The big problem that I have with your argument is that you've stopped making one. You make an accusation, I respond, and then you make another one unrelated to what I said. That can only mean that you don't believe what you say you do since you are not able to disprove any of my points. Neither do you back any of your points up with anything other than rhetoric. I haven't seen one link or fact to support any of your mostly baseless accusations.
Again, you should really come to the US. You'll see that this isn't a bad place.
If you really believe that we are worse than say Iraq under Saddam, than I really hope you take a trip to see this country. To fix that mistaken belief, all you need to do is to come here and visit. You'll see we're not nearly as bad as you were led to believe.
You also make the accusation that we kill without remorse. You are mistaken when you think that. Never did I say that I personally, nor we as a people didn't regret that. We do.
Murder is murder, I agree. If someone hurts me, I will hurt them to make sure they can't do it again. That's all this is about. I truly hope you can live your life without someone ever hurting you or your country the way ours has been attacked. That's the only way I can see you being able to keep that attitude.
Fighting the Russians wasn't about saving you. It was about saving us.
Right, the rest of the world be damned. Lives don't matter. It's your make believe world of being altruistic that is the main thing to protect. I thought I'd humour you, guess you didn't get the joke.
What are you trying to say here? It doesn't make any sense. Lives don't matter? Make believe world? How does that relate to the Cold War?
You thought you'd humor me, but I didn't get the joke? In the sense of the way that phrase is used, humoring someone, means giving someone the latitude to make a point; even while you disagree with their premise. Making a joke has nothing to do with that.
If your joke is, as I suspect it is, that you believe that the world would be better under communism or socialism, and that the Cold War was about preventing that to the US, well, that's fine. I think socialism is wrong, along with communism, but there's nothing wrong with you believing that. It's a shame, but you go right ahead and think whatever you like
Right, about the time you fighting the communists and stuck your nose into other people's business, played both sides, and started the war that you fight now. Great plan so far.
Again, I'm not following you here. We started fighting the communists, vis a vie, the Soviet Union shortly after the end of WW2. One could make a fair argument that the Cold War started before it, but I don't think the exact date matters. The first proxy war between the US and the USSR, our first war with the communists, was in 1950 fought by request of the UN in Korea. A war, I might add, that legally hasn't ended. Legally, we've had a truce for the last 55 years.
How does that have anything to do with terrorists from the Middle East taking over US commercial aircraft 20 years later in the 1970s? I'm not playing both sides. The war against the terrorists started when they started taking over our commercial aircraft in the 70s. Our war against the Communists, the Cold War, started when we stopped trusting each other around the same time WW2 ended.
Your timelines don't match up. Also, America's foreign policy up to WW2 was isolationism. We regretted even fighting WW1, and had no desire to get involved overseas except for trade. The war, WW2, came to us. We didn't ask Japan to attack Pearl Harbor, any more than we asked Germany to attack our shipping in the Atlantic.
During this long back and forth we've had, you started off making thoughtful comments that I enjoyed responding to. Then, you stopped responding to my comments, and resorted to making silly and off topic comments. Is it that you are bad at arguing, or you've realized that you are wrong, and don't want to admit it?
We aren't losing this war. How can you say we are? I don't get it? Iraq has a democratically elected government. Their army has taken control of most of the country. Al Queda is defeated there; again even if they arrived after we did, doesn't matter, they are defeated there now.
As for Bush senior, well, isn't that just a silly comment you are making? Honestly, no one dislike him. He fought a war in Iraq that even the Saudis supported. Bush Junior, well, I can't argue about him. Still, for better or worse, we elected him. Saddam, he was not elected, and was truly an evil man. Bush Jr, well, there's no comparison. To do so is to prove how full of your own bullshit you are. I don't like him either, but still, compared ot Saddam, he's a saint.
Fighting the Russians wasn't about saving you. It was about saving us.
As for killing us vs killing them, well I don't think you've been reading my posts. As I said, attacks against us have been going on for 30 years. Only in the last 5 have we done any killing back.
I can see how you would call what we're doing terrorism, but you're repeatedly ignoring a huge point. The people who attacked us are hiding amongst the civilians there. If they weren't amongst the civilians, we would kill any civilians in our attempt to kill those who attacked us.
