Unfortunately it doesn't mean it is a net positive either and that's precisely why drug legislation change moves at such a slow pace.
No politician wants to be the guy who makes the policy change only for it to turn out that it makes things worse and until there are more case studies (i.e. countries who have done it succesfully) or more research that does a good job of predicting the knock on effects - i.e. higher drug driving casualties, cartel folk moving from drug trafficking to weapons trafficking or people trafficking or even ransoms or perhaps even terrorism against the governments of the countries they're in and so forth no one in a major nation is going to make the jump. Even if it isn't a net negative then there's still risk for politicians - say for example they legalise it in the UK and it makes things better in terms of reduced crime, but increases costs to the NHS even though the net effect is a reduction in burden on society the political opponents are still going to mop up the chance to say "Hey look his policy is putting massive strain on the NHS!".
The drug trade is such a massive part of the world economy also that there are economic effects of changing the balance too which need to be taken into account.
Part the problem is that precisely because the existing status quo is so firmly entrenched in both the global economy and global politics it's highly unpredictable as to the effects of such a fundamental change.
So it's not as simple as the "just legalise it all!" fantasists like to pretend - it's a much deeper, and much more complex problem than that, hence why most politicians wont touch it with a barge pole.
If it happens it's going to happen slowly, starting with legalisation of things like cannabis in some parts of the world (as seems to already be happening) and there'll be a period of observation to check the impacts - keep in mind that even the famous Amsterdam which was known for it's cannabis tolerance has sought to ban it for tourists because of the trouble they were causing when high so things can go backwards if it doesn't work out well - if it works out well though they'll try tackling the harder stuff.
But it wont happen overnight and understandably so. Economically alone you just can't turn an industry with so much of the world's money flowing through it on it's head overnight and not have shit go haywire because of legalisation in a major consumer state like the US. Previously unknown drug money being pulled out of the banking system alone by traffickers and barons in a panic could be enough to tip weaker banks over the edge, causing a similar cascade as we saw with Lehman in 2008 resulting in a crisis we still haven't all fully recovered from.
It's not a simple problem, and there's not a simple answer. Most importantly it can't be rushed and there's definitely not a quick solution for change.
Right, but is it complete? Is it well indexed and searchable? Is it blocked by any corporate firewalls?, any mobile firewalls in places like the UK because of explicit content?
A reduced number of sites still means a reduced amount of ability to search for your product.
"Pretty much the same as Gibraltar, no? The dutch gave it to England... except it wasn't theirs to give."
Sure, but it's not Britain making the argument is it? It's Argentina.
"And if you think the UK, which has both economical (oil) and strategical (military bases) in the Malvinas would even think of letting the islanders have any real control over the islands, you're a fool."
Been swallowing your nation's propaganda I see. Tell me, what exactly do you expect us to do with a military base in the South Atlantic? It's a launch point for exactly nothing. The only reason there's a worthwhile military base there in the first place is precisely because Argentina invaded. The oil claim is unproven still and until the Kirchner dynasty decided to cut off it's nose to spite it's face the British government invited Argentina into joint oil exploration rights anyway. This is because a cooperative agreement where oil could be piped direct to Argentina would allow much quicker and more efficient exploitation of the resources if they actually exist - it would be a mutually beneficial partnership but Kirchner needed the Falklands for political propaganda once more so threw it all away.
"I don't think any of you NATO members have a moral authority to call anyone else a "bully"."
Nonsense. Just because NATO and the UK are bullies doesn't remove the right to also call other nations bullies. The UK may well be a bully of weaker nations, but weaker nations can still bully even weaker nations or territories again, and they deserve to be called out on that as much as we do. We don't get to go and rob the local cash machine because someone else robbed a bank and say "You have no right to call me a criminal, that guy robbed a whole bank!".
"So, see? Argentina is not that crazy. We play the same international politics rethorics game everyone else plays."
You realise Gibraltar isn't the Falklands right? Even if the British government has used the term never in relation to Gibraltar it most certainly hasn't with the Falklands - our PMs have consistently followed the line that they wont negotiate sovereignty whilst the islanders want to remain British - that's explicitly conditional so it's obvious what the Argentinians want to do if they really want it - make the islanders want to be Argentinian by treating them better though yes, that's going to be pretty fucking difficult after you invaded them. It'll take time and it's not impossible, but each time you threaten them and use them as scapegoats for your own internal problems you're only making it more difficult and causing it to take even longer.
"Let's make it easier for you: if Argentina "sits down to negotiate", that act itself would be considered defeat"
This is further nonsense, your own country's exact position is that it wants to sit down and negotiate over the islands because UN resolution 2065 stated we should do exactly that. Our government refuses to because it views it as pointless as the islanders don't want anything other than to remain British right now:
How can you criticise someone else for not understanding international politics when you don't even understand the position of your own country on the issue in question?
Also I've known lyrics to a song before but not the name. Being able to search the internet based on lyrics is what has allowed me to find a song I was after.
Reducing access to lyrics is reducing people's ability to find the name of a product they wish to buy.
I think he's referring to the fact that when the Spanish left the British took control again, but that ignores the fact that the Spanish had already taken it from Britain/France in the first place.
So the argument is self-defeating anyway, if you argue that it's wrong for Britain to claim it back from Spanish rule after they left and told Argentina they could have it because you believe it's wrong to seize by force then you also have to accept that it was wrong for the Spanish to claim it from the original Anglo-French arrivals.
Effectively what people such as the AC are trying to do is argue that it was only wrong when the British did it and not when the Spanish did it first, which is logically inconsistent.
"Saying Argentina should have them because they are close to Argentina is like saying Puerto Rico should be given to Cuba because it's closer to Cuba than the USA."
Or Alaska given to Canada/Russia, or Ireland be put back wholly under British control, or the Chinese claim to the likes of Tibet, Taiwan and so forth formalised and accepted internationally.
You're exactly right and this highlights why the geographical argument is utter nonsense.
