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He campaigned on a platform of isolationism. Why would he care if two countries on the other side of the world are hacking each other?

Not just that, unlike previous Republican administrations, he takes a dim view of all of Islam: he doesn't view Sunnis as better than Shias or vice versa or any of that. His whole stance of allying w/ the Russians in Syria is based on that: that militias that are financed by the Saudis, Turks or Qatar are just not reliable at best, and Jihadists at worst. That's why he's taken a position that's completely heterodox to the Republicans, if not downright heretical.

On Iran, what he has to do is pull the plug on that deal, and make it clear to Iran's trading partners that they can choose to trade either w/ the US or Iran, but not both. If European countries are so enamored w/ trading w/ Iran, that's fine: just don't expect to do any business w/ the US.

But as far as the Saudis go, we have no dog in the fight b/w Iran and Saudi Arabia. Both are our enemies, and the 2 of them fighting each other is an alien vs predator situation, to paraphrase Debbie Schlussel. Or like the 2 cats of Kilkinney. If they can fight each other and wipe each other out, then praise be to allah - nothing like it!

Wars have a habit of spilling their effects across borders. For a time, I was reading every day's front page of the Canberra Times starting in October 1938. The problem of international refugees appeared again and again, and I had to stop in February 1939 because I got busy with work. The war had only just begun at that point.

65 million people were displaced at the end of 2015. This problem is not just Saudi Arabia and Iran's problem. A lot of the costs of their "not so cold" war are externalized onto other nations.

It's obviously more than just OCR, because when you mouse over the page it will hightlight each article you're looking at, however oddly that article was fit into the page (including highlighting associated pictures, etc). That's actually a pretty cool site, in fact that archive might even be a better reason to get a subscription than the actual current edition.

The free preview doesn't give you much, but it does show the issue from February 1, 1979. In the top right is a story about Ayatollah Khomeini arriving back in Iran from exile, which is interesting to see the contemporary story. On the bottom-left of the front page is a smaller article, without pictures, that continues on page 21. Here's the headline:

Security Agency Holds A Quiet, Crucial Power Over Communications

The article begins "For the last quarter century, one of the Government's most secret agencies has played an important, largely undisclosed role in shaping the nation's privately owned ..." (that's your free preview). If I zoom in on the paper I think I can make out the rest of that sentence as "... communications network of [broadcast towers?], underground cables, satellites, and computers." The list of subjects on that article lists astronautics, communications, internal security, internal communications, National Security Agency, telephones, and United States. 37 years ago today the NY Times was reporting on the NSA holding power over the communications infrastructure of the US.

Page 4 has an ad for the latest TI calculators, available at Bloomingdale's.

This story is on page 7:

SOLAR ENERGY HELD STILL DECADES AWAY Panel Does Not Expect Major Shift Until Technology Is Ready for Conversion in Electricity A panel of leading specialists, convened a year ago at the request of the White House to assess prospects for generating electric power from sunlight, has concluded that the ultimate prospects are "bright" but that for at least a decade the technology will not be sufficiently advanced to initiate a major conversion effort.

Old newspapers are very interesting. I thought I knew all about World War II. Then I started reading the newspaper, starting in October 1938. I am reading the Canberra Times, since it is freely available on the internet. And Australia has such a great website to read it on! It's a bit sad that the Library of Congress doesn't seem to have this kind of system for American newspapers. I guess that's what living in a society that believes in perpetual copyright gets you.

I agree - just publish it. If you're afraid that the population will be seduced by it, you have bigger problems than the book.

Better still, every book sold could have a percent of the proceeds donated to a Jewish charity. It wouldn't be the first time. I borrowed the idea from a January 1939 newspaper article

http://trove.nla.gov.au/

Find and get over 385,550,734 Australian and online resources: books, images, historic newspapers, maps, music, archives and more

They didn't just get made up because it was fun to regulate taxi drivers, they're there to protect people getting into the back of cars with strangers driving them.

Oh, please. They are there because the taxi drivers lobbied for it, going as far as rioting in the streets, beating the other drivers senseless and cutting off traffic in the financial districts, because during the great depression everyone who had a car was competing with them.

Here's an article from 1934: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/17056337/

Anyway censorship and freedom of speech are fairly low on the agenda

Say rather not on any agenda anywhere in the country and you're closer to the truth. The hon(!) R. Finkelstein, a respected Australian jurist, has this to say about freedom of speech

"United States, free speech is given primacy among rights, and therefore the potential harm caused by restrictions on speech is thought to outweigh the potential harm caused by speech that is not restricted. In Australia free speech does not necessarily have the same primacy"

more on the hon(!) R. Finkelsteins' views of free speech here

Nice straw-man rebuttal you've got there.

