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One can enumerate the reasons for Iraq's invasion as follows:

• Establishing a precedence for preepmtive war. Now America has bybassed the UN, and global opposition to this unilateral action. If the will to build an empire arises, then it will be done without any regard to what the rest of the world think or say. You can read the following articles too:

  • The True Rationale? It's a Decade Old by James Mann, March 7, 2004

  • PBS had a good program before Iraq was invaded called the War Behind Closed Doors. You can watch the entire program in 30-60 minutes intervals:

  • Specially interesting is this page in the Project for the New American Century Statement of Principles where you can see who signed this document. Interesting to note that all of them are either now in the Pentagon (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, ...etc.), or are aids to Cheney (Libby, Abrams, ...etc.)

  • An overview of who is who in the neocons circle of power.

• Securing cheap oil. That is obvious. Bush's family history in oil makes that an easy one to figure.

• Complete Dad's job. The personal desire of G.W. Bush to continue where his father has left, to finish the job, and do better.

• The Israel Factor. Read the Israel connection, and how Zionism influences US foreign policy. If you take a look at the players in the PNAC above, and you will find them all staunch Zionists, whether Jews or Christians.

• Construction Contracts. The Infrastructure contracts for US corporations to rebuild Iraq is a lucrative business. Of course the Halliburton link has been reported several times (Cheney used to be its manager or director). The defence spending, plus the contracts should fuel the US economy for a while, or that is what they thought would happen.

The planning to invade Iraq was done before September 11, 2001 attacks, as ex-secretary Paul O'Neill has revealed

As many would notice, Bush is not running the show. Bush is the ideal front for such an operation. He thinks he is doing the right thing, and that God has to do something with it. You can see this PBS program The Jesus Factor.

There are two factions grappling for Bush's attention. The moderate pragmatics (Powell, Armitage), and the extremist ideologue (Cheney, his subordinates, Rumsfeld, his subordinates). Powell's position is almost identical to Shimon Peres when he was the Foreign Minister in the Sharon government, a rational pragmatic dove amid the ideologue extremist hawks.

What is funny and sad at the same time, is that the US Foreign policy is now crafted by the Pentagon and the Vice President in accordance with neocon think tanks like the PNAC. No role whatsover is given to the Department of State (where it should really belong), and Powell is merely a messenger (go tell the UN we are doing so and so, try to sell it diplomatically, ...etc.). No wonder Powell has said that he will not seek a second term even if Bush gets reelected (and repeated it a few weeks ago). Not nice thing being in his shoes I guess.

I would not go as far as to say that they intentionally planned and executed the September 11 thing. But the neocons sure did exp

They're afraid of what someone who doesn't have benevolent intentions might be able to do with this approach.

During the Cold War, the Soviets had a problem keeping up with the USA's military spending on nukes.

The Soviets started to play with viruses to ensue that they could still wreck havoc if needed (since, if you are a superpower, national defense means destroying the world).

The Soviets ended up making some nasty viruses, and altering existing viruses so that current vaccines didn't work. Plus, they weaponized existing viruses (such as marburg, a relative of ebola) in order to maximize the dispersion.

With the fall of the USSR and the economic woes that followed, the location of some 'super-viruses' and viral researchers are in question.

PBS did a good story on this awhile back.

I just ran across this on google (I'm not sure how it missed it. It's on the FIRST DARN PAGE!). If you're interested....

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/venona/

It's an overview. Plenty more info on venona exists on the net.

IMHO - The TPF is one of the most exciting plans in space exploration, ever (right up there with thorough investigations of the chemically interesting planets and moons in our system). It can answer a whole host of questions regarding planetary formation, not the least of which is looking for the presence of life (including non-earth-like life). Even if it doesn't find any indication of it, the data gathered on how and where planets form will substantially flesh out the variables in the Drake equation (specifically the Fp and Ne).

