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Add in airplanes when it comes to reliance on cheap fuel, as well. I read an article at the International Herald Tribune about airlines making aircraft lighter in every way they can think of (from lighter equipment inside to more frequent cleanings) in order to save money on fuel, which is certainly not something anyone gave a damn about 5 years ago.

...we will have an outbreak of a supper bug that can not be defeated...

So that's what's going on with the tomatoes.

"I don't want to have to deal with frikkin' malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever and whatnot."

Sadly, that ship has sailed for many people. Maybe the Europeans are a bit more concerned than many Americans because of things like the Tiger Mosquito now found being across southern Europe, and Switzerland.

Residents of Rowenna, in Northern Italy, got to experience a disease I'd never even heard of. Chikungunya, a relative of Dengue Fever paid them a visit last December. Apparently it's normally found around the Indian Ocean.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/21/healthscience/virus.php

A quote from the article, "This is the first case of an epidemic of a tropical disease in a developed, European country," said Roberto Bertollini, director of the World Health Organization's Program on Health and the Environment. "Climate change creates conditions that make it easier for this mosquito to survive and it opens the door to diseases that didn't exist here previously. This is a real issue. Now, today. It is not something a crazy environmentalist is warning about."

According to the CDC, it's not usually fatal, but it completely sucks to contract it, and there is no vaccine or preventive drug currently available.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/Chikungunya/

OTOH, maybe the Europeans are a bit more concerned than many Americans because they seem, on average, to be more rational. Or their educational systems seem to suck less, or ???

Let something like Chikungunya and/or Malaria become endemic here, and I expect some attitudes will change, but we seem to require a high level of hosedness before we can change anything. I wonder if there isn't already enough climate change baked in that this is inevitable.

Andy

A quick google of "vatican evolution" yielded:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/vaticanview.html
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17162341-13762,00.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/18/news/evolution.php

because the whole idea that cell towers and the like just sprouted like weeds is appealing but they are costly.

Well ..., quote: "Vodafone posts profit of £3.29 billion" ($6.82 billion, November 14, 2007)

Yep, time to collect some extra cash for those poor chaps.

CC.

You spoke too soon.
If this windmill town becomes popular and more small towns start taking lead, one of the following will happen:
1. Tax credits on windmills will be stopped. http://www.iht.com/articles/1999/06/24/rwind.t.php/ the article states is to expire June 30, '08 while tax credits for Oil and Coal continue forever.
2. The PETA will come down on the town and shut it down because it killed a few dumb birds and stuck down a donkey.
3. The project would be SWIFT Boat'ed; meaning the mayor would be Spitzer'ed and the new mayor would scrap it.
4. The company that makes the windmills would be taken over by Blackrock or other Private Equity Groups, the prices of windmills increased by 300%.
5. A "concerned" citizen moves the Supreme Court for scrapping the project on economics ground stating that it is cheaper on the Grid.
6. The Oil & Coal companies drastically reduce prices of electricity to make the project unviable.
7. The Federal Government, re'zones the area as a Federal Protected Territory to Save the Spotted Owl, thus killing the project.
8. The Federal Government finds the project was financed by laundered money because one drug-dealer donated $10. The whole project is sold for scrap.
9. Mobile companies, Verizon and AT&T gang up and file a suit with "expert" testimonies that the windmill destroy reception of mobiles and hence the kids can't dial 911.
10. The whole town is Gitmo'ed as a lesson.-:)) OK, this one is far-fetched, but somebody please help me add the 10th point.

If you seriously believe that Iran would use nukes in a first-strike scenario , you've been horribly mislead by propaganda.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/02/28/ST2008022803016.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/30/AR2006113000912.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/042000-01.htm

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/29/america/29prison.php

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/04/22/us/20080423_PRISON_GRAPHIC.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?_r=2

http://www.jbs.org/node/7846

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.prisons29feb29,0,2057053.story

LOOK HOW SHORT IT TOOK! SIX YEARS!

