I have all new gen consoles (Wii U, PS4, and Xbox One) and frankly think it's silly to get pissy about one or the other. The Xbox One isn't a pile of turd because even if it doesn't give you 1080p 60fps on everything it still has great games like Dead Rising 3 which gives you many tens of hours of some of the best gameplay going that you just can't get anywhere else. Similarly the Wii U seems all but dead, but Pikmin 3 was my favourite game of last year, and the likes of Lego City Undercover and Super Mario 3D World were excellent so I really couldn't give a shit about how crap the hardware supposedly is.
Just figure out what games you like and buy whichever console has them. Most of the rest of what you read is just FUD, all the stuff about Kinect not being unpluggable and so forth was bollocks, you can, turn it off, unplug it, and throw it out the window if you feel like it and everything is fine. Both the PS4 and X1 have their quirks right now, the X1 is missing some UI functionality that the 360 had which is stupid and annoying, whilst the PS4's support for parties and online gaming is still worse than that of the 360s which is embarassing given it was the biggest criticism of the PS3 and they should've sorted that shit out by now. Despite these sorts of things it's stupid to say one is better than the other, sure BF4 runs at a slightly higher resolution, but it's also got less good exclusives - there are pros and cons to either system. If you're only getting one you just have to figure out which has the best ratio of pros to cons, but to me the biggest deciding factor would probably be the exclusives. I'm not into The Order, whilst Ryse and Dead Rising 3 were exactly my type of thing, but the PS4 is getting a new Uncharted game so it's really what sort of game you prefer, and ignore all the other bullshit, because it's exactly that, bullshit.
Honestly, the only thing I really hate about the PS4 and X1 is they both seem to have been trying to compete for who can make their console look the most retardedly like a 1980s VHS recorder. I think Microsoft just about won that one, but it was a pretty fucking close call.
"Settling land is not a legitimate way to take it from another country."
Exactly, but unfortunately that's the only way Argentina ever has any kind of claim.
France discovered it first, Britain settled it first. The Spanish came along decades later and created a bigger settlement on the other sides of the island to the British and the British didn't complain. When Spain ceded control of Argentina as an independent nation it left and the British took full control. Argentina's claim stems from the idea that the Falklands were always part of what is now Argentina, and that as the Spanish gave that up to them then the Falklands were part of that deal too. Argentina did try to settle whilst the British were there on another part of the island but failed and gave up. Spain supports Argentina's claim to this day merely because it's convenient to do so because they want Gibraltar back and figure if they support Argentina, then Argentina will support them, not because of any actual historical agreement.
So to sum up:
- Discovered first: France, who support Britain's claim - Settled first: Britain - Settled longest: Britain - Self determination: Britain - Militarily held: Britain
The only way a Spanish handover can be deemed legitimate is if you take the stance you're saying isn't acceptable - that the Spanish built a bigger colony there and so annexed it from the British. But this becomes hypocritical as it means Argentina is arguing that a Spanish annexation of the islands from Britain was acceptable, but a British annexation from the Spanish when they left isn't.
Argentina's last argument is that of geographical proximity, but on that note Canada could just demand Alaska, Britain could claim Ireland, and other such silliness.
This is why Argentina's claim has been repeatedly shredded apart in international law, because for their claim to have any support you have to resort to hypocrisy (i.e. it's okay for Spain/Argentina to annex land, but not Britain to annex it back afterwards), or nonsense arguments like geographical proximity. All the arguments that are logically consistent and far Argentina simply loses.
"You also need to check the historical records, particularly documents that recently came to light under the 30 year rule. It seems we were negotiating with the Argentinians and could have easily avoided a war. Various ideas were thrown around, including giving most of the islands back but allowing the British citizens to remain part of the UK and govern themselves. Thatcher decided she wasn't going to compromise though."
You're letting your anti-Thatcher hatred fill you with nonsense now. Us dropping negotiations had zero to do with Thatcher not wanting to compromise and everything to do with the fact that the Junta made the miscalculation that as we were negotiating we wouldn't put up a fight if they just took it - they figured just taking it would make them look good back home as they'd made it a populist cause and that the British wouldn't be bothered as we were already showing signs that we may be willing to hand it over anyway. Argentina invaded before Thatcher even had a chance to make a decision so it's stupid to pile that onto Thatcher.
I'm not going to defend Thatcher's decisions during and after the war, you're largely right in what you say there, it was a populist cause for her too, but pretending she caused or started the war is going full on retarded. On the contrary she never expected the war precisely because she was negotiating. She's seen as protector of the islands because she did decided to fight for them back in the fact of such aggression rather than just let them go. Some argue she even had to, because if she didn't fight for them back Spain could've annexed Gibraltar too and all British overseas territory that wanted to be British could've been lost.
The Falklands invasion wasn't the fault of anyone in the UK, and the decision to fight for it back was the right one both strategically, and morally if you believe in the f
That's historical though and many are quick to forgive and forget. Global pollings over the past few years have shown the UK to be one of the most respected global nations only just a bit behind nations like Germany. I can't recall the ranking but it was top 5, whilst the US was down at 30 something.
As a British citizen this actually surprised me as I thought after we stupidly joined America in Iraq that we'd struggle to shake that off for far longer than it appears we've actually had to.
Here's one such study, there was a better one that had more nations in it but I can't find it now:
Presumably the next ones will be coming around in a few months as they all seem to be yearly studies. Keep in mind that this particular one benefited from the Olympic/Jubilee/Royal Pregnancy effect because of those sorts of things occuring in the year previous which boosted our ranking somewhat.
I'm not saying we don't deserve to be seen in a negative light, as I say, I'm not happy with what our country has done, and still is doing (particularly the fact that GCHQ seems to be a wholly owned subsidiary of the NSA) but the fact is that for the most part Britain is seen in a very positive light, whereas the US just isn't so much.
Of course, if the far right wing of part of our current government (the Tories) still keep acting like the little bigotted xenophobic fascists they are in trying to push a highly isolationist agenda for no other reason than they hate foreigners then I can't see our ranking staying as high as it is.
