LOL I'll thread this here... (Hopefully this way you shan't miss it.)
Someone thought I was trolling you in my other reply. They should probably look at our past conversations or, well, waste mod points. 'Tis fine with me. I do presume you'd tell me if you thought I were being a fucktard? Oh! It would be even more rich if they thought I were somehow bigoted against transgendered folks. Pfft... They obviously haven't seen my porn browsing history or read a not-insignificant number of my online comments.
However, from now on - every time you say something insightful. It will be known as a "barbarism" in my head. Or if you go off on some poor unsuspecting anonymous coward, that too might be termed the same thing. Ah well... 'Tis an ungodly hour to be awake on a Sunday.
My history is a little fuzzy but the Crusades were mostly against Arabs or Moose Limbs, no? However, if we go back to Rome there's quite a bit of fighting there though I think the area was taken over before the era of Constantine. I seem to recall that the Crusaders held Jerusalem for a while and that, during that time, there wasn't much in the way of religious freedom but little outright oppression or warring occurred specifically with the Jewish peoples. (Jewish as in religion, not as in race.)
There was one city, I forget which, that had a huge population of Jews within it that were slaughtered by the Crusaders (I think that Saladin guy took it back) but I don't think that was over any specific holy land nor specifically targeting Jews. I want to say that it was quite a bit west of Jerusalem and not particularly holy.
Yeah, your link confirms what I'd suspected. Those were evil Moose Limbs. Though, it should be noted, they taxed the fuck out of the Jews but otherwise let them worship in peace and allowed them access to their holy sites.
To meander off into speculation and aside...
Much of the trouble in the modern Middle East can be blamed, pretty squarely, on Europe. First, the colonization really wasn't progress for the natives. The League of Nations then did a number of them, including putting in arbitrary borders where none existed and putting at-war groups within the same borders. It should also be noted that the US can't really be blamed for this. While we can be blamed for our involvement today, we might also justify that by saying we're cleaning up after the mess due to European intervention. But then how far back do we want to lay the blame? I'm comfortable telling the US to knock it off and get the fuck out of there.
To go even further off topic... I've had it brought to my attention that there's no actual certification or anything to be called a "Historian." So, assuming that I'm absolutely 100% wrong about any of the above (and I don't think I am, I could be, I guess) then I'm going to use my new title and credit the entirety of this post to famed (and published) author KGIII - Historian. Reason being, I get all of my history from documentaries and an occasional book. They're read for entertainment, not for study. Thus names and specific dates are lost to the mists of my addled mind. So, I think the above is mostly accurate but I could be mistaken. I've been wrong before.
IIRC (and I'm pretty sure I do) the UN proposed a plan to separate into areas for the Palestinians and areas for the Jews. The plan was never signed or ratified. Why? Because the Palestinians did not want that - in fact, they ran around shooting stuff and blowing stuff up. The Jews aren't taking land that doesn't belong to them. They're using land that belongs to them by default because the Palestinians openly declared they didn't want the land and ran around blowing shit up.
Note that when the Jews weren't getting their way, they too ran around blowing shit up. Hell, even the Roman's had issues with the Jews except they weren't blowing shit up, they were just attacking in small numbers or hanging out in mountain fortresses (eventually killing themselves) and continuing to resist invasion. Eventually they had the country renamed by the same dude who built a wall across the UK.
Anyhow, it could have been the Palestinian's land. It's not. They didn't want it. Well, they do now.
If we weren't robbing you blind with bingo and casinos then, maybe, I might advocate such. I'd rather you just actually went ahead and started adhering to the treaties without violence, however.
I never will understand that. My head just doesn't work that way. Their freedom was taken, that's enough punishment. You to go prison as punishment, not for punishment. *sighs*
The problem is that you'll be competing with people who have no job and can do the work for little or no money because any income is better than no income. Alternatively, they'll already be employed. Any income is additional income. I do not see anybody making any decent money from this. For better or worse, that's what it looks like is going to happen. This sort of pricing is not a one-off, I suspect. You'll find they're all low-ball bids from people for whom any additional money is a good thing.
You got so drunk on Friday that you didn't realize it was Saturday? Or was the game so fun that you just extended it to your Saturday Drinking Game, too?
I'll help again... The things I do for people...
