They're not communists anymore, they're not capitalists yet, but they're definitely totalitarian. And really, that's what China has been for longer then there's been communism.
Hi astroturfer, enjoy your Party paycheck. Oh, and thanks for the file you sent me describing your hatred of the Party. It was pretty vicious, and exposed a lot of embarassing stuff. Much appreciated!
Actually, I think both of you are party informants/agents, both liangzai and deconvolution. But Liangzai is very subtle about it, he throws in that Fox News bit at the end to make it clear he's trying to use hyperbole. Jury's a little out on him. But decon? Definitely party agent.
No, the government just exposes your wife, who is working undercover for the CIA to uncover the secrets of Iran's nuclear program. Whoops. Sorry Valerie.
I think that simply saying "We aren't as bad as China" isn't enough. We should be striving towards as perfect a government as people can manage, not settling for a government that isn't as bad as the worst examples we can find. When we settle for not being the worst, we will rapidly find that many others are much much better than us. We should be happy for what we have, but we should also recognize what we don't have, and fight like hell to get it.
And then there's all the religious right wing victim groups who are always complaining about and trying to censor "pornography" and "indecency", and boycotting TV shows they find objectionable. The FCC's war on pornography, especially on the internet, is an excellent example of censorship which I would consider in direct violation of 1st Amendment rights, but it goes through anyway. And then there's the restrictions on protests at political events, the fricking free speech zones which everyone should be rebelling against. Are we as bad as China about censorship at the governmental-level? No. But saying we are is absurd, whether you're trying to make some crack about the evil leftist colleges or about the evil right-wing churches.
While I agree with you in sentiment, I don't see the revolution as being something on the near horizon for China. I actually would guess that American is closer to a popular revolution than China right now, but I don't base that on any documentable. I'd love to be proven wrong, I'd love for China to become a better example of a free nation than the U.S., but I don't see it happening.
Chinese aren't Americans. For most of the "peasantry", it would never even occur to them, because a lot of them see little difference between the CCCP and the old emperors. No matter who is in charge, plants still need to be grown and harvested, and it's never been a good idea over there to speak criticsm too loudly. Also, the Party has done a reasonably good job of providing stories to focus nationalistic attentions on.
You mention 1984, remember the proles in the story? Winston was an exception to the norm for his society, and the only place dissension was even minutely likely to arrive was the Outer Party. The proles, who could make or break any government, tend not to because they are sheep. That's the primary reason that, in China, the Party monitors universities so closely. A university is where the people smart enough to manage to lead a revolution are likely to wind up, and as a result they would have to be watched very closely.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see China turn into a free country, but I don't see it happening. I know a lot of people whose job is studying China for U.S. military intelligence purposes, and they don't see it happening anytime soon either.
Censorship, banning and deletion of pornography, anti-free speech, at least when they take over the super-fundy religious people will be happy.
At least, until they realize they can't be religious anymore. Well, maybe the sell-out Christians will, I don't know, cooperate and work with the government to establish state sanctioned churches, and the rogue religious types can go to jail for their dissent. Hey, there's a way to clear out the Muslims and Pagans and all those other unseemly religions!
China and Republicans reminds me of Hillary Clinton and Republicans, they make me wonder why they hate each other so much when they have so much ideologically in common.
As I said, they got their statistics from the Natural Resources Defense Council, published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The article on Wikipedia states, concerning Israel, that:
Israel is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and refuses to officially confirm or deny having a nuclear arsenal, or to having developed nuclear weapons, or even to having a nuclear weapons program. Although Israel claims that Dimona is a "research reactor," no scientific reports based on work done there have ever been published. Extensive information about the program in Dimona was also disclosed by technician Mordechai Vanunu in 1986. Imagery analysts can identify weapon bunkers, mobile missile launchers, and launch sites in satellite photographs. It is believed to possess nuclear weapons by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Israel may have tested a nuclear weapon along with South Africa in 1979 (see Vela Incident). According to the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Federation of American Scientists, they may possess 300-400 weapons, a figure which would put them above the median in the declared list.
So that's why, on the list, Israel is left off. They've got [some of] the bombs also, they just aren't talking about it. Incidentally, that would seem to indicate that Israel has a greater willingness to use nuclear weapons, since the U.S. and Russia have always used nukes as deterrents, and as such have no reason to keep hidden how many they have. To a point anyway, I'm sure there's plenty of unreported nukes on both sides. But Israel, by playing their nuclear cards very close to the vest, and not threatening with them, seem to indicate that they're saving them for a rainy day when they really need them.
I don't see why the statistics seemed so wacky. You thought we were the only ones?