I remember being able to just walk upto the place and jump around on the stones at Stonehenge as a kid, and okay, maybe that was a bit wrong given it's significance but this seizure and commercialisation of history and culture by people that simply have no right of ownership of it is sickening.
I'm pretty sure the folks who built Stonehenge would be a bit fucked off to hear about the commercialisation of it, I'm pretty sure they didn't build it so a select few people could profit off of it in the future.
I'd help allay the West's concerns that Iran has a nuclear weapons program by not blocking them at the UN to enforce provisions that would ensure Iran fulfils it's requirements as a NPT signatory.
Then, when it was clear Iran didn't have a programme (or if they did, it could be destroyed/dismantled) the US' argument for it's missile shield would be removed.
But Russia was busy supporting Iran at the UN in blocking IAEA inspectors, selling it defence systems to better protect military sites where it was carrying out unknown nuclear development, bitching at Israel at the UN when Israel unilaterally destroyed Syria's nuclear weapons program rather than condemning Syria for having a covert nuclear weapons program. At the same time it was being a whiney bitch about America wanting a missle shield against those nations.
Look, I'm no fan of the US, but that doesn't mean I feel I have to be a fan of Syria, Iran and Russia either. The fact is Russia had a simple solution to the missile shield problem - to cooperate with America in dealing with a legitimate concern - Iran's possible nuclear weapons program and it's refusal to cooperate with the IAEA to prove it didn't have one. Had it done that the excuses for the missile shield would be non-existent and Russia would've been fully in the right.
But you can't actively support a threat that gives the US an excuse for a European missile shield and then bitch about about them hence calling for a missile shield, that's just hypocritical and stupid.
How are RM not dead already? Software that makes Windows infinitely more buggy and far more difficult to fix when things go wrong, and hardware that turns up without the PSU plugged into the motherboard and other such stupid mistakes.
"Sorry, but it's not "democratic" for MPs to vote in direct contravention to the wishes of the people who elected them in order to represent the people who didn't."
There's only a handful of the 650 MPs in parliament that are elected by a majority of their constituents. Most get in with as little as 20 - 30% support from their electorate. Listening to the majority of the population is massively more representative than lying on a fundamentally flawed individual constituent FPTP vote because it almost never results in representation of anything other than an absolute minority of views for that constituency.
Even fraud isn't foolproof for them though, the OiNK admin was tried for that and got off completely , so it seems fraud prosecutions for this sort of thing are on very shaky ground, it really is clutching at straws.
I don't know if the SurfTheChannel guy is or has appealed but if he hasn't there's a possibility it'll be overturned there anyway.
What he describes was recently in the news regarding a handful of popular browser add-ons primarily targeting Chrome because it's the most used browser globally.
A couple of browser extension developers sold their extensions which were then replaced with versions that injected ads into web pages and so forth. Google removed these add-ons from the Chrome add on store as soon as it was spotted.
I've heard of no cases of this happening with the Android store, and even if it has it's pretty clear that Google are willing to act immediately when there is evidence of it as they did with the Chrome store.
It sounds like he's taken the news story about Chrome, twisted it into one about Android, thrown a few anecdotes about "people I know" who have had it happen to them in with a bunch of other unfounded claims like mention of security conference proceedings which also unsurprisingly have topics about every other platform too and chucked it out there as a Slashdot post.
There's always a proportion of jobs that go to friends and family due to bias and nepotism, but that doesn't change the fact that there's a far larger proportion (like, over 99%) that are granted based on merit.
Those opportunities were just as much open to these people too.
P.S. I'm not American, and hopefully never will be.
But that's not what the Lib Dems stand for, they don't stand for defence of the Westminster system, they stand for progressive democracy with proportional representation, and that means listening to the democratic will of the populace.
Also I'm not represented by my MP and never will be anyway, because the populace also voted against AV, so I'm stuck with an MP that represents only about 35% of my fellow constituents and can just ignore the other 65% of us.
"More people voted for broadly central or slightly left leaning policies than the very right wing policies of the Tory party. In terms of giving people the policies they wanted a coalition with Labour would have been the democratic thing to do."
Most people were voting against Labour because they were utterly sick of it, so no, giving power back to Labour was absolutely not the right thing to do. The 2010 election was above all else a referendum on 13 years of Labour and the staggering levels of incompetence things had come to once Brown took the helm. If there's one thing people wanted less than the Tory right gaining any power it was Labour getting another term.
Besides, I'm not even convinced by your argument given that Labour had swung further to the right and authoritarianism under Brown than even the Tories. I'd say the populace was after more liberal leadership and like it or not, the Tories had that on offer even more so than Labour did because they were at least offering to scrap the ID card database, reign in illegal DNA retention, curb intrusive abuse of RIPA by councils and so forth - all of which Labour was vowing to continue. Coupled with the economic problem where people were demanding a halt to rising debt and frankly I don't think there's a leg to stand on in suggesting people wanted more of Labour.
It's easy to look at Labour with rose tinted glasses now, but back then they had very little benefit over the Tories unless your overriding concern was say Europe and nothing else.
"One of those she won on the back of a somewhat dubious war. One was mostly because of how bad the Labour party was at the time. The other was the usual mix of lies about not raising taxes and bribes by selling off public utilities for a fraction of their real value."
That changes what exactly? the people were still happy to vote based on that. They still got what they wanted.
"If we had some kind of proportional representation she wouldn't have been able to take the extreme actions she did."
If we had some kind of proportional representation we wouldn't have the high levels of retardation from either the right or the left. No Thatcher, no Brown. Unfortunately we don't, and unfortunately the populace voted to maintain that status quo.
"How could the Tory party implement a policy that the overwhelming majority didn't vote for?"
But they did vote for it - 36% voted for Tories (£12k fees), 29% voted for Labour (£6k - £9k fees), and only 23% voted for Lib Dems (no fees). That means 65% of the populace voted for at least £6k fees, 36% voted for 12k fees, whilst only 23% voted for no fees. You could argue that maybe £8k was a more representative compromise and that's true, but it doesn't change the fundamental point that the vote was such that it tended more towards £9k, than it did to £6k, or even nothing.