SJW SJW SJW SJW SJW SJW
There, a half-dozen should get you back up to normal. We can't have you running around on the internet with too much blood in your alcohol system.
I don't know if it's still true but, at one time, they did have a bit of a gap. I've personally tested this due to some comments on a webmaster forum that I frequented back in the day. Here's how it worked...
Make a directory, put a simple html file in it. Include a robots.txt with the noindex tag. Link other pages on your site to that new html file. Wait until site is crawled by Google's bot. Search for the html file by exact URL. Document is listed in the search results - with content of the document in the description.
I have no idea if it still works. You had to link it from your own domain (I think) and it needed some certain number (unknown - didn't work with just a few) links to the document. I assume it was a bug. I'm guessing it was fixed by now. This would have been 2007-2008 area, as I recall?
What if I, for some reason - the reason is immaterial, do not want you to link to my content?
Now, I'd say the onus should be on me - I should have to do something like set a switch in the header or robots.txt file, for example, that indicates that I don't want to be linked to.
I'll also add, I don't actually have a good reason for wanting to do this - I can't think of anything where I'd not just use access protections.
So, if I wanted to - then should I be allowed the right to disallow linking to a specific page or pages?
I'd say that I should be but that's because I'm a fan of personal liberties. The right is not, now, enumerated and that means that I don't currently get to make that choice. I'm a fan of allowing as much personal liberty (and that includes allowing the individual to make choices like this) as possible. While I am absolutely unable to think of a personal use-case for this, I could see this as an expansion of individual rights and that is almost certainly a good thing.
Maybe I want you to be able to link to page A, B, and C but want you to have visited A, B, or C before visiting page D which means I don't want others circumventing this by linking to page D directly. Sure, there are ways to do that (or minimize it) but what gives one the right to link to page D against my wishes? The content is not your content nor is it up to you to decide how to use it.
While certainly stupid - from a tech viewpoint, I'd have no problem with a protocol/standard that allowed someone to say, "Don't link directly to this page, thanks." Anything that increases the rights of the individual is a good thing, no? And no, it doesn't reduce someone else's rights, in any meaningful way. The content is not theirs.
Is it antithetical to the idea behind the World Wide Web? Well, yeah... That's a given. That ideal was gone a long time ago. Can it be bypassed? Absolutely. Laws and regulations, and even standards, don't prevent anything. They provide frameworks and, perhaps, establish guidelines for legal recourse. Basically, it's a rights issue and, I've given this a little thought - not as much as I probably should, but I think I could get behind the idea of allowing someone to restrict the ability to link to content.
I'd also add that the burden should be on the content provider to do so. The default assumption should be that putting it up means you are okay with someone linking to it. Unless the 'switch' is set to say "do not link directly" then the default is that linking is acceptable. This right does not currently exist. I am unable to think of any reasons why it can't or shouldn't exist. It doesn't break the web, it just gives someone more choices and more control of their property. I don't have a problem with that - I even see it as a good thing.
And if a company sets this switch then, by all means, the search engines should respect it. I'm reasonably certain that you can see what the results of this would be. Let them be dismissed and fall out of favor. Maybe it will allow something better to grow in their place. I imagine they won't try it for very long. I see it being more useful for the individual, if anyone, than it would be for businesses. It'd be trivial to bypass and that negates the value for any content that needs protecting. Instead, it would be a protected right of the individual.
Said individual should learn some access control methods but, meh...
Someone was using an image of mine on their various eBay listings. They were, of course, hotlnking it. Now, I could have been okay with this. I could have just disabled hotlinking - even specifically limiting it to prevent eBay use via htaccess or whatnot. I could have had a nice conversation with them about email and maybe asked them to pay for the bandwidth (which was much more expensive at the time).
I was a drinking man back then. What you imagine happened, probably did happen, in one form or another. It turns out it is possible to display the link fine if you go to the address while it is possible to display an entirely different image if the image is hotlinked and has a different referrer. Coupled with the eBay vendor having the image cached...
They appear to have finally stopped but I got drunken emails telling me that I'd destroyed his business for quite some time after the fact. I don't know why he didn't just stop linking to the images but he kept doing so for about a month after I'd discovered it. I don't know if they've changed it but eBay used to not allow you to host images or the likes - there were even some image hosting sites that charged money and catered specifically to the eBay vendor crowd. The items sold were technical in nature so he should have been able to grasp the idea of uploading and linking the images. Ah well...