Us a terrorist or them? Well, they hit us first, so yes it is how we respond. Again, we don't think about conflict resolution with only death. For the last 30 years, we used law enforcement. It didn't work.
Are you so caught up in your own thoughts that you can't read mine?
Vietnam is a poor analogy. We went into Vietnam to support a corrupt but non-communist government. Iraq we removed an EVIL dictator; sure we did it for other reasons, but it's a big difference. Vietnam was a proxy war against the USSR. Iraq was intended to be a direct war against a nation harboring a non-governmental group who attacked us. Harboring them made them a target.
For the record, I still think a lot of the Iraq stuff was garbage, and we'd probably be better off if we didn't go there in the first place. Better leave the Iraqis with that nut job and his crazy sons.
Also, perhaps you haven't been reading the news lately, but we won in Iraq. Violence is down, Iraq's army is taking over more and more territory from us. We went in there for the wrong reason, but it worked. Vietnam, we left on their terms, and our goal to prevent it from being communist failed. Saddam is dead. His sons are dead. A democratically elected government is in Iraq. Al queda, regardless if they arrived before or after our invasion, they were there after it, is defeated there. I'd call that a solid win.
it's not so simple, because we tried that before. 9/11 is not the first time we faced terrorism. It started in the 70s, and the attackes escalated in intensity every time after that. Hell, the WTC was hit before, and only luck prevented it from falling then. This is the first time we went out with our army against terrorism, and I will agree that invading Iraq was a bad choice. The problem is I'm not sure what would have been a better choice? The people who did it were all from the Middle East. The people who helped them were too, regardless if they called themselves Al Queda or not. It doesn't matter. We needed to find them, and the best intelligence we have is that they are in Pakistan now. So, we go there.
Don't be so silly as to believe that Americans are all white, and only kill brown people. Only 60% of this country is of European decent. Only 10% of the world is. It's simple math to think that we'd mostly be fighting non white people.
Beyond that, we are helping to rebuild Iraq. We are spending billions of our money to do that, and you can't say that removing Saddam from that country was not a good thing. Our reasons for being there, our methods while there, have not been right, but getting rid of him was still a good thing.
Don't also be so foolish to think that we will kill every one. If we wanted to do that, there are easier ways. We have prepared to kill Russians, more white people, for the last 60 years. We built up a huge supply of nuclear missiles that can hit any spot on the planet in 30 minutes or less; just like the Russians did. If we wanted to kill anyone, we could, but we haven't because that is not what we want. We simply want the terrorism that started in the 70s to stop.
I will agree that invading Iraq made it worse. Afganistan, well, most folks there seem to want us there, for the moment anyway.
Also, don't forget that we went to war in Bosnia to help save muslims there. We went to war in Kuwait to help save Muslims there. Went went to Somailia to help feed non white people there. After the Tsunami, we sent our Navy there to help feed people.
Americans don't hate Muslims, people from the Middle East, or anything like that at all. The truth is that we want the same things you want; to be able to live your life as best you can according to the values you have. We do want the terrorism to stop, and again, invading Iraq didn't help that. We will not kill everyone; that's just silly.
Hell, my wish for you is only that we can change your mind about us over time. Hopefully, we will do that.
Again there, I disagree. I don't know what country you live in, but I can speak to the legal system here. In the US, if you intend to kill someone, and kill them, we'll execute you. We call that murder; there are 3 levels of it, but intent matters. If you kill someone out of recklessness, we call that manslaughter, and it means you'll spend a lot of time in jail.
Besides, if we didn't care at all about those people, why use cruise missiles or smart bombs at all? It would be a lot cheaper, easier, and safer for our own troops to use a fuel air weapon. We can kill every one in an area the size of a few football(your or my version) fields across with a single bomb. We used those weapons in Vietnam to clear landing areas for our helicopters. The ones we have now are even more powerful than those we used then.
Either way, I am not saying that killing those folks isn't wrong, but it's less wrong since it's not our intent.
It's still worse that the people we are trying to kill knowingly hide amongst those innocent people.
Those villiagers lives are less important than your retaliatory war of lies. Got it. 3,000 of our people died, so we'll take 300,000 of yours.
You're partially right there. The only way to ensure we don't kill those folks is to not attack, since the people we're trying to kill willingly hide amongst those villagers. We have only two options, don't kill the people we want to kill, or kill the people we want to kill and kill innocent villagers. We choose option b.