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aaprisonpop.htm

NO! ONE!

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3321586

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/02/28/ST2008022803016.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/30/AR2006113000912.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/042000-01.htm

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/29/america/29prison.php

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/04/22/us/20080423_PRISON_GRAPHIC.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?_r=2

http://www.jbs.org/node/7846

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.prisons29feb29,0,2057053.story

LOOK HOW SHORT IT TOOK! SIX YEARS!

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aaprisonpop.htm

NO! ONE!

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3321586

All respect, Bruce, but I think you're talking through your hat on this one.

Those third world countries don't have the budget to spend on textbooks, whether they're DRM-encumbered e-books or not. So either way, they won't be buying them--because they can't. OLPC being built on Linux doesn't mean that publishers are going to start giving away their content. If they can't publish in a way that will prevent copies being made without them getting compensated, then they just won't publish to that market, full stop. They're on a narrow enough margin already, they're not going to start giving away all that effort, especially all translation work. So don't expect ebooks to be any cheaper than the real thing, unless we intentionally make them free ourselves. (Note how little any of this has to do with laptops).

If the goal is to get un-DRM'd textbooks to kids, then we'd be better off giving our time and money to Wikibooks than to OLPC, to make sure those decent-quality un-copyrighted books actually exist.

Microsoft has just essentially killed OpenDocument.
Format wars are irrelevant to this.

As I understand your argument, drm-free ebooks will be cheaper than regular books or drm'd ebooks, because ??????. The only sensible ?????? I can think of is "you can wantonly infringe them"--but if infringing were the chosen strategy, schools don't need OpenDocument; they can just make PDFs. Or have some of the kids type the books up in keyboarding class, or something.

If we want free textbooks to exist, which is the more sensible option: arguing about operating systems, or writing some free textbooks?

And while we dick around about operating systems on the poor kids' e-surfboards or whatever it is that laptops are supposed to be, poor children remain malnourished. OLPC continues not to respond to the most pressing needs of the developing world. About the only thing it's a good platform for is grandstanding.

Yeah, a study showed that obese people and smokers generally cost less in lifetime health care because the diseases killed them younger.

The economic integration between North America and Communist China is putting us in a very dangerous position. The Chinese government has a well-documented history of utter ruthlessness, and will happily steal and duplicate every technological edge it can get.

Just like Japan 30 years ago

Does anybody believe even for a moment that the same people who have committed and facilitated cold-blooded mass murder on a scale we find difficult to imagine will draw the line at a little industrial espionage?

You mean the Crusade, too?

Corporations that are forcing us into closer and closer economic contact with China are making huge profits, and doing a good job of ensuring that our governments obediently facilitate economic integration. For the rest of us, this means stagnant wages and limited opportunities...all in return for access to cheap headphones, lead-poisoned toys and other gimcrackery.

And you think the issue is entirely on China and not the US companies such as this or this ?

The Chinese government is not our friend, and the argument that exposing them to the joy of capitalism will make their society free is exactly backwards.

No, obviously, more of a slave than a friend.

More, for these kind of trojans / backdoors, China is the late comer when compared to the US as you can see from other posts in this thread.

somewhat timely that it is now revealed that the reason the Titanic went down so fast was due to substandard fasteners (ie. too much filler not enough iron)
http://www.newsobserver.com/front/story/1037540.html

just like the heparin that was 'stretched' with something that would pass the chemical QA tests
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/22/healthscience/22fda.php

or electronic components that will fry in a matter of weeks or months instead of years......
http://www.purchasing.com/article/CA6450781.html

And if your power goes out, do you still have phone? For how long?

Not that I particularly agree with the ban but it isn't anything new. As said the issue is only with lasers strong enough to reasonably blind people. Even as someone who regularly shoots firearms I fear said lasers more than a firearm - the laser is "on" or "off" and the "on" state lasts until the laser looses power. It is *immediately* dangerous through the whole process and is deceptively so (after all it is only a small dot). For various reasons people do not give it the necessary respect, if they did then I wouldn't mind so much.

