Posts by tussock
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Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Neil Morrison,
Uh, what has the Obama administration done for human rights? We still have the secret prisons, indefinite detention without charge or trial, arbitrary murders carried out by remote machines, the kidnapping and torture of suspects on flimsy evidence, the wars against abstract concepts fought with real bombs on real people, more troops, bases, and "surges" (and more careful removal of internal dissent). The continued spread of the "War on Drugs" through the Americas, to the toll of thousands more lives. The hundred billion plus "black budget" of the CIA and their mission to fuck over everyone who isn't sucking the US's dick?
Nothing on the climate change, still channelling trillions through the military contracts and arms exports, siding with supplicant dictators and against restive democracies. Business as usual with an earnest looking guy up front, such is the Democratic face of the US government (as compared to the Republican face, which is slightly more honest).
Christ, the new copyright treaties alone. Criminal liability for reading things without permission. For reals. I mean, yeh, China sucks too, with the human rights thing, but what has Obama actually done to make it better?
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I am still at a loss as to where the money has gone, or was it just imaginary money to start with?
Where the capital's gone, I think you mean, it didn't grow by much, because most of the loans were invested back into crap like finance companies, rather than improving assets.
Money's a weird thing, there's more of it for everyone if we all give it away all the time, and none of it at all if we all squirrel it away at once. It's strongly reinforcing too, spend when no one else is and go broke, squirrel when every else spends and get left behind.
So while the money spins about extra fast, everyone feels rich and pretends they each could, at any time they want, grab a bigger chunk of that money and hang onto it. But they can't, because they only want to do that when everyone else does, and when everyone grabs hold of their money at once there is no money.
Thus the tragic folly of loaning money based on "future earning potential", real or imagined, as is the current trend. It reinforces the boom-bust cycle even more.
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Something that worries me about home-schooling is, what happens if you grow up without having to deal with lots of other kids all the time?
Historically, rather a lot of famous folk grew up without contacting other children on a regular basis. They read as being very serious and conscientious people as adults. No doubt the odd serial killer did the same, making a nice change from them being the victim of constant bullying at school.
Kids can be generous, they can also be brutal, and I think learning to deal with all kinds is one of the biggest things we learn in school.
What we learn in school is to submit to authority figures and do as we are told, even if it's obviously stupid and pointless busywork. The ability to clearly repeat back what you are told being valued above all else.
Being surrounded by children all day as it happens is just an unfortunate side-effect. Rather like prison, you get weird social structures form amongst the inmates that are often very violent, because nothing anyone does really matters, and they all know it.
School, IME, is nothing at all like anything in the real world. Certainly no one could physically assault me as often without spending a good few years in prison (rather than a lunch break on the bench).
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What that last bloke said, only 38, and dropped out.
Excuse me while I go be sad for a bit. 8]
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Bravo Spain, 1-0, 1-0, 1-0, 1-0. Way to own the knockouts.
Poor Dutch ran out of men with a yellow card to spare, which spoiled their tactics somewhat. Looked pretty good when they got on with it, but not as good as the Spanish.
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Half time, and here I was expecting a game of kicking the ball, rather than the man, and such. At least the All Whites only use their elbows, most of the time. 8]
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Both great imperial world powers in their day, you know.
May soccer be the winner on the day, as long as the Dutch are too.
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I've recently moved to Firefox 3.x series from 2.0.0.xx (everything is incompatible given time), and it's a crashy POS in comparison.
Or possibly it's just the new Flash 10, which came at the same time. Must strip a few things from the noscript whitelist again.
Yay for linux, four years in and I've finally found a program that crashes (other than wine), and I have three alternatives available without resorting to package-hunting. 8] -
Some pretty awesome goals in the first two knockouts, eh, though Korea's defense was disastrous for one, sleepy defenders.
History? I vaguely recall France and Italy being good teams last time, doesn't seem to mean a damn thing in 2010. -
I love it when rugby heads talk about soccer :-)
My soccer coach never taught me that, dude. Though come to think of it, my soccer coach didn't seem to know much about soccer.
Anyway, I'm a motorsport fan, plus whatever's free on the tele, so rugby doesn't get much of a look in these days. Not seeing much of this world cup either. :shrug: