Slashdot Mirror

Wow... I didn't know a 1Gig mail tidbit could make a self-proclaimed geek community lash out with such blatant hatred.

But since it's out there...

I'll make it short,

200 years ago, Jews are scattered throughout Europe, banned from all guilds, Jews are forced to practice trade and commerce.

100 years ago, Jews are thriving, strangely enough relentless persecution follows, the sought after euphoric notion of coexistence diminishes. MY ancestors seek sanctuary.

50 years ago, Jews have been slaughtered by the millions, NO MORE!

MY forefathers built me a HOME, Israel.
Putting aside the biblical records of Jewish settlements; legitimately occupying a 470 Kilometers strip of land (Size) is crucial to our survival and sovereignty.
I am 23 years old, I've volunteered 4 years of my life to DEFEND my only HOME, just like my father, and my grandfather before him, have we not done so, Israel would have been bereft of its existence. (Israeli wars)
I spent my first 2 years in the army learning how to dismantle and operate an assault rifle in a heartbeat, walk 50 miles packing 100 pounds of gear, and adhere to the strictest rules of ethical conduct. I spent the rest of my service operating indigenous strategic positioning and command systems (Westwood beware).

I'd much rather have spent my best years partying in college...

But I was left with no choice; we've learned our lesson, Jews must fend for themselves, unwillingly we have to relay a strong message to the world:

You don't FUCK with Israel.

Our survival depends on it. (Green=Foe)

I was posting using assumptions off the top of my head, but checking around, it looks like Mandarin is spoken by twice as many people as English. Hell, Hindi almost matches English.

'course, I used Google... http://www.urbanlegends.com/misc/april_fools_day_o rigin_of.html http://www.infoplease.com/spot/aprilfools1.html?li nk=tmplnav

And when all audio disks (I noticed and approve that you made the distinction) are loaded down with non-Red Book DRM, will the tax go away?

I'm minded to remark that in USia (and UKia) income tax was a short term measure to support a war. Funnily enough, when the war ended, the tax stayed.

This is sorta offtopic, but just so you know, Mexico is also part of North America. So it'd be one of the three ;-)

a couple of 400 Megaton ICBMS...a crap load of level 4 labs loaded with nasties...see how many of those 1 billion muslims are left standing

About as many as other human beings in your own country. Do you seriously think that launching piles of nukes or releasing viruses (anywhere in the world) would leave you unharmed? Look up radiation sickness someday, or anthrax, or even a modified strain of smallpox.

Let us not forget that if Al Gore had won the election in HIS OWN HOME STATE of Tennessee, then he would have won the national election, and Florida's election problems would be just a footnote.

Stop blaming Florida's election problems for giving Bush the victory or stealing the victory from Gore, whichever camp you belong to. Check it out:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0876793.html

check out the very bottom for the numbers. Gore lost the election by 5 electoral votes. If he had won his home state of tennesee (11 electoral votes) the world would be a different place.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0902841.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005055.html

Projecting 2004 to have 70% of all households with Internet connectivity (doubtful), there are about 70 million Internet connected households in the U.S... let's assume 100% of them read their email (I barely read my email with all the SPAM in it)

I don't know anyone who purchased anything via bulk email... or bulk mail for that matter (except taxis, and ordering fast food...), but it seems that the average person with Internet connectivity in the U.S. is buying about $430 worth of stuff... by email!

To add to this they indicate that the email must be non-fraudulant to count... I can't remember the last potentially non-fraudulent bulk unsolicited email I've seen.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0902841.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005055.html

Projecting 2004 to have 70% of all households with Internet connectivity (doubtful), there are about 70 million Internet connected households in the U.S... let's assume 100% of them read their email (I barely read my email with all the SPAM in it)

I don't know anyone who purchased anything via bulk email... or bulk mail for that matter (except taxis, and ordering fast food...), but it seems that the average person with Internet connectivity in the U.S. is buying about $430 worth of stuff... by email!

To add to this they indicate that the email must be non-fraudulant to count... I can't remember the last potentially non-fraudulent bulk unsolicited email I've seen.

Barry Bonds is a dirty negro steroid user! With the current trend of drug-using baseball players, including Mark McGwire (andro), and Sammy Sosa (steroids), I say we return the single season home run record back to its rightful owner: Roger Maris.

Barry Bonds is a dirty negro steroid user! With the current trend of drug-using baseball players, including Mark McGwire (andro), and Sammy Sosa (steroids), I say we return the single season home run record back to its rightful owner: Roger Maris.

