Um... That "Laughing stock" was defeated on the western front during the WW1, hit by Treaty of Versailles and then the Great Depression. Despite such condition they were able to conquer the rest of Europe in an unprecidented short amount of time. It took the combination of the largest empire (British), greatest economy (USA) and the largest country to bring them down.

Say what you will, but when it comes to warfare Germans have always been amazing throughout history.

Really?! What about all the data and the configuration?

I suppose your *click*, *click* includes all the steps in a parallel deployment.

Not worth it. It is so expensive with the current technology that it would be cheaper and easier to refine similar amount here on Earth

You seem to be of the opinion that anyone can competently lead. I do not believe this to be the case. Imagine your lottery picks some jobless guy with mental issues. How about racists or extremists that will make next four years hell for some people they don't like? How about selfish "screw everyone as long as I get rich" types?

OK, we need to now sort the people into electable/not electable. The criteria would already be a thorny issue. How do you judge competence for such a position? If you seek experience of leadership, this will effectively swing the balance to already rich and powerful.

Even if you get a good, intelligent, charismatic, altruistic leader: After four years the next one most likely will undo or heavily modify the policies set. After all each leader wants to leave a mark, especially if he/she cares about some specific issue. No controversial, but necessary public project will last longer than four years!

This four years thing is already an issue in this day: Why should the leader ever care about long term if he will be long gone by then.

I am sure there are other problems, but I do not have any answers or ideas. Social structure, fairness (both short and long term) and ethics are so complex. Especially since every single actor in the system is inherently selfish and greedy.

I am curious: What compels people to explore deserts? Isn't it just sand and salt? There isn't much flora or fauna out there, just an extremely inhospitable landscape.

What if I suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder and that other fucker stole my wallet and hid it where only he knows where it is? Are you saying I can't sue the bastard?

Hey, at least everyone shut up about everything being Bush's fault!

Well the thread is completely shifted to religion now. Once again: It is not that simple. But it is an interesting topic.

Doing a google search on this is worthless: Every link is biased one way or another. It is either a religious preaching site or an atheism preaching site. Quite annoying how militant people are regarding this topic.

In my opinion a religious man would be much more scared of death, because then according to his beliefs he will be judged. And if his choices and behavior in life were not good enough, (At least in Christianity) he will be condemned to eternity of suffering.

Do you feel anxious before an exam or an interview? Now think about about life in the scope of following the religious teachings: It is impossible to follow it to perfection and no way to tell what will be held more harshly. So one is never sure if he/she would pass. Especially when you don't know when you actually die.

Now for atheist it is much simpler: Oblivion. After you are dead, there is nothing else. You just cease to exist. It is sometimes insightful to ponder non-existence before existential despair begins creeping in.

While this seems scary, the atheist is free from worrying about being stuck in a fate-worse-than-death. Death itself is scary on its own (Mostly because it is rarely clean and quick. By definition there is no pain afterwards, but quite a bit just before), but after that there is a guarantee of no more suffering.

Thats it? You look at the number of wars and based on that number you came up with such a far-reaching conclusion?! Don't you think that is just plain stretching it?

Do you honestly think it is that simple?!

Everyone is afraid of death: No matter the nationality or social status. But you may not have a choice.

Majority of conflicts in Africa are civil wars. They are not fought because "They are not afraid to die, so they just go and kill each other". Every conflict is different and complex. Civil war in Darfur resulted from government segregating non-Arab population. Civil war in Somalia is so complex that I don't think anyone understands an exact cause.

To say that "Africans are not afraid of death" because they are suffering through internal conflicts is dismissive, ignorant and downright inhumane.

Do you have a citation to this claim?

I have traveled to South Africa often and have friends and colleagues that were born and live there. Although the subject never came up, I do not believe they are any less afraid than myself.

Publicly funded = higher taxes.

In the US any mention of tax increase means that everyone is up in arms about it. All the screams of "socialism" start, etc...

I honestly do not believe this would ever work.

Well, don't hold it to yourself: Share it! We use VS2012 as well here, so I am curious.

Principles are rarely helpful. Mostly it results in stubbornness to accept change.

Could you please explain how propriety vendor lock in is a crime?

At the end of the day, you need to get stuff done. If the propriety vendor got a monopoly on the easiest/fastest/most convenient ways of doing things, then it would be wasteful to spend time/money on ways to resist it. This is a case for Microsoft Office before the triumph of various other office packages that came along. When majority of your correspondents use Office, why would you spend the extra time making your documents in something else? You will waste their time as well trying to read it. Worse, you are creating barriers to the communication.

Now you may have a point about information loss: Proprietary formats go obsolete and the old documents may be un-openable. However, I will argue that if you are ready to pay, there will always be someone that will take the job to reverse-engineer any format and write a converter to a more modern version.

Because global warming is a call for a change.

This change affects quite a few people. And people don't want to change, because it means giving something up.

Few people changing ways is meaningless. Only valid when almost everyone gets involved.

This change is expensive. And NO ONE wants to pay.

Therefore politicians get involved. Much cheaper to buy a politician to shut down/shut up the people pointing out bad news then to actually change.

Therefore, it is a political issue through and through.