Why expect from an exceptional person to be modest? If a big ego is the price to pay for enjoying the works of a genius, so be it. The point is that J is maintaining a balance. And that's priceless regardless of which of the two sides you support. If your subjectivity gets in the way of understanding that balance in more important than right&wrong per se (which only exist in your mind anyway) then it's understandable that J's ego is a problem and not an insignificant side-effect.

It's convenient to rationalise the destruction caused by the iraq war on the basis of we-are-leaving-so-many-things-behind, when in reality:

1. you are leaving more than you left to Japan because you didn't invade Japan for profit but to experiment with a new WMD
2. you are not leaving anything behind in Iraq, because you simply invaded with the intention to colonise
3. the term "free elections" can only be used loosely in a country under foreign occupation; i'm guessing you feel fine using it because you compare to what they had under Saddam

It's 2nd semester univ.calculus if you are from the US. In some countries it's indeed high school math.

They are the same guys who came up with this piece of scientific work

There is a lot of talk about "luck" to cover up the parts of success that cannot be explained. One of the best definitions of "luck" i've come across is: "when planning meets opportunity". And since we cannot control the occurrence of opportunities, the best that can be done is keep on planning. This is the "persistence" part that successful people are talking about. They don't really mean "be persistent in failing".

What an opportune time to be a BOFH at an ISP in Britain!
/away packing bags to London

How can you tell since you can't count the times it actually didn't come out?

According to The Corporation, corporations lack the ability to feel guilt. And history has taught us that as well.

You can easily spot 2 differences though: the Nazi's had a designated ministry, the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (must have had some marketing team to come up with that name) and more importantly Germany (and all prior to them) was out in the open about building an empire (which still today can't be openly admitted about the US as they're the first in human History to do it so covertly on such a great scale).

What a weird coincidence. At my part of the world (.gr) as I write these lines national TV is broadcasting (sadly at 1am) Michael Moore's documentary "Fahrenheit 911". Seeing in 2 hours the things that managed to take place in such a short period of time following 9/11, the civil liberties the americans kissed goodbye (Patriot Act anyone?), the censorship capabilities gained by all sorts of nearsighted "agencies" and the media-assisted propaganda (weapons of mass destruction I hear you say?), I can't but feel history is repeating itself and the saddest repetitive pattern is how little we learned last time these things came around.

Just yesterday (yet another coincidence) I watched "People vs. Larry Flynt" (yet another time). I loved Edward Norton's speech in front of the Supreme Court which culminates in "...really what you are talking about is a matter of taste and not a matter of Law...it's useless to argue about taste and even more useless to litigate it".

I'm not suggesting child porn is just a matter of taste, but then again Larry Flynt's prosecution was not really about the smut (plenty other dirty magz were out already) but about how openly he did it. Familienministerin(!) Frau Ursula von der Leyen is not out to blacklist child porn (those who want it will always find ways to get it), she's out to eventually be able to selectively blacklist things now available in the open for anyone interested to read.

Allowing such baby steps towards taking away things on the premise of "what's good for the community", will eventually lead to us being the last of our kind to see the Net in its original & meant-to-be form. It feels like the Net is already being "televisionized" (term coined yet?)I learned pretty well the base of censorship through the epitome of censorship satire: "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" .

Being historically illiterate I don't know how bad communists where considered at the time, but supposedly Churchill had said: "We have slaughtered the wrong pig!" That was WRT to Germany's surrender and realizing how he actually contributed to Russia arising on the European continent as a single hegemonic power, the one thing he was trying to prevent.