Given that there were over 605 million connected internet users (in September 2002), that's over 400 million users of your software, and probably more now that it's almost a year and a half later.

Your users span hundreds of thousands of different hardware and software environments. And that doesn't even include IE 5.5 and 5 that they need to patch as well.

They'd better be sure the patch doesn't break anything critical. I'm surprised they don't break things more often than they do.

What an objectionable person you are...
so lets see now..
"movie about ten minutes LATE"
That would be your fault then

"because it took my god damn wife so LONG to shovel the snow out of the driveway"
Oh and you are sexist to boot
"concession stand and this MORON puts too much butter on my popcorn which gives me gas"
Clearly rude to the people serving you
"but that didn't matter because then my wife spilled the WHOLE god damn BAG as she was carrying it into the theater, also she spilled our sodas, god!"
Selfish and sexist again....maybe she was exhausted from all that snow shovelling - I expect she washes, cleans cooks and wipes your arse for you 'cos your too lazy to do it yourself...
"how can i sit for THREE HOURS without soda"
Dunno and dont care...
"movie this slut in front of us"
Life as sad single old man coming your way IMHO
"was talking on her CELL PHONE about how her next door neighbor's shit zoo had just given birth to puppies"
What was that Gandalf said about pity staying Bilbo's hand...I guess pity is what I feel for you..
Nah on second thought lets take your head fling it into Minas Tirith....
"little bit of courtesy for your fellow man"
Some dead white guy said "manners maketh man".. something you could clearly learn George...

"Where do you think they ripped the name Sentinel off from?"

...or they just thought the meaning of the word was a fitting description for what those robots do. :)

From Information Please.

1. a person or thing that watches or stands as if watching.
2. a soldier stationed as a guard to challenge all comers and prevent a surprise attack: to stand sentinel.
3. Also called tag. Computers.a symbol, mark, or other labeling device indicating the beginning or end of a unit of information.

Guess what, pal? At $10/hour, they're making MORE MONEY than a good majority of the citizens in this country.

Ummm, no.

The 2003 median income in the United States is about $56,500.

This is a median (IQ 100) wage of $23.25/hr.

But forget for a minute about what the median income is -- let's see what $10/hr would actually get you in a technical field.

To a nonrural techie,
$10/hr is about
$8.5/hr after taxes,
$18.66 / day after housing ($600/mo - good luck),
$16 after utilities
$10 after cheap food ($2 / full meal),
$8 after commute costs (forget a car),
$6 after cell phone and internet access (line of work requires these),
$4 after mandatory investment in your tech skills (60/month on software, hardware, and books),

leaves you with $4 in your pocket for a hard day's work. (I predict you'll use most of this to fill in the gaps in your workplace health care coverage).

All ten dollars an hour is good for is the commute to stressful underpaid work, food and shelter, and a tiny subsidy on maintaining your technical skills (don't even think of doing this on your boss's time - remember, you're being driven like a slave). I've included NOTHING else!

The above breakdown is a starvation wage for a single person! By contrast, $20/hour (still below the median wage in the united states - see top of comment) would allow you to take care of each of the items above, and still pocket $60+ each day you work. That's enough to do most things a person would want to do in a day, or save up for a large ($600) expense every two weeks - by contrast, the initial ($10) breakdown wouldn't let you eat out a couple of times a month -- you would literally be making more money on a $20/week allowance from your mom than working full time as a $10/hr slave. It's not a reasonable wage for an independent, skilled adult -- it's a wage inappropriate even to a person with an IQ of 75 -- making less than half the median wage is unacceptable.

She gave it to me in class and I was the only one to receive a gift.

Was her name Mary Kay Letourneau? =P

Grover Clevland...now there's a guy who knew how to veto.

The word is Seuss you dimwit.

i don't know why you feel you have to clarify time and again that you do not condone or approve or whatever... the nazis were a product of a situation and an era... the "final solution" if such a thing existed was a result of the age of reason that saw such a course of action as rational... the catholic church and pope weren't even vocal enough about it... now some people continue to deny much of the atrocities and say they were grossly exagerated... i don't know about that, maybe, maybe not... but i know one thing... losers tend to be vilified and winners write history books...