Beyond that the other arguments just don't go in Argentina's favour - the citizenship obviously don't want to be Argentinian, the "who got there first" argument goes entirely against Argentina because it was the British or the French, and France supports Britain's claim and beyond that it's back to "But the Spanish gave it to us!" - yes, except it wasn't Spain's to give because Spain did to the British there exactly what Argentina is claiming the British did to them so by their own logic if you follow the who took it from who argument back to square one then you just return to "who got there first" which makes it firmly an Anglo-French affair.
But the bigger problem for Argentina is that there have been times in the past where the British have been willing to work with Argentina on the islands - joint exploration with Anglo-Argentinian participation in oil exploration for example but every time Argentina gets into a crisis it's inept leadership decides to play hardball to try and bolster their image at home and it goes tits up. If Argentina behaved itself, was constructive, and could run it's own country successfully without going bankrupt the chances are the populace of the Falklands would've been willing to voluntarily go under Argentinian control by now simply because it'd be far more practical for them to do so.
So they shoot themselves in the foot entirely by being combative and by using it as their favourite political scapegoat every time they fuck up.
If Argentina wants the Falklands there's a simple solution - stop being a bunch of dicks, be nice to the islanders and give them a reason to want to be Argentinian. The very fact they don't do this shows how much Argentina's interest in the Falklands is about resorting to populism in the face of political ineptitude rather than absolutely anything else.
As an aside, I also firmly believe this is where the US went wrong with Cuba. Rather then perpetuating the embargo they have on Cuba put in place since the Cuban missile crisis I'd wager that after the fall of the soviet union that if the US had free trade with Cuba it'd be so westernised right now with millions of American tourists and imports that it'd probably be racing against Puerto Rico for 51st state status and would likely be a thriving democracy.
It may sound wishy washy but the reality is if you want something from someone it's generally better to not try and play the bully towards them. Especially so when they have a brother that can be a far bigger bully than you are looking over them.
I don't think anyone in the UK really gives a shit if the Falklands want to go under Argentinian control voluntarily, but we're not going to put up with them being bullied into it. Argentinians need to think about the alternative and see how they'd feel if we resolved the proximity argument by just taking over Argentina and making them British by force instead - sound like a horrible, unfair, frustrating, anger-inducing idea? It should, that's how you make the Falklanders feel each time you open your mouths on the issue.
Maybe it's news because crackpot attention whore McAfee has been silent for at least a couple of months now which is about as newsworthy as it gets with him?
"Technically that's true. If somebody puts a gun to your head and tells you to either join the military or be shot now, and you choose the bullet now, your heirs will be free to praise you morality. Until and unless that happens to you, shove your sanctimony."
To be fair the situation was no different to Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, yet the people opted to rise up and fight their respective governments. These people were living in police states no less effective, brutal and oppressive than that created by the likes of Hitler.
Those soldiers who fought for and the civilians who didn't not oppose are complicit in the war whether they like it or not. Unless they explicitly acted against, then they're being given an excuse they do not deserve.
Even if people were being told at gunpoint they have to serve then you're making out that they're making a simple choice about survival and nothing, but it's not that simple. If you serve then yes you may survive but you're explicitly going to have to try and take others lives. If you take or try to take others lives for the sake of self-preservation when you know your side is in the wrong then you're still a bad person whether you like it or not. By serving you're not just saying "Well it was that or die", you're saying "Well I'd rather not die so I'm going to kill others instead" - that's not really any better than if you willingly say "I want to kill others".
If you serve and sabotage or defect when the opportunity arises then that's one thing, but that wasn't widespread enough for that to be a common enough case to absolve even a decent proportion of soldiers of blame. The unfortunate reality is that most soldiers fighting for the axis powers actually thought they were in the right, and most civilians were accepting of what was going on and hence therefore complicit.
You only have to look at France post-invasion, some fell into line with their new Nazi dictators, but others formed Free France and opposed even though they faced the exact same threats of violence to themselves and their families as any axis soldiers who served would've faced in opposing.
The problem is that puerile see it as an IT thing. They don't see any aspect of IT security as part of their job so they just don't care. They just figure if they give you all the information then it's your problem to deal with and they can forget about it.
Until companies start enforcing and having meaningful penalties enforced upon them for such misdemeanors I don't see this changing.
Give a verbal warning, followed by a written warning followed by the sack. I'd wager 99% of employees never reach the sack after the seriousness of two formal warnings and learn their lessons. That other 1% shouldn't be near anything that requires security in the first place because they're the lowest common security denominator - the gaping hole in your security regime, and they're all it takes for it all to fall.
You're possibly right, I haven't tried many different formats, but don't the most common audio/video formats work? Things like divx, xvid, matroska, mp4?
I know I've played at least some of those okay in the past.
You could say the same about Boris bikes in London but I don't think that's really been the case to date, though I haven't followed their story closely so maybe I'm wrong.
"I take it you mean connecting one to a network, I'm not sure I understand you."
That's because I'm a retard. By shitty server support, I meant shitty driver support, though it may have been an Android auto-correct fail and not my fault I guess.
A large part of Linux's problems historically have been because a lot of hardware doesn't get first party driver support and relies on volunteers whom do what they can to get basic support it but don't necessarily have the hardware in question available to test it - that's always historically been the problem with Linux desktop issues and is certainly why I had so many non-working Wifi issues and so forth because drivers were implemented based on what little documentation was available and not tested with the actual hardware.
I know this isn't the fault of the FOSS community and is entirely the fault of companies, but either way it's also an unfortunate fact as to why Windows has historically worked better on the desktop for many people.
"but I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment on security (I know enough to have a thin grasp on how immensely ignorant I am)"
Years ago, and I mean years ago, I spent those years doing things I shouldn't to Windows, finding exploits and so forth and it's absolutely true that Windows was riddle with holes and Linux was a much harder play - things like DLL injection to hook into applications with higher privileges and a desktop presence allowing privilege escalation and so forth I discovered on my own. Nowadays it's almost the case that the reverse is true, circa 2000 Microsoft really began to realise it had to take security seriously given the bad reputation it had for it and it did actually work, since that point they've come in leaps and bounds and although their software isn't perfect (no software is) it's still pretty solid in terms of security - some of the things they've implemented in terms of security they did so way ahead of anyone else such as ASLR in the browser and so forth.