I don't think technology will make that big of difference. There's no substitute for resolution when it comes to optical astronomy - it's all a matter of lenses.

Not a new issue, people. Photography impacted public opinion in the Civil War. after the battle pictures of Antietam The library of congress photos of the civil war. Ken Burns has some interesting stuff too ...

Clifford Stoll book "Cuckoo's Egg:Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage" details his encounter with a german hacker in the 1980's. It was the book that inspired my interest and career in computers and eventually as a System Administrator. In 1990, Nova made a documentary about it called "The KGB, CIA, Computer and Me".

What is so ironic is that at the time the FBI did not even consider hacking a crime because Berkley couldn't show a sufficient monetary loss. This is despite the fact that the hacker was after military research. How times have changed! In any event, Stoll's ability to use his scientific training as a astronomer, his basic knowledge of computers and programming mixed with a quantum of social engineering and a massive honey pot, he was able to trace this hacker back to a KGB agent in Germany.

If I recall correctly, instead of being arrested, this hacker was found dead in his burnt out car in the middle of a forest somewhere in East or West Germany. It's a great read.

Clifford Stoll book "Cuckoo's Egg:Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage" details his encounter with a german hacker in the 1980's. It was the book that inspired my interest and career in computers and eventually as a System Administrator. In 1990, Nova made a documentary about it called "The KGB, CIA, Computer and Me".

What is so ironic is that at the time the FBI did not even consider hacking a crime because Berkley couldn't show a sufficient monetary loss. This is despite the fact that the hacker was after military research. How times have changed! In any event, Stoll's ability to use his scientific training as a astronomer, his basic knowledge of computers and programming mixed with a quantum of social engineering and a massive honey pot, he was able to trace this hacker back to a KGB agent in Germany.

If I recall correctly, instead of being arrested, this hacker was found dead in his burnt out car in the middle of a forest somewhere in East or West Germany. It's a great read.

WHAT?! A suit as "most powerful man in technology journalism!? **NEVER**!!!!

It's gotta be Bob Cringely.

It's not that we can't technically go on with Moore's Law, it's just that maybe it's not worth it.

Makes sense. In an earlier Mars rover thread I was linked to a pbs NOVA video about the rovers. PBS for some strange reason allows only US residents to watch these videos (I'm in Canada). After using a public US based proxy to circumvent PBS's useless attempt at control, I tried to login to Slashdot only to find that it doesn't recognize my userid/pw combo. Needless to say, after removing the proxy I could login as normal.

Ironically, many Iranians actually have more porn access than Americans do. TV in Iran is heavily censored, and it's goddamn boring too. As a result every Irani who can afford one has a satellite dish, and although the gov't at one point managed to block the politically sensitive Farsi-language NITV from LA (apparently from Cuba), they have no hope of shutting down the many many porno channels that share TELSTAR 12 with it. As a result of this odd coincidence, there are hardcore and even gay porn feeds available in many Irani households.

And vice-versa. For you over there on your quaint, backwards little islands, you can already get PBS's Frontline free off their site in 5-minute Real or Windows Media chunks. "Dot Con" and "The Merchants of Cool" are good, somewhat nationality-neutral choices. And fine, if you must know, there's also "American Porn".

The brain drain is happening and there are many factors.

Schools, the drug culture, politics and parents just not giving a shit. Luckily I live only 3 hours from Canada if things get too out of hand.

Only in a really poorly managed network. Failover is a wonderful thing.

Cringley analyzed this before:

Now here is the part that sticks in my mind: the fault tolerant nature of the cluster is such that if a machine fails, the other machines simply take over its functions. As a result, <b>whenever a server fails at Google, THEY DO NOTHING. They don't replace the broken machine. They don't remove the broken machine. They don't even turn it off.</b> In an army of drones, it isn't worth the cost of labor to locate and replace the bad machines. Hundreds, maybe thousands of machines lie dead, uncounted among the 10,000 plus.

