Slashdot Mirror

Obviously they are still having big problems with the geniuses in marketing.

the Americans subsidize their farmers as do the French

Of course, the French managed the cunning trick of subsidising their farmers with vast amounts of other country's money. God bless the EU!

Makes this pretty interesting - the false positive rate in the UK is actually pretty high for DNA:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,2763,640 157,00.html

-jerdenn

Here's a story about the media altering photographs to make the U.S. look bad

The Los Angeles Times has sacked a battlefront photographer for altering a photograph which showed a British [my emphasis] soldier telling Iraqi civilians to take cover from Iraqi fire.

> deliberately killed several
> independant journalists

That's misrepresenting the facts. Reporting from the midst of a battle is a hazardous occupation.

Here's a story about the media altering photographs to make the U.S. look bad - doesn't sound like an "extension of the white-house press office" to me.

like every good (british) citizen.

guardian story
announcement of a lawsuit
bbc story
Thomas J. Watson even recived a medal from Hitler for his role in global economic relations
in the bbc story says In 1941 the US parent company distanced itself from the German subsidiary
i think this should prove my claim
i don't know if it is true that the american head of the coporation even knew about the holocaust their machines supported
or if they like the lawyer claimes delivered machines after the USA took part in the war
but if it was the case it will be very hard to prove because ibm could have destroyed any documents shortly after the war has been over

Ah a walking, talking tragedy... To think, I spent four years in the Army defending your freedom. Such is the state of public education in the nookyooler power known as 'merika. I mean, really--if you're going to lay flamebait on me, at least make it worthy of response.

Ken Lay (or as prezitend george likes to call him "kenny boy"), has a long history contributing to the prezitend.

I'm talking about Enron executives, not Enron. Get it? I'm talking about people directly responsible for creating the California energy crisis, who were responsible for stealing the retirement of thousands of hard working aging people, who are still walking free. I'm talking about Ken Lay in particular. A person who has been working closely with the Bush family for over a decade.

I'd invite you to discuss this, but I'm sure you'll just cry some more. It's okay, you can cry, just don't expect me to listen.

His documentry wasn't squashed. Stupid White Men almost was. It was supposed to have been on sale a few days after 9/11 but instead the publisher wouldn't ship the books until Moore made changes so as to look less Anti-Bush. Three months later his publisher was threatening to pulp the 50,000 copies already printed until a librarian started a grass roots campaign to get it published. Which goes to show, its not the right to free speach which is important, it is the right to have your free speach heard. If your press is so free, why did Michael more have to come to a British TV company (Channel 4) to get his TV series made? Why in his list of websites for "Real News" is it that the only two old news media sources he mentions are both British? (The Guardian and the BBC) One of which is a state run TV station! It seems that despite our lack of de jour freedom we might have more de facto freedom that Americans do. No really! Tell me one thing (other than own a machine gun) that an american can do that I cannot and I will tell you one thing I can do which an american cannot. can you say DeCSS? can you say DMCA, PATRIOT act, TIA? Freedom is the ability to choose, but choice is an illusion by those with power against those without, and no one in europe are as all powerful as your rulers^H^H^H^H^H^H leaders.

Useful info from that guardian link: "Complaints about unsolicited text messages which encourage you to call an premium rate line, should be made to Ictsis on 0800 500 212"

1. Don't trust everything you read in a newspaper. Ever read an article on computers/Linux/etc. in a newspaper, and notice all the errors in it? Well, just about every article in a news paper is riddled with the same kind of errors, but since it's not in an area you have particular expertise in, you don't notice it.
   
   
2. Especially don't take anything at face value that fits so neatly into the ideological orientation of the paper in question. In this case, The Guardian is well known for it's leftist slant, and things that slide smoothly into its ideological reality filter (Western Culture Bad! Cultural Imperialism Bad! Consumerism Bad!) should be especially suspect. (Likewise, a news source tends to be at it's most trustworthy when it publishes a story sharply at odds with its natural idiological inclinations, such as The Guardian recent story about how the Baghdad Museum looting story was a complete crock.
   
   
3. Be especially suspicious of any story that was compiled by "fly in" reporters new to the scene. Especially when they don't speak the local language. I'm willing to bet good money that the two reporters named are not permanately assigned to Bhutan. There's just no way for us to know that Bhutan was really the idyllic, crime-free paradise the reporters claim it was before the advent of The One Eyed Idiot God. The reporters could be mistaken, could be lied to by people with their own agenda (be they politicians, police officers, religious officials, etc.), or could simply be taken the facts that only fit their story's arc. There are any number of ways in which this story could be spun to make things appear worse than they really are, any number of contributing causes that go unmentioned, etc.
   