So in this respect I have a lot of sympathy for Microsoft, especially as someone with a history of breaking Windows and I do genuinely think that comments about them not being secure nowadays is indeed a little unfair because for each security vulnerability they do have they also have products that have security techniques that are mere theory in every other software community including FOSS.
I'm actually trying Windows 8, well, 8.1 now and even that isn't as bad as many have made out though this is in part because I use shortcut keys. I find it boots and runs way faster than even Windows 7 did. There's no doubt the new start menu is shit, but because of my shortcut key/pinned taskbar icon and desktop icon usage I thankfully pretty much never see it.
There's no doubt Microsoft deserve a lot of flack for this new start menu, there's no doubt they deserve a lot of flack for doing stupid things like removing features such as VPN auto-redial with the built in VPN client amongst other things. I also want to try and find time to play with Linux again but I don't have the time to play that I used to.
So my point is really this, yes Microsoft has it's faults, but even it's worst products (Windows 8) have advantages to some people (I've fortunately not had any driver issues at all). On a technical level Microsoft has put in a tremendous effort to improve things, and although that's not always shown through I think there are old arguments against Windows that aren't fair anymore - as I say, stability and security being the obvious ones.
I'm just of the opinion that credit where credit is due, a lot of people here hate Microsoft for it's history and I try to be a bit more balanced and pragmatic than that. This means I also slate Microsoft where it deserves to be slated - Windows Phone and it's patent trolling against Google are unacceptable, Visual Studio has deteriorated in recent releases, and the Windows 8 UI changes and feature removals were plain stupid. But then counter to that is the fact I've still not fou
"If you have so much extra disposable income that you buy so much un-needed stuff, that marks you in a decided minority. You just don't realize it."
No, it really doesn't and what makes me different is that I'm perfectly aware of where I can make savings unlike most people. It's pretty well established that most people throw things away and make wasteful purchases - you can for example take the entire population of smokers and drinkers of alcoholic drinks for example, they don't need either of those things and they wouldn't miss them if they bothered to properly stop.
But regardless, what you say is true of the US navy - it really is a decided minority in terms of the amount it has and really does have so much disposable income it buys a ton of unneeded stuff.
"What you probably don't realize is how things work. In an ideal world, a ten carrier force means that around three of them are deployed at any given time."
Actually, the complete contrary is true, and the evidence is in my post on this very topic before you even made this reply.
The problem is those carrier air wings have over a hundred aircraft and not one single operation in the period you cite has required anything close to that level of airpower. So there in itself lies one example where savings could be made - smaller, cheaper, carriers. An airwing of only 20 aircraft, or even simply a helicopter carrier would be sufficient in over 99% of scenarios and you don't need 12 supercarriers for the other less than 1% of scenarios.
Besides, you've entirely ignored the problem of waste. It's pretty well established also that the more money you throw into something, the disproportionate amount that is wasted. In the UK we've had major austerity measures placed on local government, but despite their decreases in funding and the cuts they've had to make people now believe the service is actually better than it was before.
Giving people silly amounts of money just means they don't manage it well because you give them no need to. Reducing that forces them to prioritise and means they still get everything they need, but stop spending that on which they really don't, as much as they may have thought they did. What is expensive is maintaining hundreds of aircraft that you neither need, nor will ever need before the time they're decommissioned. There are literally hundreds of F-18s that will never ever see battle, and that's just the F-18s.
Mark my words, you could take 3, or possibly even 6 of the US' supercarriers out of commission tomorrow and there'd be not the slightest bit of political difference in the world. It's like the kid that thinks it needs it's security blanket and takes it everywhere, scared to death about what we'll happen if it doesn't. The answer though, is that nothing will happen if it loses that security blanket.
You're living a fantasy if you think the size of the US military and the amount of expenditure is both necessary and efficient.
Yes because in the year 9999 just before the global banking nexus is due to run out of digits for date fields, and the only way they can fix it is by deciphering an ancient language known as "COBOL" they'll have need for this archive and various things will come to light from it ranging from useful COBOL tutorials to "Why the fuck haven't we moved our banking systems off COBOL yet?" written by an ultra-intelligent ancient known as "Anonymous Coward" circa 2000 AD.
A mantra that will be taken as gospel and repeated time after time in the year 10000, before unfortunately being lost again by the year 99999.
Because this time around both Microsoft and Sony decided to forego completely cutting edge hardware that has thermal problems and needs bigger cases for hardware that's slightly less than cutting edge and for which the cooling problem is more easily solved.
That means their systems are more stable, less likely to face problems, and easy to fit in a more compact unit.
The downside for them is that this generation wont last the 8 or so years the XBox 360 has lasted so they'll have to reinvest in development of a new system in maybe 4 - 5 years. Given the cost of the RROD problem though stemming from heat issues and the fact it cost them $1bn+ they may have figured out it's cheaper to just do exactly that.
"That's still better than Microsoft whose response to Xbox Live hacks is to pretend they're not happening."
To be fair, there's no evidence they actually are. Of course people who fall for phishing scams are going to say "I never fell for it!" no matter how smart they think they are. The fact is humans are imperfect, even if you know all the tricks in the book you're still fallible - I know all the tricks in the book but many years back I still ran an infected executable when I was half asleep realising exactly what I was doing only after my finger had twitched to click the mouse only to fortunately be saved by the fact the payload was an old one easily intercepted by AV.
The problem is that there are literally millions of accounts that haven't been breached and the level of breaches seems small enough to fit into the possibility of mere phishing or similar.
At worst XBL uses MS Passport accounts so it's possible that people are having them hacked elsewhere - i.e. do they have braindead security questions perhaps?
Certainly their network hasn't been breached though because otherwise the issue would be far more widespread.