Why don't you take credit for your own problems and FIX them instead of just blaming somebody else.
For the same reason they ask us to defend them and rebuild them from the rubble they inevitably bomb themselves into. I think the UK was the only one who actually paid back the money we loaned them for WWII. The US pretty much funded the rebuilding of much of Europe and got very little of that back. They exist by our good graces. It's like the whiny, petulant, child.
I suspect the same would be true if the roles were reversed, however. It seems natural that being coddled will result in an inability to accept accountability. Much growth comes from hardship and the introspection that it encourages. When one grows up feeling entitled and being able to rely on others to fill their basic needs then it's only likely that they'll be unable and unwilling to take responsibility for themselves. This is likely true at the level of individual States and other government entities.
However, this doesn't mean the US is free of faults and frailties. The US is straight up retarded and governed by ignorant, uncaring, monsters.
It makes me wonder... Should I, as an individual, have the right to restrict others from even linking to my content?
Note: I can't really think of any reason why I, personally, would want such a thing but I'm thinking that maybe, I should have that right. I'd just use access control but, you know...
I'm sure that the idea would offend some of us Slashdotters. However, I'm not sure why they'd want to argue that the rights of the individual should not be increased or maintained. (I imagine, and am pretty sure, that this would be an increase in individual rights as it is not now a specifically enumerated right.)
Back home, in the State of Maine, they actively have a sort of voting drive for prisoners. They register to vote, if not already registered, and vote in the town vote where they legally resided before being incarcerated. They vote via absentee ballot. Quite a number of prisoners vote. The prisoners vote at a higher percentage rate than the free citizens vote. I imagine the rate is higher because they're bored but that's conjecture. I don't imagine that anyone has done a study on it.
Anyhow, the vote in local, state, and federal elections on a regular basis. There was a drive in the 1990s to raise awareness - there was a lot of misconception about voter rights being removed, prior to this. The State actually funded an awareness campaign and continues to fund it at a smaller level.
Source: My campaign manager. Somewhere, in my troves of email, I actually have his reply with a bunch of details. It would appear that there's even a method for polling inmates but I've not given that any additional thought.
Well, to be fair, we kind of can do what the fuck we want. There's not a whole lot you can do about it. Are you going to send us a strongly worded letter? We fund your defense, medical research, and a goodly amount of science. We've also got a fairly adept, and recently active, combat-efficient military. There's not a whole lot you can do except for whine a little and maybe stop sending us a fruitcake for Christmas.
It's not that I don't agree with you it's just that it's, sadly, true. My country is run by bullies who have invested a great deal in being able to bully. Don't blame me - I vote third party almost exclusively. I sympathize with your plight and I hope my country calms down but there's not a whole lot I can do, as an individual. I wish things were different but I'm not sure how they could be. It seems that power, inevitably, attracts those who would abuse it. I know of no way to change the human psyche.
And, before suggesting we emulate Europe... I'd like to remind you that you bomb yourselves into rubble, consider 1984 to be a reference manual, and have relied on the US, in a variety of ways, to achieve and maintain the society that you do have - up to, and including, having us pay for your defense and rebuilding your countries after you've destroyed them. You certainly have some fine qualities but are not, either, without flaws. Nationalism and jingoisms have no place in a decent, constructive, conversation.
I'm not sure how you deal with a bully, such as my country, effectively. I'd suggest distancing and insulation. I'd suggest ensuring your own defenses and asking us to remove our bases as a start. We'll do that, I imagine. We might whine but I think we'll do it without conflict. If you're willing to give up those protections then, maybe, you can start at distancing yourselves and reducing your dependencies. I imagine it will be a lengthy process, unless you want to try to duke it out, and there's likely to be some pain involved.
Given that the US subsidizes a great deal of your economies, it should be interesting to see how this works. Reducing your reliance will take some investments but may be productive over the long-term. You certainly have the capacity, intellectually and resource-wise, to do great things. You'll end up spending a great deal more in areas like medical research, defense preparation and maintenance, and even in the pure science realm. This could be a good thing and increase the amount of diversity in those areas.