   
4. However, for the moment, let us suppose that everything this article suggests about TV ruining Bhutan are true. Some posters seem to suggest that letting TV be introduced was therefore a bad idea. Are you really willing to advocate freedom for yourself, but not for others? If so, it's an example of "compassion as contempt" writ large. It also suggests that the Bhutanese aren't worthy of even the freedom you enjoy. "Oh sure, I can be trusted with peer-to-peer file sharing, motor vehicles, and alcoholic beverages, but the Bhutanese can't be trusted with TV." Short of actually advocating violence against them, that's about the most racist, arrogent, paternalitsic, ethnocentric attitude possible. "We must save others from our culture." It's like saying that we have to remove liquor stores from around indian reservations and black inner city neighborhoods because they can't be trusted with the freedom to decide for themselves. It's to suggest that people with a different ethnicity or skin color will never be considered adults. "I am the Great White Father, and I have decided that you should be denied freedom for your own good." It's racist. It's insulting. And it's wrong.
   
   
5. Freedom comes with costs. It means having to make up your own damn mind. It means making mistakes. Either the Bhutanese are a free people, or else they're exhibits at a little ethnic zoo, never to stray beyond the confines of What's Good For Them.

Clearly, I don't accept it either -- but that is the typical goal of people who seek power.

And yes, I did mean Plato's
Republic. Quite honestly, I think that this newspaper article I linked to is too close to imply anything but.

The problem is that if you read The Republic as a serious work [as our leaders would have us do], the Plato learned absolutely nothing from his teacher. But if you read it as a satire, then Plato was trying to take Socrates' work and turn it around, and a Republic, though not necessarily to be avoided in some cases, is something to be viewed with deep suspicion.

Personally, with all the hype going on around the new constitution, I suspect that there are going to be deep flaws. If this is done with a good heart, I fully expect amendments to come in a major rewriting. If not, then I expect serfdom for a while, followed by disaster after disaster.

In the end, you can't get around reality -- but that doesn't always stop governments from trying.

We'll just see what happens. Hopefully things won't be too bad.

According to Stallman's original article it is now "free/libre". I guess that is "libre" as in Cuba, the drink, not Cuba, the country.

Anyways, free/libre/GNU/Linux is just too long, can't we make a symlink to it?

This article in the UK "Guardian" claims that the recent blitz of viruses was done by spammers trying to generate open relays.

(mod me down, but you can't avoid the facts)

Last I remeber we (the English) were doing pretty well at rugby against Australia.

I've read the sentences numerous times. Read mine again. I do not claim duplicating == loaning. Using the logic that a duplication means money out of someone's pocket, then the use of a single copy for multiple people is just as equally economically depriving. I am not claiming copying is good or right, merely pointing out that if copying = depriving people of their hard earned money, then the logical conclusion of that limited reasoning is that libraries also deprive people of hard earned money.

While I might agree with you in concept, what the hell numbers are you quickly looking at? You got a great reference: sight it. Otherwise as far as I can tell you pulled that out of your ass.

One story stating musicnet as 75,000 subscribers, which is better than pressplay. Perhaps it would be better to say the public response to the variety of such ventures is lukewarm at best (excepting the iTunes store). BTW, the word is cite, not sight.

Bingo, this is the business world. They aren't there to protect your rights, just their interests. See the well know industry attempts at more percise crippling attempts: Palladium, Digital Rights Management

Exactly. This response was to a question about fair use rights of the consumer, and his answer was essentially a "we're concerned with our interests, not your your rights." Rather than give an honest answer, the response was that we want a technology that can determine your intent and prevent the "bad" kind, a task that is obviously impossible.

Finally, a reference. Here I'm just curious: does anyone really believe that as P2P becomes more common it wouldn't disrupt sales? The paradigm has shifted, thats the issue here. Does the Recording Industry have the right to limit our rights in order to protect an out moded business model?

Actually, I'm not sure how much it will disrupt sales. I submit that what might actually happen is a change in the breadth of what is bought, rather than an absolute decline. This is a point I am very open to discuss, yet my original point is that the riaa drones that maintain P2P is the cause of the sales decline when there I've seen no real evidence of that suggestion. You and I can sit here and debate the outcomes we expect, yet that will be as much meaningless blather as the drones in the absence of real data.

Who's the thief? I mean do you know who your stealing from every time you download? Are you sure you haven't downloaded anything self distributed? There are honest people in the music industry and dishonest people, what's your point?

The recording industry = the thief, downloaders = second thief. There are a number of highly publicized artists who've claimed that the real thieves are the record companies themselves. This was what the question was about, and taking the viewpoint of those artists, it becomes an interesting excercise in hypocrisy. If this group is essentially stealing from artists, and then blasting listeners for "stealing from artists," who is really harming the artists more? Again, I am not suggesting we steal, shoplift or illegally download to Fight-the-Man (tm), merely making a counter-point to the riaa drone.

Stealing a DVD is depriving ownership of an object, Copying a song is depriving no one of ownership.

..you make a cohesive point. But of course it is depriving someone of ownership: the record company and the artist.

of course? I think this issue is much more complicated than that. When I copy a file, I am

'The...difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq'

TIA has nothing to do with protecting U.S. citizens from terrorism. It is instead part of a hidden political agenda.