Until there's evidence of a widespread hack it's more sensible to just assume it's people who did something stupid trying to excuse themselves - Microsoft has what, 50 million XBL accounts? It's not unsurprising to have thousands of people out of that many do something stupid and pretend it's not their fault. It is however unrealistic to suggest they've suffered some kind of major breach when the number of people effected is only in the thousands, not the millions.
In contrast we outright know that Sony was hacked, precisely because millions were affected.
Otherwise I don't really disagree with all your other points. I just think the "XBL hacked!" meme is just nonsense, there's no evidence for it other than hearsay from a handful of people who pretend they're too smart to fall for phishing scams, use weak passwords, or have stupid security questions. The fact they were victims of their own fallibility is a far more likely explanation still until some real actual evidence to the contrary arises.
"Paid shill anyone? Did you forget the Eye of Sauron on the Xbox One?"
Not arguing for one console or the other but FWIW Microsoft has backtracked on this too now, Kinect is no longer mandatory, you can turn it off, put it in no video mode, have it in always on mode, or just outright unplug it.
So credit to Microsoft, they've listened - no always on requirement, no mandatory kinect, indie game development and publishing support on standard consoles as dev kits coming in 2014.
At this point they have certainly taken efforts to deal with each and every one of the key complaints about the console relative to what the PS4 offered.
I think the context to keep in mind though is that there are a lot of people in oppressive nations who actively push for more freedom and even China is on a trend towards more freedom, not less, albeit a very slowing moving one.
Oppressive nations seem to slip towards freedom in exactly the same way free nations slip towards oppression. Whether it's a cycle, a case of tending towards a limit of oppression/freedom a society is willing to accept or something else I suspect there's some pattern and it seems to be clearly not towards simply outright oppression - even oppressive states all inevitably seem to fall.
I think even there there's a tipping point. Ultimately the arab spring was the result of people already living under a surveillance state not being happy with it.
It seems there's a point on the spectrum between complete freedom and no freedom where people turn from being willing to sacrifice some freedom for security to wanting to swap security for freedom. That point is different for each individual but ultimately when a society in general decides it's been hit then that's when change, if necessary, revolution, seems to happen.
I don't think slow and steady changes change where that point exists on the spectrum for a society, but I think it may well delay the realisation by society that that point has been crossed, though I suspect given history the delay is only delaying the inevitable pushback by some degree.
This is one of the best posts here actually, very well put.
But I think the question is probably as much about size of ships as well as numbers. You're right that 12 carriers means 4 at sea on duty at any one time but I guess the question is, would the US be better served scrapping one of that set of 3 carriers and replacing it with something smaller like a helicopter carrier or something capable of launching a handful of F-35Cs?
I think that's probably where savings are to be had - if you need to do something in Somalia for example, or a bit of Tsunami relief then I suspect a helicopter with maybe a few F-35Cs for CAS would probably be as effective, but way way cheaper than a boat with an air wing of over 100 aircraft on it - the only time you're going to need that is in a full scale war and are you really ever going to be in a full scale war, or number of full scale wars where you can't wait a few days to get one of the supercarriers into position? If it really got that desperate then would you really have a rotation of 3? Wouldn't you just put those that were otherwise planned to be training into the fray?
Like you say it's ultimately upto the decision makers to figure out, but even with the typical 3 boat rotation I think there's still room for massive cost savings with no real tangible reduction in effectiveness in practice and I'd wager that's what most people are getting at.
How would a carrier group stop North Korea nuking people anyway?
The only thing that's going to do that is your nuclear deterrent, and you only need a handful of them (i.e. enough to wipe the key population centres of any nation) to act as a deterrent.
You could still maintain that in the US with a far smaller military budget than you have now.
Not that I'm advocating an 80% drop, I think it's worth maintaining some strength, but the US could take a 40 - 50% hit and still easily be the most powerful military in the world. If some of that was efficiency gains it wouldn't be a 40 - 50% drop in effectiveness and numbers either. Done sensibly a 40 - 50% budget cut may need only equate to say a 20% cut in strength if it's all just pork that's being trimmed away - i.e. maintaining a deterrent of 2000 nukes gives you no more protection than maintaining a deterrent of 500 nukes - you still have enough to destroy the planet a few times over with plenty of redundancy to boot but your savings would be absolutely massive.
"Well, let's put it this way - could you give up 10% of your paycheck without feeling it? Because that's essentially what you're asking the Navy to do."
FWIW I know I could, I could probably take a bigger drop than that in fact and not have it have much of a tangible effect on my life. It'd just mean I'd be more sensible about spending and not buy that food that I only end up throwing away because I didn't eat it in time, not buying those video games, books, DVDs and Blurays that I never find time to get round to playing, reading or watching. Not buying clothes that I only get round to wearing once every month meaning I wear the same t-shirt twice in a month instead of once. I could drop my central heating by a degree or so C depending on the outside temperature on that particular day and actually bother to turn my computer off overnight. I could plan filling up my car at the petrol station better by doing it where I do my grocery shopping for 6p less per litre rather than the one that's on my way home and costs more. None of these things are things that'd really have any noticeable impact on my life but that could add up to a substantial saving if it was necessary to tighten my belt.
I suspect many people could tighten their belts by 10% of their wage and not even feel it if they were sensible about it. Those who are living on the line could not, but it's hard to say the US navy is living on the line when it's budget is larger than that of about the next 10 military powers put together:
Which would be amusing if it wasn't so sad given that both parties in government have been linked to alleged paedophile scandals within their ranks.
Perhaps we should fight back by making the same accusations, though if we do it and get it wrong because the allegations are unproven we apparently get sued for it:
Perhaps Snowden should similarly sue the government for their allegation that he's aided and abetted child abuse and let the government prove it in the courts or give him a hefty payout and a public apology?
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately it doesn't mean it is a net positive either and that's precisely why drug legislation change moves at such a slow pace.