We have reached the point where we are totally dependent on computers, yet the marginal cost of a computer&#151;at least for Google&#151;is nothing. This may be an historical first.

• The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798
• Lincoln and Habeas Corpus 1861-1865
• Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917

The equating of "very expensive rock" with "love" has always stumped me. I'd have to rate it as one of the greatest PR scams ever pulled...

Actually, that's about right. DeBeers' version of the "diamond age" is an impressive feat of marketing combined with agressive market control. It wasn't really that long ago that the "diamonds are a girl's best friend" meme was instilled in large portions of world culture.

But DeBeers' is hardly the only one who supports an entire industry with marketing tactics. For a real head-shaping check out "The Merchants of Cool" . A rather eye-opening tutorial on modern marketing tactics, and the whole progam is available online now...

Don't you mean: in time, the parts of The Constitution that conflict with the DMCA will be clarified.

Yeah, and it won't be surprising. The parts of the Constitution that allowed laws against slavery were clarified in 1857. And the parts of the Constitution that allowed laws against abortion on demand were clarified in 1973.

From the CNet article:
But some rivals said they expect Apple's dominance will be temporary.

"Apple is probably still riding the wave of their initial launch," said Jason Reindorp, a group manager in Microsoft's Windows digital media unit. "They have spent an inordinate amount of money to generate awareness around their closed ecosystem. (But) as people get more sophisticated in this area they are going to be getting more frustrated with a closed ecosystem. I think the market will kind of self-correct as things get more mainstream."

(Let's ignore the fact, for the moment, that CNet decided to end the article with such a poorly written presentation of Apple's "rivals" that think the "dominance [of iTunes] will be temporary" by quoting a Microsoft rep and... hrm... just that one MS rep.)

Is that some sort of joke? A Microsoft employee says that the folk at Apple, "have spent an inordinate amount of money to generate awareness around their closed ecosystem" and that "the market will kind of self-correct as things get more mainstream"?!!

No, Mr. Reindorp, the market doesn't always self-correct. Let me refer you across campus to your OS development building see when it doesn't. You, of all companies, should know the advantages of spending inordinately more than anyone else is prepared to spend to effect dominance in a market. Lucky for you OS consumers haven't reached the level of "sophistication" when it comes to operating systems that you expect from them in the digital music arena.

I'm heartened to see, at least for the time being, a market where Apple is comfortable betting the farm (the market Apple calls a "digital lifestyle" where the Mac is a "digital hub") and MS is not. I'm not sure I 100% believe what Cringely recently said, but this is one case where I hope Apple does ignore MS and keeps releasing a superior product with an inordinately high budget behind it.

And this hope isn't just b/c I like Apple and use OS X daily at home, but also because I'm a stockholder. Apple's plan as you characterize it, as every MS employee should know, is often inordinately successful.

Here is the rest of the story. I linked to only one the first time. Sorry.

How can this be a troll when it is all true?
Check out
THE TRUTH

I may not have an account but I am not a troll!!

The speed of sound at 30,000 ft above sea level is about 678 MPH

So at top speed thats: 89% the speed of sound (damn near 90%)
And At cruising speed it's: 83%

Pretty Close.

If "ice age" is used to refer to long, generally cool, intervals during which glaciers advance and retreat, we are still in one today. Our modern climate represents a very short, warm period between glacial advances.

Between 52 and 57 million years ago, the Earth was relatively warm. Tropical conditions actually extended all the way into the mid-latitudes (around northern Spain or the central United States for example), polar regions experienced temperate climates, and the difference in temperature between the equator and pole was much smaller than it is today. Indeed it was so warm that trees grew in both the Arctic and Antarctic, and alligators lived in Ellesmere Island at 78 degrees North.

Actually, it was Tesla who came up with the particle cannon.

So they must've read his autobiography!

I'm over 40, so I'm completely lost anyway.

