But you forget that not all people see industrialization and globalization as a good thing. I personally have no problems with the principles (I do have issues with the execution), but there are cultures who do not want their society be driven by unbridled capitalism.
Yes, and those cultures suck. They have rampant disease, starvation, intertribal warfare, far less healthy and physically dangerous forms of employment, and families who often sell their little girls into sexual slavery in order to afford food for the rest of the family. They are not societies worth preserving.
Don't you see the truth! The American Revolution was really a staged overthrow by the French government to bring down the British regime in America! It cannot possibly be considered a "popular" revolt, only roughly a 1/3 of the Americans, obviously elites supported this uprising!
*wink*
Of course....about 1/3 of the people were on the fence until the war came to them, and another 1/3 were Tories...and we approached the French. But you can't let little things like facts get in the way of a good paranoid, hatemongering rant against a government you just don't happen to like.
When the US stops making the world a worse place to live in for all non-US citizens, we'll stop criticizing your politics.
Oh yes, our vast push for more open markets and industrialization to provide jobs and expanding economies globally really sucks for all non-US citizens. Our overly large military, which has allowed a great many countries to have virtually no military and dick around in luxury thanks to not having to actually pay for their own adequate military defenses is making the world a worse place for all non-Americans. Our treatment of countries we've occupied in the past, like Germany, Japan, South Korea, and others really did horrible things for those countries...look at what utter shitholes they are today (not)! Yes, America only makes things worse for the world! Shame on America!
Of course, it is/insert your country here/ that is the more enlightened, decent place...why, maybe you should go reward your natural superiority with a Big Mac and a Coke!
And tell me, how exactly would you know what other countries' citizens are focused on ? I assume you visited each and every one of those countries ? Or at least have access to their mainstream media ? You do speak other languages, right ?
In my case (unlike the other guy, who turned out to not even be American)....why gee, you're right. Well, I speak a bit of Spanish and used to be able to speak a lot more...need to brush up on it, but yea, I pretty much just speak English and have never been to any place outside of the US (it's a big place). However, I do know people in other countries, you see we Americans invented this marvelous little thing called the Internet, you know, to go along with this other marvelous invention of ours called the electronic digital computer, I'm sure you're heard about such things...
My wife is American. She's been in the UK for 7 years now. She's actually starting to cringe when she hears the American accent, things have got that bad.
Then she should immediately proceed to the nearest embassy and state her intent to revoke her citizenship. We don't want her any more than she evidentally wants us. Let her be a Brit.
No, people would still be able to shop around to different companies to find a better ISP (provided one exists in their area) and/or pay for higher bandwidth connections and thus buy more bandwidth just as they do right now.
What you evidentally support, would destroy that as well. Companies would be forced to not only buy bandwidth....but constantly re-pay for the bandwidth they already bought at varying rates depending on how popular they are from companies they aren't even doing business with, meanwhile if an ISP (or backbone provider) doesn't think they are getting paid enough...they can prevent their real customers (the ones buying bandwidth from them) from using the bandwidth they purchsed how they wish by accessing the site they want to access. It's extortion on the one end (not figuratively, literally), and fraud on the other (again, actual fraud).
But Google can shop around for its bandwidth, finding a good deal (thanks to competition) - They're *not* paying their fair share...
Yes they are, it's called a "fair market price" and it's a part of this thing we call the "free market." Google is entitled to do this, it's their right, not an abuse.
Really? Did we need more proof of how corrupt our government is, do our politicians actually have to stand up and flat out say they are corrupt now and act proud of the fact that they are all in the pay of various corporate interests and not doing squat in the interests of the People?
Well, last I checked for all the crying from the lunatic fringe Bush hasn't crossed the line into totalitarianism. Hell he still doesn't remotely have anyone wanting to touch the Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment that he wants. As for taking him out of office, what do you suggest, revolution? We aren't to that point yet by a long shot. Impeachment? Legally we can't just impeach him because we don't like him, he has to commit an actual crime, just like Clinton did (no, he wasn't impeached over a blowjob) and even then there's no assurance he'd be removed from office (see Clinton).