So, yes... My country is a big asshole bully. I'm sorry about that and I'm trying to change it. If you could actually do a few things to help, we might be able to resolve this peacefully. Sure, you can try the 'stand up to the bully' adage but I'm not sure how well that will work out for you, honestly. I'd recommend it but I'd recommend doing it with out violence. Treat the US like a big, dumb, slow animal - speak slowly, softly, and don't startle it. Good God, don't startle the beast.
Only the anal whine and pretend to be upset about simple errors. The rest of us are so fluent in typo that we don't even notice. Hell, most of us don't even have a basic grasp of grammar, are unable to spell, and aren't willing to put much effort into our replies.
I try to do so, not because I care about you but because I care about improving my writing skills. My writing skills are sorely lacking and this gives me something to do in my old age. If anything, I actually appreciate the 'Grammar Nazis." They help me improve my writing.
There's probably some group out there who's trying to bring back restrictions on women's rights to vote, slavery, or other sorts of things and doing so every six months. It doesn't mean they'll eventually do it. We just hear about this on Slashdot because, well, it's what we're interested in (and what generates comments and views).
He's been trying to achieve something, anything, to have a legacy. I kind of feel sorry for him. He was entirely clueless, probably being led by people who just wanted to use him, and ended up being far less in control than he'd anticipated. I suspect that Obama had good intentions, at least for his first election. I didn't vote for him, for a variety of reasons, but I don't think he knew how inept he'd be and how little control the office actually has. He's just not a very good politician. He might have wrangled a little more control if he had been. Even then, it's not like he was ever going to be in a position to make sweeping changes.
This? I'd not be surprised to hear about this pipeline, perhaps with a different name, being brought up again sometime in December of 2016. In Obama's defense, we could have done worse - much worse, with a different president, so there's that. He's just not a great politician and he's never managed to wrest even the little control the office usually holds.
Slashdot Mirror
LOL I'll thread this here... (Hopefully this way you shan't miss it.)
Someone thought I was trolling you in my other reply. They should probably look at our past conversations or, well, waste mod points. 'Tis fine with me. I do presume you'd tell me if you thought I were being a fucktard? Oh! It would be even more rich if they thought I were somehow bigoted against transgendered folks. Pfft... They obviously haven't seen my porn browsing history or read a not-insignificant number of my online comments.
However, from now on - every time you say something insightful. It will be known as a "barbarism" in my head. Or if you go off on some poor unsuspecting anonymous coward, that too might be termed the same thing. Ah well... 'Tis an ungodly hour to be awake on a Sunday.
My history is a little fuzzy but the Crusades were mostly against Arabs or Moose Limbs, no? However, if we go back to Rome there's quite a bit of fighting there though I think the area was taken over before the era of Constantine. I seem to recall that the Crusaders held Jerusalem for a while and that, during that time, there wasn't much in the way of religious freedom but little outright oppression or warring occurred specifically with the Jewish peoples. (Jewish as in religion, not as in race.)
There was one city, I forget which, that had a huge population of Jews within it that were slaughtered by the Crusaders (I think that Saladin guy took it back) but I don't think that was over any specific holy land nor specifically targeting Jews. I want to say that it was quite a bit west of Jerusalem and not particularly holy.
Yeah, your link confirms what I'd suspected. Those were evil Moose Limbs. Though, it should be noted, they taxed the fuck out of the Jews but otherwise let them worship in peace and allowed them access to their holy sites.
To meander off into speculation and aside...
Much of the trouble in the modern Middle East can be blamed, pretty squarely, on Europe. First, the colonization really wasn't progress for the natives. The League of Nations then did a number of them, including putting in arbitrary borders where none existed and putting at-war groups within the same borders. It should also be noted that the US can't really be blamed for this. While we can be blamed for our involvement today, we might also justify that by saying we're cleaning up after the mess due to European intervention. But then how far back do we want to lay the blame? I'm comfortable telling the US to knock it off and get the fuck out of there.
To go even further off topic... I've had it brought to my attention that there's no actual certification or anything to be called a "Historian." So, assuming that I'm absolutely 100% wrong about any of the above (and I don't think I am, I could be, I guess) then I'm going to use my new title and credit the entirety of this post to famed (and published) author KGIII - Historian. Reason being, I get all of my history from documentaries and an occasional book. They're read for entertainment, not for study. Thus names and specific dates are lost to the mists of my addled mind. So, I think the above is mostly accurate but I could be mistaken. I've been wrong before.