One thing I cannot fathom is the branding phenomenon. My son, 13, had a couple of hundred dollars to spend recently and he decided to spend it on a pair of sneakers that cost $150!

Which is the worst part:

A) They probably won't fit him in 6 months
B) He can't wear them outdoors, because they are "indoor" shoes
C) Kids are now scammed into buying expensive crap due to peer pressure or perceived "coolness"

Coolhunters are evil.

It appears that at least some of the Diebold machines DO have internal printers, but Diebold has been notably coy about mentioning that, and indeed has been strangely resistant to the whole idea of verifiability.

The video's from PBS's Nova - The Elegant Universe - Newton's Embarassing Secret explains this.

Off their rocker... Tesla fanatics... them be fighting words!!!

We kind of have a LOT to thank Tesla for after all. Go read some of his patents if you have any doubts Selected Tesla Patents.

In my opinion if Tesla where alive today he would have been one of the biggest Open Source advocates around. The reason why everybody who turns on a light swich fed by AC current generated by one of Tesla generators doesn't thank him for it is mainy due to his lack of capitalist motivation. He believed in information and advancement for all mankind with his work, not making a few million for himself.

In fact Westinghouse owed Tesla many million (I think an estamate was around 6 million) for royalties on patents Westinghouse purchased on AC generators and motors. It would have bankrupted the Westinghouse business if they had to pay, so Tesla wrote the debt off and thanked Westinghouse in believing in AC currents when lunatics like Edison where running about trying to create a DC based domestic electrical system. He died a poor man basically because he donated his work on AC generators/motors to the people of America and the world by not enforcing royalties due.

Tesla is basically the exact opposite of Bill Gates. He actually created and invented things. And he didn't try and change people outrageous liscence and royaltiy fees every time people used his products. He believed in the betterment of man kind through his work, not becoming the richest guy in the world.

</rant>

Pharmaceuticals have been the most profitable sector for a long time. In 2002 the industry had 18.5% profits, while the fortune 500 averaged around 3% Also notice that while R&D costs for the industry are very high, they spend more on marketing than R&D

Didn't someone already complete the recount and showed the Gore won??

Not quite. The "media recount" showed that depending on what your standard was for reading an unclear ballot was, there was at least one possible set of rules that would have allowed Gore to win, but under the actual rule sets that were in play in 2000, and even the rule sets the Gore campaign were requesting in court, Bush was the winner.

Here is a detailed accounting of the various counting methods from PBS. In the end, Bush is the legal and legitimate president, but there's still enough wiggle room for the Gore supporters to claim they were robbed as well. The core problem is that you don't know for sure that a dimpled chad was really an intent to vote, or a voter who started to push but then pulled back without thinking they comitted, or just the result of a woman's fingernail while holding the ballot improperly.

Really, punch cards have got to go... we shouldn't have any unclarity in how we're supposed to count ballots. The box should either be marked or not marked.

Even if the bills were printed on paper (or something else) you'd still get the little blue and red fibers or something similar. They're embedded as an anticounterfeit measure. PBS ran an interesting NOVA program about money that talked about this and a bunch of other good stuff.

It's worth keeping in mind Cringley's column this week. It's entitled, "The Only Way to Beat Microsoft is by Ignoring Microsoft."

Last term at the University of Oregon, we had the conceptual artist Mel Chin give a lecture on one of his projects entitled "Revival Field".

It's quite similar to what Chris Anderson is doing in Chile and Brazil. Funded by a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Revival Field was the first experiment in the United States to use plants to absorb toxic metals from the soil. This launched the nation's burgeoning phytoremediation industry, which one business analyst predicts will be a $400 million dollar business by 2005.

Last term at the University of Oregon, we had the conceptual artist Mel Chin give a lecture on one of his projects entitled "Revival Field".