Just consider for example the Tuskegee Syphilis experiments; google for it... For forty years between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) conducted an experiment on 399 illiterate black men who were lied to and a disease such as syphilis was deliberately allowed to take its awful course on them without treatment. here

While you're at it you might wanna also google for the CIA mind control experiments during the cold war... they experimented on soldiers and mental patients, gave them high doses of drugs, hundreds of electric shock treatments per individual within a few days... and stuff like that...

most importantly, had you or the person you responded to been living in nazi germany, you would've probably done the same. Just see the Milgram experiments ... google for them if you don't trust the source

don't exonerate yourself; given the situation, we're all guilty

It's too bad the person with the most votes didn't win.

Look here for a complete recap of the recount. It was Gore requesting recounts in democratic counties, not vice-versa.

From the site: Thursday, Nov. 9--Gore's camp requests a hand recount of the approximately 1.8 million ballots cast in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, Broward, and Volusia counties, Democratic strongholds

What?

The writings of CONFUSUS reference the use of chopsticks in China c. 500 BC. For more information read here.

The problem is that the vast majority of known oil reserves are in the Middle East. We can diversify all we please, but where there ain't no oil, there ain't no oil. It's not a coincidence that the U.S. has troops in 4 out of the top 5 countries with the largest oil reserves.

What I find interesting is this: the known oil reserves add up to about 831 billion barrels. Current world consumption is about 60 million barrels a day. At current rates that's 40 years, folks. Of course, new oil is sometimes discovered. But consumption grows at an annual rate of a few percent. We will likely see the end of oil in our lifetimes. That's kinda scary, actually.

All that BS about fuels cells and hydrogen sounds nice, but where is the energy source? Coal? Hot air from politicians?

The answer is backups backups backups...

In the past year I've RMA'd 4 maxtor drives...However, I'm of the opinion that with the exception of particular cases (i.e. the IBM 60/75 GB deathstars) you'll find that failure rates are fairly consistent among manufacturers for drives at similar price points.

For every drive manufacturer, you'll find two camps...the people that say they had nothing but trouble with a certain brand, and the people who have been using the same brand for all their corporate desktops and not had a single failure.

I think it's all statistical anomolies...(i.e. some people are just unlucky or Lucky). The one thing you can count on is that regardless of what drive you get, it will fail eventually.

Yeah, but the Google version is a hack. Try http://www.infoplease.com/ipd/A0516324.html. There. In the title bar.

great website for information

US Unemployment Rate since 1948

US Inflation Rate History

US Per Capita Income History Since 1950

According to this list the U.S. had just under 300,000 casualties vs Canada's 42,000. And as was mentioned previously we had about 1/10th the population.

It's a deceitful practice and it should be illegal, that's the whole point. Imagine you order a brand new GMC Yukon, pay and have it delivered, but when it arrives GM has placed a sticker on the windows saying,

"You will void your warranty if you do not agree to the terms and conditions in the owners manual located in the glove box. You can accept these terms and conditions by unlocking the car door."

Did you have to buy a GMC? NO

Do they force you to unlock the door? NO

Can you return the truck and get your money back? At the added expense of shipping, hassle, and time spent, probably.

He obviously wants the computer since he ordered it in the first place but there was no indication when he ordered it that a catch-22 clause existed in the bundle.

Ah, but it is spoken by two of the planet's three most populous countries.

I live in a Major Metro Area (ranked between 30 and 50 on this list ) and I do fine with 2 kids, a car, a house that I "own" (mortgage, whatever), and most of the comforts I want.

I certainly fit in this salary range. What is the problem you are having? Perhaps you are having difficulties because you think you can have everything? Think again.

The company I worked for has tried outsourcing repeatedly. It costs more than the current employee model does. Hmmmmm. -WS

On the other hand, voting for a third-party candidate tells the two major party candidates that they'll have to adjust their policy in order to capture those votes.

Looking at this page, the race for popular votes was close in many states, like New Mexico and Missouri. Nader grabbed a few percent (roughly) in each case. He took 10% in Alaska. If I were a political scientist for a major candidate analyzing this or primary data, I would probably suggest a shift to the left in a few key areas (such as privacy rights, environmental standards, etc.).

However, had all the third-party voters chosen to go with the lesser of two evils and vote within the two major parties, how would those parties know that voters with differing views existed?

Actually, we're at #16 of 102 ranked countries. I.e., only 15 ranked countries are perceived to be less corrupt than we are. About 80 are more corrupt. So, no, we aren't all that corrupt relatively speaking.

the problem[s] with our government are unfixable, short of tearing the whole thing down and starting over from scratch.

You, my dear sir, are one of those people that are so cynical and negative as to be useless in providing any solution.