Every year, the U.S. government gives between $3.5 billion and $5.5 billion to Jews in Israel. This money is used to kill Arabs. (The Jews call it defense.) The terrorism toward the U.S. was caused by Arabs who feel they have no other way to protest the brutality of moving them from their homeland, and continuing to kill them, to make a new country called Israel. They are sacrificing their lives to try to make a statement. I don't think violence is justified, but the U.S. government thinks violence is justified, the Jews think violence is justified, and it would be illogical to think that violence is okay for politically powerful groups in the U.S., but not for the people they want to kill.

The people who have brought you TIA have also put the U.S. government back into the huge debt it was in during the Reagan-Bush years. The people who want corruption cause the U.S. government to borrow money so that they can spend it (tax cut) to make themselves look good and on high-profit weapons.

Here are a few links that discuss other kinds of corruption:

War Profiteers card deck.

"Speaking to Pentagon reporters in a video teleconference from Iraq, General Conway said, 'What the regime was intending to do in terms of its use of the weapons, we thought we understood.' He added, 'We were simply wrong.'" [last paragraphs]

Secretary of State General Powell believes he may have been lied to about weapons in Iraq: Powell's doubts over CIA intelligence on Iraq prompted him to set up secret review.

"Could be the greatest intelligence hoax of all time."

More about war profiteers and conflict of interest: Lawmaker Questions Scope Of Iraq-Related Contracts.

Questionable accounting practices -- The U.S. government becomes another Enron scam:

Questionable accounting practices in the U.S. government: "The U.S. government is broke." George Bush gave U.S. citizens a tax cut, but it was fraud. The tax cut will be paid by money the U.S. government will borrow.

Questionable accounting practices at Halliburton, Vice President of the U.S. Dick Cheney's company.

Should U.S. President George W. Bush be impeached?

In a CNN article, John Dean asks, "Is lying about the reason for a war an impeachable offense?"

An Associated Press article reports that a retired Department of State analyst says the Bush administration was "not entirely honest".

International reaction is extremely negative. The Hindustan Times mentions that "a former CIA analyst with 25 years' experience" ... "accused the Bush administration of lying to Congress".

TIA has nothing to do with protecting U.S. citizens from terrorism. It is instead part of a hidden political agenda.

Every year, the U.S. government gives between $3.5 billion and $5.5 billion to Jews in Israel. This money is used to kill Arabs. (The Jews call it defense.) The terrorism toward the U.S. was caused by Arabs who feel they have no other way to protest the brutality of moving them from their homeland, and continuing to kill them, to make a new country called Israel. They are sacrificing their lives to try to make a statement. I don't think violence is justified, but the U.S. government thinks violence is justified, the Jews think violence is justified, and it would be illogical to think that violence is okay for politically powerful groups in the U.S., but not for the people they want to kill.

The people who have brought you TIA have also put the U.S. government back into the huge debt it was in during the Reagan-Bush years. The people who want corruption cause the U.S. government to borrow money so that they can spend it (tax cut) to make themselves look good and on high-profit weapons.

Here are a few links that discuss other kinds of corruption:

War Profiteers card deck.

"Speaking to Pentagon reporters in a video teleconference from Iraq, General Conway said, 'What the regime was intending to do in terms of its use of the weapons, we thought we understood.' He added, 'We were simply wrong.'" [last paragraphs]

Secretary of State General Powell believes he may have been lied to about weapons in Iraq: Powell's doubts over CIA intelligence on Iraq prompted him to set up secret review.

"Could be the greatest intelligence hoax of all time."

More about war profiteers and conflict of interest: Lawmaker Questions Scope Of Iraq-Related Contracts.

Questionable accounting practices -- The U.S. government becomes another Enron scam:

Questionable accounting practices in the U.S. government: "The U.S. government is broke." George Bush gave U.S. citizens a tax cut, but it was fraud. The tax cut will be paid by money the U.S. government will borrow.

Questionable accounting practices at Halliburton, Vice President of the U.S. Dick Cheney's company.

Should U.S. President George W. Bush be impeached?

In a CNN article, John Dean asks, "Is lying about the reason for a war an impeachable offense?"

An Associated Press article reports that a retired Department of State analyst says the Bush administration was "not entirely honest".

International reaction is extremely negative. The Hindustan Times mentions that "a former CIA analyst with 25 years' experience" ... "accused the Bush administration of lying to Congress".

"With all due respect: Taste differs. I don't there is something that everyone thinks is funny - there's nothing wierd or insightful in that, IMHO."

As for the last sentence, here is what it sounds like to me:
Well, while it is silly to say "I don't find this funny, therefore it is not", there are things that the vast majority of people find funny, and others that they do not. Some British researchers have actually looked into this. Their findings have been discussed here before.

As somebody else said, bleeping out cuss words at least works for comic effect. It makes it seem naughty. I noticed they didn't censor out his hand when he flipped off the audience. It was pretty fast though.

Gollum: "Frankly, nothing can compensate for the long hours and low pay, and miserable experience we've had making this f----ng movie. And if you think a sh---y little tub of gold popcorn is going to remotely make up for everything we've suffered, you're SADLY F----NG MISTAKEN!