"Since the Lib Dems had ruled it out they should not have supported it."
At the core of Lib Dem belief is the idea of proportional representation, a fair, progressive democracy. How could they rationally argue on one hand for PR whilst on the other try and sabotage policy backed by the will of the majority? It'd just be outright hypocrisy. Keep in mind the context that they were still fighting for a vote on PR at the time and not just AV. How could they say with a straight face "Yeah we want a democracy that represents the will of the majority, but we're just going to be hypocrits and ignore the will of the majority for the tuition fee vote".
"Look at it another way, those people who voted for the Lib Dems expressed their support for not raising the fees. The Lib Dems did not represent their views when they enabled bringing about the opposite."
Right, but Lib Dem voters also voted against the idea of the Westminster parliamentary system and voted for proportional representation as it was a flagship policy, so it'd be hypocritical to demand they pursue the Westminster syste
"I'm not saying that had no effect, but you can't overlook the fact that the only reason the Tory party has power is thanks to them. They could have formed a coalition with Labour, a party that is ideologically much closer to the Lib Dems. They had a choice and they decided to prop up the nasty party, and must accept responsibility for what the Tories have now done."
So you're saying they should've subverted democracy by helping push a party into power that only got 29% of the vote rather than one that got 36% of the vote? You may not like the Tories but they got the support they needed to be the party that got first dibs on government. Saying they must accept responsibility for what the Tories have done is nonsense, it's the electorate that must do that, because they're the ones who primarily voted Tory.
It's like the people that bitch and moan about Thatcher - she won three fucking elections, the people wanted her, the people voted for her. Pretending she was universally hated is nonsense, she had a massive amount of support. You can't shift blame onto the party or PM when it's the will of the people. You could do that if we were working under an electoral system that people didn't want and had no option to change but given that the populace has now overwhelmingly backed the status quo each time the issue of electoral reform has come up there's simply no argument, the populace is wholly responsible for the clusterfuck of governance we end up with in this country - they voted for it.
"It's also interesting that you cite tuition fees as an example of how they moderated Tory behaviour. Considering they signed a pledge not to raise them, then only tripled them rather than quadrupled them doesn't excuse the fact that they set out a promise but then abandoned it the moment they got a sniff of power."
This is stupid, see my post to the other guy. Your whole line of argument is effectively that the Lib Dems should've subverted democracy - that's not something you get to call for only when it suits, unless you also think it's okay for dictators to subvert democracy when it suits them. Labour wanted a rise to £6k (but may have gone higher if they actually retained power), the Tories wanted £12k, and the Lib Dems wanted none. What we end up with is a compromise figure that roughly represents what the electorate opted for with their votes, the largest block of votes was for the Tories, so the end result has to tend towards the will of that block unless you do not believe in democracy. How could the Lib Dems fulfil a pledge that the electorate had overwhelmingly voted against? If the electorate wanted that sort of thing we'd have a Lib Dem majority, but we do not.
Taking Labour + Tory votes the electorate voted 59% to 23% for an increase in fees, and guess what? we got one.
Right, but how exactly would you propose that they could've done that given that most people didn't vote for the Lib Dems? Are you suggesting they should've defied democracy when the largest voting block voted for the people that wanted £12,000 tuition fees?
The Lib Dems have just shy of 100 seats in parliament, the Tories have about 300. Given this, the Lib Dems got a proportional reduction from what the Tories wanted relative to the electoral power our populace had granted them them in a democracy. The £9,000 they got relative to the £12,000 the Tories wanted is the best reduction they could expect given the 3:1 ratio of Tories to Lib Dems in parliament.
It's nonsense to expect that they should have been able to achieve something that the electorate didn't vote for. That's undemocratic, that's not what people expressed they wanted with their vote. The people got from the Lib Dems the compromise they voted for, if people wanted the Lib Dem policy of no tuition fees they should've voted for a Lib Dem majority, but they didn't, more people voted for the party calling for £12,000 fees than the party calling for no fees.
The problem is these people aren't really protesting because of inequality or anything like that, that's just how they justify it to themselves.
These people are protesting because of jealousy, and that's why they're targeting someone successful, and smart.
We're talking about people who have seemingly lived all or most their lives in one of the most successful cities for opportunity in the whole world, yet failed to take advantage of those opportunities such that it would allow them to keep pace with inflation there. These people have let opportunity pass them by, and now they want someone to blame, and who better than people who have come along and taken up the opportunities that they let pass them by?
The British populace voted to allow minorities to dictate policy when they rejected AV.
AV wasn't the be all and end all, it didn't create proportional representation, but it did at least force MPs to have to cater to at least half of their constituents wish to some degree.
That's far better than the status quo our country voted to retain, whereby as little as what, 20% of the population for a constituency, i.e. the Daily Mail readers can be enough in some constituencies to dictate the voice of the entire constituency.
Oh and really, the coalition is the most representative government in decades anyway, a compromise government with 49% of the popular vote is still a far higher proportion than the proportion of combined support of any other ruling party in decades by a margin of as much as about 15%. Contrary to popular belief, the Lib Dems have neutered Tory policy (i.e. blocking the Interception Modernisation Programme, bringing tuition fees from the £12,000 the Tories wanted to £9,000, blocking removal of the highest tax rate) etc.
So yes, our populace has got exactly what it voted for. We still got exactly what we elected through a horribly broken system of un-representation that our populace agree to continue.
Oh right, so you were just going completely off-topic instead?
The way your post was phrased made it sound like you were suggesting we should focus on other things because otherwise it makes no sense in the context of the discussion. Maybe try and phrase it better in future.
So you want to kill to eat because you enjoy it, and you'll kill a coyote to ensure it doesn't prevent you having that enjoyment. How exactly does this make you any different from people who just kill things for enjoyment? You realise this makes you a hell of a hypocrite right?
"or to keep it from interfering with me reintroducing a species, such as wild turkeys."
