Indeed. The fact that there are a lot of Mestizos and Indians in Latin America does not mean there was not a concerted effort to wipe out the indigenous cultures in the Spanish colonies. And yes, the English and their descendants in both British North America (later Canada) and the United States committed a good many atrocities as well, some that must certainly be regarded as at the very least cultural genocide.

It is actually a wonder that Indians anywhere in the Americas managed to hang on to their cultural identity and languages. Some, like some of the tribes in the Amazon and tribes in the more remote areas of the Americas managed to do so simply because they enjoyed full or partial isolation. For others, it has been a concerted effort to either maintain or rebuild their traditions and languages, in some attempt to reconstruct a portion of what has been lost.

Some of the Crusades may have been, though the intent, from Rome's side was to save Eastern Christianity, and also probably to gain the upper hand over the Byzantine Emperors, who viewed themselves (with some justification) as supreme over the Bishop of Rome. To the European Princes, this was about grabbing one of the most valuable pieces of territory on Earth, and that's the first thing they did once they had driven back the Muslims; seize land that rightfully belonged to the Byzantine Empire and set up their crusader kingdoms.

Then there's the Fourth Crusade, which never reached the Holy Land, but rather stopped in Constantinople, looted the city, killed many of the residents (all of which, one should be reminded, were Christians), and set up a puppet state. Look up the Sack of Constantinople, one of the vilest acts of treachery in the history of Christendom, and an act that almost certainly undermined the Byzantine Empire, leading to the collapse of Christendom as a political force in Anatolia and the Levant.

While fusion would be nice, it seems foolhardy to hinge our futures (economic, environmental and climatological) on the development of fusion power. There are no lack of alternatives, though the costs are still high to access them. Still, they won't get any cheaper by lending a helping hand to the fossil fuel industry.

The Turks are hardly the only people who deny their past ill deeds. While the Japanese were forced on the international stage to admit to the atrocities they committed before and during WWII in their quest for an Asian Empire (in particular the astonishing abuses in China and Korea), at home Japanese school children by and large learn little or nothing of these evil acts.

Even in the Americas, we tend not to talk overly much of what the Europeans did to the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere. The Spanish were certainly the worst, but the English colonial regimes were at times just as harsh, and superior firepower was used right from the earliest days of colonization well into the 19th century to push Indian peoples of their lands. Still, one can openly admit in most countries in the Americas that the indigenous peoples were mistreated, and in many cases whole tribes and ethnic groups were wiped out, without some crazy ass Mexican, American or Chilean hackers shutting down your website.

Patriotism is indeed the last refuge of the scoundrel.

I would argue that using hydrocarbons, particularly the long-chain hydrocarbons like petroleum and bitumen, as a source of energy (motive or otherwise) is the most ludicrously wasteful use one can imagine. Oil's importance to material technologies and industrial processes is enormous, and using them to make gas for automobiles is, quite frankly, profoundly stupid. That's not even taking into account the various environmental hazards of the combustion of such substances.

Some day we'll have the energy production capability to create long-chain hydrocarbons out of methane, and then we'll have a nearly unlimited supply of stock for producing materials we make out of oil today, but until then, what we put in our cars seems much more like a short-term problem.

Waco Texas, where some child raping religious lunatic who thought he was Jesus Christ reborn locked himself and a pack of swirley eyed followers in a compound filled with weapons. Oh yes, that evil Clinton and his evil FBI, taking on that evil fucking maniac and his equally maniacal followers.

What exactly is your criticism of my post? Your's is so bizarre and confused it's difficult to tell.

If Americans adopt metric... then Communism!!!

Desalination on the level being talked about here would produce huge amounts of salt and other minerals. Getting rid of that salt in a way that wouldn't cause catastrophic harm would be no mean feat. So while some objections may be hyperbolic, the underlying concern of serious environmental harm is justified. Getting rid of that salt has to be part of the plan, and not just a "oh well, we'll figure something out".

I suggest you take a look at what China is doing in the South China Sea and its economic activities in Africa. China is stealthily building its own economic empire. Despite all Putin's machismo and brutality, it's no accident that the US is more concerned about China as a medium and long term threat than Russia.

As a resident of a Western liberal democracy, I can tell you right now I don't want to sacrifice my liberties in the likely hopeless cause of no more war. I want my way of life preserved; judicially, politically, economically, diplomatically, and yes, if need be, by force of arms. If the Chinese wish to live under autocratic technocrats, so be it. If they want to do business with us, fine too. But no way in hell do I want those ruthless men calling the shots on my liberties, and if a war has to be fought to prevent that, then so be it.

It's not that I want wars, and I hope that our leaders go out of their way to avoid them, and certainly can criticize them when they don't, but the idea of "one world government" where the Butchers of Beijing start getting a say over how citizens in democracies conduct themselves is not something I want to contemplate.

Traps are fundamentally defensive in nature. Autonomous robotic soldiers are offensive.

Such things work at a national level because nations usually have a constitutional level playing field. At the international level you have liberal democracies, semi-democracies, technocracies, autocracies, dictatorships and even a couple of theocracies.

Why would any major power, particularly one like the US, submit itself to a court culled from such a group? If there is ever to be a one world government, it means that the citizens of Shanghai would have to have the same rights the citizens of Riyadh who would have to have the same rights as the citizens of New Jersey, and if the differences remain then fundamental divides between nations remain.

This would strike me as a policy that would invite belligerents to fake enemy robot attacks on themselves so they could say "Those dirty fuckers violated the laws, they're automatically guilty all the way up!!!!"