YOU'RE ALL BASTARDS! MTV SUCKS! WE HATE YOU ALL!"

Smeagal: "Goodnight".

There's a very good article about this practice amongst others here

Note, I actually got that link from another post (by MouseR) who linked to it earlier in the discussion - just re-posting it here for convenience.

They do realize the bird's final destination, right?

Let me give the clueless a hint: the other end of the sucking machine.

Then, it all goes to to packaging and distribution.

Hmmm!

Finger-licking good.

courtesy of Steal This Country

Enjoy,
W00t

Get Your War On 24

Bush International Policy Mastermind Wolfowitz says: Iraq war was about oil

Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil
George Wright
Wednesday June 4, 2003

Oil was the main reason for military action against Iraq, a leading White House hawk has claimed, confirming the worst fears of those opposed to the US-led war.
The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz - who has already undermined Tony Blair's position over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by describing them as a "bureaucratic" excuse for war - has now gone further by claiming the real motive was that Iraq is "swimming" in oil.

The latest comments were made by Mr Wolfowitz in an address to delegates at an Asian security summit in Singapore at the weekend, and reported today by German newspapers Der Tagesspiegel and Die Welt.

Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister said: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil."

Mr Wolfowitz went on to tell journalists at the conference that the US was set on a path of negotiation to help defuse tensions between North Korea and its neighbours - in contrast to the more belligerent attitude the Bush administration displayed in its dealings with Iraq.

His latest comments follow his widely reported statement from an interview in Vanity Fair last month, in which he said that "for reasons that have a lot to do with the US government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on: weapons of mass destruction."

Prior to that, his boss, defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, had already undermined the British government's position by saying Saddam Hussein may have destroyed his banned weapons before the war.

Mr Wolfowitz's frank assessment of the importance of oil could not come at a worse time for the US and UK governments, which are both facing fierce criticism at home and abroad over allegations that they exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein in order to justify the war.

Amid growing calls from all parties for a public inquiry, the foreign affairs select committee announced last night it would investigate claims that the UK government misled the country over its evidence of Iraq's WMD.

The move is a major setback for Tony Blair, who had hoped to contain any inquiry within the intelligence and security committee, which meets in secret and reports to the prime minister.

In the US, the failure to find solid proof of chemical, biological and nuclear arms in Iraq has raised similar concerns over Mr Bush's justification for the war and prompted calls for congressional investigations.

Mr Wolfowitz is viewed as one of the most hawkish members of the Bush administration. The 57-year old expert in international relations was a strong advocate of military action against Afghanistan and Iraq.

Following the September 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon, Mr Wolfowitz pledged that the US would pursue terrorists and "end" states' harbouring or sponsoring of militants.

Prior to his appointment to the Bush cabinet in February 2001, Mr Wolfowitz was dean and professor of international relations at the Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), of the Johns Hopkins University.

They said they would put "over 1 billion euros" on that. What about some prospective? ESA's budget for 2002 was around 2,8 bn euros. With this sort of money for last four years they were able to put together a mission to Mars - and that's about it. NASA's budget is around 15 bn Euros and it is barely enough to keep the Shuttle fleet flying and make around two scientific missions a year (look for example at the state US Mars exploration is in). And that is not all the money US spends on space - there is also DoD budget.

A single Ariane 5 launch costs around $150 M which is roughly $140 MEuros, so this is good for around ten launches. Proton and Soyuz are cheaper - $80M and $40M respectively. (a table of launch vehicles costs). But of course this money won't be spent directly on launches, you have to have something to launch first.

Europe's space program has been so far driven mostly by France and to some extent Britain. Others were just interested, but with no real substance. All projects of manned missions were dropped along the way (and there were a few - a small shuttle designed by French that was supposed to be Ariane's payload - I forgot the name, German SSTO Sanger plane and similar British project). As a result Europe has no experience in building manned spacecraft - unless they would get it from Russians. I'm afraid that 1 bn Euros won't be enough to put together a manned mission unless it would be just flying Russian spacecrafts with Europe's yellow stars logo painted on them.

If Europe would spend this money on building a GPS-like system, then 1 bn Euros is a significant amount, however again not enough to build the system - and keep it running (Russians build one to guide their warheads but couldn't afford to keep it up).

What is most likely however is that this money won't be spent on a single mission or project. As the article says this money would be "pumped into the sector to overhaul its manufacturing and marketing programmes". It means that it would be divided into many small donations to various projects just to keep the industry afloat. So it is nice, but is far from enough if Europe really wants to be a player in the Space Race.

And - BTW - Deutsche Telekom's loss for 2002 was "over" 24 billion euros.

Subject: FW: IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

URGENT ASSISTANCE - FROM USA

IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED : HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

FROM: GEORGE WALKER BUSH
202.456.1414 / 202.456.1111
FAX: 202.456.2461

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am GEORGE WALKER BUSH, son of the former president of the United States of America George Herbert Walker Bush, and currently serving as President of the United States of America. This letter might surprise you because we have not met neither in person nor by correspondence. I came to know of you in my search for a reliable and reputable person to handle a very confidential business transaction, which involves the transfer of a huge sum of money to an account requiring maximum confidence.