Of course none of that actually matters, because they still have to at least appear legitimate and can't go too far. England has a sovereign from which their government obtains it's legitimacy, the Queen...and so long as their government does a good job of keeping order she is pleased and doesn't need to do anything about said government. The same is true of the United States government, only it has a different sovereign...actually, about 300 million of them. And if the government gets too far our of line we'll exercise our royal perogetive and remove it, by force.
And so...the US government, no matter how corrupt the parties in charge are...has kept at least some sense of restraint.
The vast majority of Americans believe that the state shoudl play a strong role in daily life.
Yes, I'm sure that statistics (as in lies, damn lies, and...) can be skewed (or just plain made up) to make it seem that most Americans want an absolutist, totalitarian government.
Yes, because we all know that working to establish a Nanny State and disregarding the basic civil rights of the people in the name of "protecting the children" (or alternately, "protecting the poor" or "protecting the people") is a moderate, center political position and not at all anything out of the radical left-wing. Nope, not at all.
You've seen their site, right? Radioactive isotopes, burning lasers, uranium, heavy water.... is this what you expect high school science teachers are buying, and Mom and Dad put in little Timmy's chemistry set?
Not much different than stuff I've been known to experiement with when I was younger. Well, I didn't have a high powered laser, but I wanted one....couldn't afford one though. Nothing unusual here, especially not for American kids unless you're talking the modern "PC, OMFG PROTECT THE CHILDRENS!" age. Hell, I have old books with experiments directed for children which go into detail about experiments with radioactive substances, highly toxic substances, and all sorts of "neat stuff" that they just don't tell kids about anymore.
Um, in all seriousness, it seems like the only home chemists these days are cooking meth.
If you think that requires anything approaching an actual home lab, with test tubes, glassware, stocks of all sorts of chemicals in labeled containers, and anything approaching the methodology you'll find amongst amature scientists...then you've bought into the ignorant hype. Calling the setups that meth cooks have "labs" is an insult.
Nitwit...our disgestive tract is evolved around an omnivore's diet. We can process plant matter, but not as well as dedicated plant eaters which we aren't designed to be. We can process meat, but not quite as well as dedicated carnivores. What we're evolved towards is a more flexable diet, but one which does nutritionally require materials from both plants and animals. We're similar to bears, racoons, coyotes, and a number of other predators in that respect. And it's proven a superior survival mechanism in nature than being either a pure herbavore (which vegitarians obviously aspire to be), or being a pure carnivore. Omnivores for the win!
If the U.S. was a true Democracy, then the rule of the majority would speak for itself.
The US isn't supposed to be a true Democracy, and most definately shouldn't become one. That would single handedly destroy everything the United States was created to be, as well as American culture. If you don't believe me go read some of the works of our Founding Fathers, as well as the US Constitution itself.
Note that "forest" is far too vague a word to be very meaningful -- untouched old-growth forest is a very different thing than, for instance a mono-culture of non-native trees planted at some absurdly high density. Which you prefer of course, depends on your values and goals (the most horrid examples I've seen were tree plantations in Scotland whose apparent purpose was to abuse the tax laws!).
You'd be surprised how much traditional forest is growing back. A lot of what was farmland is no longer in use as such, and has simply gone back to forest. I live in the middle of such. 100 years ago this was all clearcut, tilled farmland with only a few trees. Now there are trees everywhere. Not pine either, but oak, poplar, red bud, and other such trees. And it's incredibly thick too.
The managed logging tree farms using pine generally are....well...static, they exist in particular areas which can be harvested again and again without worry because they can just be replanted. The other areas that are logged, are generally not clearcut, but instead had loggers only taking certain trees within the forest, leaving room for already growing trees that wouldn't have room to thrive to grow in and take their place. I live in an area with a fair amount of logging and this is the type that happens here, no clearcutting of forests, just managed cutting. Often of dying or dead trees.
Why doesn't the US smarten up and start pushing this as an alternative to clear cutting acres and acres of land.
Because the paper companies did kill the commercial growing of hemp.
