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That is one of the worst citation mangling cases I have seen in a while. Moderated troll for only lifting the parts that support your argument from the linked doc and then attempting to speak with authority. Feeble when the sources are one click away

You are a sad little troll. You aren't part of the Electronic Jihad by any chance? Or maybe simply practicing Taqiyya?

Please read the links. They support my statements, although I wish they didn't. I would prefer that we could live in peace.

Another useful story: What al-Qaida Really Wants.

...

if you want some actual information check out jihadica and the other blogs it links to - guess that's as close as you can get to the sources without actually speaking Arabian.

That is one of the worst citation mangling cases I have seen in a while. Moderated troll for only lifting the parts that support your argument from the linked doc and then attempting to speak with authority. Feeble when the sources are one click away

You are a sad little troll. You aren't part of the Electronic Jihad by any chance? Or maybe simply practicing Taqiyya?

Please read the links. They support my statements, although I wish they didn't. I would prefer that we could live in peace.

Another useful story: What al-Qaida Really Wants.

It's one thing to suspect government duplicity, it's another to see it written in black on white.

As an example, I am sickened how the German authorities caved to US pressure with regards to El-Masri's abduction by the CIA while calling for a "thorough investigation" publicly.

Source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,733860,00.html

Already published, in 2007.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,490514,00.html

excuse me, but any country, anyone, engaging in shit like the above, already pre-deserved any cost they are going to pay. people reap, what they saw.

Okay.

the only thing preventing the people in administration from reaping what they sow was that these were being hidden behind secrecy with 'national security' excuses.

Not really. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,490514,00.html

and now, they came out, and they are saying that 'its irresponsible'. actually meaning 'inconvenient' of course, since they are those who are responsible for the filth exposed. they wouldnt like it to come out.

If you can find a single incident of illegal(in the US) activity in any of the diplomatic cables, that hasn't been reported elsewhere already, I'd like to see it.

So Wikileaks published the data and.... nothing.

Not true. The Guardian did a weekend special with pages and pages covering the Wikileaks data, and they continued to publish articles based on the Wikileaks data for a week afterwards. They have an online tag for Wikileaks articles: guardian.co.uk/media/wikileaks shows 474 articles, many of them mentioning "war logs" in the title. They also published Afghanistan: the war logs and Iraq: the war logs, with numerous articles based directly on the leaked data. Likewise, the New York Times published the series The War Logs based on the leaked data, as did Der Spiegel.

I know what you are getting at though,and the Guardian also had an editorial talking about this point (Assange is 'force-feeding truth to a world that has no stomach for it'): that the released data has been ignored by much of the mainstream media, whereas in the past in would've been lapped up. Daniel Ellsberg's leak of the Pentagon Papers was widely examined and discussed in the media, and this hasn't happened so much with the Wikileaks data. They blame general resignation and apathy amongst the population, and a lack of people who are willing to stand up and actually protest against the things that are done in their name. However, I have another hypothesis: the opponents of Wikileaks have done a really great job at getting the media to shoot the messenger, rather than listen to the message.

The anti-Wikileaks organisations have become much, much better at handling the media than they were during the time of the Vietnam war. The Pentagon has a put together a team of 120 people to deal with the Wikileaks problem. They have been amazingly successful in waging a media campaign to discredit Assange, and in turning media attention away from the data that Wikileaks has leaked, and onto unproven allegations of:

• Rape
• Personality issues (abuse of power, sexism, attitute towards women etc.)
• Financial fraud
• Anti-U.S. government bias
• Endangering the lives of troops
• Endangering the lives of collaborators and their families

Assange obviously has issues with U.S. foreign policy, but so do many people, including many Americans. Apart from that, nothing in the list has been proven, and yet - based entirely on these "rumours" - the media has mostly been manipulated into discussing Assange and his personal life and supposed "recklessness", rather than the leaked data.

The assault on Assange has been slow but relentless. He has lost support in several jurisdictions (Iceland, Sweden), and he is about to become an international fugitive from justice - Sweden has requested that Interpol issue a warrant for his arrest. This is for a man who was informed, in writing, by the prosecutor that there was no warrant for his arrest, and that he was free to leave the country. The Australian government has signalled that it would cooperate with a U.S. prosecution of Assange. His British visa expires next year and is unlikely to be renewed. There are certainly clandestine operations against Wikileaks: Assange has had laptops stolen from his checked luggage on international flights, and Wikileaks operatives in other countries have been put under surveillance.