I am writing you in absolute confidence primarily to seek your assistance in acquiring oil funds that are presently trapped in the republic of iraq. My partners and I solicit your assistance in completing a transaction begun by my father, who has long been actively engaged in the extraction of petroleum in the United States of America, and bravely served his country as director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

In the decade of the nineteen-eighties, my father, then vice-president of the United States of America, sought to work with the good offices of the President of the Republic of Iraq to regain lost oil revenue sources in the neighboring islamic republic of Iran. This unsuccessful venture was soon followed by a falling-out with his Iraqi partner, who sought to acquire additional oil revenue sources in the neighboring emirate of Kuwait, a wholly-owned U.S.-British subsidiary.

My father re-secured the petroleum assets of Kuwait in 1991 at a cost of sixty-one billion U.S. dollars ($61,000,000,000). Out of that cost, thirty-six billion dollars ($36,000,000,000) were supplied by his partners in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other persian gulf monarchies, and sixteen billion dollars ($16,000,000,000) by German and Jap

Subject: FW: IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

URGENT ASSISTANCE - FROM USA

IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED : HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

FROM: GEORGE WALKER BUSH
202.456.1414 / 202.456.1111
FAX: 202.456.2461

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am GEORGE WALKER BUSH, son of the former president of the United States of America George Herbert Walker Bush, and currently serving as President of the United States of America. This letter might surprise you because we have not met neither in person nor by correspondence. I came to know of you in my search for a reliable and reputable person to handle a very confidential business transaction, which involves the transfer of a huge sum of money to an account requiring maximum confidence.

I am writing you in absolute confidence primarily to seek your assistance in acquiring oil funds that are presently trapped in the republic of iraq. My partners and I solicit your assistance in completing a transaction begun by my father, who has long been actively engaged in the extraction of petroleum in the United States of America, and bravely served his country as director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

In the decade of the nineteen-eighties, my father, then vice-president of the United States of America, sought to work with the good offices of the President of the Republic of Iraq to regain lost oil revenue sources in the neighboring islamic republic of Iran. This unsuccessful venture was soon followed by a falling-out with his Iraqi partner, who sought to acquire additional oil revenue sources in the neighboring emirate of Kuwait, a wholly-owned U.S.-British subsidiary.

My father re-secured the petroleum assets of Kuwait in 1991 at a cost of sixty-one billion U.S. dollars ($61,000,000,000). Out of that cost, thirty-six billion dollars ($36,000,000,000) were supplied by his partners in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other persian gulf monarchies, and sixteen billion dollars ($16,000,000,000) by German and Jap

While I wouldn't want to speak for Mr. Blair or his sources, your resort to insults (`poor schmuck' and the like) here certainly seems to suggest that you aren't very confident that your argument stands on it's own merits. In any case, looking over Colin Powell's presentation to the UN, I note that he did not source Mr. Blair or his dossier for any of the evidence he presented, so your case looks a bit forced, no?

He did indeed source it: though he did not mention Blair in the UN speech itself, he did brief the British press about it afterwards. And he is rather embarrassed about it now.

How many would you consider `acceptable', especially in the absence of any studies substantiating Mr. Herold's claims?

I have just answered this in detail on the other sub-thread where you asked it, though you probably haven't read this yet.

In this post you directly alleged that the only missile Iraq fired on Kuwait was the single Seersucker which impacted outside a shopping mall in Kuwait City. The Iraqi Information Minister claimed the same thing, but every single news outlet referenced in that thread including the ones you posted links to claimed otherwise.

That post was by glrotate. There are many links in that thread to news reports of Scuds landing in Kuwait: all have the US Defense Dept as their source, none are verified. The military would not let anyone see all these alleged Scuds. I certainly can't blame a reporter for quoting US Defense Dept briefings: that's news. But I won't believe the reports until I read that the press went and actually saw 14 impact sites with fragments of Scuds.

I've yet to see a single actual statistician consider Mr. Herold's work as valid, but perhaps you could give us a counterexample? Even one?

A man is innocent until proven guilty. You have attacked Professor Herold's work, not me: prove his guilt, and I will accept it.

I've just shown you several statisticians and even a trade group of statisticians which consider Mr. Herold's work to be nonsense. Can you show me any that have confirmed his work? Any?

I can only recall one, that of STATS: please remind me of which other statisticians you quoted? Remember that the Iain Murray article is in fact a reprint of his original piece on the STATS site.

Poor Mr. Fox. I'd wager you don't even see the irony of your juvenile name-calling coming but one paragraph after your appeal for politeness and reasoned debate.

Yes, that was indeed the joke, Mr. Con. Glad to see you enjoyed it.

The UN attempted to dig up dirt on Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector.

It has ignored, violated and stonewalled so many agreements in fact, that US negiotiators are now being deliberately excluded and lied to by international diplomats to prevent them screwing up the rest of the world even more.