The Red Cross has been trying to ban the blinding ones as weapons since the early 90's (and they explicitly state terrorist use even back then). A simple google search turned up a few articles on the front page, I'm sure there are better, yet since the first page results are good enough:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14419521.100-ban-cruel-laser-weapons-says-red-cross.html
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/315/7120/1392
http://www.iht.com/articles/1995/12/18/edmol.t.php

and finally what they actually passed: http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/0/49de65e1b0a201a7c125641f002d57af?OpenDocument

So, yea, not really anything new and is pretty much in line with international law. I don't know if Australia is a signatory to the law, however as we know from the US detractors that is irrelevant as it is an "international law".

Can't say as I agree with it (even as used as a weapon - better to be blinded than the alternatives) and I would really like one of the things that could pop a balloon, but for most of what the posters here who want to enforce this it *should* be a triumph of international law and the logical progression of said law. If you want your country to follow "international law" then kiss these thing good buy as you cant have them since the early 90's, Bush's term and the current so called "War on Terror" have nothing to do with said laws. We can't simply pick and choose which laws we observe (as is rightly said by Bush detractor's - it is pretty much all or nothing).

It's a shame but most people seem completely unaware or what you're talking about and unable to read and comprhend what you've written.

1. The US can and does use the "border seach exemption" to grab laptops and keep the entire laptop or to image the disk and return them computer. You cannot defeat this because you don't have full constitution rights at the border, even if you are a US citizen.
LINK

2. The US can and does hold people in contempt of court for refusal to provide encryption keys.
LINK
Note: You *might* win the case here after a year sitting in jail, but that sounds like an empty win doesn't it?

Your problem calls either for stenography on which you would be willing to bet your freedom and your livelihood, or for a physical seperation of yourself from the data (such as VPN). I can see no other solution, but I'd be very interested if someone else who and actually understands the situation this guy is faced with and is aware of the law can.

This is a better link because it's reg-free.

The wrinkly photo of Murdoch (complete with disembodied hand) is just icing on the cake.

This isn't the first time that Deutsche Telekom has tried this. They have also sued a couple of radio stations and an IT firm.

Check out the Free Magenta campaign.

In the IHT story it says an EPA employee passed information to an IBM employee while IBM was bidding on a contract.

Reporter: "Sir, when you talk about Iran, and you talk about how you have diplomatic efforts, you also say all options are on the table. Does that include the possibility of a nuclear strike? Is that something that your administration will plan for?" Bush: "All options are on the table." That option means nuclear weapons. http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0228-28.htm Perhaps if you, ah, read a newspaper you'd be aware of such comments. Also, ""If Iran had a nuclear weapon, it'd be a dangerous threat to world peace," Bush said. "So I told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested" in ensuring Iran not gain the capacity to develop such weapons." http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/17/asia/prexy.php

Just a few minutes on Google. I look forward to you explaining why they are actually innocent or don't apply to this discussion:

Convicted Imam, convicted sailor, convicted conspirator, 9/11 planner pleads guilty.

It's an easy game to play. If someone commits an act of terrorism, the stupid government has failed us. If someone is caught before they (or the people they support) commit an act of terrorism, then they are innocents caught up in the overzealous surveillance campaign of the stupid government.

The average income in the Muslim world is $3,700USD. In the west it's around $27,450USD as of the year 2000 Ref.

One of the two things you can almost always correlate with crime rates is average income (the other is the number of young men in a population).

My mistake then, I don't recall that threat.

Yea, that was a major wake up call for the entire world. But especially US.

No, maybe it's because of an injury which damaged my memory I didn't recall it.

I'm sorry to hear that.

Thanks for the links. The second one, on the history of bio-chemical weapons, I saved to disk.