IIRC (and I'm pretty sure I do) the UN proposed a plan to separate into areas for the Palestinians and areas for the Jews. The plan was never signed or ratified. Why? Because the Palestinians did not want that - in fact, they ran around shooting stuff and blowing stuff up. The Jews aren't taking land that doesn't belong to them. They're using land that belongs to them by default because the Palestinians openly declared they didn't want the land and ran around blowing shit up.
Note that when the Jews weren't getting their way, they too ran around blowing shit up. Hell, even the Roman's had issues with the Jews except they weren't blowing shit up, they were just attacking in small numbers or hanging out in mountain fortresses (eventually killing themselves) and continuing to resist invasion. Eventually they had the country renamed by the same dude who built a wall across the UK.
Anyhow, it could have been the Palestinian's land. It's not. They didn't want it. Well, they do now.
If we weren't robbing you blind with bingo and casinos then, maybe, I might advocate such. I'd rather you just actually went ahead and started adhering to the treaties without violence, however.
Their "resisting arrest" is almost a certainty at this point.
Don't worry, a quick review will be done and the officer's actions deemed legitimate.
Well, this bid indicates that I may not be wrong. We'll have to see. It seems a bit premature to call me wrong but we'll see.
I never will understand that. My head just doesn't work that way. Their freedom was taken, that's enough punishment. You to go prison as punishment, not for punishment. *sighs*
Well, your signature is appropriate.
The problem is that you'll be competing with people who have no job and can do the work for little or no money because any income is better than no income. Alternatively, they'll already be employed. Any income is additional income. I do not see anybody making any decent money from this. For better or worse, that's what it looks like is going to happen. This sort of pricing is not a one-off, I suspect. You'll find they're all low-ball bids from people for whom any additional money is a good thing.
Rudyard Kipling has something to say on the subject of paying Dane-geld. Basically, if you pay the Dane-geld, you'll never be rid of the Dane.
Looks at your username... Looks at word barbarism...
*thinks*
So, is barbarism when you go off on a rampage end or is it when you make a philosophically insightful statement?
You got so drunk on Friday that you didn't realize it was Saturday? Or was the game so fun that you just extended it to your Saturday Drinking Game, too?
I'll help again... The things I do for people...
SJW
SJW
SJW
SJW
SJW
SJW
There, a half-dozen should get you back up to normal. We can't have you running around on the internet with too much blood in your alcohol system.
*sighs* I miss drinking.
I don't know if it's still true but, at one time, they did have a bit of a gap. I've personally tested this due to some comments on a webmaster forum that I frequented back in the day. Here's how it worked...
Make a directory, put a simple html file in it.
Include a robots.txt with the noindex tag.
Link other pages on your site to that new html file.
Wait until site is crawled by Google's bot.
Search for the html file by exact URL.
Document is listed in the search results - with content of the document in the description.
I have no idea if it still works. You had to link it from your own domain (I think) and it needed some certain number (unknown - didn't work with just a few) links to the document. I assume it was a bug. I'm guessing it was fixed by now. This would have been 2007-2008 area, as I recall?
What if I, for some reason - the reason is immaterial, do not want you to link to my content?
Now, I'd say the onus should be on me - I should have to do something like set a switch in the header or robots.txt file, for example, that indicates that I don't want to be linked to.
I'll also add, I don't actually have a good reason for wanting to do this - I can't think of anything where I'd not just use access protections.
So, if I wanted to - then should I be allowed the right to disallow linking to a specific page or pages?
I'd say that I should be but that's because I'm a fan of personal liberties. The right is not, now, enumerated and that means that I don't currently get to make that choice. I'm a fan of allowing as much personal liberty (and that includes allowing the individual to make choices like this) as possible. While I am absolutely unable to think of a personal use-case for this, I could see this as an expansion of individual rights and that is almost certainly a good thing.
Maybe I want you to be able to link to page A, B, and C but want you to have visited A, B, or C before visiting page D which means I don't want others circumventing this by linking to page D directly. Sure, there are ways to do that (or minimize it) but what gives one the right to link to page D against my wishes? The content is not your content nor is it up to you to decide how to use it.
