I have a hard time calling what is described in the article as "weapons". To me a "weapon" must contain actual capability. If we pull a 300-year-old rusty barnacle-covered canon from the bottom of the ocean, is that a "weapon"? I don't think so. It doesn't fire, it can't be directed at an enemy with deadly force.

What this article describes is that there were chemicals in Iraq, not so much chemical weapons. (And, to the more general point, nothing at all like what was described as a justification for the war. That justification is not at all supported by this story.)

"1) The US meddles in other countries affairs in ways that kill lots of people and THAT is why some people hate us, not because of our alleged freedom."

If that is true then why were they so upset at the Dutch? The Dutch don't mettle in foreign affairs so much, yet a majority of worldwide Muslims called for deaths of some Dutch cartoonists. Do they hate the Dutch for their freedom, but hate us for other reasons?

I think they hate our freedom, and we hate their oppression. Luckily we've got bigger bombs so our hatred is more successfully implemented in policy. I'm also willing to defend my love of freedom and my hatred of their oppression, if you disagree with my assessment that my culture is better than theirs, even though neither is perfect. Maybe it would serve our interests to drop fewer bombs, or maybe not, but I don't think Muslim outrage would be substantially different for it. I do, really, think they hate us for our freedom.

There is a minority of Muslims today with worldviews that are compatible with modernity. I hope that minority sways the minds of the overall Muslim community over the next few hundred years in the way that a minority of Christians swayed the Christian community over the last few hundred years. It'll be hard to get through those years without a lot of deaths of people who just cannot abide things like apostasy, speech, secularism and equality.

Yes, I suppose the rusty buckets of chemicals could be made into IEDs, as long as we remember that IEDs are not WMDs.

Yes, Bush started a war.

Clinton? Oh, new unrelated topic? Okay, Clinton was bombing Iraq in order to advance his foreign policy and security agenda. That's similar to what Bush did in purpose but not in scale. Dropping one bomb isn't a war. Invading and occupying a country is a war.

I don't know. That sounds sort of broad.

To me "intent" is irrelevant. If I "intend" to kill a million people by farting on them, that counts under your definition but not in my opinion.

Throwing chicken necks at an enemy soldier is "a weapon involving a biological agent" but it isn't a WMD in my opinion. In my opinion a Weapon of Mass Destructions must be ACTUALLY CAPABLE of Mass Destruction.

Therefore "a rusting metal tube containing a nasty chemical" isn't a WMD because it isn't actually capable of mass destruction. You can't strap a rusty metal tube to a rocket to deliver the chemical. It may have been a WMD in the past but not once it is rusting and leaking.

If these old weapons found were WMD by any stretch of the imagination then Cheney would have told us so. Personally I'm still waiting for them to post a video of the insides of one of those "mobile chemical plants" they showed drawings of in 2002 at the UN.

No, we won't stop, because it's imperative to teach people why not to go to war next time.

Justified war exists but is incredibly rare. America hasn't fought a justified war in its last dozen attempts at warfare. If 90% of wars turn out to be bad ideas then that is a message that needs to be repeated and shouted from the mountaintops.

Thank you for your service. Most members of our military conducted themselves with a high level of professionalism, despite some high-profile very bad behavior.

Tough mod, bro. Your comment clearly wasn't a troll... it was flamebait.

So how do you divide algorithms from other inventions? If you invent a better mousetrap, how is that different than an algorithm describing exactly how to build and run the mousetrap?

I ask this as a person who also dislikes software patents but I always say it is because almost all software patents fail the obviousness test, not because algorithms are somehow off limits for patenting. I have seen software that I thought was reasonable to patent -- two or three times ever.

"I miss the days when browser vendors weren't afraid to rapidly innovate and take bold, important steps."

FWIW, when they do that most people on Slashdot complain. Damned do/don't, and all that.

+4, Informative

I'm jaded with battery claims. Oh, you built a better battery? Fine, make a product and sell it to me. If it's a better battery then I'll pay you well for your invention, but don't talk to me about research because I've heard it before.

That's what I thought, too. I'd never known that.

Now think all the way back to A/UX.

Offices I have worked in have had very little paper in them over my career (starting just before the Iraq War) but I work in tech so maybe we're on the leading edge. I literally can't think of the last time I had to touch a piece of paper specifically for work -- maybe signing my employment contract? Sometimes I use pen and paper to work out algorithms but more often I use a whiteboard.

What kind of office do you work in? There is a great diversity.

I can't speak for him, but I use the one at the local library. I have to go put five cents into that machine a few times a year. At this rate it would be cheaper to buy a printer in about three hundred years. There's also one at work I can use.

I recently got an email from my insurance company telling me they needed some additional paperwork. They told me to fax the documents to a phone number.

I thought "Sure, it should be fairly easy to find a fax machine. But... where am I going to find the time machine required to go back to the 1970s to find the fax machine?"

My father-in-law recently commented on me not owning a printer, suggesting maybe he could get us one as a gift. I shut that down: look, I can afford a printer if I want one, but I've lived my entire adult life (I turned 18 in 1998) without owning a personal printer, and my need to print is asymptotically approaching zero. I print maybe four or six times a year and on those occasions I seek out a printer.