Also:

Bani-Sadr, the former President of Iran, has also stated "that the Reagan campaign struck a deal with Teheran to delay the release of the hostages in 1980," asserting that "by the month before the American Presidential election in November 1980, many in Iran's ruling circles were openly discussing the fact that a deal had been made between the Reagan campaign team and some Iranian religious leaders in which the hostages' release would be delayed until after the election so as to prevent President Carter's re-election"[15] He repeated the charge in "My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution & Secret Deals with the U.S."[16][17]

^ "Bani-Sadr, in U.S., Renews Charges of 1980 Deal". Nytimes.com. 1991-05-07. Retrieved 2010-11-18.
^ http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2621268
^ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0080405630

When James Cook ran the Endeavour aground on a shoal in north Queensland on June 11, 1770, (18 years before the first convicts arrived in Sydney) his men went ashore for 7 weeks to make hull repairs. They met the Guugu Yimithirr people and collected a long list of words including "Kangooroo - the leaping quadrapod". (And because Slashdot doesn't support Unicode I can't show you the pronunciation - look at Unicode-capable Wikipedia).

The account of the encounter is quite fascinating and very interesting with the hindsight we have now in the 21st century. The Aborigines did not want their chickens or pigs and burnt fires around their tents. We now know that the peoples of the Pacific did not want pigs because they would dig up tubers - taking away food and causing environmental damage. They were also likely aware of diseases.

When James Cook ran the Endeavour aground on a shoal in north Queensland on June 11, 1770, (18 years before the first convicts arrived in Sydney) his men went ashore for 7 weeks to make hull repairs. They met the Guugu Yimithirr people and collected a long list of words including "Kangooroo - the leaping quadrapod". (And because Slashdot doesn't support Unicode I can't show you the pronunciation - look at Unicode-capable Wikipedia).

The account of the encounter is quite fascinating and very interesting with the hindsight we have now in the 21st century. The Aborigines did not want their chickens or pigs and burnt fires around their tents. We now know that the peoples of the Pacific did not want pigs because they would dig up tubers - taking away food and causing environmental damage. They were also likely aware of diseases.

I think you're mixing up the concept of mass-energy equivalence with the theory of relativity. Mass-energy equivalence (ie. e=mc^2) was used during the development of the atom bomb.

Sounds like you're right on that, I admit I don't know the science, but I read this book http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/140053 (Some time ago, imperfect memory) but they were definitely working on nukes and certainly didn't develop them as much as they could have due to rejecting science based on ideology. The fact that nukes were hypothetical to them rather than real is the point. Had they developed them first ...

It's not like the lottery, or magic, it's physics and it will work for anyone who applies it. Had they applied the "Jewish" knowledge they rejected the outcome of WWII would possibly been very different regardless of other problems the Nazi's had.

That's why I'm voting LNP tomorrow...the local labor mob in charge now are greedy commies; yeah I'm talking to you Bowen mayor Cr Brunker!

NO!!!!!!!

please... I'll even beg [beg]

If you can not vote labor, vote greens at least then you can have a clear conscience and a warm inner glow.

I do not want the cops to be in charge again.

http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Author/Home?author=Whitrod,%20Ray,%201915-2003

I least labor lies with a smile on their face.
(grama nazis are you happy ? correct syntax that time.)

The nationals, thats what LNP really are (the liberals in qld do not exist anymore), are a corrupt bunch of country bumpkins.

Yeah, it's also terrible that nobody archived any of the 2000 Olympics stuff...

Check out Australia's web archive run by the National Library of Australia: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/

It may not be the same size yet, but many of the web app clones have the same issue as well. Its scope is also different as well - aiming at Australian content, but again many clones limit their scope as well.

Incentivation was a word bandied about Australian political circles for a while. I can hardly believe it began 19 years ago, but I remember the word got short shrift from anyone who cared about the English language.

It's amazing that anyone still believes there is anywhere 'safe' from the Imperial doctrine of we'll-write-your-laws-or-bomb-the-crap-out-of-you.

Guess what? You have no constitutional rights outside US borders, buddy.

Not true. Members of the military of the US fall under the jurisdiction of the UCMJ which is provided for in the US constitution.

If I am attacking your country, killing members of your armed forces, I am breaking about a million of your country's laws (murder etc...). Wartime law is not the same as civilian law. You are confusing the two. Extradition treatys do not necessarily apply to war crimes.

One of the few correct decisions that President Bush made was to refuse our participation in the ICC. By doing so, he protects US citizens from prosecution by a US-hating political body. Bravo.

OK, please quote which section of the consitution, or the President's oath of office if you like, prohibits US citizens from being prosecuted by a non-US court.

Sure, easy:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

And the constitution says:

"The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed."

If you don't like the ICC, fine. But at least get your facts straight before you criticise it.

Yep, facts are pretty straight.

