Yeah, and it's not like Teens go to the movie theaters or anything. Or buy merchandise. In fact, that's why no company anywhere gears their advertising towards teens. It would make no sense, since they don't have any money!
Nonsense. Well, the Hague convention art. 23 bit is nonsense anyway. You could argue that we already "kill treacherously" because we employ camouflage, snipers, artillery, landmines, etc. Any such argument would be just plain silly though. The treachery part of the Hague conventions refers more to things like poisoning, or getting your prostitutes to "distract" them while you sneak up and slit their throats (sound unlikely? think about how old these conventions are).
As to the GC, you're absolutely right. However, the reason that these convention came about was in order to protect civilian lives. Basically, we, as soldiers, deliberately make ourselves into targets. While our uniforms may come in camouflage colours they're also extremely easy to identify once seen, so what we're really doing in any built up area is strapping giant bullseyes onto ourselves saying "shoot me, and not the guy in the blue jeans and 'fuck you' shirt". What terrorists do, by not identifying themselves in a similar manner, is place civilian lives at greater risk. If I can't tell an enemy from a non-combatant I'm more likely to shoot at anyone that looks threatening, whereas when the bad guys all wear the same colour there's really no excuse for shooting a civ.
So, the cloak, while possibly violating the word of those specific Geneva Conventions, would uphold their spirit. While soldiers would no longer be easily identifiable, you also wouldn't be likely to mistake a civilian for a soldier. Why? Because the soldier would, when in combat, always be either in uniform or invisible. Either way he'd look nothing like the civilians around him. Based on that, I could see those conventions being modified to work with the new technology.
It just means that organized combat would evolve to take advantage of them also. Ever since WW2 we've been moving to smaller and smaller units working as independent organizations, then re-combining to carry out more complex tasks. With the introduction of cloaking technology you'd see the extreme end of that. 4-8 man squads operating independently on foot and light vehicles, hunting down guerrillas the same way the currently hunt us. Biggest obstacle to us doing that NOW is that we're so easy to identify. If we could have small units operating all over a city, totally invisible to anyone...well, good luck trying to plant IED's, or even gathering at your buddy Ahmed's house to discuss tomorrow's plan of attack.
Are you intentionally lying, or is it an honest mistake?
"Except as provided in section 1005 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination."
When they say alien they're not talking about little green men. They mean non-residents. People who are NOT citizens. The rest of the bill is worded the same way.
Funny how that one word changes the meaning of the entire paragraph, huh? It's easy to demonize ANY bill if you go around selectively removing words from it.
I got modded insightful because someone was intelligent enough to realize that the original poster had made a pretty serious mistake, and that I had corrected it. Luckily not everyone on here is as blindly rabid as you are.
Nice melodrama with the poetry by the way. You ever consider a career in theater?
You'll notice that much harsher measures were taken during WW2 when it came to the Japanese, and no, the country did not fall apart, nor did the constitution disintegrate.
As for your "power grab, intended to be expanded", people like you have been screaming that nonsense since the US was first formed. When hundreds of immigrants start being rounded up and held indeffinitely, let me know, untill then I'd suggest you take a valium and go have a beer, it'll be better for your blood pressure.
Under the new bill, Habeas Corpus can only be suspended for non-citizens, and (if I remember correctly) even then it must be approved by a judge. You can debate the positive/negative aspects of it if you want, but don't be so disingenuous as to imply that this right has been taken from US Citizens. As it stands, the bill is no threat to citizens at all. It's mainly the 15 million illegal Cubans and Mexicans that should be worried.
The reason for posting was simple irritation - A post critical of the EU, and highly likely to be US-based
You know, I can't seem to recall seeing you get "irritated" by any EU based articles critical of the US. I'm sure it must just be an oversight on my part. Could you perhaps point me to a post in which you bash the EU for being critical of the US?
No, I'd rather have a society where everyone is intelligent, logical, tolerant, disciplined, honourable and responsible. Darth Vader doesn't exactly fall into those categories. Nor would a president be required in such a society. Unfortunately I doubt we, as a species, will ever attain that level.
Don't assume that pointing out the major flaw of liberal democracies in any way indicates that I'm opposed to them. On the contrary, it's the best system of government we've come up with so far. They do, however, have some big problems.
Exactly where do US troops in Afghanstan "restoring infrastruture?"
If you need to ask that, you must be REALLY clueless about the effort on the ground. I don't have the energy to give you a full briefing on it, but if you type "reconstruction effort Afghanistan" into google, you'll get all the relevant info you want.