Yea, I just found that today when looking for Saddam's quote on the burning Israel. I found it really interesting to see how many other countries where involved in much the same stuff that we get accused of.

What bothers me is that even after it was found that Saddam was using biological or chemical, I don't recall which right now, the Reagan then the Bush Sr admins still supported Saddam. Once it was suspected he should have been warned to stop, then when verified support should have ended.

Well, You have a right to be bothered by it. But what I am attempting to do is say hey, things weren't the same as they are today. We didn't have the benefit of knowing what would happen 3 or 5 years in the future back when this was going down. It is possible that a defeat of Iran was actually worth over looking some things. I mean we where harboring the Shah and wanting to help him get back into power. Iran did take hostages and the religions leaders inflames the population by tricking them over some photos of dead Kurds claiming a Zionist army kill 1500 Iranians. We had a lot to be pissed about and a lot to fear.

In hind sight, Yea toss Saddam to the wolves for his use of chemical weapons. But it should also be known that it wasn't until around march of 1988 that Saddam was known to of used the weapons on his own people. But it was blamed in part on Iran and most everyone else believed that they had a good part in it up to the mid 90 to late 90's. Here is a Risk assessment from the CIA dated 1998 in which they blame Iran for the Kurd's attach. Evidently, it wasn't until 2007 before Iran was officially cleared by an international organization. That's a wiki link and I think I have already stated my position on wiki articles. It seems to reference a 2003 article that claims we knew it was Saddam all along though.

I'm probably getting a little long on this, but I think it was more of a We didn't disapprove enough when they used them again Iran because of a mutual desire to see Iran defeated and didn't fully comprehend that Iraq was responsible for the uses against the Kurds until after the policy shift. We have had a history or tolerating some things that we shouldn't have because of this mutual benefit. Look at China, Even before the Tibet situation today, we ended up giving them a pass on Tienanmen square, forced abortions, and religious persecution. Now that we have seen peaceful protesters killed (and protests turned violent) by state police in Tibet, no one is going to say anything when china shouldn't even be there in the first place. I guess the are claiming outside influences now. I can understand our support for Saddam at a point in history a lot better then I can China today.

I want to apologize and thank you for correcting some things I was wrong about.

Well, I don't want to sound like an ass or anything, but I enjoyed having to look up what I though I remembered to make sure it was true. And it isn't all you, I got hit on a few things too (like the 1925 Geneva convention, I didn't think the use of chemical weapons was actually banned at that time). There are tones of articles out there that took some extreme positions that seem to lack basis in reality but stand firm in emotion.

I think to

There's a simpler reason for bashing Rails: it's a threat. It's just that simple.

There's an element of truth here, just not the one you think there is. I don't want to lose work because some naive client buys into the unfounded bullshit surrounding RAILS. My apps will take twice as long to develop but will be cleaner, tighter, scale better and I probably won't be that much more expensive either. I can't go insulting clients by saying that straight out, not after they swallowed the horseshit you and other RAILS fanbois manage to spout at every possible opportunity!

So the threat is that we (established freelance developers) may be forced to learn this cookie-cutter, paint-by-numbers framework to keep clients happy. That hurts when we understand full well that the better engineered solution would have been courtesy of Java, ASP.NET or even PHP.

Small shops offering RAD are not the sole preserve of RoR fans and honestly if the community cut the hype and bullshit they wouldn't be getting called on it. Oh and fuck DH too, initial programming work is a more or less sunk cost but hardware, connectivity, and power are not (AKA: DH, meet inflation you fool!).

The paper's online edition is here, but unfortunately the column only seems to be available in the print edition. A timeline of the rise of the Nazis in March 1933 is here.

That's because most of the Chinese people dare not make a different sound abouth the whole shebang.

AFAIK many of the my fellow Chinese people don't think that Taiwan or Tibet is necessarily part of China in any sense. Some of them just don't care that much about who is ruling these places. However, it is quite natural that they remain relatively silent under the current situation.

