the time, because it was Europe's problem, why should American sons die for it. They always believed war could never be effectively waged across the ocean, and a European war coming on American soil was pretty unthinkable.
It was popular in the upper echelons of the government however, because they were aware war COULD effectively be waged across the pacific, and all the old economic benefits of a wartime economy were as known back then as they are now. Pearl Harbor was what allowed politicians to convince the American public to enter the war.
Millions being murdered by the Nazis provided great American PR, but it was never really the prime motivator.
The current education system trains people to accept their place in life, encourages them to accept it and teaches them how to do so effectively.
The brilliance of it all comes from the fact that a fair number of people are willing to do just that, accept being "mere" workers their entire lives. The only thing that's really changed is that the few who absolutely refuse to accept their lot in life have the opportunity to spend even more time working their asses off for EVEN MORE benefit to the wealthy in the vain hope of actually breaking into the upper class.
Compare this to China (or previous political systems used in the west) - where refusing to accept your lot in life forces those in power to waste time and effort stomping you back down.
I can remember this being explained to you before.
commodore64_love personally.
When the Supreme Court decides a case due to the law involved being unconstitutional, every lower court is bound to accept that ruling, making the law completely unenforceable.
Furthermore, upon appeal of anyone already convicted under a law declared unconstitutional, the defense can point out that the law in question has been declared unconstitutional, binding the appeals court to accept that ruling, and set the defendant free.
Calling the law "Nullified" is simply a more streamlined realization of this fact.
All the equations I've ever seen modelling the radiation of heat have the emissivitiy value identical for both the absorbtion and emission of heat.
I.E. Absorbtion and emission of heat are the exact same thing mathmatically, they're just arbitrary terms that describe what "direction" the heat is travelling.
I always figured it was because the keys were mass-produced, and it's cheaper to just make a few more with braille still on them then to create special "Drive-through ATMs"
Social Security is $14.7 trillion in debt (and already in the red despite the projections we wouldn't be for another 7 years), Medicare is $77.1 trillion in arrears and likewise Medicare D is $19.4 trillion in the hole. We don't have the money for the entitlements we already have (and the "lock box" is a box full of promissory notes that, one day, Congress will pay back the money from the general fund that they've been stealing since 1967 to hide the deficits created by the Great Society and Vietnam). The CBO scoring of Obamacare was deliberately skewed by the assumptions they had to abide by written into the law and it ignores that the Doctor Fix alone was enough to obliterate the fake "savings."
Not that I have any doubts that the government is mismanaging health care along with the rest of our assets, but those numbers are a couple orders of magnitude off from what I thought was the worst case scenario at present. Where are you getting your information?
I'm 26, and still stay in touch with a couple people from High School, hear about a couple more every once in a while.
Most of the 'cool kids' ended up pretty average. Middle Management or equivalent, spouse\kids.
Most of the nerd kids (I.E. my friends) either ended up at rock-bottom, currently unemployed or may as well be - Or they shot straight up with a Science-related degree and great job (but few with a spouse o.o).
It's interesting to me to really think about it, because I never really had before.
I spent a little time over in Afghanistan on one of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (the people responsible for trying to put that country back together, which I can rant about for pages, but I'll focus on this subject right now) - I had the chance to talk with a large number of people.
By and large, the people doing the actual fighting are motivated by either religious reasons (everything you've described so far), or personal reasons (had a family member\friend die due to the Americans, lost their livelihood, etc). By focusing on all the devilish practices Americans are said to have, it's easily possible to motivate a large number of Afghanis to keep the insurgency going, keep hate directed at the west, etc.
The actual leaders are often the ones with political motivation. American foreign policy has made Islamic political leaders very wary of the west, and very willing to fight against us. On the ground in Afghanistan it's for local power or just a desire to have us gone. At the international level, it's an ongoing cultural and political war where they've got a long memory of getting burned by western powers when diplomacy was tried, so they're still a bit bitter.
Basically, the religion is a very effective tool to motivate the masses, just like it's always been.
Slashdot Mirror
The G.I. Bill is a Wonderful thing, and already exists.
I also misused "there's"
Should have been "there are."
Probably another two or three mistakes in there that I'm not seeing either. If you're going to be a Grammar Nazi, do it right, goddammit.
It's hard to find examples of religious lunatics exercising power in the States recently :P.