But that makes no sense, coyotes are a natural predator, they're essential in the mechanism in reintroduction of species, you need predators to ensure those now wild animals that are not fit to survive in the wild do not survive, whilst those that are fit do survive and breed, hence maintaining a blood line of fit to survive turkeys or whatever. If you're culling the predators to allow unfit species to survive then you're on a fools errand, you're always going to lose because unless you completely wipe out those predators the predators are just going to grow in numbers due to the abundance of easily caught food - your unfit to survive by themselves turkeys until the turkeys are all easily eaten up, and then you see starvation of coyotes due to your failed experiment.
If you want to protect and improve natural balance by reintroduction you can't do it in a half-arsed manner, you have to accept that some of your reintroduced species must die to allow those that are fit to survive.
For what it's worth I fully support your idea of reintroduction, turkeys are essential for eating what we see as pests like ticks, but you're not going about it the right way. You have to let some of the turkeys die and nature will take it's course leaving those strong enough to escape coyotes to survive, breed, and grow in numbers. All you're doing right now is allowing your unfit turkeys to unnaturally pollute the gene pool with their unfit traits that allow them to be caught and eaten in the first place.
"The core concepts of religion (the existence of a higher power, the afterlife, etc.) are non-disprovable concepts, so they don't conflict with the scientific method (as they are not covered by it), which works by disproving hypotheses."
So you think things like the existence of a higher power, the afterlife and so forth are not themselves hypotheses?
How can you rationally engage in this discussion if you've already made your mind up that your theories are right and everyone elses are wrong by convincing these things are not hypotheses and hence the only other thing they can be is either fact or fiction? By suggesting these are not themselves hypotheses you must declare they are either true or false.
"I know may people successful in a STEM field who are religious."
So do I, but it always ends one of two ways. When religion and science inevitably collide in their lives, which it always eventually does, they either end up accepting the science and recognising their beliefs were nonsense all along, or they end up siding with religion and acting in an unscientific manner making them incompetent.
Even most historical figures show this trait, Darwin being an obvious one, the only exceptions go back far enough where levels of scientific knowledge were low enough and life spans short enough that they never reached that now inevitable conflict in their lives.
The bulk of religion is ultimately hearsay, there is still to this day absolutely zero evidence for any of it's most controversial beliefs, to be a great scientist, or mathematician you ultimately just cannot ever take hearsay for granted as fact, there has to be evidence or proof. That's why the two are always in conflict.
"I would thank you to keep your "inescapable logical facts" (I feel like only one set of scare quotes is insufficient here) to yourself when they deal with something as subjective as religion. Religion means a million different things to a million different people; you have no right to make blanket statements about them all."
I don't think you understand logic, and that's okay, your argument is illogical so that makes sense.
Sometimes the facts are such that you can reach a solid logical conclusion, there's no debate to be had, it's simply inescapable for the fact that as I say, otherwise it creates a paradox. Yes you're right, some people may be happy to pretend it's okay for there to be a paradox and dodge questions on how they decide which outcome wins out in the face of that paradox, but that doesn't change the fact there is a paradox, and that the only valid logical conclusion is that which avoids the paradox in the first place.
You may think it's okay for this to be the case, for people to believe in conflicting nonsense without ever being able to resolve that conflict in their head, but inevitably they'll encounter something in life where they have to, and that's where science and religion conflict such that they have to come out on the side of science, or that of religion. You simply cannot escape that, and if you think otherwise, then you are yourself avoiding such a conflict in your mind, and are yourself hence full of nonsense.
I get it I really, do, people like you who have never learned philosophical or mathematical logic do not understand why the things they say are full of illogical nonsense and hence inherently cannot be true, and that's okay, but don't pretend that's something that extends outside of nonsense thinking to those of us who do understand the meaning of logic.
So you're saying there are no cases in history where science conflicted with religion and those with the religious beliefs opted for faith over science? Because that's exactly what I said.
You see, it's not possible for them to choose science over faith because at that point they have to explicitly accept that their faith is wrong, and so they no longer hold that faith. That's an inescapable logical fact.
That doesn't prevent others who are non-religious also ignoring the science, but it is an inherent requirement that to have some specific faith based belief that you ignore the science when it conflicts, else you simply do not hold that belief.
To claim that you can both hold a religious belief that conflicts with scientific fact and accept that scientific fact creates a paradox, hence, your argument is complete nonsense and really is "faulty logic".
Exactly right, the real problem here is that in the developed world (and much of the undeveloped world in fact) we still treat pigs and cows far better than the Japanese are treating these dolphins.
Like the now banned (but still happening illegally) British fox hunts the issue in this case is a bunch of sick bastards who take pleasure in causing unnecessary suffering of animals, rather than whether it's right to use Dolphins as a food source or because it has any benefit to the ecosystem or whatever other reason might be put forward.
Normally in the developed world we criminalise excessive and unnecessary animal cruelty and in fact, we often categorise those who do it on an individual level as psychopaths, yet we still seem to let it slide for "cultural reasons" when a number of people get together to do it as a group. It seems to get put into a different category because it's "cultural". You can't torture a person and say "Well, you can't arrest me, it's my culture to torture people" so why is it okay for nations to turn a blind eye on other issues like this, or on the Church or UKIP councillors breaking hate speech or discrimination laws?
It seems after a brief search that Japan does have similar animal cruelty laws to Western nations so why aren't the authorities prosecuting? Culture shouldn't be a get out of jail free card for breaking the law, else they better drop their case against Mikotoa Harata because the Aum Shinrikyo cult he was part of genuniely held a cultural belief that releasing Sarin on the Tokyo subway was the right thing to do.
So yes, you're dead right, the problem here isn't what animal is or isn't arbitrarily defined as too smart to kill, it's about the exceptional levels of cruelty involved, it's about the fact that culture and tradition is being used as an excuse to break the law and that the authorities are allowing it for political reasons.
Slashdot Mirror
I have all new gen consoles (Wii U, PS4, and Xbox One) and frankly think it's silly to get pissy about one or the other. The Xbox One isn't a pile of turd because even if it doesn't give you 1080p 60fps on everything it still has great games like Dead Rising 3 which gives you many tens of hours of some of the best gameplay going that you just can't get anywhere else. Similarly the Wii U seems all but dead, but Pikmin 3 was my favourite game of last year, and the likes of Lego City Undercover and Super Mario 3D World were excellent so I really couldn't give a shit about how crap the hardware supposedly is.