No politician wants to be the guy who makes the policy change only for it to turn out that it makes things worse and until there are more case studies (i.e. countries who have done it succesfully) or more research that does a good job of predicting the knock on effects - i.e. higher drug driving casualties, cartel folk moving from drug trafficking to weapons trafficking or people trafficking or even ransoms or perhaps even terrorism against the governments of the countries they're in and so forth no one in a major nation is going to make the jump. Even if it isn't a net negative then there's still risk for politicians - say for example they legalise it in the UK and it makes things better in terms of reduced crime, but increases costs to the NHS even though the net effect is a reduction in burden on society the political opponents are still going to mop up the chance to say "Hey look his policy is putting massive strain on the NHS!".
The drug trade is such a massive part of the world economy also that there are economic effects of changing the balance too which need to be taken into account.
Part the problem is that precisely because the existing status quo is so firmly entrenched in both the global economy and global politics it's highly unpredictable as to the effects of such a fundamental change.
So it's not as simple as the "just legalise it all!" fantasists like to pretend - it's a much deeper, and much more complex problem than that, hence why most politicians wont touch it with a barge pole.
If it happens it's going to happen slowly, starting with legalisation of things like cannabis in some parts of the world (as seems to already be happening) and there'll be a period of observation to check the impacts - keep in mind that even the famous Amsterdam which was known for it's cannabis tolerance has sought to ban it for tourists because of the trouble they were causing when high so things can go backwards if it doesn't work out well - if it works out well though they'll try tackling the harder stuff.
But it wont happen overnight and understandably so. Economically alone you just can't turn an industry with so much of the world's money flowing through it on it's head overnight and not have shit go haywire because of legalisation in a major consumer state like the US. Previously unknown drug money being pulled out of the banking system alone by traffickers and barons in a panic could be enough to tip weaker banks over the edge, causing a similar cascade as we saw with Lehman in 2008 resulting in a crisis we still haven't all fully recovered from.
It's not a simple problem, and there's not a simple answer. Most importantly it can't be rushed and there's definitely not a quick solution for change.
Right, but is it complete? Is it well indexed and searchable? Is it blocked by any corporate firewalls?, any mobile firewalls in places like the UK because of explicit content?
A reduced number of sites still means a reduced amount of ability to search for your product.
"Pretty much the same as Gibraltar, no? The dutch gave it to England... except it wasn't theirs to give."
Sure, but it's not Britain making the argument is it? It's Argentina.
"And if you think the UK, which has both economical (oil) and strategical (military bases) in the Malvinas would even think of letting the islanders have any real control over the islands, you're a fool."
Been swallowing your nation's propaganda I see. Tell me, what exactly do you expect us to do with a military base in the South Atlantic? It's a launch point for exactly nothing. The only reason there's a worthwhile military base there in the first place is precisely because Argentina invaded. The oil claim is unproven still and until the Kirchner dynasty decided to cut off it's nose to spite it's face the British government invited Argentina into joint oil exploration rights anyway. This is because a cooperative agreement where oil could be piped direct to Argentina would allow much quicker and more efficient exploitation of the resources if they actually exist - it would be a mutually beneficial partnership but Kirchner needed the Falklands for political propaganda once more so threw it all away.
"I don't think any of you NATO members have a moral authority to call anyone else a "bully"."
Nonsense. Just because NATO and the UK are bullies doesn't remove the right to also call other nations bullies. The UK may well be a bully of weaker nations, but weaker nations can still bully even weaker nations or territories again, and they deserve to be called out on that as much as we do. We don't get to go and rob the local cash machine because someone else robbed a bank and say "You have no right to call me a criminal, that guy robbed a whole bank!".
"So, see? Argentina is not that crazy. We play the same international politics rethorics game everyone else plays."
You realise Gibraltar isn't the Falklands right? Even if the British government has used the term never in relation to Gibraltar it most certainly hasn't with the Falklands - our PMs have consistently followed the line that they wont negotiate sovereignty whilst the islanders want to remain British - that's explicitly conditional so it's obvious what the Argentinians want to do if they really want it - make the islanders want to be Argentinian by treating them better though yes, that's going to be pretty fucking difficult after you invaded them. It'll take time and it's not impossible, but each time you threaten them and use them as scapegoats for your own internal problems you're only making it more difficult and causing it to take even longer.
"Let's make it easier for you: if Argentina "sits down to negotiate", that act itself would be considered defeat"
This is further nonsense, your own country's exact position is that it wants to sit down and negotiate over the islands because UN resolution 2065 stated we should do exactly that. Our government refuses to because it views it as pointless as the islanders don't want anything other than to remain British right now:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23596312
How can you criticise someone else for not understanding international politics when you don't even understand the position of your own country on the issue in question?
Also I've known lyrics to a song before but not the name. Being able to search the internet based on lyrics is what has allowed me to find a song I was after.
Reducing access to lyrics is reducing people's ability to find the name of a product they wish to buy.
I think he's referring to the fact that when the Spanish left the British took control again, but that ignores the fact that the Spanish had already taken it from Britain/France in the first place.
So the argument is self-defeating anyway, if you argue that it's wrong for Britain to claim it back from Spanish rule after they left and told Argentina they could have it because you believe it's wrong to seize by force then you also have to accept that it was wrong for the Spanish to claim it from the original Anglo-French arrivals.
Effectively what people such as the AC are trying to do is argue that it was only wrong when the British did it and not when the Spanish did it first, which is logically inconsistent.
"Saying Argentina should have them because they are close to Argentina is like saying Puerto Rico should be given to Cuba because it's closer to Cuba than the USA."
Or Alaska given to Canada/Russia, or Ireland be put back wholly under British control, or the Chinese claim to the likes of Tibet, Taiwan and so forth formalised and accepted internationally.
You're exactly right and this highlights why the geographical argument is utter nonsense.
Beyond that the other arguments just don't go in Argentina's favour - the citizenship obviously don't want to be Argentinian, the "who got there first" argument goes entirely against Argentina because it was the British or the French, and France supports Britain's claim and beyond that it's back to "But the Spanish gave it to us!" - yes, except it wasn't Spain's to give because Spain did to the British there exactly what Argentina is claiming the British did to them so by their own logic if you follow the who took it from who argument back to square one then you just return to "who got there first" which makes it firmly an Anglo-French affair.