Dealing with Assange was not enough - he had to be discredited, so that people would no longer support him, his organisation, or the principles of leaking data to the world. The opponents of Wiki

Well, the Parliament could stop SWIFT. Especially since Lisbon's Treaty they have more vetting powers, AFAIK.

Here
But the cooperation turned sour in December 2004, when Chinese engineers broke into the Transrapid maintenance room in the middle of the night and took measurements of the new train. The bizarre incident was even captured on film, and German economic weekly Wirtschaftswoche speculated that it was a case of Transrapid technology theft.

The pix were on the web at the time. It showed that the engineers broke in with PLA soldiers with rifles helping and making sure that nobody else was around.

Racists? Not even CLOSE on my part. OTH, it appears that you VERY MUCH ARE ONE. Why? Because you instantly raise the racists card when somebody is pointing out a FACT about a nation's ILLEGAL ACTIONS (yes, nation, when it involves their government).

Daniel Domscheit-Berg indicated he intends to do exactly that here.

SPIEGEL: You quit your job because of WikiLeaks. What will you do now?

Schmitt: I will continue to do my part to ensure that the idea of a decentralized whistleblower platform stays afloat. I will work on that now. And that, incidentally, is in line with one of our original shared convictions -- in the end, there needs to be a thousand WikiLeaks.

"In other words Gatto is confusing effect for intention. The effect is that we're failing to teach our students history (or whatever), but teachers absolutely do NOT want that to happen. He's right about structural issues that can happen due to administrators or district policies, but your man on the ground, the person actually working with kids, absolutely wants kids to be higher level thinkers."

Well, if we can move past your medical diagnosis of Gatto's mental state, you have just restated his main point.

He never says teachers are all evil. Most of them are, like you say, well-meaning. What he says is that the system itself is evil in terms of the goals behind it and how it operates as a system (relative to our current needs -- he says it may have been a reasonable tradeoff when it was invented in Prussia in the 1800s).

To cite the most famous example of authoritarianism gone to extremes, was Nazi Germany filled with 100% evil Germans to make it work? No, most Germans were well-meaning people, and nice to their children and neighbors, very patriotic, and so on. It was the equivalent of some weird sort of social storm, and also a bit of a pyramid scheme. It was just the overall system that was insane from a human perspective (even granted it had some very nutty people at the top, but that's part of the problem too, how it got that way).
"How Germans Fell for the 'Feel-Good' Fuehrer"
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,347726,00.html
"They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45"
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head."

So, sure, every aspect of school that does not work to the child's obvious benefit is "regretted", as you outline examples of how it is regrettable that how children are taught has no relation to how kids learn or how they need to learn to be active participants in a democracy.

But the end result is to turn schools into a form of prison at this point. Granted, children are not physically gassed or worked to death like in Nazi concentration camps (even if some do die from the mental equivalent, as demonstrated by the high teen suicide rate or even now the obesity rate, probably partly from stress).

As Gatto suggests here:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"Before you can reach a point of effectiveness in defending your own children or your principles against the assault of blind social machinery, you have to stop conspiring against yourself by attempting to negotiate with a set of abstract principles and rules which, by its nature, cannot respond. Under all its disguises, that is what institutional schooling is, an abstraction which has escaped its handlers. Nobody can reform it. First you have to realize that human values are the stuff of madness to a system; in systems-logic the schools we have are already the schools the system needs; the only way they could be much improved is to have kids eat, sleep, live, and die there."

So, really, you've just made Gatto's point. And perhaps you've reflexively done an ad hominem attack on him so you did not have to think about what he says in detail? S

Kick-backs. The Intel-Inside program was a strategy whereby dealers got rebates for putting on the stickers. See http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,624233,00.html . Apple pays more for the CPU's if it doesn't have to pu the stickers on.

there's no evidence here of "war crimes"

Nangar Khel incident. Polish troops mortar a civilian village. They are currently being tried for war crimes.

Nobody's tried to cover it up.