Just figure out what games you like and buy whichever console has them. Most of the rest of what you read is just FUD, all the stuff about Kinect not being unpluggable and so forth was bollocks, you can, turn it off, unplug it, and throw it out the window if you feel like it and everything is fine. Both the PS4 and X1 have their quirks right now, the X1 is missing some UI functionality that the 360 had which is stupid and annoying, whilst the PS4's support for parties and online gaming is still worse than that of the 360s which is embarassing given it was the biggest criticism of the PS3 and they should've sorted that shit out by now. Despite these sorts of things it's stupid to say one is better than the other, sure BF4 runs at a slightly higher resolution, but it's also got less good exclusives - there are pros and cons to either system. If you're only getting one you just have to figure out which has the best ratio of pros to cons, but to me the biggest deciding factor would probably be the exclusives. I'm not into The Order, whilst Ryse and Dead Rising 3 were exactly my type of thing, but the PS4 is getting a new Uncharted game so it's really what sort of game you prefer, and ignore all the other bullshit, because it's exactly that, bullshit.
Honestly, the only thing I really hate about the PS4 and X1 is they both seem to have been trying to compete for who can make their console look the most retardedly like a 1980s VHS recorder. I think Microsoft just about won that one, but it was a pretty fucking close call.
Um, I think you need to check your maths. The Lib Dems got 23% of the votes but only 8.8% of seats.
"Settling land is not a legitimate way to take it from another country."
Exactly, but unfortunately that's the only way Argentina ever has any kind of claim.
France discovered it first, Britain settled it first. The Spanish came along decades later and created a bigger settlement on the other sides of the island to the British and the British didn't complain. When Spain ceded control of Argentina as an independent nation it left and the British took full control. Argentina's claim stems from the idea that the Falklands were always part of what is now Argentina, and that as the Spanish gave that up to them then the Falklands were part of that deal too. Argentina did try to settle whilst the British were there on another part of the island but failed and gave up. Spain supports Argentina's claim to this day merely because it's convenient to do so because they want Gibraltar back and figure if they support Argentina, then Argentina will support them, not because of any actual historical agreement.
So to sum up:
- Discovered first: France, who support Britain's claim
- Settled first: Britain
- Settled longest: Britain
- Self determination: Britain
- Militarily held: Britain
The only way a Spanish handover can be deemed legitimate is if you take the stance you're saying isn't acceptable - that the Spanish built a bigger colony there and so annexed it from the British. But this becomes hypocritical as it means Argentina is arguing that a Spanish annexation of the islands from Britain was acceptable, but a British annexation from the Spanish when they left isn't.
Argentina's last argument is that of geographical proximity, but on that note Canada could just demand Alaska, Britain could claim Ireland, and other such silliness.
This is why Argentina's claim has been repeatedly shredded apart in international law, because for their claim to have any support you have to resort to hypocrisy (i.e. it's okay for Spain/Argentina to annex land, but not Britain to annex it back afterwards), or nonsense arguments like geographical proximity. All the arguments that are logically consistent and far Argentina simply loses.
"You also need to check the historical records, particularly documents that recently came to light under the 30 year rule. It seems we were negotiating with the Argentinians and could have easily avoided a war. Various ideas were thrown around, including giving most of the islands back but allowing the British citizens to remain part of the UK and govern themselves. Thatcher decided she wasn't going to compromise though."
You're letting your anti-Thatcher hatred fill you with nonsense now. Us dropping negotiations had zero to do with Thatcher not wanting to compromise and everything to do with the fact that the Junta made the miscalculation that as we were negotiating we wouldn't put up a fight if they just took it - they figured just taking it would make them look good back home as they'd made it a populist cause and that the British wouldn't be bothered as we were already showing signs that we may be willing to hand it over anyway. Argentina invaded before Thatcher even had a chance to make a decision so it's stupid to pile that onto Thatcher.
I'm not going to defend Thatcher's decisions during and after the war, you're largely right in what you say there, it was a populist cause for her too, but pretending she caused or started the war is going full on retarded. On the contrary she never expected the war precisely because she was negotiating. She's seen as protector of the islands because she did decided to fight for them back in the fact of such aggression rather than just let them go. Some argue she even had to, because if she didn't fight for them back Spain could've annexed Gibraltar too and all British overseas territory that wanted to be British could've been lost.
The Falklands invasion wasn't the fault of anyone in the UK, and the decision to fight for it back was the right one both strategically, and morally if you believe in the f
Care to provide a citation for your theory as I've been Googling around and I can't find the blindest bit of evidence for it.
That's historical though and many are quick to forgive and forget. Global pollings over the past few years have shown the UK to be one of the most respected global nations only just a bit behind nations like Germany. I can't recall the ranking but it was top 5, whilst the US was down at 30 something.
As a British citizen this actually surprised me as I thought after we stupidly joined America in Iraq that we'd struggle to shake that off for far longer than it appears we've actually had to.
Here's one such study, there was a better one that had more nations in it but I can't find it now:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...
Presumably the next ones will be coming around in a few months as they all seem to be yearly studies. Keep in mind that this particular one benefited from the Olympic/Jubilee/Royal Pregnancy effect because of those sorts of things occuring in the year previous which boosted our ranking somewhat.
I'm not saying we don't deserve to be seen in a negative light, as I say, I'm not happy with what our country has done, and still is doing (particularly the fact that GCHQ seems to be a wholly owned subsidiary of the NSA) but the fact is that for the most part Britain is seen in a very positive light, whereas the US just isn't so much.
Of course, if the far right wing of part of our current government (the Tories) still keep acting like the little bigotted xenophobic fascists they are in trying to push a highly isolationist agenda for no other reason than they hate foreigners then I can't see our ranking staying as high as it is.