But the bigger problem for Argentina is that there have been times in the past where the British have been willing to work with Argentina on the islands - joint exploration with Anglo-Argentinian participation in oil exploration for example but every time Argentina gets into a crisis it's inept leadership decides to play hardball to try and bolster their image at home and it goes tits up. If Argentina behaved itself, was constructive, and could run it's own country successfully without going bankrupt the chances are the populace of the Falklands would've been willing to voluntarily go under Argentinian control by now simply because it'd be far more practical for them to do so.
So they shoot themselves in the foot entirely by being combative and by using it as their favourite political scapegoat every time they fuck up.
If Argentina wants the Falklands there's a simple solution - stop being a bunch of dicks, be nice to the islanders and give them a reason to want to be Argentinian. The very fact they don't do this shows how much Argentina's interest in the Falklands is about resorting to populism in the face of political ineptitude rather than absolutely anything else.
As an aside, I also firmly believe this is where the US went wrong with Cuba. Rather then perpetuating the embargo they have on Cuba put in place since the Cuban missile crisis I'd wager that after the fall of the soviet union that if the US had free trade with Cuba it'd be so westernised right now with millions of American tourists and imports that it'd probably be racing against Puerto Rico for 51st state status and would likely be a thriving democracy.
It may sound wishy washy but the reality is if you want something from someone it's generally better to not try and play the bully towards them. Especially so when they have a brother that can be a far bigger bully than you are looking over them.
I don't think anyone in the UK really gives a shit if the Falklands want to go under Argentinian control voluntarily, but we're not going to put up with them being bullied into it. Argentinians need to think about the alternative and see how they'd feel if we resolved the proximity argument by just taking over Argentina and making them British by force instead - sound like a horrible, unfair, frustrating, anger-inducing idea? It should, that's how you make the Falklanders feel each time you open your mouths on the issue.
That's probably exactly why you would see it because it means fuck all light pollution and fuck all pollution from emissions.
Maybe it's news because crackpot attention whore McAfee has been silent for at least a couple of months now which is about as newsworthy as it gets with him?
"Technically that's true. If somebody puts a gun to your head and tells you to either join the military or be shot now, and you choose the bullet now, your heirs will be free to praise you morality. Until and unless that happens to you, shove your sanctimony."
To be fair the situation was no different to Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, yet the people opted to rise up and fight their respective governments. These people were living in police states no less effective, brutal and oppressive than that created by the likes of Hitler.
Those soldiers who fought for and the civilians who didn't not oppose are complicit in the war whether they like it or not. Unless they explicitly acted against, then they're being given an excuse they do not deserve.
Even if people were being told at gunpoint they have to serve then you're making out that they're making a simple choice about survival and nothing, but it's not that simple. If you serve then yes you may survive but you're explicitly going to have to try and take others lives. If you take or try to take others lives for the sake of self-preservation when you know your side is in the wrong then you're still a bad person whether you like it or not. By serving you're not just saying "Well it was that or die", you're saying "Well I'd rather not die so I'm going to kill others instead" - that's not really any better than if you willingly say "I want to kill others".
If you serve and sabotage or defect when the opportunity arises then that's one thing, but that wasn't widespread enough for that to be a common enough case to absolve even a decent proportion of soldiers of blame. The unfortunate reality is that most soldiers fighting for the axis powers actually thought they were in the right, and most civilians were accepting of what was going on and hence therefore complicit.
You only have to look at France post-invasion, some fell into line with their new Nazi dictators, but others formed Free France and opposed even though they faced the exact same threats of violence to themselves and their families as any axis soldiers who served would've faced in opposing.
The problem is that puerile see it as an IT thing. They don't see any aspect of IT security as part of their job so they just don't care. They just figure if they give you all the information then it's your problem to deal with and they can forget about it.
Until companies start enforcing and having meaningful penalties enforced upon them for such misdemeanors I don't see this changing.
Give a verbal warning, followed by a written warning followed by the sack. I'd wager 99% of employees never reach the sack after the seriousness of two formal warnings and learn their lessons. That other 1% shouldn't be near anything that requires security in the first place because they're the lowest common security denominator - the gaping hole in your security regime, and they're all it takes for it all to fall.
You're possibly right, I haven't tried many different formats, but don't the most common audio/video formats work? Things like divx, xvid, matroska, mp4?
I know I've played at least some of those okay in the past.
You could say the same about Boris bikes in London but I don't think that's really been the case to date, though I haven't followed their story closely so maybe I'm wrong.
"I take it you mean connecting one to a network, I'm not sure I understand you."
That's because I'm a retard. By shitty server support, I meant shitty driver support, though it may have been an Android auto-correct fail and not my fault I guess.
A large part of Linux's problems historically have been because a lot of hardware doesn't get first party driver support and relies on volunteers whom do what they can to get basic support it but don't necessarily have the hardware in question available to test it - that's always historically been the problem with Linux desktop issues and is certainly why I had so many non-working Wifi issues and so forth because drivers were implemented based on what little documentation was available and not tested with the actual hardware.
I know this isn't the fault of the FOSS community and is entirely the fault of companies, but either way it's also an unfortunate fact as to why Windows has historically worked better on the desktop for many people.
"but I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment on security (I know enough to have a thin grasp on how immensely ignorant I am)"
Years ago, and I mean years ago, I spent those years doing things I shouldn't to Windows, finding exploits and so forth and it's absolutely true that Windows was riddle with holes and Linux was a much harder play - things like DLL injection to hook into applications with higher privileges and a desktop presence allowing privilege escalation and so forth I discovered on my own. Nowadays it's almost the case that the reverse is true, circa 2000 Microsoft really began to realise it had to take security seriously given the bad reputation it had for it and it did actually work, since that point they've come in leaps and bounds and although their software isn't perfect (no software is) it's still pretty solid in terms of security - some of the things they've implemented in terms of security they did so way ahead of anyone else such as ASLR in the browser and so forth.