While certainly stupid - from a tech viewpoint, I'd have no problem with a protocol/standard that allowed someone to say, "Don't link directly to this page, thanks." Anything that increases the rights of the individual is a good thing, no? And no, it doesn't reduce someone else's rights, in any meaningful way. The content is not theirs.
Is it antithetical to the idea behind the World Wide Web? Well, yeah... That's a given. That ideal was gone a long time ago. Can it be bypassed? Absolutely. Laws and regulations, and even standards, don't prevent anything. They provide frameworks and, perhaps, establish guidelines for legal recourse. Basically, it's a rights issue and, I've given this a little thought - not as much as I probably should, but I think I could get behind the idea of allowing someone to restrict the ability to link to content.
I'd also add that the burden should be on the content provider to do so. The default assumption should be that putting it up means you are okay with someone linking to it. Unless the 'switch' is set to say "do not link directly" then the default is that linking is acceptable. This right does not currently exist. I am unable to think of any reasons why it can't or shouldn't exist. It doesn't break the web, it just gives someone more choices and more control of their property. I don't have a problem with that - I even see it as a good thing.
And if a company sets this switch then, by all means, the search engines should respect it. I'm reasonably certain that you can see what the results of this would be. Let them be dismissed and fall out of favor. Maybe it will allow something better to grow in their place. I imagine they won't try it for very long. I see it being more useful for the individual, if anyone, than it would be for businesses. It'd be trivial to bypass and that negates the value for any content that needs protecting. Instead, it would be a protected right of the individual.
Said individual should learn some access control methods but, meh...
Well, when you're in the bathroom, You're a peein'!
Someone was using an image of mine on their various eBay listings. They were, of course, hotlnking it. Now, I could have been okay with this. I could have just disabled hotlinking - even specifically limiting it to prevent eBay use via htaccess or whatnot. I could have had a nice conversation with them about email and maybe asked them to pay for the bandwidth (which was much more expensive at the time).
I was a drinking man back then. What you imagine happened, probably did happen, in one form or another. It turns out it is possible to display the link fine if you go to the address while it is possible to display an entirely different image if the image is hotlinked and has a different referrer. Coupled with the eBay vendor having the image cached...
They appear to have finally stopped but I got drunken emails telling me that I'd destroyed his business for quite some time after the fact. I don't know why he didn't just stop linking to the images but he kept doing so for about a month after I'd discovered it. I don't know if they've changed it but eBay used to not allow you to host images or the likes - there were even some image hosting sites that charged money and catered specifically to the eBay vendor crowd. The items sold were technical in nature so he should have been able to grasp the idea of uploading and linking the images. Ah well...
Why don't you take credit for your own problems and FIX them instead of just blaming somebody else.
For the same reason they ask us to defend them and rebuild them from the rubble they inevitably bomb themselves into. I think the UK was the only one who actually paid back the money we loaned them for WWII. The US pretty much funded the rebuilding of much of Europe and got very little of that back. They exist by our good graces. It's like the whiny, petulant, child.
I suspect the same would be true if the roles were reversed, however. It seems natural that being coddled will result in an inability to accept accountability. Much growth comes from hardship and the introspection that it encourages. When one grows up feeling entitled and being able to rely on others to fill their basic needs then it's only likely that they'll be unable and unwilling to take responsibility for themselves. This is likely true at the level of individual States and other government entities.
However, this doesn't mean the US is free of faults and frailties. The US is straight up retarded and governed by ignorant, uncaring, monsters.
It makes me wonder... Should I, as an individual, have the right to restrict others from even linking to my content?
Note: I can't really think of any reason why I, personally, would want such a thing but I'm thinking that maybe, I should have that right. I'd just use access control but, you know...
I'm sure that the idea would offend some of us Slashdotters. However, I'm not sure why they'd want to argue that the rights of the individual should not be increased or maintained. (I imagine, and am pretty sure, that this would be an increase in individual rights as it is not now a specifically enumerated right.)
Back home, in the State of Maine, they actively have a sort of voting drive for prisoners. They register to vote, if not already registered, and vote in the town vote where they legally resided before being incarcerated. They vote via absentee ballot. Quite a number of prisoners vote. The prisoners vote at a higher percentage rate than the free citizens vote. I imagine the rate is higher because they're bored but that's conjecture. I don't imagine that anyone has done a study on it.