While Bush was scaremongering the world about Iraqs (seemingly theoretical) chemical weapons supply, he was simultaneously authorizing the use of tear gas by US forces.

This kind of thing goes on and on.

The United Nations is a failed, disgraced, and corrupt organization. It is far better to be in violation of politically motivated UN resolutions than to kow-tow to countries that would see millions of people die if it meant that the United States lost a debate.

Feels good doesn't it? Makes you feel less guilty about the whole thing. I can understand that. Nonetheless, the vast majority of international agreements, treaties and resolutions the US have violated have been on economic or environmental subjects, nothing to do with waging war against enemy states.

If you see the US as a rebel with a cause, saving poor old Iraq and annoying the fusty old men at the UN along the way, then you're utterly deluded.

The UN has done tremendous good, and would have continued to do so, had that not conflicted with the goals of the US becoming more powerful and richer. As it is, Bush has effectively told the rest of the world that they'll bend down and like it - you have no idea how many enemies that has made his administration. It may have irrevocably damaged Americas international standing, permenantly.

The fact is that I feel far less threatened by China than America. It's sad, but it's the truth.

Succinct translation: "Watch Fox News."

The questions for me, and a lot of other people, are whether the war was justifiable and whether it's going to accomplish what it intended to.

• Saddam is no more, Iraq is free
• North Korea wants to cooperate
• Iran wants to cooperate
• No terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 9/11

I see no evidence that the Bush administration is emerging from its determined solipsism with respect to international opinion; we keep right on acting like right-wing domestic supporters are the only audience for our policies.

The jury is very much out on Iraq's reconstruction and the volatility of the middle east -- they're both supposed to become peaceful and stable as a result of this war and its aftermath, but that's a damn tall order, and this was an extremely high risk policy.

iirc the US defence budget is bigger than France, China and Russia's all combined - now think about the proportion of that!

This is going off-topic now, but look at this -

WMD just a convenient excuse for war, admits Wolfowitz

And that's the same guy who came up with the "One Superpower" speech that almost got him fired. What about the American soldiers this guy sent away to be killed to fullfill his own hidden agendas? Don't Americans feel like they have been played for fools?

Also -
US finds evidence of WMD at last - buried in a field in Maryland

• The Guardian: "Taking sides" (BBC reported false Scud stories put out by US & UK military)
  
• Canadian Broadcasting Corp: " Iraqi TV reports fighting 150 km from Baghdad" (but no Scuds or WMD found in Iraq)
  
• Seattle Times: "Accidents cast doubts on Patriot missiles" (they didn't knock down many Scuds, but they were highly effective against British fighter jets)
  
• San Jose Mercury: "U.S. confident trailers were used to produce bioweapons" (no Scuds or anything else found yet really, but we definitely expect to find something really important Real Soon Now)
  
  

Umm, hello? No one's discussing the navally-launched seersucker which impacted outside a shopping mall in Kuwait city. We are discussing the fourteen or so SCUDs which were fired on ballistic trajectories from southern Iraq into Kuwait in the first week and a half of the war.

In case you weren't paying attention, here are some stories on those attacks.

• The Guardian: Iraq launches Scud missiles
• Canadian Broadcasting Corp.: Iraq lobs missiles at Kuwait
• Houston Chronicle: Patriot system proves its worth

I mean really, faced with fourteen SCUDs fired at Kuwait, your answer is `look, this one attack was with another type of missile, so there are no SCUDs'? Iraqi information minister Mohammad Sayeed Sahaf would be so proud...

The real problem is home access - as Hugh Daniel puts it, If you're a NAT on the Net, you're NOT on the Net." In particular, you're dependent on your ISP's firewalls for email, web, and general IP access to the real world, and greatly restricted in your ability to provide information services, especially anything your ISP isn't technically competent at, and you're subject to any filtering or censorship your ISP might do. The canonical example is the "Great Firewall Of China", which
tries to prevent Chinese residents from seeing anything about Falun Gong or other forms of thoughtcrime.

It's true that Asia's APNIC got a lot less of the address space than the US did, and they may need some more before the Great IPv6 Renumbering happens. According to IANA's List of IPv4 Address Space Assignments, more than half the Class A space is unused (either never assigned or returned by public-spirited organizations that are using newer technology such as CIDR.) Class B is probably the tightest, though supernets of Class C space took off lots of the pressure. IANA is hoarding the Class A space, and maybe this will push us toward IPv6 a bit faster.

ICANN was actively discouraging IPv6 use a couple of years ago (I haven't checked up on their evil plans lately...) Their method was to declare that they were going to charge $2500 for a /48, which is the smallest generally-allocated block of IPv6 space available - so if you wanted to own your own space, it was going to cost you. I suspect part of the reason was because they wanted the money, of course, and part of it was because they didn't want to lose control over a major chokepoint of the net, but also there's the more legitimate issue that deciding the right way to restructure routing for the future shape of the internet is going to be pretty difficult, and they'd rather delay the existence of working code in order to get rough consensus first.