(active/total)
United States 5,735/9,960
Russia (formerly the Soviet Union) 5,830/16,000
United Kingdom
France 350
People's Republic of China 400
India 75-110
Pakistan 65-110 statistics provided by the Natural Resources Defense Council
As for brains, http://4brevard.com/choice/international-test-scor es.htm says differently. Our 4th graders made the best showing of all the categories, coming in at #12. However, it is an incomplete list of countries. Singapore, Korea, and Japan, who dominate grades 4 and 8, are absent from the 12th grade list. However you look at it, it's bad.
Regardless, we do have the advantage of having done things with space no other country has... but back in the 60s and 70s. Innovation in the U.S. has been dragging for decades, we should and easily could have had a manned base on the moon and on Mars by now, and we could even have been in good shape to start mining the asteroids. I look at America's space program, and I see not only all the great stuff we've done, but all the really great stuff we could have done and haven't.
You've posted pretty much the same thing 7 times... if people didn't get it after the first, second, or third times, why keep it up? Horse is beaten and already dead!
Actually, it's because until you as a fetus hit 14 weeks, you're androgynous. At 14 weeks after fertilization, the hormones turn on that turn you into a boy or girl. However, at that point, the nipples have already developed. The scientific evolutionary reason for this is because it makes it slightly easier for a female to develop then a male, since female is the default setting, and more women is better for racial proliferation then more men, since 1 male can impregnate several female and not be hampered by carrying the infant to term.
Male nipples are also great proof that there is no Intelligent Design. If every fetus is formed in the womb and known by God there, then you'd think he'd eliminate the useless nipples, making men less susceptible to breast cancer when we don't need nipples anyway.
Milk comes out of female breasts. Morally uptight cultures have an excretion fixation, anything that something comes out of is wrong. Or something like that, I have no idea. I wish toplessness was legal here, it would make summer so much better.
"The Wolf and the Lamb"
A wolf noticed a lamb drinking just downstream. He thought she would be an easy supper. If he could trick her, he would not even have to run after her. Then he called out, ""We can drink from the same stream, friend, but you are making my water muddy." The lamb said, "Nay, master wolf. If your water is muddy, I can't be the cause if it. You see, the water goes past you then it comes to me." The wolf changed the subject. He must make the lamb feel bad and helpless. He said, "Why did you call me bad names this time last year?" The lamb said, "That could not have been me. I am only six months old." Then the wolf said, "I don't care. If it was not you, it was your father!" He pounced upon the poor lamb, and ate her.
The moral of the story is that the evil will always find a way to justify their deeds.
I probably shouldn't bring this up, but it's entirely possible to make a completely nude character for City of Heroes. You can even make the boobs huge. No nipples or genitals of course, but it can be done. I imagine if I screwed around with the character creator more I could make a pretty realistic one, my goal yesterday was just to make a cat girl, which was quite a success. Since the camera view is always behind the character anyway, they may as well be nude if you make their outfit skin-tight and skin-colored.
What I can't figure out is why nobody ever lists Stalin with the tyrants. Not to downplay what Hitler did, but Stalin was responsible for, possibly, at least twice as many deaths during the Stalinist purges. We'll never know, because the Germans were better record keepers and the Soviets were better at altering historical records. Of course, during the war itself, millions upon millions died on both sides. Anyway, Stalin was at least as bad as Hitler, and possibly worse. I think he was just better at hiding it.
Seriously, it's not as though she is EVER EVER going to win herself any fans among the conservatives, I have yet to run into a single conservative who doesn't think she's the fucking anti-Christess herself, and what she's doing is only going to piss off the freedom-of-speech/expression liberals and liberterians like myself. She's trying to get votes from people who will never vote for her, and alienating the people who might. What a tool. If she was a male doing the same thing I'd be just as pissed, and I am just as pissed at Lieberman, her male counterpart. But Lieberman isn't setting himself up for a presidential run. I fucking hope she loses the primary.
If you don't think there will be other countries taking the place of the US in being demand for Chinese goods, you're a fool. If you think China will choose "market for trinkets" over "oil we need to drive cars and for everything else", you're a fool. Screwing us over economically would damage the Chinese economy, but it would kill ours, and they're the ones with the greater capacity to bounce back in that situation. It comes down to which resource they want more, close oil or American money.
Slashdot Mirror
They're not communists anymore, they're not capitalists yet, but they're definitely totalitarian. And really, that's what China has been for longer then there's been communism.
Hi astroturfer, enjoy your Party paycheck. Oh, and thanks for the file you sent me describing your hatred of the Party. It was pretty vicious, and exposed a lot of embarassing stuff. Much appreciated!