Anyhow, the vote in local, state, and federal elections on a regular basis. There was a drive in the 1990s to raise awareness - there was a lot of misconception about voter rights being removed, prior to this. The State actually funded an awareness campaign and continues to fund it at a smaller level.
Source: My campaign manager. Somewhere, in my troves of email, I actually have his reply with a bunch of details. It would appear that there's even a method for polling inmates but I've not given that any additional thought.
Well, to be fair, we kind of can do what the fuck we want. There's not a whole lot you can do about it. Are you going to send us a strongly worded letter? We fund your defense, medical research, and a goodly amount of science. We've also got a fairly adept, and recently active, combat-efficient military. There's not a whole lot you can do except for whine a little and maybe stop sending us a fruitcake for Christmas.
It's not that I don't agree with you it's just that it's, sadly, true. My country is run by bullies who have invested a great deal in being able to bully. Don't blame me - I vote third party almost exclusively. I sympathize with your plight and I hope my country calms down but there's not a whole lot I can do, as an individual. I wish things were different but I'm not sure how they could be. It seems that power, inevitably, attracts those who would abuse it. I know of no way to change the human psyche.
And, before suggesting we emulate Europe... I'd like to remind you that you bomb yourselves into rubble, consider 1984 to be a reference manual, and have relied on the US, in a variety of ways, to achieve and maintain the society that you do have - up to, and including, having us pay for your defense and rebuilding your countries after you've destroyed them. You certainly have some fine qualities but are not, either, without flaws. Nationalism and jingoisms have no place in a decent, constructive, conversation.
I'm not sure how you deal with a bully, such as my country, effectively. I'd suggest distancing and insulation. I'd suggest ensuring your own defenses and asking us to remove our bases as a start. We'll do that, I imagine. We might whine but I think we'll do it without conflict. If you're willing to give up those protections then, maybe, you can start at distancing yourselves and reducing your dependencies. I imagine it will be a lengthy process, unless you want to try to duke it out, and there's likely to be some pain involved.
Given that the US subsidizes a great deal of your economies, it should be interesting to see how this works. Reducing your reliance will take some investments but may be productive over the long-term. You certainly have the capacity, intellectually and resource-wise, to do great things. You'll end up spending a great deal more in areas like medical research, defense preparation and maintenance, and even in the pure science realm. This could be a good thing and increase the amount of diversity in those areas.
So, yes... My country is a big asshole bully. I'm sorry about that and I'm trying to change it. If you could actually do a few things to help, we might be able to resolve this peacefully. Sure, you can try the 'stand up to the bully' adage but I'm not sure how well that will work out for you, honestly. I'd recommend it but I'd recommend doing it with out violence. Treat the US like a big, dumb, slow animal - speak slowly, softly, and don't startle it. Good God, don't startle the beast.
Only the anal whine and pretend to be upset about simple errors. The rest of us are so fluent in typo that we don't even notice. Hell, most of us don't even have a basic grasp of grammar, are unable to spell, and aren't willing to put much effort into our replies.
I try to do so, not because I care about you but because I care about improving my writing skills. My writing skills are sorely lacking and this gives me something to do in my old age. If anything, I actually appreciate the 'Grammar Nazis." They help me improve my writing.
There's probably some group out there who's trying to bring back restrictions on women's rights to vote, slavery, or other sorts of things and doing so every six months. It doesn't mean they'll eventually do it. We just hear about this on Slashdot because, well, it's what we're interested in (and what generates comments and views).
Well then I'd be on the lookout for agents with little stabby pens. Just because it can be abused doesn't make me not want it.
That makes slightly more sense but I don't have that much faith in bureaucracies.
He's been trying to achieve something, anything, to have a legacy. I kind of feel sorry for him. He was entirely clueless, probably being led by people who just wanted to use him, and ended up being far less in control than he'd anticipated. I suspect that Obama had good intentions, at least for his first election. I didn't vote for him, for a variety of reasons, but I don't think he knew how inept he'd be and how little control the office actually has. He's just not a very good politician. He might have wrangled a little more control if he had been. Even then, it's not like he was ever going to be in a position to make sweeping changes.
This? I'd not be surprised to hear about this pipeline, perhaps with a different name, being brought up again sometime in December of 2016. In Obama's defense, we could have done worse - much worse, with a different president, so there's that. He's just not a great politician and he's never managed to wrest even the little control the office usually holds.