There's just a lot of information you can get even from within the Great Firewall. I can read news about the matter from agencies such as the International Herald Tribune at www.iht.com (although they are not quite neutral about everything). As the saying goes, seek, and you shall find. Yesterday I was walking in my campus in Beijing, and a student was selling used books by the roadside--- among a lot of technical references and textbooks there was one about the truth about the Tian'anmen Massacre, and nobody is preventing him from doing so. Remember there are some 1.3 billion people here, and it's impossible to keep everybody thinking the same.

But it is really possible to keep most of them from speaking about their opinions. You know your Big Brother is operating your routers.

Equally, many business leaders -primarily members of the tycoon class, as they are known - show little interest in any political arrangement that would dilute their long-established ability to influence government, regardless of how swiftly Hong Kong is changing.

And with Korea , I don't know if I would trust them as well.

China's economy isn't booming quite to the extent that the American media would have us believe. Inflation is becoming a serious problem there. It may not be as big an issue for the small percentage of the population who are well off, but given that most of the nation still lives close to or in poverty it is a serious problem.

There are economists who believe China has a bubble economy built on credit and corruption. So far they've done well for themselves but it's only a matter of time before they hit a downturn. And when that happens they're going to have serious problems with civil unrest. My concern is that when that happens the government will quickly start blaming other nations for all their ills.

Believe me, Chinese people have a lot to be resentful of. All that economic growth has been great, but many people have suffered greatly for it. Thousands, if not millions have lost their homes to what amounts to eminent domain to make way for new development. People have gone off to work only to return to find their homes demolished. Supposedly the government has passed property rights laws but they don't seem to have amounted to much of anything. And let's not forget how they control free speech, although people seem to have largely forgotten about that in the midst of this economic boom.

And they may be right in a few regards. There is already the big issue of low-quality goods coming out of the country. Just recently a number of people in Japan died from having eaten tainted food from China. Sales of Chinese foods have dropped dramatically. Quality clearly isn't improving but it's getting more expensive to manufacture in China. As infrastructure improves in places like India, Vietnam and elsewhere American, European and Japanese companies are going to look to those nations for their manufacturing needs.

From personal experience, a few years ago in Taiwan everyone and their grandmother was chomping at the bit to do business in China. Many gave it a try and most failed. Nowadays, there's still a good deal of interest, but people have are a lot more tentative. China's market is over-saturated with competition and business is too cutthroat. And that's to say nothing of all the corruption.

I'm not saying there aren't problems with the American economy, because there are. But the fundamentals are still good and we're on a somewhat more stable ground. This current downturn is due to speculation more than anything. Gasoline prices are high because of the weak dollar, and more importantly because of speculators. Some economists are saying that oil's value should be at about $70 per barrel, not $100+. Demand has actually dipped in the US. The problem is who the hell knows when a correction is coming. Speculation has led the housing and stock market to the situation we find ourselves today. Look at all the people who overpaid for homes because they expected to continue seeing these absurd increases in values. And that was despite the fact that we were being warned of the housing bubble.

Now, on to the topic at hand, some people have this tendency to criticize the US for it's supposed double-standards regarding this sort of thing. How can the US government complain about China doing the very thing they themselves are engaged in?

Well, here's my thinking, I live in the United States, not China. China is free to do whatever they like, of course, but I want my nation to have the upper-hand economically and militarily. I'm not saying the US should go around pushing everyone around with impunity, nor do I think the US should be invading every second country who looks at them the wrong way.

One thing China does have is a lot of nationalistic pride. Even when they're critical of the government they still manage to have a lot of ambition. When they set their minds to doing something they get it done and don't get mired in all kinds of nonsense like is so often the case here. I think that's admirable and something sorely lacking in the US.

Does prior art still count if it's in another country?

The Israelis are indeed shooting back at the Palestinians- see this article, for example, which mentions 120 Palestinians killed recently including many civilians (although the definition of 'civilian' is so lose in that area it's spin either way).

