while the North made their money on the backs of poor lower-class workers who were exploited just as bad

Yeah, all those whippin's and amputations and such that the poor lower-class workers got... er, wait.

Working in crappy factories where injuries were common, to include losing digits, limbs, etc., yeah. Where if you quit, the only other jobs were just as bad. Sure, slaves had to deal with stuff like being whipped, raped, etc. but the living conditions of a slave were comparable to the Northern working class, and the hope of changing one's situation was equally as abysmal. Meanwhile, the crime and other crap the working class in the North dealt with (including beatings, rape, etc) were almost as bad.

Slavery is evil and was never good. My point is the plight of a non-slave working class in that time was almost as bad. Look at the whole picture: not just the employer/slavedriver, but where did those people live? What did they deal with on a daily basis?

Makes me grateful that the worst I deal with is my tendonitis and the risk of CTS.

So what's our policy for deciding which people's rights get protected?

Oil.

Roll the dice, and if their country is important to our strategic economic interests we intervene, otherwise we don't?

Forget the dice, read the words between your commas.

And whose right were we protecting on those occasions that we knocked off or destabilized democratically elected governments to put some thuggish warlord into power?

Large U.S. corporations who will profit from it, and will consequently pour money into reelection campaigns.

FWIW, I don't think any historians would agree that we fought WWII to protect the rights of any people (other than US self interest). The US entered WWII to stop Japan from gaining too much influence in the Pacific (of course we were at the same time giving lots of money to England in their fight against Germany, but that wasn't really to protect their rights either). History records that it all came to head when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. The fact that Germany wanted to pick a direct fight with the US pretty much gave us no choice but to go over to Europe for real too...

This is a much more complex and nuanced topic, but it comes down to this: FDR/HST wanted to get involved in the war, but Congress refused to issue a formal declaration (remember the Constitution and its rules about war? Our current politicians don't). Japan attacked us on our soil, giving Congress no option but to declare war against them. Two days (if I remember correctly) they were convinced to declare war on Germany/Italy as well since they basically declared war on us.

Once war is declared, the thing to remember is this. The 48 states are slightly larger than Europe. We have one government. They have many. At that time, each nation stood alone, not really working together. Since they refused to unite, they were conquered, one by one. The U.S. immediately resolved itself as a single unit to attacking in force. Imagine if Hitler attacked France, but every other European nation banded forces and attacked as a single unit. That would have been like the U.S. slowly steamrolling across Europe from the Atlantic to Berlin, which we did. WW2: The Sequel was won by the fact that the U.S. had far more resources than any single European nation and was motivated to spill its own blood to save our allies (if you fail, the next battles will be on our East coast).

The American Civil Was was about *more* than slavery, but it's ridiculous to say that it wasn't about slavery.

My U.S. History professor, who wrote a dissertation about the civil war, agrees but in a slightly different way. He said it was an economic war. It just so happened that the economics of the South were based on slave labor. So while Congressmen in both chambers of Congress from both sides of the Mason-Dixon line were debating economic strife, the underlying issue was that the South made their money on the backs of slaves, while the North made their money on the backs of poor lower-class workers who were exploited just as bad but were free to walk away from their jobs.

Nothing was good about either side in those times, but the North was slightly less bad.

Equally they also killed off a number of trees too, but not enough that greenery can't handle it to a the extent it has.

Much of the CO2 processing occurs in the oceans by plankton. Trees definitely help, but plankton does more. Of course plankton is dying too and it's much more difficult to remedy than planting more trees.

I mean, if it could form on comets or asteroids, why could it not have formed right here on Earth the same way it forms elsewhere? Why is there such a predisposition to the notion that water must have come from somewhere else?

Earth, in its early years, was a molten ball of rock and metal. Pretty much all the junk that's swirling around in the mantle today, plus the stuff in the crust that floated to the top. Think Jupiter's moon Io, but bigger, and it eventually cooled off. Anyway, when a planet is that hot, the water boils and becomes vapor.

Being that I am not an astronomer or astrophysicist, I'm not going to conjecture what really happened: but the theory goes that since Earth was too hot, water must have been delivered to it later on. Since asteroids are small and were freezing cold while Earth was super-hot, the theory goes that asteroids bombarded Earth and delivered water.

What I don't get is why would it not be possible for the water to have boiled off the surface, but floated to the top of whatever primordial atmosphere the Earth had? Or if no atmosphere, just hang out near the surface until things cooled off?

Do you really think there is anyone behind bars that's in agreement with their sentence?