Kunduz airstrike: German commander ordered the bombing of a crowd surrounding two hijacked fuel tankers. NATO insists that "no civilians were in the vicinity" and 56 "purely enemy insurgents" killed. What actually happened? An estimated 142 civilians killed. Wikipedia says "The major German newsweekly Der Spiegel, in an exhaustive research article published in February 2010, called the incident a war crime - due to the fact that the attack on the tankers had broken a number of rules of conduct, and also led to a later cover-up"

"As details from the deadly Sept. 4 bombing in Kunduz, Afghanistan continue to emerge, it has become more apparent that German commanders both disregarded NATO rules of engagement and misled the US pilots who carried out the attack. One pilot says he would have refused to attack had he been told the truth." Der Spiegel: German Army Withheld Information from US Pilots

Khataba raid: "US special forces soldiers dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath of a botched night raid, then washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened, Afghan investigators have told The Times. Two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother were shot on February 12 when US and Afghan special forces stormed their home in Khataba village, outside Gardez in eastern Afghanistan. The precise composition of the force has never been made public. The claims were made as Nato admitted responsibility for all the deaths for the first time last night. It had initially claimed that the women had been dead for several hours when the assault force discovered their bodies." The Times: US special forces 'tried to cover-up' botched Khataba raid in Afghanistan

Looking at history. you might find out that the so called intellectual property rarely stimulated innovation, it might even hinder it. See, for instance, the case of the steam engine, or the comparison how many books where published in the 19th century with copyright (England) or without it (Germany).

(The implications on industrial development laid out in the latter article may not be correct, but at least it can be said that the absence of a strong copyright did not hinder industrial development and it also seems that this absence was actually better for the authors.)

That assumes that 18th century psychology about the incredibly complex dynamics of motivation for creative activity was accurate, with a fair amount of evidence suggesting otherwise, such as the following article. http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,709761,00.html Also, if we reasonably suggest the abolition of copyright and actually get someone to listen, the legislators might pick a happy medium such as a reasonably short term and expansive fair use

A few weeks ago, I read an article about the lack of copyright in Germany in the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. Compared to England - where copyright had been introduced a long time ago - there were significantly more books available at cheaper prices. The authors were paid better, too.

Here it is:
Google Translation / Original German

Replace with "To enrich the sciences, arts, and culture of the People, by securing for fourteen years

That turns out not to work to that end either.

See here or here.

Consider a book, a piece of paper, a pen and some ink. You copy that book. But that's an abstraction - what are you really doing? You're arranging your property in some fashion. You own the ink, you own the paper. You're putting your ink in certain places on your paper.

So, Copyright, when deconstructed, is a promise to exact retributive violence again people who arrange their property in certain ways. The beneficiary is approximately one person, the threatened are, in this case, about 300,000,000 people.

There may be a narrow utilitarian benefit in certain cases, but it's not clear at all that there's a net benefit, and the method of achieving that possible benefit is reprehensible. Unfortunately some business models depend on the system. Oh, well.

All of them appear to be about public Facebook pages, whose use appears to be generally legal even under the proposed German law.

I've now read 3 different sources about the law. All state, that using data from social networks like facebook is beeing prohibited, no execptions. If you have a better source, please tell me.

What I do in my private time on my private site is my private thing. As long as I don't do something illegal like selling business secrets, I should be able to do what I want.

Just because you believe that doesn't make it good policy.

Well, i could turn the table and ask why it should be a good policy to have your employer restrict what you can do in your spare time.

I have a right to privacy. My employer should respect that

If you publish your Facebook page, it is obviously not private information anymore and you should lose control over it.

You have a pretty narrow definition of privacy.

And coming from someone defending German laws, free speech arguments are ridiculous, given the massive legal restrictions on free speech in Germany.

I'm not defending German's lack of free speech.

The proposal does not suggest a "blanket prohibition" on using Facebook, it suggests a prohibition on using unpublished Facebook data (e.g., through friending) and it suggests limits on how published data (including published data from Facebook) can be used.

citation needed. TFA (german original) says, that "So darf ein Arbeitgeber künftig keine Daten mehr aus sozialen Internet-Netzwerken wie Facebook erheben, um sich über den Kandidaten zu informieren. Eine Ausnahme gilt nur für solche Internetdienste, die gerade der eigenen Präsentation des Bewerbers gegenüber möglichen Arbeitgebern dienen." ("An employer may not collect any data from Internet social networks such as Facebook to get information about the candidate. An exception applies only to Internet services that serve the sole purpose of presenting of the candidate to potential employers.")