Do the numbers of the dead really matter? Would it have been any better or any worse if we stopped when we killed 1,000, 2,000, or even 3,000? That's not the point, and it never should be in war. It's not about getting even. War is about making sure the other side can never hurt you again. That's why we didn't stop at 3,000, 10,000, or whatever. By the way, where do you get the 300,000. I've been following this war as close as anyone, and I think that number is insanely high.
Like I said, don't claim to be the good guys. There are no good guys involved.
This statement is even more fair. There is no way to consider war good. Even a richeous war will still hurt many people; if only the ones who need to do the fighting. Still, and I don't expect I could change your mind here, but I'll add a few more words in a vain attempt, think about those people who are hiding amongst the villagers. They know full well that their presence there will draw attacks from us. They are counting on that. Their belief is that if we kill enough innocents, then we will stop hunting them. They also know that is their only hope, since if they tried to stand up to us directly, they'd lose in days if not less time than that. To us, we are good, since we are not hiding amongst the innocents. We clearly mark our military bases. Hit them, as they did in Lebanon in 82, or the USS Cole more recently.
It's interesting that you focused on that statement in that way. You chose not to comment on any other part.
We did intentionally kill civilians in WW2; all the firebombing raid, nuclear attacks, etc, were aimed at the civilian populous. That's the difference here. Flying our planes over villages here and now, our intent is not to kill those civilians, but to kill those terrorists hiding amongst them.
The truth is that those idiots should not be hiding in those towns; they should stay out in the open. The reason they won't do that is that they'd last about 2 seconds if they did.
Ultimately, you're wrong. We do not intend to kill those civilians, but we accept that they will die in order for us to kill the people hiding amongst them.
I have no problem with you hating us, but I want you to do it for the right reason. Those villagers are dieing because their lives are acceptable losses to us so that we can kill the people we intend to kill.
No group that has fought a war has ever not killed non-combatants. Ever. Every group, whether they be sword carrying tribes from 1000 years ago, or modern groups with guns, they all have.
The difference is intent. Since the second World War, the US hasn't intentionally killed civilians. Still, it probably will happen intentionally again.
The distinction we make, and the thing that we think separates us from them, is that we weren't trying to kill those civilians.
We're not the only ones using land mines, and they are no different than IEDs. Again, though, our intent is different in their usage. We try to avoid it. In spite of that event that you mention, we developed precision weapons for that specific purpose. We will have to fight where civilians live because the people we are trying to kill are hiding there.
You can argue whether or not we should be there in the first place, I'm betting we agree on that point, but that's a different argument.
Now I see the problem. I am in the US market, and was only talking about it. Volume based pricing is on it's way in to the US market. Several of the major players, including the one I use Time Warner Cable, are instituting volume based limits. As of today, they have not instituted any warnings to customers as they approach them.
While one major player is talking about 250GB as their cap, mine is talking about 30-40. In one area, some place in Texas, they already instituted it.
So, I can complain, should complain, and hopefully will be able to do something about it; ie switch to Verizon's Fios product, as soon as it comes to my neighborhood. (They are currently deploying it to all of NYC.)
So it doesn't use electricity? No one has to be paid to maintain it? There is no rent nor any taxes for the cost of the buildings? No moron has ever cut a line with a backhoe or even a shovel, that has to be repaired? Bandwidth is cheap compared to the initial costs of creating the capacity, but it still has a cost. That cost is the maintenance of the hardware. Initially at least, the cost of the installation must also be recovered.
While I do not doubt that they scrimp on maintenance, your argument is right as it is in their interest to do so, it's still not free.
I will concede the point that it is mostly profit, and that we are not getting what we are paying for.
More importantly, I do agree that we should be paying less, much less. The only reason we are paying so much, for so little is the lack of competition. This is why I can't wait for FIOS to get to my neighborhood. Then, finally, there will be at least some competition. That will help some. New regulation is the only thing that I think will get us the rest of the way to prices more in line with the rest of the world; at the least.
they need to upgrade their infrastructure to meet the times, not start regressing us back to the stone age!
