Much of the mid-east in drenched in oil. But what good does it do the common people? There is enormous poverty in Saudi, while a few billionaires enjoy all the money that comes gushing out of ground, and most of the population is dirt poor.

If the US sent money there, it would be grabbed by the leaders. That is what happened in Iraq.

Besides, how about using those trucks of money to help fix poverty in the US? You know, the country that has 50 million people who cannot afford health care? The country that is drowning in debt?

As I said, we supported Sadam also. They were the "good guys" at the time.

Remember how we cheered "Arab Spring?"

As I understand it, even Kuwait hates us now. So why do we do it?

Involvement in the mid-east is a guaranteed no-win situation.

Besides, how is it our business? Other than buying their oil, what business is it of ours?

I think we should remove our embassies as well - the embassies only serve as targets for those crazies.

You are making the classic mistake of fighting the last war.

These are not the 1930s or 1940s. We are not fighting countries but loosely connected groups.

There is no way to win in the middle-east. Any involvement just makes us the bad guy.

Small wonder Americans are not interested.

If Americans are soooo stupid and lazy then why does the US have *way* more than it's share of substantial inventions? We are practically all major tech companies started in the US - by people educated in the US. Why are foreign students breaking their necks to get into US universities?

No troops, no money, no sanctions, no weapons sales, nothing. Not to any mid-east country, including Israel.

Just buy their oil, and that's it. What other business do we have there? Let the chips fall where they may.

Why is the US putting itself in the middle of their ancient, perpetual, non-sensicle, squabbles?

I hate to say it, but: let the crazies kill each other, if that's what they want to do. They have been doing it forever, and US presence only gives them somebody else to blame.

  All those lives, all of those trillions of dollars, for what? We are no safer from terrorism. In fact, we may be more at risk.

Help one tribe, and you piss off another. Never fails. The "good guys" one day, are despotic leaders, and US haters the next. I think the US supported both Sadam, and Osama, at one point.

As the computer said in "War Games" : "The only way to win is to not play."

What makes you think that?

What makes you think that Microsoft spies on you any less than Google?

If you do think that, can you provide hard evidence?

That does not match my experience at all.

Seems to me that Microsoft goes to great lengths to hide everything from end users. Everything goes in that registry bit bucket.

When I google for something, I get a crap load of answers, most of them wrong.

Except that Linux is far faster, more stable, and more secure.

And Linux works with other technologies *far* better than anything from MS.

And I don't have to constantly fight with product keys, and DRM, and other nasty tricks designed to prevent competition, or force upgrades, or further vendor-lock me.

When I do have problems with Linux, they are much easier to fix than Windows problems. Microsoft keeps everything hidden, secret, and deliberately obfuscated. Everything is a registry key eight levels deep, or something like that.

Also, I don't supporting a scummy company, that makes crap products, and tries to force people to use them.

If Linux sucks, it sucks a lot less than Windows.

I have been using Linux over 15 years. I have had problems from time to time, but windows is *much* worse especially anything after XP.

I am constantly have to fix my win7 laptop. Usually because some windows apps put crap in my registry, or crap in my startup, or misbehaved in some other way.

I recently had the fix the sound on my win7 laptop. Some windows service got shut off for god-only-knows what reason.

Windows problems are especially hard to fix because everything is hidden, and secret. I go on the internet, find 39 million "fixes" for my problem, and none of them seem to work. Some obscure registry key, eight levels deep, needs to be given permissions - how are you supposed to know that?

I had to re-install windows. It took about half a day, because of all the constant rebooting. Then re-installing my HUP version of Office-2010 was *much* worse. I had to make, at least, six call to Microsoft support. Constantly put on hold. Constantly talking with people with accents so think I could not understand them. Constantly having to slowly repeat my serial number, spelling out "W" as in "Whiskey". Finally I had to let MS remote into my system - it took them hours to get it installed. Unbelievable.

Yeah, this is *so* much easier than Linux.

> because it can't be used by someone who isn't a computer geek.

Bullshit. That worn-out meme is - at least - ten years out of date.

I spend *way* more time mucking with my win7 laptop than my linux box. It's always something with win7: the boot becomes very slow, the sound stops working. Won't shutdown because of another win update, slow start because of another win update, have to reboot because of another win update. Windows apps are forever putting crap in my registry, or putting crap in my startup. I just don't have those problems with Linux.

> You have to use the terminal for almost everything

Bullshit. I don't you even use Linux.

You are tagging a group of people based on no logic, and grossly insufficient evidence. This is not different that racial discrimination.

I constantly see memes like "It's often because the older candidates haven't successfully modernized their developer skills." but I have never found that to be even remotely true. I have worked in IT over 30 years. I have worked for several companies, big companies, and small companies.

Nobody claims that sort of crap about doctors, lawyers, accountants, even most engineers, or scientists.

If all of those professionals can keep up with changes in their field of work, and study, then why not software developers? It makes not sense at all. These memes defy all real logic, and evidence.

> Let me check... nope, I seem to still have a job, so you're not quite correct.

I guess, as long as there is one job left in the US then everything is just fine.