Yes. There are people who plead guilty because they know they are guilty and deserve to go to jail. They enter their plea knowing what the possible sentences are, and implicitly agree to said sentence.

Granted most people would plead not guilty and take a spin of the Wheel of Justice, but there are a few exceptions.

Next, if you don't have to have HD, drop to the lowest TV package, or if you can get what you need online, drop TV altogether.

My wife and I have the lowest TV package, basically the local channels only and it has HD. Comes in better than OTA broadcasts (and I have a good HD antenna), and it's only a few dollars. I don't watch much TV but my wife does, and she's slowly discovering that the Internet has ways to watch shows without the FBI knocking on the door. So there goes any desire to "upgrade" to 100 channels we won't watch for the "low" price of another $80.

The only way out of this is to use an open source operating system where you can do your own code review, and where one guy doesn't have a bottle neck of control.

Yes and no. Open source doesn't guarantee security. For example, BIND had a long history of bugs (many of which involved security) due to poor design prior to version 9. You didn't need a mole or any malicious intent when the software was so full of big holes you could drive your car through them. OpenBSD had an alleged FBI back door in the news a couple years ago that had lain unnoticed for years.

Then again, there are examples of open source uncovering security issues. A quick google search uncovered this old one and this more recent one. By the way, if it sounds like I'm picking on BSD, I was searching for that FBI link. The other stuff just popped up. I know the various BSDs have a reputation for stability and security.

...anything above 5 dollars is retarded for a HDMI cable.

Bullshit. I spent $9 on a 15 footer and it was clearly NOT retarded. I can sit on the couch and have my laptop display on my HDTV without tripping over the cable. Also, my wife and I can watch... movies... in bed on the HDTV in the bedroom.

Best Buy will not match the price of an online store, but I have noticed that the lowest brick-and-mortar store price is not really that much higher than the cheapest *legitimate* online price.

I think we need to place a line between accessories and everything else. When I need an HDMI cable, I buy online. The vast majority all just work, and two seconds looking at comments and reviews reveal the one or two subpar cables that don't. I can buy a cable for a couple dollars online, or $100 at retail. That's a no-brainer. FYI: I did buy a 15 foot HDMI cable for $9 that was $125 at retail. This is not exaggeration.

When I wanted to buy a point-and-shoot camera, the difference was much less. Sure, I could save $5 off a $125 purchase online. Factor shipping and taxes, and retail still loses. But the opportunity cost of walking out of the store and not waiting a week is priceless when I need pictures that day and my previous camera was smashed on accident. How many minutes does it take me to earn $5? Many fewer than the minutes it takes to arrive at my house.

However, retailers don't make money on low-margin big-ticket items such as HDTVs, cameras, and other stuff. They make their money on high-margin small-ticket items such as cables, music, and movies. That business model needs to shift if they are going to survive. I think "big box" needs to become "small box" as they stock less and less, and offer competitive prices on the items that matter. Focus on the online presence, and the ability to ship to store to free on any item (Wal-Mart has this one nailed).

I would like Mozilla to put the "reload" button back where it used to be.

My F5 key hasn't moved in years. Not sure about yours.

kinda has the word 'Cartel' in the name :/

The words "Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries" do not include the word "cartel." Regardless, they are a cartel, and China is not in this case since it is a single entity. Cartels are made up of two or more entities.

How Does Your Company Evaluate Your Performance?

Seldom! Reviews are the time that raises are brought up.
Betting most places are like that. Our "yearly" reviews come every 18 months, if at all.
Wanna see someone sidestep like a politician? Ask a suit " when are reviews coming?"

In five and a half years, I have received exactly two performance evaluations. I also received one flat raise aside from that, not tied to performance: everyone in the company got 2.5%.

Three raises in over five years: doing the math, I see that my salary, adjusting for inflation, is only slightly greater than it was when I was hired.

Probably not because they have to compete with the Internet too. If the highly-efficient Circuit City or Best Buy could not do it, it's doubtful some mom/pop store could do it.

MicroCenter can do it. Yeah they have some overpriced stuff (I never buy cables from them) but often they match Newegg and Amazon for price. There is always something on sale. I'm picking up a video card from them tomorrow. It's not the specific one I want, but it's the same specs and gets good reviews. Same price as Newegg. Sales tax is just the price of having it tomorrow: "free" shipping is only free if you don't need something right away.

Anyway, the key behind MicroCenter's success is not putting them everywhere. My city has one MicroCenter, and 8 or 9 Best Buys. There isn't enough room for that many big box electronics retailers who push high margin items when people know they can get better deals online, where there aren't dumbass sales staff who burn them by pushing crap they don't need.