Um, could you be any more melodramatic? The fact is that bandwidth costs money. I'd rather them at least be honest with what I am getting for my money. That's a simple setup, and not byzantine. Clearly you don't know what the word means. Anyway, the content consumer, and that person alone, is the one who should pay for the bandwidth. That keeps the net neutrality, and allows the innovation.
You must not have read my comment if you think I said that the content provider should pay; always, only the consumer.
I disagree. You are quibbling. AOL, and the other dial-up ISPs offered unlimited bandwidth and limited time. Cable modems, DSL, etc offered 24 hour and no bandwidth limits. they never said i had any bandwidth limits.
where is volume based pricing available? i'm not aware of any US ISP offering it. I'm betting you're not talking about a US ISP. I can say with certainly, that none of the major ISPs in the NYC region offer it.
I think you're missing the general point. ISPs have thus far gotten us used to unlimited bandwidth. This allows them to oversell it since I am probably not going to use all "my" bits when my neighbor is; thus making that work.
Now they are talking about charging me by my usage. This is inherently fair, as you say, but since they are changing a model that they created, you should expect some resistance. Beyond that, while for most readers of this site, it is possible to see how much bandwidth you are using, it's still a pain to keep track of it over the course of a month. If they want to put bandwidth limits, and charge us by bit or byte, then they should make it very easy for us to check our usage. They could even offer some kind of incentive, akin to what a few power companies are doing, to use bandwidth at off peak times.
Ultimately, my point is, and I think the one of the person who started this chain, is that charging by bit or byte is fine, but then the onus is on the ISP to make it very clear both what my costs and usage are. If they did that, then it would be easier for us to adjust to that new model.
it's the third time, because it's often proven to be true. It is true that the universe is finite. It is true that our technological ability to get at resources is also limited. The difference here is that the argument is that we are not at the limit yet. There have been many people in the last 100 years that have said we have X years left of this or that resource, and they have been proven wrong.
We don't know the quantity, distribution, and location of every mineral on this planet. In light of that, it stands to reason to have hope that we may find new sources of ones we need.
After reading several of your comments today on this subject, it sounds like your biggest problem is a negative attitude and an ignorance of history. Trees were running out for fuel, so people started using more coal. Whale oil became scarce, and people found petroleum. Generally, people do tend to find alternatives or new replacements. It's not new pop-economic garbage, but fact. It is also true that we do run out of stuff, but then we do without and adapt. Humans are wonderfully able to do that. Ultimately, though, you need to remember that an angry attack will never convince anyone of your opinion. You'll only convince them to attack you back; something I'm sure you'll want to do to me now.
um all we have to do is to mine our landfills. It wouldn't be pretty, clean, or fun, but I guarantee you that if we need it, then people will make money doing it. Besides, currently, people recycle PCs to get the precious metals out of them. All this article really says is that there are more metals they may want to do that with.
either way, i don't argue if we can live without meat, I totally agree, but just because we can doesn't mean we have to. i could live without my Wii, but what kind of life would it be?
Humans are omnivores. It's also natural for us to kill and to eat other animals; say like a bear.
So, to answer your question, we are capable of not killing to eat, but you have to make the argument as to why. Thus far, I haven't been convinced of why we shouldn't eat meat; eat less of it, sure, but no meat entirely, not yet.
Also, it's hard to make the case that killing a human and killing a animal is the same thing. I'm not particularly religious, nor am I Christian, but my objection to that is more akin to what Silverback Gorilla's, male lions, and other animals do when they take over a group. They kill the infants of the former group leader. Most people for a variety of reasons don't consider animals, let alone other humans, "human". That is the basis for eugenics. While I agree that is reprehensible, it's still a fact. I think we have a lot of work to convince all people that all humans are "human," before your goal of equating animals with humans can be achieved. Still, I still can't see why we shouldn't eat cows, chickens, and things. I grew up near a farm, and maybe that's why I just don't see it; no matter how much I value human life.
The transformer is exactly what makes AC more efficient. You have your argument backwards. Without the transformer, then DC is better. When Tesla invented the transformer, he, with Westinghouse's money and company, was able to show AC was a better, more efficient method for transmitting electric power than DC. Edison's first power plants were DC, and he beat Westinghouse to the market. It's as simple as that.