However, the environmental problem of "clear cutting forests" isn't as big as is typically let on by envirowackos. We have more forest in the US now than we've had since the 1930s, and that amount is still increasing. Even with all the logging going on, there's more forest now than for most of the previous century in fact. So we're not exactly going to run out of trees, they seem to be functioning as a pretty good renewable resource. In the US anyway.
The "British Constitution" is an unwritten one, largely consisting of common law, which is what we inherited. So yes, we did inherit the British Constitution, even though we declared our independence. We merely placed our own governmental form and written Constitution on top of it replacing the pre-existing British government (for us).
I'm pretty sure that's exactly what what the Constitution's authors would have wanted. Right. Talk about bench legislation, that's absolutely ridiculous.
Actually the Founding Fathers considered completely scrapping the British legal system and starting over from scratch....and decided that this was going a bit too far and would take way too much work, that the existing common law legal system that the States had been using worked not just fine but very well, and so incorporated the British common law system into the new government. Why replace a working legal system with an unknown?
And so we kept the British legal traditions in this country, except in Louisiana, where they use French legal traditions at the State level.
2. Once we have weapons up there, EVERYBODY will do so as well.
It's a race we're already 3rd in. The Russians have had operational space weapons for a couple decades now. And the Chinese have a very solid, but more modern, space weapons program. The closest we've ever gotten has been a few testbed programs that never really went anywhere. We need operational, armed military capability in space, if only to protect our own commercial, scientific, and unarmed military interests up there which are only likely to grow considerably in the next several decades. As it stands, we've lost the high ground to potential enemies.
Yes, he did say it, and he later acknowledged that he should have phrased it differently. He obviously meant he supported some of those technology initiatives and grants way back when.
Interestingly, the internet Al Gore pushed for and the Internet that came about were essentially two different things. What he tried to get created would have been essentially restricted to schools and educational materials, and scientific institutions. An education friendly "information highway." The last thing Gore actually wanted, was a commercial internet, truely publically accessable and alterable, with few government controls.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't you see the truth! The American Revolution was really a staged overthrow by the French government to bring down the British regime in America! It cannot possibly be considered a "popular" revolt, only roughly a 1/3 of the Americans, obviously elites supported this uprising!
*wink*
Of course....about 1/3 of the people were on the fence until the war came to them, and another 1/3 were Tories...and we approached the French. But you can't let little things like facts get in the way of a good paranoid, hatemongering rant against a government you just don't happen to like.
Oh yes, our vast push for more open markets and industrialization to provide jobs and expanding economies globally really sucks for all non-US citizens. Our overly large military, which has allowed a great many countries to have virtually no military and dick around in luxury thanks to not having to actually pay for their own adequate military defenses is making the world a worse place for all non-Americans. Our treatment of countries we've occupied in the past, like Germany, Japan, South Korea, and others really did horrible things for those countries...look at what utter shitholes they are today (not)! Yes, America only makes things worse for the world! Shame on America!
Of course, it is /insert your country here/ that is the more enlightened, decent place...why, maybe you should go reward your natural superiority with a Big Mac and a Coke!
In my case (unlike the other guy, who turned out to not even be American)....why gee, you're right. Well, I speak a bit of Spanish and used to be able to speak a lot more...need to brush up on it, but yea, I pretty much just speak English and have never been to any place outside of the US (it's a big place). However, I do know people in other countries, you see we Americans invented this marvelous little thing called the Internet, you know, to go along with this other marvelous invention of ours called the electronic digital computer, I'm sure you're heard about such things...
No, people would still be able to shop around to different companies to find a better ISP (provided one exists in their area) and/or pay for higher bandwidth connections and thus buy more bandwidth just as they do right now.
What you evidentally support, would destroy that as well. Companies would be forced to not only buy bandwidth....but constantly re-pay for the bandwidth they already bought at varying rates depending on how popular they are from companies they aren't even doing business with, meanwhile if an ISP (or backbone provider) doesn't think they are getting paid enough...they can prevent their real customers (the ones buying bandwidth from them) from using the bandwidth they purchsed how they wish by accessing the site they want to access. It's extortion on the one end (not figuratively, literally), and fraud on the other (again, actual fraud).