Even under the proposed German law, many of the firings you list are probably still legal.

I believe most of the firings would not be legal under current German law.

Your political orientation is right wing populism, which is pretty far down the slippery slow to you-know-what.

Actually my political orientation is what would be called liberal in Germany, which should be pretty much left wing in US terms. And thanks for the almost-Godwin.

Quoi que l'on fasse, les lois positives ne sauraient jamais entièrement remplacer l'usage de la raison naturelle dans les affaires de la vie. Les besoins d'une société sont si variés, la communication des hommes est si active, leurs intérêts sont si multipliés, et leurs rapports si étendus, qu'il est impossible au législateur de pourvoir à tout.

Actually according to Der Spiegel there is no brewery in the town. Just some random company decided to name their beer after it. Either way I think it's brilliant marketing. Unfortunately I cant seem to find any way to order any, it may not have been released yet.

This is strange. A news article in Germany http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,709769,00.html (german) which refers to Net Applications statistics states that it is actually the other way around. Though this seems to be the world wide statistic.

How about being gored by radioactive boar? which could happen to you today in Berlin, 25 years later and thousands of kilometers to the west.

"After the solar thermal power plants were built in California and Nevada, people lost interest in solar thermal power because fossil fuels became unbeatably cheap," says Müller-Steinhagen. Solar power was neglected even though the US was in the advantageous position, compared to the MENA region, of being a single political entity rather than a conglomerate of countries with differing interests. The US could achieve energy self-sufficiency through solar thermal power plants in the sunny south-west. But it was only recently that scientists writing in the respected magazine Scientific American unveiled a "Solar Grand Plan" for the US.

How many solar thermal gigawatts could have the US bought with an avoided Iraq war?

• French nuclear industry claims 96% of waste can be reprocessed;
• Currently reprocessing allows to conserve 12% of consumed U, expected to raise to 17%;
• France has to dispose each year of 220,000 tons of depleted U, 120 tons of used fuel and 330 tons of reprocessed but unused fuel;
• Nuclear industry claims this material will eventually be useable in 4th generation breeder reactors (which, like fusion reactors, are the technology of the future - currently 2040, out of their ass - and always will be).

There's just no way that we can have personal computers, cars, or even normal phones (pray you get to keep your cell phone, and forget about smartphones) using only renewable resources. Not going to happen.

Shhh...don't tell these guys. They are planning on spending $400 billion to prove you wrong.

What I find the most fascinating about this, is that Facebook read the address book out of people's iPhone to find new friends for them online. And the collected data is permanently stored. German article: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,697733,00.html I don't know if this is the issue described in TFA as the site seems slashdotted.

"No" is not the answer, Paul is. He correctly predicted the outcome of all of Germany's games so far, whichi is pretty impressive, considering Germany's loss to Serbia.

Of course, Paul is an octopus who picks the winning side by choosing the box with the winning side's flag on it.

Does anyone know what special benefits Georgia offers beyond this abscence of tax?

Georgia went through a couple of civil wars (and a few presidents) since the USSR dissolved. Georgia initiated another war recently, and successfully lost territory this way. The president of Georgia is believed to be insane; some say that he personally killed one of his political opponents. He is currently the black sheep among presidents in the region. Russian officials won't tell him the time of the day. There are frequent demonstrations for and against the president. The country is poor (but that's pretty easy to conclude by now.) The local language is pretty unique. The country is split into several tribes who aren't particularly in love with each other (that's what caused the loss of territories in the recent war.) Many people live in mountain villages, with minimum communications. Georgia was best known in the USSR for its agricultural goods - wine, peaches and other stuff that requires warm climate. There are probably quite a few programmers in cities, though.

It is the freakin' Middle East, everybody has guns

According to Spiegel the gun ownership rate in Iraq is 39 guns for every 100 people. When you factor in kids as presumably unarmed, I think saying that "Everybody has guns" is probably close to the truth.

Are you assuming that Iraq alone is the whole Middle East?
On the other hand Iraq (a warzone) is only the fourth country in that ranking, between Yemen and Serbia. The figures for USA double that, 90 guns per 100 people, which gives them the first position in the list. Switzerland is the second because of the militia with 46.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gun_ownership

It is the freakin' Middle East, everybody has guns

I *SERIOUSLY* doubt that.