Slashdot Mirror
The big problem that I have with your argument is that you've stopped making one. You make an accusation, I respond, and then you make another one unrelated to what I said. That can only mean that you don't believe what you say you do since you are not able to disprove any of my points. Neither do you back any of your points up with anything other than rhetoric. I haven't seen one link or fact to support any of your mostly baseless accusations.
Again, you should really come to the US. You'll see that this isn't a bad place.
If you really believe that we are worse than say Iraq under Saddam, than I really hope you take a trip to see this country. To fix that mistaken belief, all you need to do is to come here and visit. You'll see we're not nearly as bad as you were led to believe.
You also make the accusation that we kill without remorse. You are mistaken when you think that. Never did I say that I personally, nor we as a people didn't regret that. We do.
Murder is murder, I agree. If someone hurts me, I will hurt them to make sure they can't do it again. That's all this is about. I truly hope you can live your life without someone ever hurting you or your country the way ours has been attacked. That's the only way I can see you being able to keep that attitude.
Fighting the Russians wasn't about saving you. It was about saving us. Right, the rest of the world be damned. Lives don't matter. It's your make believe world of being altruistic that is the main thing to protect. I thought I'd humour you, guess you didn't get the joke.
What are you trying to say here? It doesn't make any sense. Lives don't matter? Make believe world? How does that relate to the Cold War?
You thought you'd humor me, but I didn't get the joke? In the sense of the way that phrase is used, humoring someone, means giving someone the latitude to make a point; even while you disagree with their premise. Making a joke has nothing to do with that.
If your joke is, as I suspect it is, that you believe that the world would be better under communism or socialism, and that the Cold War was about preventing that to the US, well, that's fine. I think socialism is wrong, along with communism, but there's nothing wrong with you believing that. It's a shame, but you go right ahead and think whatever you like
Right, about the time you fighting the communists and stuck your nose into other people's business, played both sides, and started the war that you fight now. Great plan so far.
Again, I'm not following you here. We started fighting the communists, vis a vie, the Soviet Union shortly after the end of WW2. One could make a fair argument that the Cold War started before it, but I don't think the exact date matters. The first proxy war between the US and the USSR, our first war with the communists, was in 1950 fought by request of the UN in Korea. A war, I might add, that legally hasn't ended. Legally, we've had a truce for the last 55 years.
How does that have anything to do with terrorists from the Middle East taking over US commercial aircraft 20 years later in the 1970s? I'm not playing both sides. The war against the terrorists started when they started taking over our commercial aircraft in the 70s. Our war against the Communists, the Cold War, started when we stopped trusting each other around the same time WW2 ended.
Your timelines don't match up. Also, America's foreign policy up to WW2 was isolationism. We regretted even fighting WW1, and had no desire to get involved overseas except for trade. The war, WW2, came to us. We didn't ask Japan to attack Pearl Harbor, any more than we asked Germany to attack our shipping in the Atlantic.
During this long back and forth we've had, you started off making thoughtful comments that I enjoyed responding to. Then, you stopped responding to my comments, and resorted to making silly and off topic comments. Is it that you are bad at arguing, or you've realized that you are wrong, and don't want to admit it?
We aren't losing this war. How can you say we are? I don't get it? Iraq has a democratically elected government. Their army has taken control of most of the country. Al Queda is defeated there; again even if they arrived after we did, doesn't matter, they are defeated there now.
As for Bush senior, well, isn't that just a silly comment you are making? Honestly, no one dislike him. He fought a war in Iraq that even the Saudis supported. Bush Junior, well, I can't argue about him. Still, for better or worse, we elected him. Saddam, he was not elected, and was truly an evil man. Bush Jr, well, there's no comparison. To do so is to prove how full of your own bullshit you are. I don't like him either, but still, compared ot Saddam, he's a saint.
Fighting the Russians wasn't about saving you. It was about saving us.
As for killing us vs killing them, well I don't think you've been reading my posts. As I said, attacks against us have been going on for 30 years. Only in the last 5 have we done any killing back.
I can see how you would call what we're doing terrorism, but you're repeatedly ignoring a huge point. The people who attacked us are hiding amongst the civilians there. If they weren't amongst the civilians, we would kill any civilians in our attempt to kill those who attacked us.
Us a terrorist or them? Well, they hit us first, so yes it is how we respond. Again, we don't think about conflict resolution with only death. For the last 30 years, we used law enforcement. It didn't work.