Maybe the scientists should simply call them what they're already called....rogue planets.
Really? Did we need more proof of how corrupt our government is, do our politicians actually have to stand up and flat out say they are corrupt now and act proud of the fact that they are all in the pay of various corporate interests and not doing squat in the interests of the People?
Well, last I checked for all the crying from the lunatic fringe Bush hasn't crossed the line into totalitarianism. Hell he still doesn't remotely have anyone wanting to touch the Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment that he wants. As for taking him out of office, what do you suggest, revolution? We aren't to that point yet by a long shot. Impeachment? Legally we can't just impeach him because we don't like him, he has to commit an actual crime, just like Clinton did (no, he wasn't impeached over a blowjob) and even then there's no assurance he'd be removed from office (see Clinton).
Of course none of that actually matters, because they still have to at least appear legitimate and can't go too far. England has a sovereign from which their government obtains it's legitimacy, the Queen...and so long as their government does a good job of keeping order she is pleased and doesn't need to do anything about said government. The same is true of the United States government, only it has a different sovereign...actually, about 300 million of them. And if the government gets too far our of line we'll exercise our royal perogetive and remove it, by force. And so...the US government, no matter how corrupt the parties in charge are...has kept at least some sense of restraint.
Yes, because we all know that working to establish a Nanny State and disregarding the basic civil rights of the people in the name of "protecting the children" (or alternately, "protecting the poor" or "protecting the people") is a moderate, center political position and not at all anything out of the radical left-wing. Nope, not at all.
Nitwit...our disgestive tract is evolved around an omnivore's diet. We can process plant matter, but not as well as dedicated plant eaters which we aren't designed to be. We can process meat, but not quite as well as dedicated carnivores. What we're evolved towards is a more flexable diet, but one which does nutritionally require materials from both plants and animals. We're similar to bears, racoons, coyotes, and a number of other predators in that respect. And it's proven a superior survival mechanism in nature than being either a pure herbavore (which vegitarians obviously aspire to be), or being a pure carnivore. Omnivores for the win!
You'd be surprised how much traditional forest is growing back. A lot of what was farmland is no longer in use as such, and has simply gone back to forest. I live in the middle of such. 100 years ago this was all clearcut, tilled farmland with only a few trees. Now there are trees everywhere. Not pine either, but oak, poplar, red bud, and other such trees. And it's incredibly thick too.
The managed logging tree farms using pine generally are....well...static, they exist in particular areas which can be harvested again and again without worry because they can just be replanted. The other areas that are logged, are generally not clearcut, but instead had loggers only taking certain trees within the forest, leaving room for already growing trees that wouldn't have room to thrive to grow in and take their place. I live in an area with a fair amount of logging and this is the type that happens here, no clearcutting of forests, just managed cutting. Often of dying or dead trees.
Because the paper companies did kill the commercial growing of hemp.
However, the environmental problem of "clear cutting forests" isn't as big as is typically let on by envirowackos. We have more forest in the US now than we've had since the 1930s, and that amount is still increasing. Even with all the logging going on, there's more forest now than for most of the previous century in fact. So we're not exactly going to run out of trees, they seem to be functioning as a pretty good renewable resource. In the US anyway.
Yeah, but that wasn't Scotch, that was Aldebaran Whiskey...in both episodes it was featured in with those lines. ;-)
The "British Constitution" is an unwritten one, largely consisting of common law, which is what we inherited. So yes, we did inherit the British Constitution, even though we declared our independence. We merely placed our own governmental form and written Constitution on top of it replacing the pre-existing British government (for us).
Actually the Founding Fathers considered completely scrapping the British legal system and starting over from scratch....and decided that this was going a bit too far and would take way too much work, that the existing common law legal system that the States had been using worked not just fine but very well, and so incorporated the British common law system into the new government. Why replace a working legal system with an unknown?
And so we kept the British legal traditions in this country, except in Louisiana, where they use French legal traditions at the State level.