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Guess that means I can no longer pull the "refined tastes" card next time the dumbing down pissing contest comes around. Did they get a new composer or...?

I actually liked the soundtrack in ME2. Better than 1's, too. Is that bad?

I haven't actually read Shakespeare, so I wouldn't know. I have, however, tried getting into El Quijote. Several times, in fact. Found it unnecessarily dense and generally unenjoyable to read. Maybe the theme didn't really appeal to me or the narrative rythm was too slow. Whatever. I just didn't find it to be the timeless, universal masterpiece it's purported as. Thing is, I don't like Golden Age prose very much. I prefer drama better. El Burlador de Sevilla, for instance. Generally, I just like the Generaci

The concept hardly remains the same, which is why classical warfare is just a small part of the curricula in military colleges, pretty much how "History of Physics" may get you a credit or two if that's what you are studying. The concept of enlightening a people by means of "cultural assimilation" is not quite so simple, either. The Romans believed that was the way to go, and while it ostensibly worked, they failed to realize that Roman culture would be changed, in turn. At any rate, clearly "defense" needs have seen a radical shift since the fall of the Soviet Union and, judging from the results in Afghanistan, (Western) military doctrine is lagging way behind. What with the US -and by extension, the whole of NATO- always being prepared to fight the previous war and all. Or maybe they weren't quite so ready, because the example of how to fail at war in Afghanistan should have been pretty fresh in the minds of military planners. It's funny that NATO is finding exactly the same kind of problems the Soviets did, only it was the US that actually manufactured those problems, back in the day. Good thing they finally got Goldstein, at least.

Out of the unsupported pile of hogwash that is that post, this little gem left me scratching my head in bewilderment. What does gardening have to do with anything? Or did you just Googlepaste all that?

Right. Because "civilized" means exclusively sunshine and butterflies, huh? Armed forces are so 4th century BC.

That hasn't worked since Alexander's time. Wasn't it MacArthur who warned against land wars in Asia? Oh well, maybe he just was assuming that whenever you launch a war you do it with the intention of winning. Silly WWII-era geostrategists...

Overrated. There are better things to read in Spanish than El Quijote, even from Cervantes himself (the Novelas Ejemplares comes to mind). May be apocryphal, but I remember reading that even the author himself wasn't particularly impressed with it - he dreamed of having Lope de Vega's talent for poetry or something. And building up your vocab won't help much as the lexicon of the book is the 16th century's... not exactly the kind of talk you'd hear today's casual or even business conversation. Because of job demands, I have to speak English roughly half of the time, so I guess (hope!) that makes me at least proficient in the former. Used to have a semi-decent grasp of French but you know how it goes with fitness and lack of regular exercise. Tried learning Russian some time ago. It was fun, but hard. If I had to get back to learning a language, that would be it.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/01/07/adieu-...ns-sexist-term/ ^could they be any more ham-fisted about their PC enforcement? Maybe "crazy feminists" isn't looking at the whole picture, but that may well be the underlying issue. Every single self-professed feminist (and some that wouldn't man* up and admit it too) I've met was bat**** and just not too happy with their female self. The proposed neutering of gender roles that have been established by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution with little but slogans and inflammatory rhetoric is... crazy. *Oh I crack myself up

No. Intellectual "property" is completely different from traditional, physical property. Indefinitely and effortlessly replicating physical objects is not possible without divine intervention, so that's a fundamental difference which you -and the rest of the defenders of IP- have yet to incorporate into the notion assimilating both. There may be entitlement issues related to exploitation rights common to both, but "intellectual property" is a perversion, both semantic and intellectual, as the meaning behind the expression is that ideas can be owned. It is also not a very compelling argument that not treating IP the same as regular property will result in intellectual production being harmed, as evidenced by -heh- the amount of free content being produced since the advent of the Internets... as well as the ridiculous and ever-increasing profits of the entertainment industry. Sorry old boy, but this is just plain old greed no matter what light you paint it in. As for the WP blackdown itself, well. Funny how decentralized, (mostly) leaderless associations or movements can have an effect on the rules governing everyone, working outside of the established (read: cooked) channels. Sounds almost like *gasp* people taking an active interest in their own governance, on specific matters. God forbid!

Do you always herp when you derp? Is it? Other than controlling the oil flow, the NTC doesn't really have a grip on many of the "anti-Qaddafi" militias nominally under its control. Q's execution is a good example, I think, of how tenuous is their authority over fighters on the field. "He might have been resisting", claims a senior NTC official. His execution hadn't been ordered, the NTC assures us, but Q was executed anyway. Who's running what, again?

hint: I wasn't agreeing with you (I never do, because you're like a compass always pointing WRONG) Oh boy, still butthurt? Grow up. Or get some ointment.

Yeah... no. Without the thousands of strike sorties flown by NATO, the rebels would have been crushed in *weeks*. WE bombed Q's C3 and heavy weapons to rubble, the rebels just mopped up. So this is "their" justice only in the sense that it's them who pumped Q full of lead when they got the chance. Which doesn't bother us at all.