I imagine the targets would be different, and the system we've got in place still has enough protection that they can't go out and be quite so blatant about it, but I can easily see a highly religious government in the states doing things like arresting homosexuals for sodomy, or getting a lot more hard line on "christian values."
Most of the older people I know (mid-30's+) aren't even aware Anonymous exists, while most of the younger people I know are aware of it, or actively participating. Even when I go out of my nerdish subset of friends they're aware of it, even if they don't consider anonymous to be particularly relevant.
Anonymous is a clue to the direction the world is heading, spontaneously organized mobs of individuals who become very upset about something, and do something about it. I predict, in the future, this method of organizing people will grow more and more popular as more people people plug into the mentality. One day, we'll start to wonder how we ever lived our lives in any other way.
Sorta've like how the 'net used to be something only basement-dwelling nerds used, now it's mainstream.
Unlawful combatant is a term applied to what would be 'prisoners of war' if they fell into one of the lawful categories of the third Geneva Convention:
"Art 4. A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
(1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
(2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:[
(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) that of carrying arms openly;
(d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
(3) Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.
(4) Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization, from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.
(5) Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.
(6) Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war."
The idea of this was to prevent Asymmetric warfare from taking place, like what is currently happening in Afghanistan. In a "proper" war, there's a clear winner and loser and while the occupied people may grumble about it a little (or a lot), they won't needlessly prolong the conflict.
Compare\Contrast if a German or Japanese person were to go around killing US soldiers occupying their country, that person would not be a "combatant" allowed to go free at the end of the conflict without any repercussions, he would simply be a "murderer" and subject to normal criminal penalties.
Did you read the cable, or the link?
Dyncorp was sponsoring Bacha Bazi parties where this shit goes on, and knew enough about what was actually happening to be scared shitless when a reporter came snooping around.
The procurement and beating of small boys at Bacha parties is not made up
and Dyncorp has Done this before.
I'm willing to believe employees of Dyncorp didn't intentionally set out to do this, but they (and the US government) turned a blind eye to it happening, and spent a good deal of time covering it up.
Furthermore, if the Persian culture were so beautiful and warm, why does it manage such a convincing pretense of the most grievously hateful, greedy, selfish, violent, sexist, backward, theocratic barbarism outside Africa itself?
It's sorta've like if the Kansas board of education got elected to national office, and started running shit in America. Or like how we Americans are had to be very clear during the Bush years that, yes, our American government is a bunch of assholes, but individual Americans aren't necessarily like that.
A good portion of the population isn't like that, and is embarrassed by it.
I've known enough individual Persians who aren't religious lunatics to know it's not an inherently broken culture. There's just a lot more lunatics per capita.
works for me too, I figured it was because I was on campus though...
From the 'Results' Section:
"Previous studies have shown diffusion potential across the
cuticle, with the inside negative with respect to the outside.
Digby (1965) has suggested that electrons move through the
semiconductive cuticular layer. This process creates calcium
carbonate that precipitates in the cuticle. In conclusion, we
have presented evidence supporting the hypothesis that the
Oriental hornet has evolved a cuticle design to harvest solar
energy. RCWA simulations show that the surface structures
confer AR and light-trapping properties, enhancing absorption
by approximately 5% compared to a flat surface. The
xanthopterin pigment found within the cuticle has been
proven to be a suitable absorber of light for the harvesting of
solar energy by a demonstration of its use in an organic solar
cell, with a conversion efficiency of 0.335%. Future work
will focus in investigating the complex layered structure
observed in the cuticle cross-sections, and its possible role in
solar energy harvesting."
It seems like this paper was concerned solely with establishing whether the Wasp actually collects solar energy, not where it goes once it's been collected. The reference to "This process creates calcium carbonate that precipitates in the cuticle. " Is about the only thing I could describe as the 'end result' of the process, and doesn't mean a whole lot to me.
Someone with a better background in chemistry or biology care to comment?
lolwut?
The US did want to help Europe, and was already providing economic assistance. Entering a European war was an unpopular idea to many people in the United States at the time, because it was Europe's problem, why should American sons die for it. They always believed war could never be effectively waged across the ocean, and a European war coming on American soil was pretty unthinkable.
It was popular in the upper echelons of the government however, because they were aware war COULD effectively be waged across the pacific, and all the old economic benefits of a wartime economy were as known back then as they are now. Pearl Harbor was what allowed politicians to convince the American public to enter the war.