Rather, the Israelis are seeking an option that 'doesn't require them to shoot back' much like the United States was seeking an option that 'didn't require them to shoot back' in Star Wars and BMD.

They'll shoot back anyway, all right, but none of what's aimed at them will get through.

Hey, argue against the dictionary all you want. :) Examples of usage from media outlets, just in the headlines alone, and ignoring other uses of the phrase and puns (such as "Home pool tables cue up lots of family fun"):

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/19/business/ptpogue20.php ("Cue up the music, choose the rooms")
http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080212/LIFE/802120309/-1/LIFE03 ("Cue up your appetite")
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/13/business/video.php ("Bank internship? Time to cue up the video")
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1492913/20041021/handsome_boy_modeling_school.jhtml ("Handsome Boy Modeling School Cue Up LP #2")
http://blogs.chron.com/franblinebury/2008/02/yo_adrian_cue_up_the_rocky_the.html ("You, Adrian! Cue up the Rocky Theme!")
http://mediawiredaily.com/2007/01/cue-up-sound-of-cbs-cash-register-ka.html ("Cue up sound of CBS cash register!")
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117853509.html ("MTV arms cue up 'Unplugged' on Net")

Need me to keep going? Just because you haven't heard the phrase doesn't make it any less real, or any less in the dictionary.

Hey, argue against the dictionary all you want. :) Examples of usage from media outlets, just in the headlines alone, and ignoring other uses of the phrase and puns (such as "Home pool tables cue up lots of family fun"):

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/19/business/ptpogue20.php ("Cue up the music, choose the rooms")
http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080212/LIFE/802120309/-1/LIFE03 ("Cue up your appetite")
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/13/business/video.php ("Bank internship? Time to cue up the video")
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1492913/20041021/handsome_boy_modeling_school.jhtml ("Handsome Boy Modeling School Cue Up LP #2")
http://blogs.chron.com/franblinebury/2008/02/yo_adrian_cue_up_the_rocky_the.html ("You, Adrian! Cue up the Rocky Theme!")
http://mediawiredaily.com/2007/01/cue-up-sound-of-cbs-cash-register-ka.html ("Cue up sound of CBS cash register!")
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117853509.html ("MTV arms cue up 'Unplugged' on Net")

Need me to keep going? Just because you haven't heard the phrase doesn't make it any less real, or any less in the dictionary.

The problem with U.S. laws is that while they enforce a framework for ICANN to operate in a manner that the Western Democracy's find acceptable those same laws also allow the US Treasury Department to force eNom (U.S. based domain registrar) to cease providing domain name hosting for web sites owned by a UK citizen working in Spain who provides information to European Union citizens.

"U.S. pulls the plug on Europeans who want to visit Cuba" - International Herald Tribune - http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/04/america/speech.php

Purely to put that other serious mistake about HIV firmly behind them...

Except that any disruption was very temporary, and the Iranian bourse opened as planned.

So what's the explanation, again...?

And there has been an explanation for the FALCON cable failure.

Please provide references for your claims about Russian military exercises to "protect" undersea cables, and Egypt's "claims" that the cables were cut.

I don't expect there will be a response, given that it is the cable operators, not the Egyptian government (since it is not their cable), who would be "examining the damage", and no cable operator has said any such thing. In fact, numerous experts have dismissed such claims.

This was trimmed from the original submission:

Slashdot readers may recall the assertions, roundly dismissed by undersea cable experts, that the cables were deliberately cut to sever Iran's internet connectivity, which, contrary to popular belief, never occurred.

Many fervently believed the cable "cuts" were a prelude to war; still others insisted they were part of a plot to prevent the opening of the Iranian Oil Bourse. Interestingly, no one could explain how cutting only one of several mechanisms of Internet connectivity to Iran would stop the bourse from opening...