Sure, that government was a Commie one -- but don't people have freedom of thought and belief?
They do....in a democracy. Problem is, in your commie paradise people were no better off than they are today in some of these theocratic hellholes. No freedoms except the freedom to be persecuted at any time without reason. You can try to moralize all you want but the fact is that the only reason you still have the right to free speech is because the US won the cold war. If the USSR had emerged as the victor, we'd be living in a much different world today.
See -- you can turn this type of thing each and every way.
"What happened to personal responsibility? Land of the free?"
Same thing that happens in every successful liberal democracy. Most people get lazy and complacent, expecting all their needs to be taken care of with no effort, while others become hostile to the status quo and dedicate their lives to creating havoc.
Don't be an idiot. The Ruskies went into Afghanistan, destroyed it, and then took off leaving a mess, yet nobody complains much about their foreign policy. Meanwhile the US tries to restore infrastructure and it gets blamed for not doing it fast enough. This despite the fact that the only reason they can't do it fast enough is because the goddamn locals keep killing technicians and blowing up important bits. It's like trying to fix your kids toy truck while he continually beats it with a mallet, and your wife yells at you to hurry hell up. So the poster you were responding to had a pretty good point - if the US could just float in a few nuclear reactors it would enable them to focus on power distribution rather than generation, and wouldn't make it much easier to protect the generators. Might not be a bad idea to do something similar for water purification and waste processing.
While that line is correct, it's not difficult to exceed your expectations when you aim low in the first place.
The rest of it is utter nonsense. You can't destroy a chemical or nuclear program from the air, unless you have accurate intel on all the locations where it's being carried out. The only reason people are able to make that claim with a straight face is because the US found no WMD when they finally re-invaded. Until then there was absolutely no way to verify Saddams capabilities. And it still doesn't prove the strikes accomplished anything, although it's easy to make that assumption.
As for making his regime unstable, I somehow doubt he had too much of a moral problem ordering the executions of thousands of people, nor do I believe that such actions generate much goodwill towards us amongst the Iraqi populace.
The deal made with North Korea was no more "progress" than my example of paying a bribe to a gang to get them to hide their weapons. Both are 100% futile, and both only make your enemy stronger, while putting off the problem for future generations to deal with. You seeing it as progress is illustrative of the problem with the left-leaning westerners these days. You don't understand that negotiating with certain types of people is pointless. You'd negotiate with a grizzly bear as it advances towards you.
This isn't a question of republicans vs democrats. It's a question of "is YOUTUBE censoring material based on political lines". What some other company may have done is irrelevant. If you want to talk about censorship in general based on political lines, I find that left wing censorship is much more prevalent, especially in universities/colleges, but that also is irrelevant to the topic of discussion. I would have simply modded you off-topic, but I can't since I already posted a comment in this thread earlier.
What part of it was the stick, exactly? The deal amounted to "we'll give you billions of dollars in aid if you just put aside your nuclear material for a while". There wasn't even any requirement for them to give up the material they had so far produced, only that they place it under "international oversight". That's the equivalent of telling an armed gang that you'll pay them ten million dollars a year if they just put their weapons in a closet and let your buddy Joe take a look at them every now and then. There's no stick, it's just a flat out bribe, and a pointless one at that as it just puts off the problem for future generations to deal with.
That's Clintons legacy. He bribed North Korea into pretending to be nice, he bombed Iraq without accomplishing anything other than expending the US cruise missile arsenal and killing lots of innocent people, he ignored the terrorism problem which became apparent after the 1993 WTC attack and the USS Cole bombing, and he destroyed Serbia while aiding a well known terrorist organization (the KLA). In other words, he wielded both military and economic might in a totally incompetent fashion, accomplishing nothing other than wasting money and lives in an attempt to appear competent. I'm not a huge fan of Bush, but the guy has been demonized beyond any semblance of reality, while Clinton gets a free pass for his total incompetence. It's sad. At least the right wing in the US can laugh at Bush and point out his mistakes. I've yet to hear a democrat say anything bad about Clinton.
I was speaking averages ofcourse, although if you want to be an ass about it, even the most destitute homeless person in the US is better off than the poor in most third world nation. He can scrape together enough money for food (and most of them also get enough for alcohol), and even if he can't he can get food at a soup kitchen. He can get a roof over his head any day at a homeless shelter. He's got unlimited access to water and sanitary facilities. He can even receive medical care, since it is illegal in the US to refuse to treat someone because of an inability to pay. So, all in all, your destitute person in the US has all of his or her basic needs attended to. Now compare that to a beggar in South Africa, or a microcephalic in India.