It's quite similar to what Chris Anderson is doing in Chile and Brazil. Funded by a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Revival Field was the first experiment in the United States to use plants to absorb toxic metals from the soil. This launched the nation's burgeoning phytoremediation industry, which one business analyst predicts will be a $400 million dollar business by 2005.

"Modern evnironmentalist organizations are nothing but anti-corporate, anti-progress, anti-technology, socialist whiners who would cut off mother earth's nose to spite anyone in a three piece suit."

Anti-progress sums it all up. Here is an interview with a psychologist who studied a certain breed of environmentalist (anti-nuke) and describes their psychopathologies.

You sir no nothing about science. You CANNOT make a claim with the limited data points that humans currently have about weather patterns.

First, I'm only repeating what the general scientific consensus is. This is nothing new or strange.

Second, If we had limited data points, you would have a valid point. But the fact is we have very precise data points garnered from ice cores drilled in the Antartic that shows the content of CO2 in the atmosphere and the related temperature changes for the past 500,000 years.

See this link

So I would say, it is you sir, who knows nothing about science.

I call bullshirt on this. Link a document that proves this outrageous statement.

Bullshirt right back at you.

From this link:

Here you may see the close correlation between CO2 and Temperature variation in planet history. You may find that recent CO2 concentration level of 375 ppm is much higher than any value in the previous 450,000 years, and that the rate of increase of CO2 with time is about 100 times higher than any other rate of increase in the recorded history.

They can drill ice cores from the Antartic to precisely detail changes in the earths climate and CO2 levels in the atmosphere for the past 500,000 years.

I'm sure there are more many other articles around. NOVA did an excellent show on this as well. I'm stating something that is generally accepted in the scientific community (outside of those scientists counsulting to Bush - they are the minority).

I'm convinced that some companies just have a dysfunctional corporate culture that's immune to real reform. Their only hope is that things get so bad that all the top idiots lose their jobs -- and they're very, very lucky in choosing their new management. (That's basically what saved IBM.) But AT&T's so far gone, not even a total shakeout can save them.

There are many groups out there looking for ways to integrate technology into the classroom to grab the students attention. I work for The Concord Consortium, a non profit company that supports a number of NSF and DOE projects that find different ways to help students learn. We have written opensource java software to help students visualize genetics, molecules, and math; we study HOW students learn; we spawned off an OnLine Virtaul HighSchool which is now it's own organization with 6000 students; and we are always looking forward for new ways to keep students interested and learning.
We are working with PBS on a professional development project aimed at improving Algebra content knowledge and teaching practices.

On a different note, Maine a few years back initiated the Maine Laptop program, where every year every school in Maine gets laptop's for all of its 7th grade students. Technicaly in 5 years time all Middle and High School students will have computers.

-Ben

PBS has some temperature curves that show why scientists worry. Also look at how the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is influenced by the industrial revolution.

PBS has some temperature curves that show why scientists worry. Also look at how the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is influenced by the industrial revolution.

German corporations enjoy free speech in Germany as well -- this is not the issue. The German legal system just doesn't believe in waiting years before addressing what is an obvious wrong. Contrast this with the judge in the SCO case who decided to let SCO keep spitting out their FUD until the IBM case is solved, thereby giving SCO a free hand to continue to damage RedHat's reputation for what could be just about forever. German courts happen to think that if you want to say bad things about the way other people do business, you should be able to prove it right away, not five years later. This is sort of along the lines that free speech does not cover me calling up your boss and telling him that you, say, have intercourse with sheep.

The simple fact is that Germany's legal system is superior in this respect, as in quite a number of others. Or to put it the other way around: The American legal system is hopelessly stuck in the 18th century, and even though Germany is not in the 21st century where everybody should be, it is at least in the 20th century.

Sometimes, 200 years and a bit of common sense can make all the difference.

I believe they address the selling of chemicals in one of the 'episodes' near the bottom.