The "problems" in our government are directly related to voter apathy. But you can't blame that on the government. As soon as we, the people, decide we've had enough and start voting the problems will be very fixable.

On the other hand, I would certainly be pissed off if the government decided I couldn't watch television because it might make me 'violent'. So it would be hypocritical for me to proscribe that for some other nation. And the self-proclaimed "dragon king" of this place has no more right either. Everyone hated the Taliban, who imposed a similar ban on Television, but loves the Bhutanese. Sure, the taliban were all-around evil people, and the Dragon King seems genuinely interested in national happiness, but still. People need to be free to make up their own minds about what information they want to take in.

currency converter - findsounds.com

how stuff works - infoplease

about.com - librarian's index

rebecca's reference - tom mayo's links
-words:

acronym/abbr -lookup -finder -bm

trans -babelfish -worldlingo -google bm

bartleby

phrontistery

pseudodictionary

jargon file
--music

epitonic - pitchfork

sonomu - electraum

gnod - audioquarium --books:

amazon - abebooks - bookfinder

gutenberg & onlinebooks

loc.gov - lambiek comiclopedia - rebecca's books

Ummm, Think again. Until Columbia we have not had any fatalities on reentry or in space. While Russians on the other hand have one rocket blow up on the launch pad killing 50, and two kill people on rentry.

While we on the other hand have had the Apollo 1 fire, Challenger, and Columbia. So I guess our track records are about the same.

Source: Infoplease: Space Accidents

Is that "if you can not afford a lawyer, one will be appointed to you" only valid in criminal cases?

Is that "if you can not afford a lawyer, one will be appointed to you" only valid in criminal cases?

Here's a list of the most common ways that people died in the US, 2000:

1. Diseases of heart: 710,760
2. Malignant neoplasms (cancer): 553,091
3. Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke): 167,661
4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 122,009
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries): 97,900
6. Diabetes mellitus: 69,301
7. Influenza and pneumonia: 65,313
8. Alzheimer's disease: 49,558
9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 37,251
10. Septicemia: 31,224
11. Suicide: 29,350
12. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis: 26,552
13. Hypertension and hypertensive renal disease: 18,073
14. Assault (homicide): 16,765
15. Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids: 16,636
16. All other causes: 391,904

Total: 2,403,351

"Terrorist attacks", if listed using 2001's figures (~3000?), would be clumped into the "other" category, being 10 times less dangerous than suicide, and 5 times less likely than regular old homicide. "Terrorism" is a whopping 240 times less likely to kill you than heart failure, and would account for a mere 0.12% of all fatalities.

Think about it another way - every 2 days, more people die through heart failure than were killed in the WTC disaster. Worrying about "terror" is only likely to increase your odds of dying of heart failure or hypertension.

You missed hidden costs (which I mentioned). Insurance is probably cheaper if you have a minimally trained attendant pump the gas (who knows where the fire extinguisher is, can tell people to not smoke, and so on) rather than any random person who might sue (and probably does from time to time) the company running the gas station.

Here's some additional information

#1: The section of the pentagon that was hit had just recently been renovated to be bomb resistant. It had new bomb proof windows and kevlar panels around the whole outside of the building. The original design even had the outside walls made of reinforced concrete Additionally, the pentagon is the largest office building in the world. Each side of the pentagon is 921 feet long, making the ring thickness ~100 feet for each concentric ring. The concrete, kevlar, blast resistant windows and all the interior walls served to block most of the debris and shrapnel. Look at the world trade center: How much of the plane came out the other side, and how fast was it moving? Not much and not very (comparatively) The next interior ring is not collapsed, but that does not mean that it was not damaged in the attack, merely that it was not damaged significantly enough to cause it to collapse.

#2: Both eywitnesses on the ground and those on board the aircraft reported the plane descending as it was apporaching the pentagon. Clearly the "pilots" were not skilled in flying aircraft, and the plane was aimed too low to cause maximum damage. Since the pane was descending, a component of its velocity would be directed downward, and inertia would carry debris from the plane down and into the pentagon, towards the far corner of the basement. However, it is clear from subsequent pictures that the point of impact was at about the ceiling of the first floor.