And, while you're at it, stop treating the US constitution like some sort of magic piece of paper that has universal powers. It doesn't.

Actually it does. It is magical enough that it created the single most powerful nation in the history of the world in less than 200 years. Its magical enough that it protects me from most of the evils of government. Its magical enough that it has changed the face of the world by providing a model for every other country in the world to follow.

The US Constitution is the single most powerful and magical document ever written. Never before in the history of the world has a society had such protections from the government.

I wonder where your dislike for the constitution comes from? Could it be sour grapes?

While I gave high marks to Master and Commander for their coverage of the tiniest technical details of period naval warfare

Actually, I had a couple of problems with the historicity of the movie.

For one thing, the ship they used, the HMS Rose, is clearly frigate. But they repeatedly referred to her as a "Ship of the Line." Frigates are not ships of the line. They were not placed in the line of battle for naval engagements. Depending on the era, ship of the line had either more than 50, or more than 64 guns. Frigates like Rose were used as couriers, scouts, and for blockading and harassing shipping.

In addition, I don't think there ever existed a privateer which could compete in displacement and armament with Royal Navy frigate. British frigates were on the light side by American standards, but they were still quite a bit more powerful and expensive than even the best financed privateer.

Not having read the books, I was a bit put off. But I have since seen the paperback jacket, which makes it clear that the ship in question was not a frigate, but a brig. That would put solidly in the class of your average privateer.

So they got those two bits all wrong in the movie. But it was worth it to see Rose put through her paces on film. My dad took me aboard her when I was a kid. My she's yar!

I'm not trying to sound anti-American, just offering a non-American perspective.

In Soviet Australia, we already pay for bits, not bandwidth

I don't know about you, but this isn't my idea of a great pin-up.. but to each their own I guess.

The tapes themselves, not the readers and not the formats of the data on the tapes, last considerably less than a decade, depending on who you ask and how you store them and the quality of the tape. Analog tapes are far more vulnerable than digital ones, but estimates range from 1 year to 20 years, but between 5 and 10 (under optimal storage) being very common estimates.

Since most people choose their data tapes based on lowest price, quality is usually crap and you can only count on a year or two of reliability. Five years is probably top average life expectancy for less than top of the line tapes (non- metal or chrome tapes) with optimum storage. Optimum storage conditions are around 21 C and 41% humidity. Neither of the two common tape storage units like gym bags or car trunks meet those conditions. :P Eventually you will have to migrate to another of the same type of physical medium or a different type of physical medium. Most people only think of this after they've lost a few years of archived data. Do this migration before you start losing data. A good tape costs a few bucks, the data probably cost hundreds of thousands or millions to acquire and may not be replacable.

If you are really paranoid, keep three backups: one for occasional restores, one for backup, and one in case something bad happened to the first two.

let me tell you about my friend Dave Hatch.

Titles?

Some of my favourite titles are from a weird and warped Aussie tv show a few years back. The original web site appears dead, but there is an archive here - click on the Home Page link. Some of my faves:

The Sound of One Hand Killing

Don't Cry For Me Arch 'n' Tina

You Light Up My Wife

"K for Kleen!"

...laura

Many places, including The National Library of Australia, have lots of material on digital preservation. With physical artifacts such as paper, vellum, or film it takes either many decades or direct physical effort to destroy it. The default for digital content that it is rendered unusable through changing technologies or even relatively rapid deterioration of the physical medium.

Many places, including The National Library of Australia, have lots of material on digital preservation. With physical artifacts such as paper, vellum, or film it takes either many decades or direct physical effort to destroy it. The default for digital content that it is rendered unusable through changing technologies or even relatively rapid deterioration of the physical medium.

Many places, including The National Library of Australia, have lots of material on digital preservation. With physical artifacts such as paper, vellum, or film it takes either many decades or direct physical effort to destroy it. The default for digital content that it is rendered unusable through changing technologies or even relatively rapid deterioration of the physical medium.

Many places, including The National Library of Australia, have lots of material on digital preservation. With physical artifacts such as paper, vellum, or film it takes either many decades or direct physical effort to destroy it. The default for digital content that it is rendered unusable through changing technologies or even relatively rapid deterioration of the physical medium.

Well, you know, one giant leap for mankind and all that

Now it's an attraction in a theme park near Moscow. Sorry, no link.

How about this one?

It looks like it also took a trip down to Sydney last August for the Olympics.

I assume the National Library of Australia is a copyright library like most other national libraries in the world, so it should receive a copy of every publication of any size produced in Australia.

What people tend to forget is that one man's capital is another man's cost. If you overspend on rolling out a network, you have to pass the costs onto the next guy or consumer somehow or else your shareholders get rather upperty. All those megaprofit projections by the dotcons have to come out of someone's pocket.

LL