According to Spiegel the gun ownership rate in Iraq is 39 guns for every 100 people. When you factor in kids as presumably unarmed, I think saying that "Everybody has guns" is probably close to the truth.

Violent football hooliganism is primarily an English rather than specifically a German tradition.

O Rly?

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/117669.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,646723,00.html

http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slug=ap-serbia-fanviolence

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=406446&cc=5739

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1565414,00.html

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL1369951620070313

http://sfcu.com.au/smf111/index.php?topic=5427.175;wap2

Cut the "holier than thou" bullshit.

North Korea has the most brilliant people in the world and can help its neighbor accomplish anything. North Korea has punched the sky in the face and broke through to the stars where his magnanimous, magnificent even magniloquent Leader, the holiest Kim Jong Il is orbiting the planet right now making sure the imperialist porcine satellites do not beam deadly radiation again unto the North Korean people's glorious fields of cabbage, rice and giant bunnies.

Mammals and birds have a better chance, and it seems like a skimmer like this gets them into the boat and gives rescuers a chance to wash them. They're probably better off in the boat than out of it.

I'm not entirely sure - for two reasons:

1) Nets are huge. If you get dragged into one, even one that floats on top, and more and more oil is dumped onto you, I think you're going to die unless you're the last thing to get dragged in
2) I'm rather curious about the survival rate of birds, mammals, turtles etc., after they have been cleaned. It might look really nice, that you start with an oil covered pelican and end up with a shiny white and clean pelican, but if it dies a week after you set it free, because it's swallowed too much oil, infections or whatever, that doesn't bode well for the creature. Might be more humane to kill it instead of cleaning it off.

Yeah, once the oil is on the birds, they'll likely die.

Sigh... what a fucking waste of time, energy, and resources this all is. Those photos are depressing especially of the kid's foot with oil on it.

I wish I was seeing more photos of proper fucking booming than feel-good animal cleaning. I found this article on the survival rates of birds that were cleaned and released.

What's the downside to enlarging participation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythical_man_month

The entire PR effort could be replaced with a simple pro-capitalist capitulation: "We screwed up, big time, and unlike the banks, we're solvent enough to pay restitution."

Restitution? You mean paying fishermen, restaurants, hotels, etc. all the money they would have made if the oil spill hadn't hit? What are you going to do -- write off New Orleans and put everybody on the dole?

Unfortunately, if the oil hits the shore, all the money in the world can't clean it up. The best estimates I've seen are that they could clean up 10% of the oil. When the oil coats the plants and mixes with the mud in the wetlands, you can't unscramble the egg. You just destroy a lot of species.

I remember sitting by a lake in New Orleans, and having these big, beautiful fucking birds fly down right next to me. You can't clean up those birds when they're covered with oil. Expert Recommends Killing Oil-Soaked Birds

Capitalism is not such a bad system when the gears are allowed to mesh.

Even after decades of reading the Wall Street Journal editorial page, this blind faith in capitalism leaves me speechless.

As the WSJ reported, both Democrats and Republicans left the oil companies unregulated as they cut out well-established safety management procedures. (BP had higher accident and fatality rate than most.) If you have a well-managed government agency with competent, dedicated safety inspectors riding herd on offshore wells, then you can at least make drilling as safe as possible and maybe safe enough. Without competent government regulation, it's bye-bye birdie.

Oh wait, there already doing that with humans ready to sell and buy ...... but who wants you to know that?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,676634,00.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2704stockmarket.html

Officer B. Madoff will show up if you call 911 about it.

I can only give you a German source. They cite German biologists, who speak from their experience from an oil spill in the North Sea, amd some World Wildlife Fund guy who has data from the "Prestige" spill in spain, where an intensive cleaning effort was made. He is basically saying "If you can catch them at all for cleaning, they are already too far gone."

Of course, I had to google that. Here's the full interview:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,591943,00.html

An extraordinarily interesting interview, to say the least. Well worth a full read.