#3: One would not expect to see debris on the lawn in front of the pentagon, if it were a plane moving at high velocity that struck the building. Inertia carries the debris along the path of theoriginal object, in this case the plane. If the plane is moving towards the pentagon, and the first point of impact is on the wall of the pentagon, then all subsequent debirs shoudl be found inside the building and some in the courtyard. If it were a truck bomb or some other sort of stationary bomb, shrapnel would be expected all over the lawn (see pics of the oklahoma city bombing) The very fact that there is no shrapnel or debris on the lawn indicates that whatever hit the building was moving at extremely high speeds.

#4: Because this picture was clearly taken over a month after the attack, when reconstruction was starting. Look in the background and you can see cranes working to remove building debris from the site. Clearly, if the lawn was not damaged in the attack, the defense secretay would not want to damage it further. It is standard practice on construction projects to put down sand and gravel over a lawn so that large trucks and equipment can move to the site. If the gravel isnt put down the lawn will be significantly damaged, and during rainstorms trucks and equipment can get stuck in the mud that forms.

#5: Think about momentum. Objects with larger momentum do more damage. What is going to do more damage? The large heavy fuselage? Or the light wingtips? Look closely at the second picture with the red airplane. Look at the wall right in front of the wingtips: You can see deep scarring on the walls. The most damage to the building is where the main part of the aircraft would have hit. Again think of the scale of the building and think how deep those scars where the wingtips hit would have to be in this picture.

#6:Take a glass vase and slam it against a wall: does it remain in one large chunk or does it shatter into a million peices? The airplane has clearly broken into millions of peices, as described by the fire chief. Just as with the vase, there is no more plane, just chunks. Additionally, aluminum will burn at a low temperature compared to burning of jet fuel. Try putting an aluminum can in a camp fire and see what happens to it, now imagine a fire 1000 degrees hotter than the hottest part of your campfire. It is entirely plausible that most of the aluminum from the plane simply

Everything was income for somebody before.

It's treated nearly the same as any other income.

Is it wrong? Consider this -- your parents have a substantial business or a farm. Dad dies. The business is valuated at a few million dollars. Since it was procured during the marriage, it's deemed that half of it's already mom's. The rest was dad's, but he leaves it to mom. So now it's all hers, but she now owes approximately 25% of the total value to Uncle Sam. She can't afford to pay this out of her pocket, so she has to sell it. She's lost the business/farm.

It gets worse if the business was procured (by dad) before the marriage ... in that case, she owns none of it before his death, and therefore she's now liable for about 50% of it's value to Uncle Sam.

Ultimately, it kills family owned businesses.

Why is it still around? Because it makes the government a lot of money.

Deny it all you want, I'm still right.

Er no, you're still wrong Mr. bigot. Perhaps if you read a book about anthropology, race or science in general with a publication date past 1955 you would realize that. Or you could simply visit this site. Or this one. Or even this one. But no, I suppose not--it wouldn't matter to you, would it? No matter how many intelligent, decent people of color there are in the world we're all just "niggers, kikes and chinks" to you, as you like to so charmingly put it. *Shrug.* Oh well. Your kind are slowly dying out, even on the political Right. Sucks to be you.

Deny it all you want, I'm still right.

Er no, you're still wrong Mr. bigot. Perhaps if you read a book about anthropology, race or science in general with a publication date past 1955 you would realize that. Or you could simply visit this site. Or this one. Or even this one. But no, I suppose not--it wouldn't matter to you, would it? No matter how many intelligent, decent people of color there are in the world we're all just "niggers, kikes and chinks" to you, as you like to so charmingly put it. *Shrug.* Oh well. Your kind are slowly dying out, even on the political Right. Sucks to be you.

In the US alone, or, more exactly, in the U.S. only. (well, it happened in Europe. Once.) The problem is NOT Quake, Doom, violent video games, or even Marilyn Manson. Consider this: ONLY in the U.S. are guns so easily available. If there is a problem here, I'd argue that it is NOT John Carmack; the problem here is N.R.A., and the fact that anybody out there can arm himself/herself to its teeth.

Only in the US?

Checkout A Timeline of Recent Worldwide School Shootings. A majority of shooting happen in the US, but there have been several major incidents in Europe and the rest of the world.

Yes, the BSD-license allows proprietary developers to club their users over the head.

Okay, this could be entertaining. Specify exactly what is "clubbing their users over the head." Fairly vague yet threatening language so far. The use of proprietary software for the end-user is no different then that of use of GPL software, yet you describe it as clubbing them over the head.

This is why BSD-licensed software simply cannot compete with proprietary software.

Hmmm, this is why the BSDs, XFree86, WineX and others are "dead"? They simply couldn't compete with OS-X, Metro-X, and (ahem) WineX? Could you name maybe one project that "couldn't compete" becuase it was BSD?