Are you so caught up in your own thoughts that you can't read mine?
Vietnam is a poor analogy. We went into Vietnam to support a corrupt but non-communist government. Iraq we removed an EVIL dictator; sure we did it for other reasons, but it's a big difference. Vietnam was a proxy war against the USSR. Iraq was intended to be a direct war against a nation harboring a non-governmental group who attacked us. Harboring them made them a target.
For the record, I still think a lot of the Iraq stuff was garbage, and we'd probably be better off if we didn't go there in the first place. Better leave the Iraqis with that nut job and his crazy sons.
Also, perhaps you haven't been reading the news lately, but we won in Iraq. Violence is down, Iraq's army is taking over more and more territory from us. We went in there for the wrong reason, but it worked. Vietnam, we left on their terms, and our goal to prevent it from being communist failed. Saddam is dead. His sons are dead. A democratically elected government is in Iraq. Al queda, regardless if they arrived before or after our invasion, they were there after it, is defeated there. I'd call that a solid win.
it's not so simple, because we tried that before. 9/11 is not the first time we faced terrorism. It started in the 70s, and the attackes escalated in intensity every time after that. Hell, the WTC was hit before, and only luck prevented it from falling then. This is the first time we went out with our army against terrorism, and I will agree that invading Iraq was a bad choice. The problem is I'm not sure what would have been a better choice? The people who did it were all from the Middle East. The people who helped them were too, regardless if they called themselves Al Queda or not. It doesn't matter. We needed to find them, and the best intelligence we have is that they are in Pakistan now. So, we go there.
Don't be so silly as to believe that Americans are all white, and only kill brown people. Only 60% of this country is of European decent. Only 10% of the world is. It's simple math to think that we'd mostly be fighting non white people.
Beyond that, we are helping to rebuild Iraq. We are spending billions of our money to do that, and you can't say that removing Saddam from that country was not a good thing. Our reasons for being there, our methods while there, have not been right, but getting rid of him was still a good thing.
Don't also be so foolish to think that we will kill every one. If we wanted to do that, there are easier ways. We have prepared to kill Russians, more white people, for the last 60 years. We built up a huge supply of nuclear missiles that can hit any spot on the planet in 30 minutes or less; just like the Russians did. If we wanted to kill anyone, we could, but we haven't because that is not what we want. We simply want the terrorism that started in the 70s to stop.
I will agree that invading Iraq made it worse. Afganistan, well, most folks there seem to want us there, for the moment anyway.
Also, don't forget that we went to war in Bosnia to help save muslims there. We went to war in Kuwait to help save Muslims there. Went went to Somailia to help feed non white people there. After the Tsunami, we sent our Navy there to help feed people.
Americans don't hate Muslims, people from the Middle East, or anything like that at all. The truth is that we want the same things you want; to be able to live your life as best you can according to the values you have. We do want the terrorism to stop, and again, invading Iraq didn't help that. We will not kill everyone; that's just silly.
Hell, my wish for you is only that we can change your mind about us over time. Hopefully, we will do that.
Again there, I disagree. I don't know what country you live in, but I can speak to the legal system here. In the US, if you intend to kill someone, and kill them, we'll execute you. We call that murder; there are 3 levels of it, but intent matters. If you kill someone out of recklessness, we call that manslaughter, and it means you'll spend a lot of time in jail.
Murder vs Manslaughter
Besides, if we didn't care at all about those people, why use cruise missiles or smart bombs at all? It would be a lot cheaper, easier, and safer for our own troops to use a fuel air weapon. We can kill every one in an area the size of a few football(your or my version) fields across with a single bomb. We used those weapons in Vietnam to clear landing areas for our helicopters. The ones we have now are even more powerful than those we used then.
Either way, I am not saying that killing those folks isn't wrong, but it's less wrong since it's not our intent.
It's still worse that the people we are trying to kill knowingly hide amongst those innocent people.
Those villiagers lives are less important than your retaliatory war of lies. Got it. 3,000 of our people died, so we'll take 300,000 of yours.
You're partially right there. The only way to ensure we don't kill those folks is to not attack, since the people we're trying to kill willingly hide amongst those villagers. We have only two options, don't kill the people we want to kill, or kill the people we want to kill and kill innocent villagers. We choose option b.