I remember being able to just walk upto the place and jump around on the stones at Stonehenge as a kid, and okay, maybe that was a bit wrong given it's significance but this seizure and commercialisation of history and culture by people that simply have no right of ownership of it is sickening.
I'm pretty sure the folks who built Stonehenge would be a bit fucked off to hear about the commercialisation of it, I'm pretty sure they didn't build it so a select few people could profit off of it in the future.
I can answer that.
I'd help allay the West's concerns that Iran has a nuclear weapons program by not blocking them at the UN to enforce provisions that would ensure Iran fulfils it's requirements as a NPT signatory.
Then, when it was clear Iran didn't have a programme (or if they did, it could be destroyed/dismantled) the US' argument for it's missile shield would be removed.
But Russia was busy supporting Iran at the UN in blocking IAEA inspectors, selling it defence systems to better protect military sites where it was carrying out unknown nuclear development, bitching at Israel at the UN when Israel unilaterally destroyed Syria's nuclear weapons program rather than condemning Syria for having a covert nuclear weapons program. At the same time it was being a whiney bitch about America wanting a missle shield against those nations.
Look, I'm no fan of the US, but that doesn't mean I feel I have to be a fan of Syria, Iran and Russia either. The fact is Russia had a simple solution to the missile shield problem - to cooperate with America in dealing with a legitimate concern - Iran's possible nuclear weapons program and it's refusal to cooperate with the IAEA to prove it didn't have one. Had it done that the excuses for the missile shield would be non-existent and Russia would've been fully in the right.
But you can't actively support a threat that gives the US an excuse for a European missile shield and then bitch about about them hence calling for a missile shield, that's just hypocritical and stupid.
How are RM not dead already? Software that makes Windows infinitely more buggy and far more difficult to fix when things go wrong, and hardware that turns up without the PSU plugged into the motherboard and other such stupid mistakes.
God I don't miss dealing with them.
"Sorry, but it's not "democratic" for MPs to vote in direct contravention to the wishes of the people who elected them in order to represent the people who didn't."
There's only a handful of the 650 MPs in parliament that are elected by a majority of their constituents. Most get in with as little as 20 - 30% support from their electorate. Listening to the majority of the population is massively more representative than lying on a fundamentally flawed individual constituent FPTP vote because it almost never results in representation of anything other than an absolute minority of views for that constituency.
Even fraud isn't foolproof for them though, the OiNK admin was tried for that and got off completely , so it seems fraud prosecutions for this sort of thing are on very shaky ground, it really is clutching at straws.
I don't know if the SurfTheChannel guy is or has appealed but if he hasn't there's a possibility it'll be overturned there anyway.
What he describes was recently in the news regarding a handful of popular browser add-ons primarily targeting Chrome because it's the most used browser globally.
A couple of browser extension developers sold their extensions which were then replaced with versions that injected ads into web pages and so forth. Google removed these add-ons from the Chrome add on store as soon as it was spotted.
I've heard of no cases of this happening with the Android store, and even if it has it's pretty clear that Google are willing to act immediately when there is evidence of it as they did with the Chrome store.
It sounds like he's taken the news story about Chrome, twisted it into one about Android, thrown a few anecdotes about "people I know" who have had it happen to them in with a bunch of other unfounded claims like mention of security conference proceedings which also unsurprisingly have topics about every other platform too and chucked it out there as a Slashdot post.
There's always a proportion of jobs that go to friends and family due to bias and nepotism, but that doesn't change the fact that there's a far larger proportion (like, over 99%) that are granted based on merit.
Those opportunities were just as much open to these people too.
P.S. I'm not American, and hopefully never will be.
But that's not what the Lib Dems stand for, they don't stand for defence of the Westminster system, they stand for progressive democracy with proportional representation, and that means listening to the democratic will of the populace.
Also I'm not represented by my MP and never will be anyway, because the populace also voted against AV, so I'm stuck with an MP that represents only about 35% of my fellow constituents and can just ignore the other 65% of us.
"More people voted for broadly central or slightly left leaning policies than the very right wing policies of the Tory party. In terms of giving people the policies they wanted a coalition with Labour would have been the democratic thing to do."
Most people were voting against Labour because they were utterly sick of it, so no, giving power back to Labour was absolutely not the right thing to do. The 2010 election was above all else a referendum on 13 years of Labour and the staggering levels of incompetence things had come to once Brown took the helm. If there's one thing people wanted less than the Tory right gaining any power it was Labour getting another term.
Besides, I'm not even convinced by your argument given that Labour had swung further to the right and authoritarianism under Brown than even the Tories. I'd say the populace was after more liberal leadership and like it or not, the Tories had that on offer even more so than Labour did because they were at least offering to scrap the ID card database, reign in illegal DNA retention, curb intrusive abuse of RIPA by councils and so forth - all of which Labour was vowing to continue. Coupled with the economic problem where people were demanding a halt to rising debt and frankly I don't think there's a leg to stand on in suggesting people wanted more of Labour.
It's easy to look at Labour with rose tinted glasses now, but back then they had very little benefit over the Tories unless your overriding concern was say Europe and nothing else.
"One of those she won on the back of a somewhat dubious war. One was mostly because of how bad the Labour party was at the time. The other was the usual mix of lies about not raising taxes and bribes by selling off public utilities for a fraction of their real value."
That changes what exactly? the people were still happy to vote based on that. They still got what they wanted.
"If we had some kind of proportional representation she wouldn't have been able to take the extreme actions she did."
If we had some kind of proportional representation we wouldn't have the high levels of retardation from either the right or the left. No Thatcher, no Brown. Unfortunately we don't, and unfortunately the populace voted to maintain that status quo.
"How could the Tory party implement a policy that the overwhelming majority didn't vote for?"
But they did vote for it - 36% voted for Tories (£12k fees), 29% voted for Labour (£6k - £9k fees), and only 23% voted for Lib Dems (no fees). That means 65% of the populace voted for at least £6k fees, 36% voted for 12k fees, whilst only 23% voted for no fees. You could argue that maybe £8k was a more representative compromise and that's true, but it doesn't change the fundamental point that the vote was such that it tended more towards £9k, than it did to £6k, or even nothing.