Millions being murdered by the Nazis provided great American PR, but it was never really the prime motivator.
The current education system trains people to accept their place in life, encourages them to accept it and teaches them how to do so effectively.
The brilliance of it all comes from the fact that a fair number of people are willing to do just that, accept being "mere" workers their entire lives. The only thing that's really changed is that the few who absolutely refuse to accept their lot in life have the opportunity to spend even more time working their asses off for EVEN MORE benefit to the wealthy in the vain hope of actually breaking into the upper class.
Compare this to China (or previous political systems used in the west) - where refusing to accept your lot in life forces those in power to waste time and effort stomping you back down.
ridiculous, everyone knows he's in Italy.
I can remember this being explained to you before.
commodore64_love personally.
When the Supreme Court decides a case due to the law involved being unconstitutional, every lower court is bound to accept that ruling, making the law completely unenforceable.
Furthermore, upon appeal of anyone already convicted under a law declared unconstitutional, the defense can point out that the law in question has been declared unconstitutional, binding the appeals court to accept that ruling, and set the defendant free.
Calling the law "Nullified" is simply a more streamlined realization of this fact.
All the equations I've ever seen modelling the radiation of heat have the emissivitiy value identical for both the absorbtion and emission of heat.
I.E. Absorbtion and emission of heat are the exact same thing mathmatically, they're just arbitrary terms that describe what "direction" the heat is travelling.
Protip: using the phrase
"nor have I heard of this "etc" you refer to"
is not funny, even as sarcasm or irony. It never will be either, in any circumstance.
Don't be a jerk.
You must be new here.
lolwut?
If you have a better way to keep in touch with friends who live on the other side of the planet, I'm all ears.
I always figured it was because the keys were mass-produced, and it's cheaper to just make a few more with braille still on them then to create special "Drive-through ATMs"
depends where you live.
Most of the Graffiti around where I live (the 'burbs) is done by some damn kids with too much time on their hands.
Least they finally got off my lawn though.
Social Security is $14.7 trillion in debt (and already in the red despite the projections we wouldn't be for another 7 years), Medicare is $77.1 trillion in arrears and likewise Medicare D is $19.4 trillion in the hole. We don't have the money for the entitlements we already have (and the "lock box" is a box full of promissory notes that, one day, Congress will pay back the money from the general fund that they've been stealing since 1967 to hide the deficits created by the Great Society and Vietnam). The CBO scoring of Obamacare was deliberately skewed by the assumptions they had to abide by written into the law and it ignores that the Doctor Fix alone was enough to obliterate the fake "savings."
Not that I have any doubts that the government is mismanaging health care along with the rest of our assets, but those numbers are a couple orders of magnitude off from what I thought was the worst case scenario at present. Where are you getting your information?
But the content itself hasn't actually changed!
Agreed,
I'm 26, and still stay in touch with a couple people from High School, hear about a couple more every once in a while.
Most of the 'cool kids' ended up pretty average. Middle Management or equivalent, spouse\kids.
Most of the nerd kids (I.E. my friends) either ended up at rock-bottom, currently unemployed or may as well be - Or they shot straight up with a Science-related degree and great job (but few with a spouse o.o).
It's interesting to me to really think about it, because I never really had before.
It's a funny thing, both are true.
I spent a little time over in Afghanistan on one of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (the people responsible for trying to put that country back together, which I can rant about for pages, but I'll focus on this subject right now) - I had the chance to talk with a large number of people.
By and large, the people doing the actual fighting are motivated by either religious reasons (everything you've described so far), or personal reasons (had a family member\friend die due to the Americans, lost their livelihood, etc). By focusing on all the devilish practices Americans are said to have, it's easily possible to motivate a large number of Afghanis to keep the insurgency going, keep hate directed at the west, etc.
The actual leaders are often the ones with political motivation. American foreign policy has made Islamic political leaders very wary of the west, and very willing to fight against us. On the ground in Afghanistan it's for local power or just a desire to have us gone. At the international level, it's an ongoing cultural and political war where they've got a long memory of getting burned by western powers when diplomacy was tried, so they're still a bit bitter.
Basically, the religion is a very effective tool to motivate the masses, just like it's always been.
Evolution is clearly a lie, won't these "Scientists" Ever realize that?
Reality disagrees with your opinions.
Free Willy!