Did Jones proceed correctly while homogenizing the data? Most climatologists still believe Jones' contention that he did not intentionally manipulate the data. However, that belief will have to remain rooted in good faith. Under the pressure of McIntyre's attacks, Jones had to admit something incredible: He had deleted his notes on how he performed the homogenization. This means that it is not possible to reconstruct how the raw data turned into his temperature curve.

'One of the Biggest Sins'

For Peter Webster, a meteorologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, this course of events is "one of the biggest sins" a scientist can commit. "It's as if a chef was no longer able to cook his dishes because he lost the recipes." A Superstorm for Global Warming Research, By Marco Evers, Olaf Stampf and Gerald Traufetter

Sorry about using too strong a voice, I've seen too much of either your a true believer of the church of AGW or your an infadel heretic deserving a fate worse than dead.

Taken from the Playstation.com forums (nice work!):
----------------

CREDIT goes to Xrobx who posted these in another thread and i wanted to make sure that everyone sees them...

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.:
"In addition to playing games, watching movies, listening to music, and viewing photos, you can use the PS3 system to run the Linux operating system. By installing the Linux operating system, you can use the PS3 system not only as an entry-level personal computer with hundreds of familiar applications for home and office use, but also as a complete development environment for the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.)."
http://www.playstation.com/ps3-openplatform/index.html

(http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:byasL-PxEiMJ:www.playstation.com/ps3-openplatform/index.html+http://www.playstation.com/ps3-openplatform/index.html&cd=1&hl=en&ct=cln
k&gl=us&client=safari) - google's cached page of the above hyperlink from March 30th 2010 which does not say anything about FW 3.21 removing Other OS. I've saved the page in case it goes offline, copy http address into browser as link probably won't work. Or, just search google and get the cached page. - kiyyto.

Phil Harrison, February 2007,
President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios 2005-2008:
"One of the most powerful things about the PS3 is the 'Install Other OS' option."
http://kotaku.com/235049/20-questions-with-phil-harrison-at-dice

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., 2006-2009:
"The Linux Distributor's Starter Kit provides information, binary and source codes to Linux Distribution developers who wants to make their distro support PS3."
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux

Izumi Kawanishi, Sony, May 2006:
"Because we have plans for having Linux on board [the PS3], we also recognize Linux programming activities... Other than game studios tied to official developer licenses, we'd like to see various individuals participate in content creation for the PS3."
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9290

Geoffrey Levand, August 2009,
Principal Software Engineer at Sony Corporation:
"Please be assured that SCE is committed to continue the support for previously sold models that have the "Install Other OS" feature and that this feature will not be disabled in future firmware releases."
mailing list to PS3 customers using Linux

Phil Harrison, May 2006,
President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios 2005-2008:
"The Playstation 3 is a computer. We do not need the PC."
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,418642,00.html
SONY
Make.Believe... you didn't see that

it seems the whole 'unintended acceleration' phenomenon is to a large extent like a US version of this

And, strangely, 99.9% of these incidents seem to happen in the US while drivers in other countries brake successfully and notify their car dealerships: http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,682417,00.html

Ok. Let me get this straight. Israel, one of the most right wing western countries has explicitly approved internet privacy, while France, one of the most left wing western countries, is actively trying to put the internet genies back in the bottle.

Maybe my political analysis toolset needs to move out of the 20th century....

But if it is all so simple, then why do countries with enough solar radiation build expensive and dangerous nuclear power plants, instead of investing in this simple technology? Are there not deserts in the US? Why are Americans not freeing themselves from their oil dependence through solar power? And why has no one really started to exploit the technology? "After the solar thermal power plants were built in California and Nevada, people lost interest in solar thermal power because fossil fuels became unbeatably cheap," says Müller-Steinhagen. Solar power was neglected even though the US was in the advantageous position, compared to the MENA region, of being a single political entity rather than a conglomerate of countries with differing interests. The US could achieve energy self-sufficiency through solar thermal power plants in the sunny south-west. But it was only recently that scientists writing in the respected magazine Scientific American unveiled a "Solar Grand Plan" for the US.

There's also the fact that even though Toyota's are sold worldwide, the reports of unintended acceleration are confined almost entirely to North America: The Search for the Gas Pedal Flaw So are American elderly uniquely weak, slow, and easily injured?

Before you pack up your wagon, google around a bit for the recent (~2 years) data laws passed in Germany

That was recently overturned (well, nullified) by Germany's Supreme Court, confirming a lower court decision. It's even been on /.