Do the numbers of the dead really matter? Would it have been any better or any worse if we stopped when we killed 1,000, 2,000, or even 3,000? That's not the point, and it never should be in war. It's not about getting even. War is about making sure the other side can never hurt you again. That's why we didn't stop at 3,000, 10,000, or whatever. By the way, where do you get the 300,000. I've been following this war as close as anyone, and I think that number is insanely high.
Like I said, don't claim to be the good guys. There are no good guys involved.
This statement is even more fair. There is no way to consider war good. Even a richeous war will still hurt many people; if only the ones who need to do the fighting. Still, and I don't expect I could change your mind here, but I'll add a few more words in a vain attempt, think about those people who are hiding amongst the villagers. They know full well that their presence there will draw attacks from us. They are counting on that. Their belief is that if we kill enough innocents, then we will stop hunting them. They also know that is their only hope, since if they tried to stand up to us directly, they'd lose in days if not less time than that. To us, we are good, since we are not hiding amongst the innocents. We clearly mark our military bases. Hit them, as they did in Lebanon in 82, or the USS Cole more recently.
It's interesting that you focused on that statement in that way. You chose not to comment on any other part.
We did intentionally kill civilians in WW2; all the firebombing raid, nuclear attacks, etc, were aimed at the civilian populous. That's the difference here. Flying our planes over villages here and now, our intent is not to kill those civilians, but to kill those terrorists hiding amongst them.
The truth is that those idiots should not be hiding in those towns; they should stay out in the open. The reason they won't do that is that they'd last about 2 seconds if they did.
Ultimately, you're wrong. We do not intend to kill those civilians, but we accept that they will die in order for us to kill the people hiding amongst them.
I have no problem with you hating us, but I want you to do it for the right reason. Those villagers are dieing because their lives are acceptable losses to us so that we can kill the people we intend to kill.
No group that has fought a war has ever not killed non-combatants. Ever. Every group, whether they be sword carrying tribes from 1000 years ago, or modern groups with guns, they all have.
The difference is intent. Since the second World War, the US hasn't intentionally killed civilians. Still, it probably will happen intentionally again.
The distinction we make, and the thing that we think separates us from them, is that we weren't trying to kill those civilians.
We're not the only ones using land mines, and they are no different than IEDs. Again, though, our intent is different in their usage. We try to avoid it. In spite of that event that you mention, we developed precision weapons for that specific purpose. We will have to fight where civilians live because the people we are trying to kill are hiding there.
You can argue whether or not we should be there in the first place, I'm betting we agree on that point, but that's a different argument.
Now I see the problem. I am in the US market, and was only talking about it. Volume based pricing is on it's way in to the US market. Several of the major players, including the one I use Time Warner Cable, are instituting volume based limits. As of today, they have not instituted any warnings to customers as they approach them.
While one major player is talking about 250GB as their cap, mine is talking about 30-40. In one area, some place in Texas, they already instituted it.
So, I can complain, should complain, and hopefully will be able to do something about it; ie switch to Verizon's Fios product, as soon as it comes to my neighborhood. (They are currently deploying it to all of NYC.)
So it doesn't use electricity? No one has to be paid to maintain it? There is no rent nor any taxes for the cost of the buildings? No moron has ever cut a line with a backhoe or even a shovel, that has to be repaired? Bandwidth is cheap compared to the initial costs of creating the capacity, but it still has a cost. That cost is the maintenance of the hardware. Initially at least, the cost of the installation must also be recovered.
While I do not doubt that they scrimp on maintenance, your argument is right as it is in their interest to do so, it's still not free.
I will concede the point that it is mostly profit, and that we are not getting what we are paying for.
More importantly, I do agree that we should be paying less, much less. The only reason we are paying so much, for so little is the lack of competition. This is why I can't wait for FIOS to get to my neighborhood. Then, finally, there will be at least some competition. That will help some. New regulation is the only thing that I think will get us the rest of the way to prices more in line with the rest of the world; at the least.
they need to upgrade their infrastructure to meet the times, not start regressing us back to the stone age!
Um, could you be any more melodramatic? The fact is that bandwidth costs money. I'd rather them at least be honest with what I am getting for my money. That's a simple setup, and not byzantine. Clearly you don't know what the word means. Anyway, the content consumer, and that person alone, is the one who should pay for the bandwidth. That keeps the net neutrality, and allows the innovation.