So in this respect I have a lot of sympathy for Microsoft, especially as someone with a history of breaking Windows and I do genuinely think that comments about them not being secure nowadays is indeed a little unfair because for each security vulnerability they do have they also have products that have security techniques that are mere theory in every other software community including FOSS.
I'm actually trying Windows 8, well, 8.1 now and even that isn't as bad as many have made out though this is in part because I use shortcut keys. I find it boots and runs way faster than even Windows 7 did. There's no doubt the new start menu is shit, but because of my shortcut key/pinned taskbar icon and desktop icon usage I thankfully pretty much never see it.
There's no doubt Microsoft deserve a lot of flack for this new start menu, there's no doubt they deserve a lot of flack for doing stupid things like removing features such as VPN auto-redial with the built in VPN client amongst other things. I also want to try and find time to play with Linux again but I don't have the time to play that I used to.
So my point is really this, yes Microsoft has it's faults, but even it's worst products (Windows 8) have advantages to some people (I've fortunately not had any driver issues at all). On a technical level Microsoft has put in a tremendous effort to improve things, and although that's not always shown through I think there are old arguments against Windows that aren't fair anymore - as I say, stability and security being the obvious ones.
I'm just of the opinion that credit where credit is due, a lot of people here hate Microsoft for it's history and I try to be a bit more balanced and pragmatic than that. This means I also slate Microsoft where it deserves to be slated - Windows Phone and it's patent trolling against Google are unacceptable, Visual Studio has deteriorated in recent releases, and the Windows 8 UI changes and feature removals were plain stupid. But then counter to that is the fact I've still not fou
"If you have so much extra disposable income that you buy so much un-needed stuff, that marks you in a decided minority. You just don't realize it."
No, it really doesn't and what makes me different is that I'm perfectly aware of where I can make savings unlike most people. It's pretty well established that most people throw things away and make wasteful purchases - you can for example take the entire population of smokers and drinkers of alcoholic drinks for example, they don't need either of those things and they wouldn't miss them if they bothered to properly stop.
But regardless, what you say is true of the US navy - it really is a decided minority in terms of the amount it has and really does have so much disposable income it buys a ton of unneeded stuff.
"What you probably don't realize is how things work. In an ideal world, a ten carrier force means that around three of them are deployed at any given time."
Actually, the complete contrary is true, and the evidence is in my post on this very topic before you even made this reply.
The problem is those carrier air wings have over a hundred aircraft and not one single operation in the period you cite has required anything close to that level of airpower. So there in itself lies one example where savings could be made - smaller, cheaper, carriers. An airwing of only 20 aircraft, or even simply a helicopter carrier would be sufficient in over 99% of scenarios and you don't need 12 supercarriers for the other less than 1% of scenarios.
Besides, you've entirely ignored the problem of waste. It's pretty well established also that the more money you throw into something, the disproportionate amount that is wasted. In the UK we've had major austerity measures placed on local government, but despite their decreases in funding and the cuts they've had to make people now believe the service is actually better than it was before.
Giving people silly amounts of money just means they don't manage it well because you give them no need to. Reducing that forces them to prioritise and means they still get everything they need, but stop spending that on which they really don't, as much as they may have thought they did. What is expensive is maintaining hundreds of aircraft that you neither need, nor will ever need before the time they're decommissioned. There are literally hundreds of F-18s that will never ever see battle, and that's just the F-18s.
Mark my words, you could take 3, or possibly even 6 of the US' supercarriers out of commission tomorrow and there'd be not the slightest bit of political difference in the world. It's like the kid that thinks it needs it's security blanket and takes it everywhere, scared to death about what we'll happen if it doesn't. The answer though, is that nothing will happen if it loses that security blanket.
You're living a fantasy if you think the size of the US military and the amount of expenditure is both necessary and efficient.
"That sucks but I don't see how the Xbox can be any better in these regards, speaking from my experience with the PS3 and the Xbox360."
What experience is that? I have both a PS3 and 360 and they both support things like DLNA, audio CDs and so forth.
The PS4 is the first console to announce that they wont.
Yes because in the year 9999 just before the global banking nexus is due to run out of digits for date fields, and the only way they can fix it is by deciphering an ancient language known as "COBOL" they'll have need for this archive and various things will come to light from it ranging from useful COBOL tutorials to "Why the fuck haven't we moved our banking systems off COBOL yet?" written by an ultra-intelligent ancient known as "Anonymous Coward" circa 2000 AD.
A mantra that will be taken as gospel and repeated time after time in the year 10000, before unfortunately being lost again by the year 99999.
Because this time around both Microsoft and Sony decided to forego completely cutting edge hardware that has thermal problems and needs bigger cases for hardware that's slightly less than cutting edge and for which the cooling problem is more easily solved.
That means their systems are more stable, less likely to face problems, and easy to fit in a more compact unit.
The downside for them is that this generation wont last the 8 or so years the XBox 360 has lasted so they'll have to reinvest in development of a new system in maybe 4 - 5 years. Given the cost of the RROD problem though stemming from heat issues and the fact it cost them $1bn+ they may have figured out it's cheaper to just do exactly that.
"That's still better than Microsoft whose response to Xbox Live hacks is to pretend they're not happening."
To be fair, there's no evidence they actually are. Of course people who fall for phishing scams are going to say "I never fell for it!" no matter how smart they think they are. The fact is humans are imperfect, even if you know all the tricks in the book you're still fallible - I know all the tricks in the book but many years back I still ran an infected executable when I was half asleep realising exactly what I was doing only after my finger had twitched to click the mouse only to fortunately be saved by the fact the payload was an old one easily intercepted by AV.
The problem is that there are literally millions of accounts that haven't been breached and the level of breaches seems small enough to fit into the possibility of mere phishing or similar.
At worst XBL uses MS Passport accounts so it's possible that people are having them hacked elsewhere - i.e. do they have braindead security questions perhaps?
Certainly their network hasn't been breached though because otherwise the issue would be far more widespread.
