If it's a PhD in something like "Whiteness studies" or in multitude of similarly useful subjects, then gainful employment as a barista is a happy ending really.
What this article ignores is that intelligence is at least 60% inheritable, and elite professionals are likely to merry other elite professionals. So wealth factor is not the only factor in this situation.
There is probably an ongoing process of genetic fitness based stratification of the society. At least to a certain degree.
>He, like Thomas, would not follow the risen Christ unless he saw him himself
An extraordinary statement without evidence. People today have all kinds of beliefs without evidence. People also could lie, be pressured into belief by conformity, have hallucinations, etc. Not to mention people 2000 years ago didn't have todays strict standards delineating fact from beliefs.
There are numerous contradictions and discrepancies in these "accounts". The historicity of Jesus' resurrection is very much in doubt by the preeminent new testament scholars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHJE7cetkB4#t=81
And indeed the historical method can't be seriously compared to the scientific method, because it is vulnerable to errors in the accounts, falsification, forgery, intentional lying, biased interpretation. While science relies on repeatability.
The Final boss fight was a little unintuitive for me. I thought it was completely a puzzle or a memory task, because you can't damage him right away. So I repeated his patterns with increasing difficulty, up to six beeps I think, waiting for him to implode from his anger. The fact that you need to shoot him while he's in the angry state wasn't obvious to me.
Making Cairo C API a C++ standard, through automatic conversion, looks all kinds of wrong to me. The result is not properly generified like Boost GIL, and it carries vaguely defined implementation details like for example font hinting style from freetype (not even cairo library itself). I hope this and the ABI proposal will never make it as the C++ TS or standard.
Could you please list literature/papers that you found especially useful while making that renderer? I plan to do the same thing for education purposes.
There are silent corruption bugs in storage drivers for example. Having that kind of competency in-house is too expensive for most companies.(Not Spotify in this case, but problem could be much harder to fix)
>Otherwise sudden worry about taxpayers doesn't sound exactly genuine.
I don't worry about taxpayers money. I'm saying that taxpayers money are never simply gifted to people, there is always certain rationale in how that money is spent, and it must be spent in interest of taxpayers. If it's in interests of taxpayers to support unconstitutional coups through "democratic" NGOs, than fine. But financing brutal dictators also could be in interests of the US in minds of the elite. (Like Bahrain) The crucial part is that it should be in interest of the US not in interests of democracy or other country's peoples.
>There's no meaningful foreign involvement in democratic process in Russia
How do you know? You have all the information? You are certain that there were no attempts to initiate recruitment of people who would eventually perform an unconstitutional coup? You can't be serious.
> when Russian military invades Ukraine, calling it "uncontested arrival" instead, and you're talking about controlling Russian democratic process? They don't even think about it in their wildest dreams
American security and defense agencies are a huge machine that works constantly. There is no need for Obama to show particular willingness for such actions. What is required from him is to just approve, or not cancel policies and programs that were in the place for years. He's pretty willing to kill people with drones. Don't see problem why he would say no to "promote coups in Russia"
>but "elections" were regularly held in the USSR.
these "elections" were with one candidate. And there is infinitely more freedom in Russia today. People generally don't go to prison for saying something against Putin. Similar thing could be said about the US, everybody knows who would win in the presidential elections - it would be either a democrat or a republican. No expectations of significant changes to foreign policy either. It was pretty continuous throughout last few presidents. It would be pretty stupid to compare level of freedoms in the US and Russia, but comparison of USSR with Russia doesn't pass the smell test either.
>ex-KGB officer, he never was a a freedom-loving libertarian
Stereotyping proves nothing. After he was a KGB agent, he was an assistant to pro-democracy mayor of St Petersburg. Who the fuck knows what was really going on in his mind.
But, of course personally I believe you are correct in this particular case. But it's just an opinion, proves nothing.
It doesn't mean that generally foreign involvement in politics and coups does not teach lessons to other (semi)authoritarian states, where elites might entertain a thought of going more democratic.
>But you know about it right now.
The facts that Saakashvili had US State department funded education and Yushchenko hand Reagan staffer wife are pretty glaring. I am a mere non-spy mortal and can't know all the details(like you), nor I'm payed to research details about said revolutions. In fact I didn't discuss this issue in years.
There a lot of circumstantial and direct evidence of foreign involvement in past revolutions. In english wikipedia and newspapers. I believe that there is at least some US involvement in this second Ukrainian revolution, considering directness and one sidedness of their support, and considering history. Probably through recruiting and financing media, thinktank people who frequent pro western tv channels.
>The coup is plenty democratic.
Elections are democratic. Coups by the political minority are not. If they are truly democratic they should have waited 1 year for elections. Media is pretty free, diverse and independent in Ukraine compared to Russia, so no worries about government propaganda. If elections are rigged THEN you can legitimize the revolution as democratic.
>especially in pro-Russian regions,
"Pro-Russian" (if there is such a thing beside city near Russian military base in Crimea) regions have majority of Ukraine's population btw. That's how Yanukovitch won. That "Not everybody" is pretty significant one.
>It is made by the very same demos whose kratos you're so worried for.
Liberty is not the same thing as democracy. I consider democracy as one of the tools needed for maintaining liberty.
>There's no any specific guy there, and US had no idea until recently about most of the leaders there.
How could you make such a statement? Do you work for State Department or CIA? US Media is not US State.
>but you certainly sound a lot like one.
Where did I condone Russian aggression? I said I am against it. I'm generally against strong states and military or covert actions of states against each other. Russian or American.