You must not have read my comment if you think I said that the content provider should pay; always, only the consumer.
I disagree. You are quibbling. AOL, and the other dial-up ISPs offered unlimited bandwidth and limited time. Cable modems, DSL, etc offered 24 hour and no bandwidth limits. they never said i had any bandwidth limits.
So, you are totally wrong.
where is volume based pricing available? i'm not aware of any US ISP offering it. I'm betting you're not talking about a US ISP. I can say with certainly, that none of the major ISPs in the NYC region offer it.
you see, that is exactly what I am talking about. it makes perfect sense, and is totally reasonable.
I think you're missing the general point. ISPs have thus far gotten us used to unlimited bandwidth. This allows them to oversell it since I am probably not going to use all "my" bits when my neighbor is; thus making that work.
Now they are talking about charging me by my usage. This is inherently fair, as you say, but since they are changing a model that they created, you should expect some resistance. Beyond that, while for most readers of this site, it is possible to see how much bandwidth you are using, it's still a pain to keep track of it over the course of a month. If they want to put bandwidth limits, and charge us by bit or byte, then they should make it very easy for us to check our usage. They could even offer some kind of incentive, akin to what a few power companies are doing, to use bandwidth at off peak times.
Ultimately, my point is, and I think the one of the person who started this chain, is that charging by bit or byte is fine, but then the onus is on the ISP to make it very clear both what my costs and usage are. If they did that, then it would be easier for us to adjust to that new model.
it's the third time, because it's often proven to be true. It is true that the universe is finite. It is true that our technological ability to get at resources is also limited. The difference here is that the argument is that we are not at the limit yet. There have been many people in the last 100 years that have said we have X years left of this or that resource, and they have been proven wrong.
We don't know the quantity, distribution, and location of every mineral on this planet. In light of that, it stands to reason to have hope that we may find new sources of ones we need.
After reading several of your comments today on this subject, it sounds like your biggest problem is a negative attitude and an ignorance of history. Trees were running out for fuel, so people started using more coal. Whale oil became scarce, and people found petroleum. Generally, people do tend to find alternatives or new replacements. It's not new pop-economic garbage, but fact. It is also true that we do run out of stuff, but then we do without and adapt. Humans are wonderfully able to do that. Ultimately, though, you need to remember that an angry attack will never convince anyone of your opinion. You'll only convince them to attack you back; something I'm sure you'll want to do to me now.
um all we have to do is to mine our landfills. It wouldn't be pretty, clean, or fun, but I guarantee you that if we need it, then people will make money doing it. Besides, currently, people recycle PCs to get the precious metals out of them. All this article really says is that there are more metals they may want to do that with.
eating meat bothers your conscience? really? why?
either way, i don't argue if we can live without meat, I totally agree, but just because we can doesn't mean we have to. i could live without my Wii, but what kind of life would it be?
the fuel cannot be ignited with a match; like diesel. that's how it was safe.
Humans are omnivores. It's also natural for us to kill and to eat other animals; say like a bear.
So, to answer your question, we are capable of not killing to eat, but you have to make the argument as to why. Thus far, I haven't been convinced of why we shouldn't eat meat; eat less of it, sure, but no meat entirely, not yet.
Also, it's hard to make the case that killing a human and killing a animal is the same thing. I'm not particularly religious, nor am I Christian, but my objection to that is more akin to what Silverback Gorilla's, male lions, and other animals do when they take over a group. They kill the infants of the former group leader. Most people for a variety of reasons don't consider animals, let alone other humans, "human". That is the basis for eugenics. While I agree that is reprehensible, it's still a fact. I think we have a lot of work to convince all people that all humans are "human," before your goal of equating animals with humans can be achieved. Still, I still can't see why we shouldn't eat cows, chickens, and things. I grew up near a farm, and maybe that's why I just don't see it; no matter how much I value human life.
The transformer is exactly what makes AC more efficient. You have your argument backwards. Without the transformer, then DC is better. When Tesla invented the transformer, he, with Westinghouse's money and company, was able to show AC was a better, more efficient method for transmitting electric power than DC. Edison's first power plants were DC, and he beat Westinghouse to the market. It's as simple as that.