"If the rest of the world would rebel against their dictators and warlords and setup a democracy or republic instead of another dictator, they wouldn't be so god-dammed fu**ing poor."
That's about the only accurate thing you've said. Unfortunately, it's much easier said than done.
1. I'm not American. 2. I was born in a less than stellar nation, so I certainly know what REAL poverty is. 3. I was also born in a communist country, so I certainly know just how despicable communism is.
You on the other hand are...what? A born-in-America college kid pissed off that his weed costs more than the money his parents give him?
Your open jealousy of those who have amassed wealth is disgusting. Your inability to understand what constitutes a meritocracy is, on the other hand, merely sad. I truly pity you.
I'm sorry, but when I call NetGear tech support, and the guy on the other side can barely speak the language, plus has no idea what a TCP/IP port number is, it doesn't really matter if he works 24 hour days, I'm still gonna be pissed. It also doesn't speak too well for the "talent" in India.
Also, working 14 hour days doesn't mean they're not lazy. It just means they work 14 hour days. You can pack a lot of goofing-off time into 14 hours.
Now you know how 90% of the world feels about the bottom 2% of America.
People like you amaze me. You live in a country where even the poor can own a fridge, car, TV, etc. yet you still bitch about others being richer than you. The poorest person in your country would be considered middle-class in most of the rest of the world, yet what's important to you is that the mythical 2% "are, like, REALLY rich". I know communism is still alive....I just hate seeing it on our shores. Keep it confined to Cuba.
Well, I hope you're right. My experience with Vista has been....less than stellar. I have no intention of upgrading to it any time soon, even though I upgraded to both 2000 and XP while they were still beta. In those two OS's I saw a reason to upgrade. Vista has, for me, been a step backwards.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, and it's not like Teens go to the movie theaters or anything. Or buy merchandise. In fact, that's why no company anywhere gears their advertising towards teens. It would make no sense, since they don't have any money!
Crap.
Is there any way to make "Plain Old Text" the default instead of "HTML Formatted"?
I hate it when my nice neat paragraphs get shot all to shit.
Nonsense. Well, the Hague convention art. 23 bit is nonsense anyway. You could argue that we already "kill treacherously" because we employ camouflage, snipers, artillery, landmines, etc. Any such argument would be just plain silly though. The treachery part of the Hague conventions refers more to things like poisoning, or getting your prostitutes to "distract" them while you sneak up and slit their throats (sound unlikely? think about how old these conventions are). As to the GC, you're absolutely right. However, the reason that these convention came about was in order to protect civilian lives. Basically, we, as soldiers, deliberately make ourselves into targets. While our uniforms may come in camouflage colours they're also extremely easy to identify once seen, so what we're really doing in any built up area is strapping giant bullseyes onto ourselves saying "shoot me, and not the guy in the blue jeans and 'fuck you' shirt". What terrorists do, by not identifying themselves in a similar manner, is place civilian lives at greater risk. If I can't tell an enemy from a non-combatant I'm more likely to shoot at anyone that looks threatening, whereas when the bad guys all wear the same colour there's really no excuse for shooting a civ. So, the cloak, while possibly violating the word of those specific Geneva Conventions, would uphold their spirit. While soldiers would no longer be easily identifiable, you also wouldn't be likely to mistake a civilian for a soldier. Why? Because the soldier would, when in combat, always be either in uniform or invisible. Either way he'd look nothing like the civilians around him. Based on that, I could see those conventions being modified to work with the new technology.
It just means that organized combat would evolve to take advantage of them also. Ever since WW2 we've been moving to smaller and smaller units working as independent organizations, then re-combining to carry out more complex tasks. With the introduction of cloaking technology you'd see the extreme end of that. 4-8 man squads operating independently on foot and light vehicles, hunting down guerrillas the same way the currently hunt us. Biggest obstacle to us doing that NOW is that we're so easy to identify. If we could have small units operating all over a city, totally invisible to anyone...well, good luck trying to plant IED's, or even gathering at your buddy Ahmed's house to discuss tomorrow's plan of attack.
Are you intentionally lying, or is it an honest mistake?
"Except as provided in section 1005 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination."
When they say alien they're not talking about little green men. They mean non-residents. People who are NOT citizens. The rest of the bill is worded the same way.
Funny how that one word changes the meaning of the entire paragraph, huh? It's easy to demonize ANY bill if you go around selectively removing words from it.