"The government ensures that the ground beef you buy in the grocery store isn't ground rat, for example."

Take a look at this then.

Government regulation doesn't work. Political forces as impersonal and automatic as the laws of physics push regulators to preserve the appearance of regulation rather than the actuality, and to serve the politically powerful big business over the individually powerless citizen.

And the very presence of government regulation distorts the market, allowing products which slip through the loopholes to pass themselves off, in this case as chicken despite being injected with beef protiens. You could probably be sued for calling this "not chicken" or "adulterated", because the government makes the definitions and its the only game in town.

This is not an isolated example. Everything government touches it fouls up. How could it not? It's the expression of force in the market, while the market itself is the free choices of individuals. Anything the government does is by definition a less-desired and probably less desirable outcome than whatever would have happened in its absence.

Would be interested to know where you heard that. The way Stelios tells it, in his piece in the Guardian, it sounds like the distributors don't want to sign the normal contract either. To quote:

The single stumbling block remains the stubbornness of the major distributors. I'm spending a lot of time trying to sort this out. They say they don't believe in my pricing policy - they think it will encourage the same audiences to see films at a cheaper price, as opposed to luring a whole new audience who have been frightened off by the escalating costs of cinemagoing . . . I've promised them that I will remove the risk to their revenue by paying them a lump sum, somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand pounds, to screen their releases; that way they get paid even if I turn out to be incompetent. But they're not budging; they believe that when their $200m blockbuster can be seen for 20p, it cheapens the product.

Of course, he is a PR man writing for public consumption, so we can't take this as gospel. While he strongly IMPLIES that he offered to sign the standard contract - and that the fixed-price contract is purely a concession to the distributors - he doesn't say so outright. Perhaps a more skilled researcher than I could find out what's really going on.

True, but we should also be able to move beyond tribal politics and recognise that we can support someone on one issue, and oppose them on another.

Absolutely. I think many Labour MPs have come to this conclusion lately.

Besides, if Stelios wins this - and I personally very much hope he will - then other cinemas will have to start competing on price. Then the anti-Stelios crowd can have the pleasure of choosing not to spend money with him and STILL getting into the cinema more cheaply.

However, I have to say I don't think the legal position is encouraging. Last August the High Court upheld a European Court of Justice ruling that Tesco (a British supermarket chain) could not sell discounted Levi's jeans without the manufacturer's consent. It's not a perfect analogue to this case: Tesco were buying the jeans very cheaply from countries outside of the EU, rather than paying the full price that Levi's would charge a UK retailer. Stelios doesn't seem to be trying to do anything like that - he just wants the distributors to provide him with films on the terms they would offer to any other cinema.

But still the principle - that the producers of a product or brand can control how and where it is presented - is very close.

Sorry, but there's no truth to this whatsoever. The denomination of oil exports is irrelevant, since all of those transactions are essentially bank transfers, in which case it doesn't matter what currency oil is priced in.
It's also nonsense to say the US has "a license to print money for the world", in fact that's so illogical as to be meaningless.
There's a very good article on the subject which covers all these points, it's well worth reading.

Depends which country you live in. (I'm surprised nobody else has commented, it was a major case in the UK.)

The museum looting story seems to have been overblown. During much of the looting of the museum, US forces were under fire from inside the museum and could not have prevented the looting without damaging the museum itself.

You think that kind of infrastructure just gets restored overnight? Shit, we had a squirrel zap one of our transformers yesterday. The circuit has 100 families on it. It took the local power company 6 hours to get our power turned back on. Multiply that by a whole country...

... And also for the record, much of Iraq's long tradition of "civilization" has consisted of conquering and looting its neighbors.

Afghanistan is probably better off today than at any time since the start of the Soviet invasion.

The museum looting story seems to have been overblown. During much of the looting of the museum, US forces were under fire from inside the museum and could not have prevented the looting without damaging the museum itself.

You think that kind of infrastructure just gets restored overnight? Shit, we had a squirrel zap one of our transformers yesterday. The circuit has 100 families on it. It took the local power company 6 hours to get our power turned back on. Multiply that by a whole country...

... And also for the record, much of Iraq's long tradition of "civilization" has consisted of conquering and looting its neighbors.

Afghanistan is probably better off today than at any time since the start of the Soviet invasion.

The museum looting story seems to have been overblown. During much of the looting of the museum, US forces were under fire from inside the museum and could not have prevented the looting without damaging the museum itself.

You think that kind of infrastructure just gets restored overnight? Shit, we had a squirrel zap one of our transformers yesterday. The circuit has 100 families on it. It took the local power company 6 hours to get our power turned back on. Multiply that by a whole country...

... And also for the record, much of Iraq's long tradition of "civilization" has consisted of conquering and looting its neighbors.

Afghanistan is probably better off today than at any time since the start of the Soviet invasion.

"Think about the power of bringing our library to little schools in the middle of Africa," Keller said. "Would it make a difference for those who now have their minds closed to the idea of democracy?"