Der Spiegel offers version of some of its stories in English. They aren't direct translations, but quite similar.

Here's part of a story published in english:

Those wanting to own a McDonald's or Subway franchise in Germany must be prepared to offer up intimate personal details, including health information. One German official says the questionnaires violate the law. ...

According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, those wanting to partner with the fast-food chain Subway must agree to a background check "in accordance with anti-terror legislation" such as the US Patriot Act.

The report must also include information about the applicant's character, lifestyle and relationships. Future franchise owners are also asked whether they have ever been part of a terrorist organization.

And the same story, published in German, translated to English by google:

McDonald's and Subway asking intimate data from franchisees

From its franchisees in Germany require the American fast food McDonald's and Subway deep insights into the intimate and the political convictions. Who wants to be partner of Subway, for example, must create an audit report in accordance with the anti-terror laws "such as the USA Patriot Act to agree." This report will contain information about "character", "lifestyle" and "relationships". The applicant shall provide information, even if she "ever directly or indirectly involved in terrorist activities were"

And babelfish translation of the same story:

McDonald' s and Subway demand most intimate data of franchise takers

Of their Franchise takers in Germany the American high-speed restaurant chains McDonald' require; s and Subway deep views of the privacy and the political convicition. Who for example partner of Subway would like to become, must the production of a test report " in agreement with the anti- terror Gesetzen" as " The USA patriot Act" agree. This report is information over " Charakter" , " Lebensweise" and " Beziehungen" contained. The applicants have to give even information whether them " ever at activities of terror beteiligt" directly or indirectly; were.

I do think the google version is significantly better.

Der Spiegel offers version of some of its stories in English. They aren't direct translations, but quite similar.

Here's part of a story published in english:

Those wanting to own a McDonald's or Subway franchise in Germany must be prepared to offer up intimate personal details, including health information. One German official says the questionnaires violate the law. ...

According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, those wanting to partner with the fast-food chain Subway must agree to a background check "in accordance with anti-terror legislation" such as the US Patriot Act.

The report must also include information about the applicant's character, lifestyle and relationships. Future franchise owners are also asked whether they have ever been part of a terrorist organization.

And the same story, published in German, translated to English by google:

McDonald's and Subway asking intimate data from franchisees

From its franchisees in Germany require the American fast food McDonald's and Subway deep insights into the intimate and the political convictions. Who wants to be partner of Subway, for example, must create an audit report in accordance with the anti-terror laws "such as the USA Patriot Act to agree." This report will contain information about "character", "lifestyle" and "relationships". The applicant shall provide information, even if she "ever directly or indirectly involved in terrorist activities were"

And babelfish translation of the same story:

McDonald' s and Subway demand most intimate data of franchise takers

Of their Franchise takers in Germany the American high-speed restaurant chains McDonald' require; s and Subway deep views of the privacy and the political convicition. Who for example partner of Subway would like to become, must the production of a test report " in agreement with the anti- terror Gesetzen" as " The USA patriot Act" agree. This report is information over " Charakter" , " Lebensweise" and " Beziehungen" contained. The applicants have to give even information whether them " ever at activities of terror beteiligt" directly or indirectly; were.

I do think the google version is significantly better.

"Maybe they should use some music whose artists aren't several hundred years dead, then perhaps the artists could have a very interesting discussion as to the use of their music..."

Case study: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,672177,00.html

One might ask what the artists would think of this usage?

Fortunately, we have a pretty similar situation with more current music being used a torture device against Guantanamo detainess, and the rock musicians who protested against that usage:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,672177,00.html

German Federal Minister of Justice objects ACTA at least partly

(German article)

German Federal Minster of Justice, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, (German, English) today confirmed, that she at least objects blocking the internet access for people who are suspected to be involved in piracy. She refers to the once secret negotiations about ACTA. She had proofen to be open-source-friendly during several talks on german LinuxTag. Now it seems to turn out, that this could be honest instead of typical common politicans behaviour... or just common sense ;)

As a sidenote, she now has to "defend" data rentention law, but she was one out of several members of the parliamant, who brought the doubt about the law to the Federal Court of Justice. It was noted several times, that she hadn't appeared at the court room very often, but send someone else.