Actually, I think both of you are party informants/agents, both liangzai and deconvolution. But Liangzai is very subtle about it, he throws in that Fox News bit at the end to make it clear he's trying to use hyperbole. Jury's a little out on him. But decon? Definitely party agent.
No, the government just exposes your wife, who is working undercover for the CIA to uncover the secrets of Iran's nuclear program. Whoops. Sorry Valerie.
I think that simply saying "We aren't as bad as China" isn't enough. We should be striving towards as perfect a government as people can manage, not settling for a government that isn't as bad as the worst examples we can find. When we settle for not being the worst, we will rapidly find that many others are much much better than us. We should be happy for what we have, but we should also recognize what we don't have, and fight like hell to get it.
And then there's all the religious right wing victim groups who are always complaining about and trying to censor "pornography" and "indecency", and boycotting TV shows they find objectionable. The FCC's war on pornography, especially on the internet, is an excellent example of censorship which I would consider in direct violation of 1st Amendment rights, but it goes through anyway. And then there's the restrictions on protests at political events, the fricking free speech zones which everyone should be rebelling against. Are we as bad as China about censorship at the governmental-level? No. But saying we are is absurd, whether you're trying to make some crack about the evil leftist colleges or about the evil right-wing churches.
6 58.htmli n_the_United_States
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060423-6
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_
Just the computers, the electricity, and the internet access.
While I agree with you in sentiment, I don't see the revolution as being something on the near horizon for China. I actually would guess that American is closer to a popular revolution than China right now, but I don't base that on any documentable. I'd love to be proven wrong, I'd love for China to become a better example of a free nation than the U.S., but I don't see it happening.
Chinese aren't Americans. For most of the "peasantry", it would never even occur to them, because a lot of them see little difference between the CCCP and the old emperors. No matter who is in charge, plants still need to be grown and harvested, and it's never been a good idea over there to speak criticsm too loudly. Also, the Party has done a reasonably good job of providing stories to focus nationalistic attentions on.
You mention 1984, remember the proles in the story? Winston was an exception to the norm for his society, and the only place dissension was even minutely likely to arrive was the Outer Party. The proles, who could make or break any government, tend not to because they are sheep. That's the primary reason that, in China, the Party monitors universities so closely. A university is where the people smart enough to manage to lead a revolution are likely to wind up, and as a result they would have to be watched very closely.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see China turn into a free country, but I don't see it happening. I know a lot of people whose job is studying China for U.S. military intelligence purposes, and they don't see it happening anytime soon either.
Censorship, banning and deletion of pornography, anti-free speech, at least when they take over the super-fundy religious people will be happy.
At least, until they realize they can't be religious anymore. Well, maybe the sell-out Christians will, I don't know, cooperate and work with the government to establish state sanctioned churches, and the rogue religious types can go to jail for their dissent. Hey, there's a way to clear out the Muslims and Pagans and all those other unseemly religions!
China and Republicans reminds me of Hillary Clinton and Republicans, they make me wonder why they hate each other so much when they have so much ideologically in common.
Disclaimer: Yes, I am being snarky.
Blame the Natural Resources Defense Council, and complain to them. It's not my list, it's theirs.
Israel doesn't report how many nukes it has, IIRC. Anyway, here's the link:
t h_nuclear_weapons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_wi
As I said, they got their statistics from the Natural Resources Defense Council, published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The article on Wikipedia states, concerning Israel, that:
Israel is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and refuses to officially confirm or deny having a nuclear arsenal, or to having developed nuclear weapons, or even to having a nuclear weapons program. Although Israel claims that Dimona is a "research reactor," no scientific reports based on work done there have ever been published. Extensive information about the program in Dimona was also disclosed by technician Mordechai Vanunu in 1986. Imagery analysts can identify weapon bunkers, mobile missile launchers, and launch sites in satellite photographs. It is believed to possess nuclear weapons by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Israel may have tested a nuclear weapon along with South Africa in 1979 (see Vela Incident). According to the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Federation of American Scientists, they may possess 300-400 weapons, a figure which would put them above the median in the declared list.
So that's why, on the list, Israel is left off. They've got [some of] the bombs also, they just aren't talking about it. Incidentally, that would seem to indicate that Israel has a greater willingness to use nuclear weapons, since the U.S. and Russia have always used nukes as deterrents, and as such have no reason to keep hidden how many they have. To a point anyway, I'm sure there's plenty of unreported nukes on both sides. But Israel, by playing their nuclear cards very close to the vest, and not threatening with them, seem to indicate that they're saving them for a rainy day when they really need them.
I don't see why the statistics seemed so wacky. You thought we were the only ones?