Speaking of insults, you sound like a FoxNews viewer. (Talking about how Obama is weak leader and so on)
>and it's US that is "meddling" and is to blame for the situation
I didn't say that US is responsible for Russian aggression. I said that US has history of meddling.
>president Yanukovitch, after messing up very badly
If there are people with molotovs(and some with guns, I saw the pictures) who are trying oust you, and are very persistent, willing to die, have at least some support among population, it's pretty hard to not mess up very badly if you want to keep power for the rest of your term. It will end badly for you one way or another.
>dictators are to blame for their dictatorship
You don't understand sovereignty. There are peoples who value independence more than democracy. I'm not saying it should be like that, but it just is.
>That is very sinister, to finance NGOs that promote human rights and democracy.
It's indeed sinister, when the government spends money of taxpayers, billions of dollars over years, on democracy in foreign states, especially considering the US has supported brutal dictators when that was advantageous to their their interests or overall foreign policy. More reasonable explanation is that democracy is not their primary goal.
>but I'm sure you'll explain it to me soon.
Western education (payed for by fellowship from the United States State Department) or Reagan staffer wife for 40-50 year olds in ex Soviet Block countries is very very very uncommon thing. Please tell me how it's a historical coincidence and there's no involvement of the US, that exactly these people lead successful revolutions and installed anti-Russian policies.
>a lot of people liked Stalin or Lenin or Hitler too.
They didn't vote for Stalin or Lenin or Mao. A crucial difference.
>but it is false. Russia is not democratic because it is convenient for the ruling clique
It's convenient for ruling clique indeed. But the situation when there's potential foreign involvement in democratic process, meaning that (historically adversarial) foreign interest takes side in internal politics, is not conducive for really open democracy in eyes of sovereignty minded citizens.
>If the US didn't exist at all, Putin were the same dictator,
Similarly baseless statement you accuse me of. Putin's persona was certainly affected/formed by 2004 Orange revolution in Ukraine.
>As for assisting the forces, the assistance has been mainly in words
I'm sure that in 50+ years FOIA request will reveal what the assistance was in detail.
The fact is that US is supporting undemocratic coup, ignores interests of eastern regions that voted for Party of Regions and Yanukovich. That is not exactly pro-Democracy, it's more about supporting "our" guy.
>US is to blame for "meddling"
Even if Putin is not a democratic leader, US is certainly "meddling". One would be dumb not to see that.
>pro-Liberty Russians spend their time
I mentioned before that much of this position is not exactly mine. It's more like knee-jerk sophistry reaction to people who believe that US can do no bad with covert foreign actions, is not involved anywhere where pro-US governments suddenly pop up, and such actions have no negative destabilizing effects. I don't like rabid patriots who condone foreign interventions. While I'm really for these actions, because these actions indirectly are in my interests, I can't deny that these actions undermine sovereignty of independent states, provoke authoritarian states to became even more authoritarian, and it's an example of the US acting as World Police, which many view in a negative light(not me in this particular case).
Ghandi's struggle against colonialism, and I suppose Mohism are not about government coups, especially in modern context, and modern understanding of what the state is. And Color revolutions are not exactly nonviolent - they are non violent at the initial stage.
You are placing me in an uncomfortable position of spewing pro-Kremin propaganda. Ok.
>Presenting this as if it is some sinister technique freshly invented
Well, I didn't go into details, and I'm not an expert, but Color revolutions in ex soviet countries have certain common qualities to them. The main is "nonviolent action" of Gene Sharp. Holding a square for weeks, and waiting for violence to discredit government wasn't a normal normal way to make a revolution before this method was used. Other than that there is financing of pro-Democracy NGOs, that work under assumption that there is a lack of democracy(no matter what), and leaders with western eduction or ex-Reagan administration staffer wives.
>dictatorship of Putin
While I hate Putin and don't like Russia generally it's too subjective and CNN-like to call Putin a dictator. He definitely has support of pupation, and is adequate to Russian people. And I think the level of democracy in Russia is not important to US policy. Russia is US's major geopolitical opponent, one of the few of still independent ones. The US will support revolutions on Russian border no matter how democratic Russia is. Even more, it's easy to argue that Russia is not democratic as say western europe or the US, precisely because The US is very capable at overthrowing governments.
>a very far cry from "setting up the riots" which you have claimed.
While of course US didn't set up riots, it certainly assisted the forces which performed an illegal government coup. There is even a recording of ambasaddor Nuland on youtube. Maybe Yanukovich wasn't popular in the Ukraine(Bush too at the end of his second term), but he was a legally elected president, and Eastern parts of the country supported him initially. Forces that took over the government lost in the last elections, and (most likely)didn't have a chance at winning them next time.
As for me personally, being a Russian with pro-Liberty ideology, taking into account the fact that US is meddling with Russia's neighbors, still I'm for these revolutions. I even can't wait for one that will take out Putin. Russia must be weak and fragmented, because cultural code is very authoritarian, and if Russia is strong it will create problems not only for Russians but for people all over the world. But it's not a position of a patriot. Nor it's position of neutral observer.
You could also research finances behind 2004 Ukrainian revolution. I'm not saying it's bad. I even support current Ukrainian revolution and I am against Russian aggression. But it's quite obvious that US and allies are are trying to undermine pro-Russian or neutral governments in ex-USSR countries and make these countries adversarial towards Russia geopolitically. It happened in Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, with Color revolution technique, where large groups of people occupy squares and then capture government buildings.
The party that is a significant force behind the protests is definitely ultra-nationalist. You could see it from the statements about Russians and Jews, and from ethno- and language centric political program. If this party wins (and it has up to 40% in western regions of Ukraine), it will mean that Ethnic Russians in the east and other minorities will become second-class citizens.