Well, at least his death -if true- will hopefully prevent the war in Libya from turning chronic. We'll see if all those red flags we've been getting from the NTC are warranted or not, soon enough. edit: merge into Libya thread, maybe? (:

Do they? Even disregarding the fact that keeping a fit brain is a lifelong commitment, you are simply ignoring how many adults can't seem to remember some basic facts they supposedly learned in school like say, the date of the storming of the Bastille, what the flaming crap is a cosine, or that Albania is not only a country, but it's also in friggin' Europe. So forgive me if I don't buy into your idea that a compulsory 3-hour per week class would make a dent on the ongoing stupidification of developed societies. And let's also not forget, while we're at it, how an "ethics" class oriented towards "fostering critical thinking" is open to abuse, when in fact the ultimate goal is to make "citizens". Yes, I also know of this for a fact, because it's been one of our waste-of-skin's president brilliant ideas. I've read the books. Also: there are few disciplines more abstract in nature than math. Math is already compulsory. It's not helping any. You got it the other way around. It doesn't matter that there are a few sensible greens -fabled creatures such as they are- The problem is that most greens are seriously disconnected from reality -historical, scientific and economic- and fanatically proud of it. It sure goes without saying that it's not the moderates who get to establish party programs.

And what if people failed? You'd withhold their voting license? I doubt this would work. People would just cheat their way through, requirements would be reduced to the lowest common denominator... etc. It's happening with grades inflation and the general decrease in the actual worth of degrees. You cannot just shoehorn critical thinking into people, much like you cannot enforce physical fitness. When the day-to-day worth of a skill is lost, the prevalence of the skill itself is diluted. You don't need independent, self-formed criteria to purchase and operate an iPhone, get through college with decent grades, land an okay job and a moderately nice house and get along with most people. Now go ahead and tell me that's not what occupies most people's thoughts. What itt is called "critical thinking" is the extension and development of the natural mechanisms for systematization based on the coordination of memory and observation, present in the brain. Those obviously evolved to better guarantee the survival of the species. Today, that kind of thing simply no longer provides a survival or reproductive edge, and so, they have atrophied. So, in short, I guess that, despite all the gloom and doom talk, we still live really good and easy lives. I think you have a rather romantic (and manichaean) view of politicians, with "true" left-wingers as incorruptible, and right-wingers as inherently vulnerable to corporate kickbacks. And I'm sorry, but all the self-styled "greens" I've met were both scientifically unfit -despite some being scientists themselves (!)- and extremely intolerant of any ideas or viewpoints outside their accepted theses. I tend to mistrust people who view themselves as wise enough to educate on right and wrong so lightly. I don't question their supposed altruism, but the path to hell is paved with good intentions. Also, your proposed system tends to give undue weight to the minority party, which gets to call the shots where otherwise they wouldn't, so one of the two big ones gets their way against the wishes of the other. Trust me, I've seen it happen with regionalist groups. It's one of my country's worst problems.

Ban hot women. NAO! (or at least tax them!)

"The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia."

Meh. At least commies had their manifesto. All these guys have is a dumbed down, decaf version!. Not terribly innovative, and sorely lacking punch. Here in Spain, we had that same thing just a few months ago. They made a lot of noise, camped for a few weeks, campaigned for blank/null voting, grew tired, and went home. Some time later, it's business as usual. Don't expect a real revolution while 40 million tonnes of food end up in the trash bin each year, in the US alone.

Letting half of it crash and burn is letting all of it crash and burn. If you start kicking countries out of the Euro, their #1 reaction will be a drastic currency devaluation. This will in turn hit both Germany and France pretty bad because >50% of their exports go to Eurozone countries, that will be in a process of BOT readjustment for years. So, recession for everyone again, instead of recession for just some. ECB-sponsored economic rescue is probably the most sensible -as in cheapest- choice. I agree about the corruption thing, though, but that's a problem in and of itself. Want to extend the debate into the issue of terminally corrupt but democratically elected government vs rolled-up-sleeves, undemocratic, opaque bureaucrat cliques, or do we leave that for another thread?

Great post. I'm thinking that "everyone" knows that smoking is bad, even though we don't fully understand how cancer really works - only that there's a strong (though not 1) correlation between smoking and developing some kinds of cancer. Interestingly, not everyone who breathes some benzene in on a regular basis develops cancer, though apparently they should. "Rigorously" understanding how something is harmful, and precisely to what extent, is not trivial, and if we were to make that the deciding criteria for banning substances in foods, we'd be eating way more crap than we need to. Unfortunately, there's this pernicious idea floating around that science can provide the same level of certainty that good ol' religion used to - which by definition it can't - only with science "it's for real". Often, this is an idea promoted by scientists, too. To be honest, I don't think "harmful" is useful as a scientific descriptor, despite the fact that research is essential for determining whether something is in fact harmful.

This world is going MAD. MAD, I tell you!

Yeah, things are basically wrapped up in Libya -as far as NATO is concerned, anyway- and those trigger fingers will start getting twitchy soon enough. Can't have all those German ordnance factories idling - not now that the PIGS have finally proven beyond all doubt that we can't be trusted to handle our own affairs and need huge wads of German Euros to prevent a huge-ass crash of the Euro economy. Besides, we'd better hurry before they get Da Bomb.

The world might yet end in 2012, at this rate.

If someone like Jobs -who likely had the best doctors money can buy and an admirable drive- couldn't beat cancer, then it's pretty much a lottery. ****. John who? And did something happen to New York's airport?