But lets look at an underlying motive here. You're not talking about freedom anymore, your talking about control. You are assuming a bleak future for those that cannot control what others do with their product.

Lets not make up meaningless phrases here.

I'm dealing with a moron here. Even worse an arrogant moron who presumes that if he/she's never heard of it before someone is making it up.

Socialism means

Hmmm, you even seem to have a rather simplistic idea of what socialism is. Its far off enough to warrant suspicion of you creating straw-men, but in this case I think you never learned any more then you highschool teacher told you. I know better and I'm not even a socialist.

Please turn off your FUD-machine:

What FUD are you talking about? It even restricts output it considers a "a work based on the Program". But even as it is, an end user has no more access to the program then someone that has legally purchased a proprietary program. The GPL guarantees nothing more to the end user then a EULA. (Wait, that did sound like deja vu. I did mention that before.)

Well at least you admitted it when you said "The FSF specifically chose not to enumerate end-user rights".

The FSF and FS advocates are not concerned with getting something for free.

Nope, they are not really interested in the end-user or downstream developers freedom at all.

Why is it that any time an individual has firm beliefs, (s)he's accused of being a zealot?

No its not that you have firm beliefs that make you a zealot, its your blind worship and misinformed stance *and* militant defence of it that makes me suspect you are a zealot.

Simply because I agree with RMS on a few issues does not mean I worship him.

This coming from the person who opened up their responce to me with, "Oh please. When you're done worshiping worshipping Linux Torvalds, please call us so that we can actually engage in an intelligent discussion." What a hypocrite.

Actually according to this site it is 3% in the US (which is what we are talking about here). Granted the data is from 1980 but that is the number I see on several other sites and I don't think it has gone down that much. Where did you get 20%?

If I made you look up the word 'genteel', mod me up - you learned a new word today!

From reading the comments, I've realized that few Slashdot commenters know much about the history that leads to the present war in Iraq. So, here is a very short recounting. The details given here have been reported by many reputable news sources. There seems to be no disagreement about these facts.

All the actions by the U.S. government mentioned here were largely hidden from U.S. citizens. United States citizens paid the bill, but were mostly unaware of what their government was doing. Even though the U.S. government is presently at war with Iraq, only a small percentage of Americans can find Iraq on a map. It is said that a high percentage support the U.S. government's war in Iraq, but this is a blind kind of support that does not mean that there is comprehension.

Thread 1, Iran: Hidden elements of the U.S. government overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran (Mossadegh) because he wanted to reduce the profits of U.S. and British oil companies doing business in Iran. The U.S. government supported a very weak man, the Shah of Iran, who became very brutal toward his own citizens. Eventually, people in Iraq overthrew the Shah. The U.S. government's actions de-stabilized the country and encouraged the violence to come.

People in Iran began supporting terrorism against the United States, in retaliaton for hidden U.S. government interference with the Iranian government.

To counteract Iranian support of violence against the U.S., the U.S. goverment began supporting and encouraging Iraq in a war against Iran. This was very profitable for U.S. weapons manufacturers. Weapons manufacturers in the U.S. were delivering weapons to Iraq under long-term contracts up until the same month as the U.S. began war on Iraq the first time.

April Glaspie, US Ambassador to Iraq, encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait. She said,

"I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait." [my emphasis]

She also said, "I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late 60's. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. [my emphasis]

Here is a complete transcript of the meeting between the U.S. ambassador and Saddam Hussein. (http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/glaspi e.html)

Ambassador Glaspie acted on instructions from Secretary of State James Baker, as she said. Later, she denied knowing that she was encouraging war. (Mr. Baker is a friend of George Bush and was later White House Chief of Staff.)

It is not known why the U.S. government would support Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. However, in the meeting mentioned above, April Glaspie said, "We have many Americans who would like to see the price [of oil] go above $25 because they come from oil-producing states."

The fortune of George H. W. Bush was heavily dependent on oil profits, and Texas is an oil-producing state. If the U.S. government is successful at gaining control of Iraq, profits for some companies in the U.S. will increase enormously because Iraqi oil will be sold directly to U.S. companies, rather than to Turkish companies, as it is now.

Thread #2, Afghanistan: There is a huge amount of oil in one of the countries inland from Afghanistan. However, the only good way to get the oil to people who would buy it is to build a pipeline through Afghanistan. The Soviets wanted to get