Ah yes, I remember well being called a Luddite for pointing out to the Pollyannas what a mess this was going to be. 'You'd get more radiation from flying coast to coast / a few xrays at the Dr / your granddad's old radium painted watch you keep in a box than this will ever create' they said. Where is a plate of (radioactive) crow when you need one?

"Canadians by and large are lovely people"

"Throughout the history of the United States, the U.K. is the only country to have ever burned the White House or Washington, D.C., and this was the only time since the American Revolutionary War that a foreign power captured and occupied the United States capital."

And there wasn't a Canadian force among them. So unless you are British....

In fact Jessup never murdered anyone (that we know of), perhaps you should watch the film again. He disobeys orders that result in the death of a soldier under his command. Enough to get you tossed out, but I doubt you could even make manslaughter stick. In any event quoting a killer is far from outre, wisdom doesn't only flow from pacifists. And thanks for the tip, I have never seen Scarface. ;)

Ever ask yourself the opposite question? 'What benefit do I as a Canadian get by having a superpower as a neighbor?' One answer might be - 'Well, at least I don't have to type this in Cyrillic'. Canadians by and large are lovely people but having been brought up in the loving center between mommy England and your benevolent sociopath downstairs they tend to really gloss over what the world would look like for them if they were on their own. And I know, you are going to respond with some version of 'we don't piss people off so we don't need to ...' however history is rife with nice peoples getting rolled over simply because they were in the way. The Swiss are just as lovely and nice as the Canadians, but they have seen conflict and understand the score and history. They keep almost 25% of their population in the military or reserves because they *are* alone and understand what happens to sheep left out by themslves.

In short there is a peace dividend that has been purchased with the work to make America a superpower, one you enjoy greatly, but never think about, or if you do it is with a sneer. To quote Col. Jessup "I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way."

One server is enough - according to Microsoft. Thanks for playing though.

I take it that you missed the part where she kept a diary the entire time. Do you think that she might have written in her diary something about the death of a family friend and the odd exchange of her father and the Secretary General of the Soviet Union? You also have no proof that this is the only utterance about this she ever made, for all we know she could be the origin of the quote, nor can you prove she ever heard it outside of him saying it. In any event if you are going to dismiss 50 year old recollections then I am sure I can come up with reams of historical documents that took fifty years to write or talk about that you are going to have to toss out as well, not to mention a wealth of history itself. I also note that you didn't even peep about that in the interview she doesn't get the quote exactly right. Which tells me you didn't even watch it, which makes me wonder if you are more interested in being right or correct.

Face it, she was actually was present at the exchange. The onus is on you to prove that she was mistaken with something other than a variant of 'memory is a tricky thing' for someone who has apparently doesn't have memory issues.

"In an interview with the BBC's Andrew Marr (11.11.2011) Winston Churchill's daughter, Mary Soames, explained that she overheard Stalin say this to her father. Churchill, was upset having received news that a family friend had died. He apologised to Stalin in light of the vast loss of Russian life. And Stalin then gave this reply."

From your wiki link

Oh, and I do believe that first hand accounts still count for quotes do they not?

" When one man dies it is a tragedy, when thousands die it's statistics." - Joseph Stalin

Publishing as we know it will either become extinct or adapt. Publishers will become publicists or agents instead who advertize your ability to perform work.

Ony if your life's desire is to read vampire fanfic or yet another star {wars/trek/blazers/fighter/etc} book. Whether you like it or not, there are publishers out there that do a good job of filtering the crap from ever hitting your eyes. How many authors would have never seen the light of day without a good publisher? And no, they aren't keeping good authors down. When you roll the word publisher around in your mouth stop thinking of college text books and big record labels and hink of Baen, O'Rielly, and Tor instead.

Paid to do work, ... , do more work to get more money. This is the same model that all other labor markets use....

A couple of thoughts for you:

• - That line you draw there, it is the line that seperates Art from craft. The fact that you are asked to pay a tiny proportion of the cost of a piece of Art means you already are getting it essentially for free. Perhaps you feel it is too much to ask $7.00 for a paerback, but how much more than that sum have some of the works you have read affected you, changed you, altered your perception of life and the world?
• - You are also conflating 'work' and 'value'. You can work your entire life and never will you make another Picasso painting.
• - Lastly, a long running experiment has been running testig this sort of thing already, it's called YouTube. Sure some people have made money from videos they have posted, but how many how often? Can you even feed the cat on it? And of the good things that are there how many drown in a sea of "Gangnam Style" and "What does the fox say"?

You see Shangri La in the mist on the horizon and want to tear down the wall that holds it in. I point out that the mist is rising from the ocean of "Ow my Balls!" that the dam you want to destroy is holding back.

Hooray! A return to Patronage for the gilded classes! Also, would you like to take a stab at the number of Paid/Free Software vs. Paid/Non Free Software numbers of developers?

Oh you are so full of shit.

There isn't a single line of Shakespeare in there anywhere!

;)

China was not weak back in the 80s. China was not weak in the 60s. They were an economic powerhouse even then. Douglas MacArther warned Never fight a land war in Asia".

Its a pity you know so little of the PLA military. I could point out the bloody nose they got from thinking they could waltz into Vietnam. I could point out that to this day they have so little navy worth caring about tha they are essentially land locked. from from Wiki:

I could point out that one of the major reasons that they have never posed a real threat to Taiwan has nothing to do with the US and everything to do with their inability to actually move troops across the strait without them becoming the most drowned army in history due to Taiwan weapon systems and ... wait for it ... lack of landing vessels to even put in the water.

Take then the modern PLA and start turning the clock backward and you will see that China has had a second rate military going back ages. Sure to meet them on their own ground is a bad idea, but mostly due to there being no reason to do so. The fact that they themselves didn't learn their own lesson is proof enough that their military has been more about kowtowing to Party bosses that practical military thought. Saying they were strong militarily in the 60's-80's means you have to cherry pick your sources pretty hard. It is like saying the Soviets had a huge impressive military in WWII. Sure they did, if you discount the 8.7 million men it chewed up to grease that machine of war.

The rest of your points are about as bad, but I am not going to go on at length about them, however in short - Air-Sea as a concept before WWII? I guess, but without widespread wireless it is just coordination of meeting times and attacking set pieces, and bad coordination at that, not real Air-Sea - The Soviets collapse being seen before it happened? Yeah, we knew, but there was good reason to believe that it was going to go down in a blaze of glory, and not the quiet self collapse it did, very, very few saw that, this guy did. Precision weapons by your definition date to the creation of organized militaries with pikemen and slingers. No, what he did was to see the need to put the firepower of a 2000lb laser guided bomb in the hand of one man. The only person to even come close the concept might have been Heinlein in Starship Troopers, and well we are trying to duplicate the rest of that book as fast as we can. Add into this his insight into drones prove that he was worth every cent that was spent on him and the loss of his office will make the Pentagon as myopic and short sighted as big US business is about future needs and long term investments.

Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster...

And the critics like you are just adorable in that you think this isn't happening in your backyard with your buddies as well. Why pray tell is there a lot of bluster and hot air and no movement on the part of your superior government? Because they don't want the info taps turned off either.

Since when was JavaScript Object Orientated? Out of the box it sure isn't. Yes there are kludges to make it *look* OO, but OO it ain't.