Someone forgot to take their meds today....
I got modded insightful because someone was intelligent enough to realize that the original poster had made a pretty serious mistake, and that I had corrected it. Luckily not everyone on here is as blindly rabid as you are.
Nice melodrama with the poetry by the way. You ever consider a career in theater?
You'll notice that much harsher measures were taken during WW2 when it came to the Japanese, and no, the country did not fall apart, nor did the constitution disintegrate.
As for your "power grab, intended to be expanded", people like you have been screaming that nonsense since the US was first formed. When hundreds of immigrants start being rounded up and held indeffinitely, let me know, untill then I'd suggest you take a valium and go have a beer, it'll be better for your blood pressure.
Well, let's see....maybe because most EU criticism of the US is just as hypocritical, but about 100 times more rabbid and bigoted?
Naw....couldn't be....
Under the new bill, Habeas Corpus can only be suspended for non-citizens, and (if I remember correctly) even then it must be approved by a judge. You can debate the positive/negative aspects of it if you want, but don't be so disingenuous as to imply that this right has been taken from US Citizens. As it stands, the bill is no threat to citizens at all. It's mainly the 15 million illegal Cubans and Mexicans that should be worried.
The reason for posting was simple irritation - A post critical of the EU, and highly likely to be US-based
You know, I can't seem to recall seeing you get "irritated" by any EU based articles critical of the US. I'm sure it must just be an oversight on my part. Could you perhaps point me to a post in which you bash the EU for being critical of the US?
That's hilarious :) You should be on the comedy channel.
No, I'd rather have a society where everyone is intelligent, logical, tolerant, disciplined, honourable and responsible. Darth Vader doesn't exactly fall into those categories. Nor would a president be required in such a society. Unfortunately I doubt we, as a species, will ever attain that level. Don't assume that pointing out the major flaw of liberal democracies in any way indicates that I'm opposed to them. On the contrary, it's the best system of government we've come up with so far. They do, however, have some big problems.
I'll take the bate.
The word is "bait". And I'm not fishing.
Exactly where do US troops in Afghanstan "restoring infrastruture?"
If you need to ask that, you must be REALLY clueless about the effort on the ground. I don't have the energy to give you a full briefing on it, but if you type "reconstruction effort Afghanistan" into google, you'll get all the relevant info you want.
Sure, that government was a Commie one -- but don't people have freedom of thought and belief?
They do....in a democracy. Problem is, in your commie paradise people were no better off than they are today in some of these theocratic hellholes. No freedoms except the freedom to be persecuted at any time without reason. You can try to moralize all you want but the fact is that the only reason you still have the right to free speech is because the US won the cold war. If the USSR had emerged as the victor, we'd be living in a much different world today.
See -- you can turn this type of thing each and every way.
Huh?
"What happened to personal responsibility? Land of the free?"
Same thing that happens in every successful liberal democracy. Most people get lazy and complacent, expecting all their needs to be taken care of with no effort, while others become hostile to the status quo and dedicate their lives to creating havoc.
Don't be an idiot. The Ruskies went into Afghanistan, destroyed it, and then took off leaving a mess, yet nobody complains much about their foreign policy. Meanwhile the US tries to restore infrastructure and it gets blamed for not doing it fast enough. This despite the fact that the only reason they can't do it fast enough is because the goddamn locals keep killing technicians and blowing up important bits. It's like trying to fix your kids toy truck while he continually beats it with a mallet, and your wife yells at you to hurry hell up. So the poster you were responding to had a pretty good point - if the US could just float in a few nuclear reactors it would enable them to focus on power distribution rather than generation, and wouldn't make it much easier to protect the generators. Might not be a bad idea to do something similar for water purification and waste processing.
"Desert Fox exceeded expectations."
While that line is correct, it's not difficult to exceed your expectations when you aim low in the first place.
The rest of it is utter nonsense. You can't destroy a chemical or nuclear program from the air, unless you have accurate intel on all the locations where it's being carried out. The only reason people are able to make that claim with a straight face is because the US found no WMD when they finally re-invaded. Until then there was absolutely no way to verify Saddams capabilities. And it still doesn't prove the strikes accomplished anything, although it's easy to make that assumption.
As for making his regime unstable, I somehow doubt he had too much of a moral problem ordering the executions of thousands of people, nor do I believe that such actions generate much goodwill towards us amongst the Iraqi populace.
"allowing"?
Are you seriously naïve enough to believe that the previous deal in any way stopped them from working on it?