(active/total)
r es.htm says differently. Our 4th graders made the best showing of all the categories, coming in at #12. However, it is an incomplete list of countries. Singapore, Korea, and Japan, who dominate grades 4 and 8, are absent from the 12th grade list. However you look at it, it's bad.
United States 5,735/9,960
Russia (formerly the Soviet Union) 5,830/16,000
United Kingdom France 350
People's Republic of China 400
India 75-110
Pakistan 65-110
statistics provided by the Natural Resources Defense Council
As for brains, http://4brevard.com/choice/international-test-sco
Regardless, we do have the advantage of having done things with space no other country has... but back in the 60s and 70s. Innovation in the U.S. has been dragging for decades, we should and easily could have had a manned base on the moon and on Mars by now, and we could even have been in good shape to start mining the asteroids. I look at America's space program, and I see not only all the great stuff we've done, but all the really great stuff we could have done and haven't.
You've posted pretty much the same thing 7 times... if people didn't get it after the first, second, or third times, why keep it up? Horse is beaten and already dead!
Duh, all Commies are Dirty, baths are a tool of the oligarchy!
Actually, it's because until you as a fetus hit 14 weeks, you're androgynous. At 14 weeks after fertilization, the hormones turn on that turn you into a boy or girl. However, at that point, the nipples have already developed. The scientific evolutionary reason for this is because it makes it slightly easier for a female to develop then a male, since female is the default setting, and more women is better for racial proliferation then more men, since 1 male can impregnate several female and not be hampered by carrying the infant to term.
t ml
Male nipples are also great proof that there is no Intelligent Design. If every fetus is formed in the womb and known by God there, then you'd think he'd eliminate the useless nipples, making men less susceptible to breast cancer when we don't need nipples anyway.
http://amos.indiana.edu/library/scripts/nipples.h
We need a Trotsky's law or something for whenever someone calls somebody else a Commie, they were at least on par with the Nazis.
You really seem to have sand in your vagina over this... why do you care so much?
Milk comes out of female breasts. Morally uptight cultures have an excretion fixation, anything that something comes out of is wrong. Or something like that, I have no idea. I wish toplessness was legal here, it would make summer so much better.
Those are ant bites. DUH!
"The Wolf and the Lamb" A wolf noticed a lamb drinking just downstream. He thought she would be an easy supper. If he could trick her, he would not even have to run after her. Then he called out, ""We can drink from the same stream, friend, but you are making my water muddy." The lamb said, "Nay, master wolf. If your water is muddy, I can't be the cause if it. You see, the water goes past you then it comes to me." The wolf changed the subject. He must make the lamb feel bad and helpless. He said, "Why did you call me bad names this time last year?" The lamb said, "That could not have been me. I am only six months old." Then the wolf said, "I don't care. If it was not you, it was your father!" He pounced upon the poor lamb, and ate her.
The moral of the story is that the evil will always find a way to justify their deeds.
I probably shouldn't bring this up, but it's entirely possible to make a completely nude character for City of Heroes. You can even make the boobs huge. No nipples or genitals of course, but it can be done. I imagine if I screwed around with the character creator more I could make a pretty realistic one, my goal yesterday was just to make a cat girl, which was quite a success. Since the camera view is always behind the character anyway, they may as well be nude if you make their outfit skin-tight and skin-colored.
Hopefully nobody notices.
What I can't figure out is why nobody ever lists Stalin with the tyrants. Not to downplay what Hitler did, but Stalin was responsible for, possibly, at least twice as many deaths during the Stalinist purges. We'll never know, because the Germans were better record keepers and the Soviets were better at altering historical records. Of course, during the war itself, millions upon millions died on both sides. Anyway, Stalin was at least as bad as Hitler, and possibly worse. I think he was just better at hiding it.
Seriously, it's not as though she is EVER EVER going to win herself any fans among the conservatives, I have yet to run into a single conservative who doesn't think she's the fucking anti-Christess herself, and what she's doing is only going to piss off the freedom-of-speech/expression liberals and liberterians like myself. She's trying to get votes from people who will never vote for her, and alienating the people who might. What a tool. If she was a male doing the same thing I'd be just as pissed, and I am just as pissed at Lieberman, her male counterpart. But Lieberman isn't setting himself up for a presidential run. I fucking hope she loses the primary.
Sounds more like something NERV would come up with.
If you don't think there will be other countries taking the place of the US in being demand for Chinese goods, you're a fool. If you think China will choose "market for trinkets" over "oil we need to drive cars and for everything else", you're a fool. Screwing us over economically would damage the Chinese economy, but it would kill ours, and they're the ones with the greater capacity to bounce back in that situation. It comes down to which resource they want more, close oil or American money.