Well, there was no secret invasion of Iran, and the Iranian Oil Bourse, after many self-incurred delays, still opened, to little fanfare. The opening of the bourse -- which doesn't deal in US dollars -- was supposed to be the turning point that sent the dollar into a freefall; however, myriad other factors seem to be hurting the dollar just fine on their own.

Why am I mentioning this? Because I think it is incredibly important to take a step back, get some perspective on things, and realize that actual totalitarian regimes are far more dangerous and damaging to individual freedoms and the free flow of information, in a very real and tangible sense, than even the wildest imagined conspiracy theories.

The most scary thing seems to be the privacy concerns.

86% Coal, at $50/ton + 14% Hydrogen, at $1310/ton electricity equivalent + Magic = Profit

Speaking of Gates and Carlyle...

"Gates and Alwaleed have collaborated for at least two years. After attending a dinner at Gates's home in Bellevue, Washington, in early 2004, Alwaleed agreed to explore ways to assist Microsoft's expansion in Saudi Arabia."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/12/bloomberg/bxfour.php

These people seem like they are busy trying to take us back to the "good" old days of kings, feudal lords, and private empires. And spending $100m to taint Linux a little more (through SCO) is pocket change to them. Scary.

-----
Thanks to spacelifeform on GL:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/12/bloomberg/bxfour.php

NEW YORK: Four Seasons Hotels, the manager of 74 luxury hotels, said Monday that it had agreed to be taken private by Bill Gates, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and the chief executive for $3.8 billion, including debt.

Coincedence?
----
Who is Stephen Norris,

http://www.snpartners.com/norris.html

Looks like there could very easily be some behind the curtain financing of this through foreign nationals.

---
Mr. Norris acted as a principal financial advisor to Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal Al Saud of Kingdom Holding Company, in structuring and negotiating the re-capitalization of Citibank, which returned over $15 billion in profits on about $590 million of equity invested. He also advised or played a key role in other Kingdom Holding Company investments. He was appointed by former president George H.W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as one of five governing members of the $100 billion Federal Retirement System Thrift Investment Board.

Since 1997, Mr. Norris, and certain members of his team, have worked on a number of investments including real estate investments in Europe and the United States. They were involved in amongst others the privatization of Thompson CSF, the recapitalization of Suez, the acquisition of portions of Credit Foncier's real estate portfolio in Paris by the German firm of IVG, the formation of Nomura's (London) bid for a Dutch mortgage bank, the offer by a major Saudia Arabian investment firm for Lamborgini in Italy, and the formation of a bid by Leucadia International's for the Labouchere Bank in Holland. He also negotiated and structured investments in Synxis Corporation, which was backed by George Soros and Mr. Norris, and MARC Global Holdings.
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Well the post you were replying to was referring to citizens. Regardless, it's your EQUATION of the two that is ridiculous. It's this "we're just as bad as them" nonsense.

Yes, I do see a difference between "kidnapping, raping and murdering civilians" (literally, for the fun of it, in some cases) and "capturing (you can used kidnapping if you like) suspected terrorists from other countries, putting them in prison, feeding them 2-3 meals a day using food that complies with their religion, allowing them to worship as they please (even accommodating their religious holidays), rewarding good behavior with privileges, giving the international red cross access to them, and using waterboarding on the vast minority of them".

the music industry makes money adding value to music through production and distribution. technology has made most of that value moot. musicians will always get screwed when relying on production and distribution to earn their living; musicians need to monetize the value they bring, a.k.a. make money creating and performing music.

good 2003 article about pop music at piracy ground zero China, http://www.iht.com/articles/2003/02/24/t1_55.php

some choice quotes:
"There is no income from the royalties, so artists in China record single songs for radio play instead of albums for consumers," said Lachie Rutherford, the president of Warner Music Asia-Pacific.

"Until they pirate my body, I can rely on personal appearances," Wang said. "I am forced to view albums only as a promotional tool."

"Our survival strategy required switching to a talent-management business model," said Zorro Xu, managing director in China for Warner Music.