"Since the Lib Dems had ruled it out they should not have supported it."
At the core of Lib Dem belief is the idea of proportional representation, a fair, progressive democracy. How could they rationally argue on one hand for PR whilst on the other try and sabotage policy backed by the will of the majority? It'd just be outright hypocrisy. Keep in mind the context that they were still fighting for a vote on PR at the time and not just AV. How could they say with a straight face "Yeah we want a democracy that represents the will of the majority, but we're just going to be hypocrits and ignore the will of the majority for the tuition fee vote".
"Look at it another way, those people who voted for the Lib Dems expressed their support for not raising the fees. The Lib Dems did not represent their views when they enabled bringing about the opposite."
Right, but Lib Dem voters also voted against the idea of the Westminster parliamentary system and voted for proportional representation as it was a flagship policy, so it'd be hypocritical to demand they pursue the Westminster syste
"I'm not saying that had no effect, but you can't overlook the fact that the only reason the Tory party has power is thanks to them. They could have formed a coalition with Labour, a party that is ideologically much closer to the Lib Dems. They had a choice and they decided to prop up the nasty party, and must accept responsibility for what the Tories have now done."
So you're saying they should've subverted democracy by helping push a party into power that only got 29% of the vote rather than one that got 36% of the vote? You may not like the Tories but they got the support they needed to be the party that got first dibs on government. Saying they must accept responsibility for what the Tories have done is nonsense, it's the electorate that must do that, because they're the ones who primarily voted Tory.
It's like the people that bitch and moan about Thatcher - she won three fucking elections, the people wanted her, the people voted for her. Pretending she was universally hated is nonsense, she had a massive amount of support. You can't shift blame onto the party or PM when it's the will of the people. You could do that if we were working under an electoral system that people didn't want and had no option to change but given that the populace has now overwhelmingly backed the status quo each time the issue of electoral reform has come up there's simply no argument, the populace is wholly responsible for the clusterfuck of governance we end up with in this country - they voted for it.
"It's also interesting that you cite tuition fees as an example of how they moderated Tory behaviour. Considering they signed a pledge not to raise them, then only tripled them rather than quadrupled them doesn't excuse the fact that they set out a promise but then abandoned it the moment they got a sniff of power."
This is stupid, see my post to the other guy. Your whole line of argument is effectively that the Lib Dems should've subverted democracy - that's not something you get to call for only when it suits, unless you also think it's okay for dictators to subvert democracy when it suits them. Labour wanted a rise to £6k (but may have gone higher if they actually retained power), the Tories wanted £12k, and the Lib Dems wanted none. What we end up with is a compromise figure that roughly represents what the electorate opted for with their votes, the largest block of votes was for the Tories, so the end result has to tend towards the will of that block unless you do not believe in democracy. How could the Lib Dems fulfil a pledge that the electorate had overwhelmingly voted against? If the electorate wanted that sort of thing we'd have a Lib Dem majority, but we do not.
Taking Labour + Tory votes the electorate voted 59% to 23% for an increase in fees, and guess what? we got one.
Right, but how exactly would you propose that they could've done that given that most people didn't vote for the Lib Dems? Are you suggesting they should've defied democracy when the largest voting block voted for the people that wanted £12,000 tuition fees?
The Lib Dems have just shy of 100 seats in parliament, the Tories have about 300. Given this, the Lib Dems got a proportional reduction from what the Tories wanted relative to the electoral power our populace had granted them them in a democracy. The £9,000 they got relative to the £12,000 the Tories wanted is the best reduction they could expect given the 3:1 ratio of Tories to Lib Dems in parliament.
It's nonsense to expect that they should have been able to achieve something that the electorate didn't vote for. That's undemocratic, that's not what people expressed they wanted with their vote. The people got from the Lib Dems the compromise they voted for, if people wanted the Lib Dem policy of no tuition fees they should've voted for a Lib Dem majority, but they didn't, more people voted for the party calling for £12,000 fees than the party calling for no fees.
The problem is these people aren't really protesting because of inequality or anything like that, that's just how they justify it to themselves.
These people are protesting because of jealousy, and that's why they're targeting someone successful, and smart.
We're talking about people who have seemingly lived all or most their lives in one of the most successful cities for opportunity in the whole world, yet failed to take advantage of those opportunities such that it would allow them to keep pace with inflation there. These people have let opportunity pass them by, and now they want someone to blame, and who better than people who have come along and taken up the opportunities that they let pass them by?
The British populace voted to allow minorities to dictate policy when they rejected AV.
AV wasn't the be all and end all, it didn't create proportional representation, but it did at least force MPs to have to cater to at least half of their constituents wish to some degree.
That's far better than the status quo our country voted to retain, whereby as little as what, 20% of the population for a constituency, i.e. the Daily Mail readers can be enough in some constituencies to dictate the voice of the entire constituency.
Oh and really, the coalition is the most representative government in decades anyway, a compromise government with 49% of the popular vote is still a far higher proportion than the proportion of combined support of any other ruling party in decades by a margin of as much as about 15%. Contrary to popular belief, the Lib Dems have neutered Tory policy (i.e. blocking the Interception Modernisation Programme, bringing tuition fees from the £12,000 the Tories wanted to £9,000, blocking removal of the highest tax rate) etc.
So yes, our populace has got exactly what it voted for. We still got exactly what we elected through a horribly broken system of un-representation that our populace agree to continue.
Oh right, so you were just going completely off-topic instead?
The way your post was phrased made it sound like you were suggesting we should focus on other things because otherwise it makes no sense in the context of the discussion. Maybe try and phrase it better in future.
"To keep it from killing things I want to kill"
So you want to kill to eat because you enjoy it, and you'll kill a coyote to ensure it doesn't prevent you having that enjoyment. How exactly does this make you any different from people who just kill things for enjoyment? You realise this makes you a hell of a hypocrite right?
"or to keep it from interfering with me reintroducing a species, such as wild turkeys."