Until there's evidence of a widespread hack it's more sensible to just assume it's people who did something stupid trying to excuse themselves - Microsoft has what, 50 million XBL accounts? It's not unsurprising to have thousands of people out of that many do something stupid and pretend it's not their fault. It is however unrealistic to suggest they've suffered some kind of major breach when the number of people effected is only in the thousands, not the millions.
In contrast we outright know that Sony was hacked, precisely because millions were affected.
Otherwise I don't really disagree with all your other points. I just think the "XBL hacked!" meme is just nonsense, there's no evidence for it other than hearsay from a handful of people who pretend they're too smart to fall for phishing scams, use weak passwords, or have stupid security questions. The fact they were victims of their own fallibility is a far more likely explanation still until some real actual evidence to the contrary arises.
"Paid shill anyone? Did you forget the Eye of Sauron on the Xbox One?"
Not arguing for one console or the other but FWIW Microsoft has backtracked on this too now, Kinect is no longer mandatory, you can turn it off, put it in no video mode, have it in always on mode, or just outright unplug it.
So credit to Microsoft, they've listened - no always on requirement, no mandatory kinect, indie game development and publishing support on standard consoles as dev kits coming in 2014.
At this point they have certainly taken efforts to deal with each and every one of the key complaints about the console relative to what the PS4 offered.
I think the context to keep in mind though is that there are a lot of people in oppressive nations who actively push for more freedom and even China is on a trend towards more freedom, not less, albeit a very slowing moving one.
Oppressive nations seem to slip towards freedom in exactly the same way free nations slip towards oppression. Whether it's a cycle, a case of tending towards a limit of oppression/freedom a society is willing to accept or something else I suspect there's some pattern and it seems to be clearly not towards simply outright oppression - even oppressive states all inevitably seem to fall.
I think even there there's a tipping point. Ultimately the arab spring was the result of people already living under a surveillance state not being happy with it.
It seems there's a point on the spectrum between complete freedom and no freedom where people turn from being willing to sacrifice some freedom for security to wanting to swap security for freedom. That point is different for each individual but ultimately when a society in general decides it's been hit then that's when change, if necessary, revolution, seems to happen.
I don't think slow and steady changes change where that point exists on the spectrum for a society, but I think it may well delay the realisation by society that that point has been crossed, though I suspect given history the delay is only delaying the inevitable pushback by some degree.
This is one of the best posts here actually, very well put.
But I think the question is probably as much about size of ships as well as numbers. You're right that 12 carriers means 4 at sea on duty at any one time but I guess the question is, would the US be better served scrapping one of that set of 3 carriers and replacing it with something smaller like a helicopter carrier or something capable of launching a handful of F-35Cs?
I think that's probably where savings are to be had - if you need to do something in Somalia for example, or a bit of Tsunami relief then I suspect a helicopter with maybe a few F-35Cs for CAS would probably be as effective, but way way cheaper than a boat with an air wing of over 100 aircraft on it - the only time you're going to need that is in a full scale war and are you really ever going to be in a full scale war, or number of full scale wars where you can't wait a few days to get one of the supercarriers into position? If it really got that desperate then would you really have a rotation of 3? Wouldn't you just put those that were otherwise planned to be training into the fray?
Like you say it's ultimately upto the decision makers to figure out, but even with the typical 3 boat rotation I think there's still room for massive cost savings with no real tangible reduction in effectiveness in practice and I'd wager that's what most people are getting at.
How would a carrier group stop North Korea nuking people anyway?
The only thing that's going to do that is your nuclear deterrent, and you only need a handful of them (i.e. enough to wipe the key population centres of any nation) to act as a deterrent.
You could still maintain that in the US with a far smaller military budget than you have now.
Not that I'm advocating an 80% drop, I think it's worth maintaining some strength, but the US could take a 40 - 50% hit and still easily be the most powerful military in the world. If some of that was efficiency gains it wouldn't be a 40 - 50% drop in effectiveness and numbers either. Done sensibly a 40 - 50% budget cut may need only equate to say a 20% cut in strength if it's all just pork that's being trimmed away - i.e. maintaining a deterrent of 2000 nukes gives you no more protection than maintaining a deterrent of 500 nukes - you still have enough to destroy the planet a few times over with plenty of redundancy to boot but your savings would be absolutely massive.
"Well, let's put it this way - could you give up 10% of your paycheck without feeling it? Because that's essentially what you're asking the Navy to do."
FWIW I know I could, I could probably take a bigger drop than that in fact and not have it have much of a tangible effect on my life. It'd just mean I'd be more sensible about spending and not buy that food that I only end up throwing away because I didn't eat it in time, not buying those video games, books, DVDs and Blurays that I never find time to get round to playing, reading or watching. Not buying clothes that I only get round to wearing once every month meaning I wear the same t-shirt twice in a month instead of once. I could drop my central heating by a degree or so C depending on the outside temperature on that particular day and actually bother to turn my computer off overnight. I could plan filling up my car at the petrol station better by doing it where I do my grocery shopping for 6p less per litre rather than the one that's on my way home and costs more. None of these things are things that'd really have any noticeable impact on my life but that could add up to a substantial saving if it was necessary to tighten my belt.
I suspect many people could tighten their belts by 10% of their wage and not even feel it if they were sensible about it. Those who are living on the line could not, but it's hard to say the US navy is living on the line when it's budget is larger than that of about the next 10 military powers put together:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/f2102083378fb5c84d9e755e2b7a7971.png
It's all about efficiency and elimination of laziness, waste, and unnecessary purchases.
Which would be amusing if it wasn't so sad given that both parties in government have been linked to alleged paedophile scandals within their ranks.
Perhaps we should fight back by making the same accusations, though if we do it and get it wrong because the allegations are unproven we apparently get sued for it:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/lord-mcalpine-to-sue-10000-twitter-1444634
Perhaps Snowden should similarly sue the government for their allegation that he's aided and abetted child abuse and let the government prove it in the courts or give him a hefty payout and a public apology?