Quoting one:

US government purchasing documents show that the company, ChoicePoint, received at least $11m (£6.86m) from the department of justice last year to supply data - mainly on Latin Americans - that included names and addresses, occupations, dates of birth, passport numbers and "physical description". Even tax records and blood groups are reportedly included.

Nicaraguan police have raided two offices suspected of providing the information. The revelations threaten to shatter public trust in electoral institutions, especially in Mexico, where the government has begun an investigation.

The controversy is not the first to engulf ChoicePoint. The company's subsidiary, Database Technologies, was responsible for bungling an overhaul of Florida's voter registration records, with the result that thousands of people, disproportionately black, were disenfranchised in the 2000 election. Had they been able to vote, they might have swung the state, and thus the presidency, for Al Gore, who lost in Florida by a few hundred votes.

Quoting one:

US government purchasing documents show that the company, ChoicePoint, received at least $11m (£6.86m) from the department of justice last year to supply data - mainly on Latin Americans - that included names and addresses, occupations, dates of birth, passport numbers and "physical description". Even tax records and blood groups are reportedly included.

Nicaraguan police have raided two offices suspected of providing the information. The revelations threaten to shatter public trust in electoral institutions, especially in Mexico, where the government has begun an investigation.

The controversy is not the first to engulf ChoicePoint. The company's subsidiary, Database Technologies, was responsible for bungling an overhaul of Florida's voter registration records, with the result that thousands of people, disproportionately black, were disenfranchised in the 2000 election. Had they been able to vote, they might have swung the state, and thus the presidency, for Al Gore, who lost in Florida by a few hundred votes.

Quoting one article:

US government purchasing documents show that the company, ChoicePoint, received at least $11m (£6.86m) from the department of justice last year to supply data - mainly on Latin Americans - that included names and addresses, occupations, dates of birth, passport numbers and "physical description". Even tax records and blood groups are reportedly included.

Nicaraguan police have raided two offices suspected of providing the information. The revelations threaten to shatter public trust in electoral institutions, especially in Mexico, where the government has begun an investigation.

The controversy is not the first to engulf ChoicePoint. The company's subsidiary, Database Technologies, was responsible for bungling an overhaul of Florida's voter registration records, with the result that thousands of people, disproportionately black, were disenfranchised in the 2000 election. Had they been able to vote, they might have swung the state, and thus the presidency, for Al Gore, who lost in Florida by a few hundred votes.

Quoting one article:

US government purchasing documents show that the company, ChoicePoint, received at least $11m (£6.86m) from the department of justice last year to supply data - mainly on Latin Americans - that included names and addresses, occupations, dates of birth, passport numbers and "physical description". Even tax records and blood groups are reportedly included.

Nicaraguan police have raided two offices suspected of providing the information. The revelations threaten to shatter public trust in electoral institutions, especially in Mexico, where the government has begun an investigation.

The controversy is not the first to engulf ChoicePoint. The company's subsidiary, Database Technologies, was responsible for bungling an overhaul of Florida's voter registration records, with the result that thousands of people, disproportionately black, were disenfranchised in the 2000 election. Had they been able to vote, they might have swung the state, and thus the presidency, for Al Gore, who lost in Florida by a few hundred votes.

1. Afghanistan, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003
2. Bosnia, 1994, 1995
3. Cambodia, 1969-70
4. China, 1945-46
5. Congo (now Zaire), 1964
6. Cuba, 1959-1961 ("Bay of Pigs" invasion)
7. El Salvador, 1980s
8. Grenada, 1983
9. Guatemala, 1954, 1960, 1967-69
10. Indonesia, 1958
11. Iran, 1987
12. Iraq, 1991-2000, 2003 (The U.S. government used radioactive bombs in the first war against Iraq. See United States War Crimes Against Iraq for what appears to be an accurate history.)
13. Korea and China, 1950-53 (Korean War)
14. Kuwait, 1991
15. Laos, 1964-73
16. Lebanon, 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
17. Libya, 1986
18. Nicaragua, 1980s
19. Panama, 1989. The U.S. government called it "Operation Just Cause". The link is to a U.S. military web site.
20. Peru, 1965
21. Somalia, 1993
22. Sudan 1998. There are doubts that the pharmaceutical plant that was bombed was making weapons.
23. Vietnam, 1961-73 (An estimated 2,000,000 Vietnamese were killed.)
24. Yugoslavia, 1999

There are many sources for this information. For example, see this PBS web page: PBS: A Chronology of U.S. Military Interventions (PBS is the Public Broadcasting System in the U.S.) Also see From Wounded Knee to Afghanistan: A Century of U.S. Military Interventions [zmag.org] and The government of the United States is a consistent opponent of international law. [

yeah mod me down for not checking my facts, i did a search as BBCTV (news24) mentioned that EMI was feeling the pinch and its sales where down due to piracy

some sources are even quoting a 13% drop in Q1 alone at that rate of decline sales could fall 52% for the year (ouch)

more bad news is they still want to promote pro kareoke singers like robbie williams (who? says the USA people) and still no sign of new inspiring acts on the horizon, oh except those that win/bid for these