But that makes no sense, coyotes are a natural predator, they're essential in the mechanism in reintroduction of species, you need predators to ensure those now wild animals that are not fit to survive in the wild do not survive, whilst those that are fit do survive and breed, hence maintaining a blood line of fit to survive turkeys or whatever. If you're culling the predators to allow unfit species to survive then you're on a fools errand, you're always going to lose because unless you completely wipe out those predators the predators are just going to grow in numbers due to the abundance of easily caught food - your unfit to survive by themselves turkeys until the turkeys are all easily eaten up, and then you see starvation of coyotes due to your failed experiment.
If you want to protect and improve natural balance by reintroduction you can't do it in a half-arsed manner, you have to accept that some of your reintroduced species must die to allow those that are fit to survive.
For what it's worth I fully support your idea of reintroduction, turkeys are essential for eating what we see as pests like ticks, but you're not going about it the right way. You have to let some of the turkeys die and nature will take it's course leaving those strong enough to escape coyotes to survive, breed, and grow in numbers. All you're doing right now is allowing your unfit turkeys to unnaturally pollute the gene pool with their unfit traits that allow them to be caught and eaten in the first place.
"The core concepts of religion (the existence of a higher power, the afterlife, etc.) are non-disprovable concepts, so they don't conflict with the scientific method (as they are not covered by it), which works by disproving hypotheses."
So you think things like the existence of a higher power, the afterlife and so forth are not themselves hypotheses?
How can you rationally engage in this discussion if you've already made your mind up that your theories are right and everyone elses are wrong by convincing these things are not hypotheses and hence the only other thing they can be is either fact or fiction? By suggesting these are not themselves hypotheses you must declare they are either true or false.
"I know may people successful in a STEM field who are religious."
So do I, but it always ends one of two ways. When religion and science inevitably collide in their lives, which it always eventually does, they either end up accepting the science and recognising their beliefs were nonsense all along, or they end up siding with religion and acting in an unscientific manner making them incompetent.
Even most historical figures show this trait, Darwin being an obvious one, the only exceptions go back far enough where levels of scientific knowledge were low enough and life spans short enough that they never reached that now inevitable conflict in their lives.
The bulk of religion is ultimately hearsay, there is still to this day absolutely zero evidence for any of it's most controversial beliefs, to be a great scientist, or mathematician you ultimately just cannot ever take hearsay for granted as fact, there has to be evidence or proof. That's why the two are always in conflict.
"I would thank you to keep your "inescapable logical facts" (I feel like only one set of scare quotes is insufficient here) to yourself when they deal with something as subjective as religion. Religion means a million different things to a million different people; you have no right to make blanket statements about them all."
I don't think you understand logic, and that's okay, your argument is illogical so that makes sense.
Sometimes the facts are such that you can reach a solid logical conclusion, there's no debate to be had, it's simply inescapable for the fact that as I say, otherwise it creates a paradox. Yes you're right, some people may be happy to pretend it's okay for there to be a paradox and dodge questions on how they decide which outcome wins out in the face of that paradox, but that doesn't change the fact there is a paradox, and that the only valid logical conclusion is that which avoids the paradox in the first place.
You may think it's okay for this to be the case, for people to believe in conflicting nonsense without ever being able to resolve that conflict in their head, but inevitably they'll encounter something in life where they have to, and that's where science and religion conflict such that they have to come out on the side of science, or that of religion. You simply cannot escape that, and if you think otherwise, then you are yourself avoiding such a conflict in your mind, and are yourself hence full of nonsense.
I get it I really, do, people like you who have never learned philosophical or mathematical logic do not understand why the things they say are full of illogical nonsense and hence inherently cannot be true, and that's okay, but don't pretend that's something that extends outside of nonsense thinking to those of us who do understand the meaning of logic.
Um, you sound like you've completely lost the plot.
I guess I'll leave you to it because you sound like you're projecting now, either way nothing you've said is relevant to me.
I guess you just don't like rationality, I guess it's inconvenient to your beliefs.
But that was ultimately my point, so point proven I guess.
"Faulty logic."
So you're saying there are no cases in history where science conflicted with religion and those with the religious beliefs opted for faith over science? Because that's exactly what I said.
You see, it's not possible for them to choose science over faith because at that point they have to explicitly accept that their faith is wrong, and so they no longer hold that faith. That's an inescapable logical fact.
That doesn't prevent others who are non-religious also ignoring the science, but it is an inherent requirement that to have some specific faith based belief that you ignore the science when it conflicts, else you simply do not hold that belief.
To claim that you can both hold a religious belief that conflicts with scientific fact and accept that scientific fact creates a paradox, hence, your argument is complete nonsense and really is "faulty logic".
Exactly right, the real problem here is that in the developed world (and much of the undeveloped world in fact) we still treat pigs and cows far better than the Japanese are treating these dolphins.
Like the now banned (but still happening illegally) British fox hunts the issue in this case is a bunch of sick bastards who take pleasure in causing unnecessary suffering of animals, rather than whether it's right to use Dolphins as a food source or because it has any benefit to the ecosystem or whatever other reason might be put forward.
Normally in the developed world we criminalise excessive and unnecessary animal cruelty and in fact, we often categorise those who do it on an individual level as psychopaths, yet we still seem to let it slide for "cultural reasons" when a number of people get together to do it as a group. It seems to get put into a different category because it's "cultural". You can't torture a person and say "Well, you can't arrest me, it's my culture to torture people" so why is it okay for nations to turn a blind eye on other issues like this, or on the Church or UKIP councillors breaking hate speech or discrimination laws?
It seems after a brief search that Japan does have similar animal cruelty laws to Western nations so why aren't the authorities prosecuting? Culture shouldn't be a get out of jail free card for breaking the law, else they better drop their case against Mikotoa Harata because the Aum Shinrikyo cult he was part of genuniely held a cultural belief that releasing Sarin on the Tokyo subway was the right thing to do.
So yes, you're dead right, the problem here isn't what animal is or isn't arbitrarily defined as too smart to kill, it's about the exceptional levels of cruelty involved, it's about the fact that culture and tradition is being used as an excuse to break the law and that the authorities are allowing it for political reasons.