"piddly uranium program"?
Yeah, plutonium is SO much more dangerous than uranium. Nothing to worry about there at all!
The deal made with North Korea was no more "progress" than my example of paying a bribe to a gang to get them to hide their weapons. Both are 100% futile, and both only make your enemy stronger, while putting off the problem for future generations to deal with. You seeing it as progress is illustrative of the problem with the left-leaning westerners these days. You don't understand that negotiating with certain types of people is pointless. You'd negotiate with a grizzly bear as it advances towards you.
This isn't a question of republicans vs democrats. It's a question of "is YOUTUBE censoring material based on political lines". What some other company may have done is irrelevant. If you want to talk about censorship in general based on political lines, I find that left wing censorship is much more prevalent, especially in universities/colleges, but that also is irrelevant to the topic of discussion. I would have simply modded you off-topic, but I can't since I already posted a comment in this thread earlier.
What part of it was the stick, exactly? The deal amounted to "we'll give you billions of dollars in aid if you just put aside your nuclear material for a while". There wasn't even any requirement for them to give up the material they had so far produced, only that they place it under "international oversight". That's the equivalent of telling an armed gang that you'll pay them ten million dollars a year if they just put their weapons in a closet and let your buddy Joe take a look at them every now and then. There's no stick, it's just a flat out bribe, and a pointless one at that as it just puts off the problem for future generations to deal with.
That's Clintons legacy. He bribed North Korea into pretending to be nice, he bombed Iraq without accomplishing anything other than expending the US cruise missile arsenal and killing lots of innocent people, he ignored the terrorism problem which became apparent after the 1993 WTC attack and the USS Cole bombing, and he destroyed Serbia while aiding a well known terrorist organization (the KLA). In other words, he wielded both military and economic might in a totally incompetent fashion, accomplishing nothing other than wasting money and lives in an attempt to appear competent. I'm not a huge fan of Bush, but the guy has been demonized beyond any semblance of reality, while Clinton gets a free pass for his total incompetence. It's sad. At least the right wing in the US can laugh at Bush and point out his mistakes. I've yet to hear a democrat say anything bad about Clinton.
I was speaking averages ofcourse, although if you want to be an ass about it, even the most destitute homeless person in the US is better off than the poor in most third world nation. He can scrape together enough money for food (and most of them also get enough for alcohol), and even if he can't he can get food at a soup kitchen. He can get a roof over his head any day at a homeless shelter. He's got unlimited access to water and sanitary facilities. He can even receive medical care, since it is illegal in the US to refuse to treat someone because of an inability to pay. So, all in all, your destitute person in the US has all of his or her basic needs attended to. Now compare that to a beggar in South Africa, or a microcephalic in India.
"If the rest of the world would rebel against their dictators and warlords and setup a democracy or republic instead of another dictator, they wouldn't be so god-dammed fu**ing poor."
That's about the only accurate thing you've said. Unfortunately, it's much easier said than done.
1. I'm not American.
2. I was born in a less than stellar nation, so I certainly know what REAL poverty is.
3. I was also born in a communist country, so I certainly know just how despicable communism is.
You on the other hand are...what? A born-in-America college kid pissed off that his weed costs more than the money his parents give him?
Your open jealousy of those who have amassed wealth is disgusting. Your inability to understand what constitutes a meritocracy is, on the other hand, merely sad. I truly pity you.
I'm sorry, but when I call NetGear tech support, and the guy on the other side can barely speak the language, plus has no idea what a TCP/IP port number is, it doesn't really matter if he works 24 hour days, I'm still gonna be pissed. It also doesn't speak too well for the "talent" in India.
Also, working 14 hour days doesn't mean they're not lazy. It just means they work 14 hour days. You can pack a lot of goofing-off time into 14 hours.
Now you know how 90% of the world feels about the bottom 2% of America.
People like you amaze me. You live in a country where even the poor can own a fridge, car, TV, etc. yet you still bitch about others being richer than you. The poorest person in your country would be considered middle-class in most of the rest of the world, yet what's important to you is that the mythical 2% "are, like, REALLY rich". I know communism is still alive....I just hate seeing it on our shores. Keep it confined to Cuba.
Well, I hope you're right. My experience with Vista has been....less than stellar. I have no intention of upgrading to it any time soon, even though I upgraded to both 2000 and XP while they were still beta. In those two OS's I saw a reason to upgrade. Vista has, for me, been a step backwards.
"Troll"? Alright, who gave mod points to Bill Gates?