This was not a case of GWB senior or Reagan going "here's your mustard gas, wink, wink", but more of an american company that was breaking the law by providing known precursors to a country on a prohibited list. There were probably also some political officials at some level who turned blind eyes, received kickbacks, or were asleep at their post.

So, it's not like we should blame GWB for it, but at the same time we have to own up to our responsibilities, as a nation, for often arming dangerous people, either as policy, or as a byproduct of greed by the few.

I believe they address the selling of chemicals in one of the 'episodes' near the bottom.

This was not a case of GWB senior or Reagan going "here's your mustard gas, wink, wink", but more of an american company that was breaking the law by providing known precursors to a country on a prohibited list. There were probably also some political officials at some level who turned blind eyes, received kickbacks, or were asleep at their post.

So, it's not like we should blame GWB for it, but at the same time we have to own up to our responsibilities, as a nation, for often arming dangerous people, either as policy, or as a byproduct of greed by the few.

Lawrence Lessig's new book talks about the perils of intelectual property law. In regard to the Sunny Bono Act in particular he was saying that the law only protects those with money.

In fact he went on to say that the ones with incredible amounts on money are the ones that are actually constructing law. Not exactly top secret information, but it still doesn't make me tingly when I hear it again. I don't know about you, but I can't think of anyone who has more money than Microsoft. It's a shame too. The only way to fix this situation, in my opinion is to have a complete reform in both congress and the house in how laws are made. Namely, get all that fucking special interest money out of the picture.

It kills me to think that these assholes that I vote for every year or so would rather take money and make laws to benefit the interests of companies like Microsoft and Disney than work for my interests.

Cringely also had a column on the subject of Microsoft.

My only question with all of this would be:
What happens when the costs of legal action exceeds sales for an extended period of time? Yeah, they have their cash flow, but that could only last so long. And the more of these law suits get settled out of court, the more of them there are going to be. So it seems logical to me to think that at some point, litigation may kill the beast. Although, it could probably go on for quite some time.

Didn't Crimly just cover this?

You mean Robert X. Cringely in "Now the Only Way Microsoft Can Die is by Suicide". Yes, and it was discussed on /. too.

that show what's necessary--and the default Windoze install.

Cringely touched on a related subject when XP was being prep'd.
Note: The very top of that page (Google cache--some key stuff highlighted) is trashed by Moz 1.4,
but the link at the top is the original page.

gewg_

A few days of revenue to lock out all competitors is a bargain.

From what I've read on the web and seen on a PBS Nova program about the subject: during a flip the Earth's internal dynamo goes from ordered to chaotic.

You might reference Robert X. Cringely and his articles on outsourcing.

Here are a few articles:
The U.S. Military is Busily Outsourcing Its Core IT Services, but Would a Really Disciplined Outfit Like Wal-Mart Do the Same?

How to Turn Around the U.S. Tech Economy in One Week With No New Laws, Regulations, or Tax Breaks Required and
Without Moving to India

When It Comes to Understanding Why Government Doesn't Understand High-Tech and Why Financial Markets Seem to be Working Against Our Own Interests, Well, We Did It to Ourselves

U.S. Leaders Either Don't Understand or Prefer Not to Understand the IT Outsourcing Crisis, So Here's the Cliff Notes Version

I believe there are more...

You might reference Robert X. Cringely and his articles on outsourcing.

Here are a few articles:
The U.S. Military is Busily Outsourcing Its Core IT Services, but Would a Really Disciplined Outfit Like Wal-Mart Do the Same?

How to Turn Around the U.S. Tech Economy in One Week With No New Laws, Regulations, or Tax Breaks Required and
Without Moving to India

When It Comes to Understanding Why Government Doesn't Understand High-Tech and Why Financial Markets Seem to be Working Against Our Own Interests, Well, We Did It to Ourselves

U.S. Leaders Either Don't Understand or Prefer Not to Understand the IT Outsourcing Crisis, So Here's the Cliff Notes Version

I believe there are more...