Yep, I remember seeing that a while ago (and you're right, I did like it). I had the CSV file saved on my desktop for a while in the hopes that I could do something fun with it, but I never did.
Webster thought that Americans should learn from American books, so he began writing a three volume compendium, A Grammatical Institute of the English Language. The work consisted of a speller (published in 1783), a grammar (published in 1784), and a reader (published in 1785). His goal was to provide a uniquely American approach to training children. His most important improvement, he claimed, was to rescue "our native tongue" from "the clamour of pedantry" that surrounded English grammar and pronunciation. He complained that the English language had been corrupted by the British aristocracy, which set its own standard for proper spelling and pronunciation. Webster rejected the notion that the study of Greek and Latin must precede the study of English grammar. The appropriate standard for the American language, argued Webster, was "the same republican principles as American civil and ecclesiastical constitutions". This meant that the people-at-large must control the language; popular sovereignty in government must be accompanied by popular usage in language.
Slowly, edition by edition, Webster changed the spelling of words, making them "Americanized". He chose s over c in words like defense, he changed the re to er in words like center, and he dropped one of the Ls in traveler. At first he kept the u in words like colour or favour but dropped it in later editions. He also changed "tongue" to "tung"—an innovation that never caught on.
Webster's choice of modifications has always puzzled me: he picked on perfectly harmless words like "defence" (but not it's cognate "fence") and that you'd struggle to mispronounce or misspell whilst leaving abominations like "Wednesday" alone, and reverting some of his better changes like "wimmen"
That said I think English would be much more useful as an auxiliary second language if someone as bold as Webster was willing to actively promote a distinctive "International English" with a more consistent orthography (I quite like Valerie Yule's, but even fixing though/through/tough/cough/bough would be a start)
But if they're not hired for some idea that they're Marxist, whoever rejects them are looking for the wrong things. In years of associating with various marxists, I've never seen any of them wearing Che Guevara shirts. Most of the people I see wearing Che shirts seem to have little to no understanding of the political signal it might send.
Frankly, I'd think you'd be more likely to find a marxist wearing a suit than a Che t-shirt.
Some people need to feel America isn't free or else how do you explain why they are not free. It has to because of America or else they are responsible for their own country.
These people do not live behind the GFW and don't understand what real unfreedom is. I agree the USA should avoid becoming unfree, but we aren't even close yet.
Does anyone have practical advice for convincing business people not to pursue software patents? Stating it will give you no real protection and is a waste of money is not enough, even when coming from the attorneys.
Germany is enabling the US to continue with these ridiculous escapades by not closing US bases for some minuscule economic gain. If you believe these wars, Iraq, Afghanistan and soon Syria are terrible but want to keep the bases you are a hypocrite and either way as culpable for civilian deaths as any American. Many in Germany are upset about these wars, virtually none want to close the bases. Serious willful disconnect there.
I don't see too many Americans chomping at the bit in favor of US intervention in yet another nation which poses absolutely zero viable threat to the the USA.
We're sick and tired of interventionist policy, since Korea, Viet Nam, etc, etc, etc.
To hold American citizens culpable for the actions of the government which lies to us and spies upon us while claiming "Moral High Ground" is to ignore the fact that we are no longer informed, so the "consent of the governed" is no longer present.
You must not get out much. There are a lot of Americans chomping at the bit to "stick it to those ragheads." It doesn't matter which Middle Eastern country, as long as we go over there and "kick some ass" against people that are different than us, they are 100% on-board.
I think they are US jurisdiction, not territory, it's like an embassy.
There are ways to remove them. There might also be a reason to remove them, in light of the spying involved, if Germany discovers for example that SAP is more negatively impacted by the US spying than positively by the commerce with the US. Same with planes (that's where the suspicions are the highest) car makers and tool machine makers.
I think your example of SAP is spot on. People see all these news about war, US vs. the world, etc and they take sides, become angry, etc while not questioning the obvious: who is going to have a material gain from this all?
I've become quite a cinic about these things and I think economic power / money will usually be behind most of it. Unfortunately I don't believe in countries helping poor people in remote lands, government worried about killings, pride in being the beacon of democracy, etc. It's all about power and money.
The US will try anyway. Years ago, when the F-117 was still in use, the USAF would regularly acquire permits to fly cargo planes from Germany to Italy over Austria. What they then attempted was letting a F-117 fly really close to the cargo plane (Austria wouldn't allow foreign military planes through their airspace unless for very specific reasons) to try to get over the short way through Austria, as well.
The Austrian Airforce found out about that, and intercepted and sent a few F-117s back to Germany.
Actually, the US, the UK and France had contracts with the Soviets that guaranteed them access to Berlin by air. They didn't have correspnding contracts for access via streets and railways, though, that's why the Soviets could block food trucks but not the airlift.
The contracts only allowed very specific air corridors (3, to be precise), which is one of the points why the airlift was so hard to implement at full capacity.
The Allied forces had quite extensive rights in all the other sectors, and not just in Berlin. For example, military vehicles were considered extraterritorial, and had to be let in. And that's what the US and the UK did: they drove into East Germany and rather openly spied on Soviet troop movements and maneuvers.
It is fairly hilarious how gullible a good chunk of HN is now. If they were really serious about removing the US as a tech and world leader they would start building services in their own country instead of posting bullshit stories and falling all over themselves when Stripe finally comes out in their country.
Fucking useless Eurofags.