Slashdot Mirror
Mass Motherboard Review
Niscenus writes "The folks at AnandTech are buzzing about this article originally posted here at CS. It's an extensive comparison of motherboard manufacturers, which is great for people who want to build their own system."
All the biggies look to be here. Good timing for me since I'm planning on
building a system in another month or so.
CowboyNeal loves me. He loves you too. See?
first!
Quick Reference
Conclusion
Top Ten.
1st - Abit,Asus
3rd - Epox
4th - Iwill
5th - Gigabyte
6th - Tyan
7th - VIA
8th - MSI
9th - FIC, Shuttle
11th to 20th (in order) Soyo, Aopen, Soltek, DFI, Acorp, Intel, Supermicro, Chaintech, ECS, NMC.
There you have it, the top motherboard manufacturers there are, all summed up. Personally, I prefer Asus boards, I have bought quite a few, and used all myself. I don't consider price, as motherboards are just too important. To be honest, even though DFI might be rated low, they have a high stability rating, and since its hard to tell how well they perform by human eye, if you own one, you'll be very happy. There seems to be a growing trend for cheap motherboards out there, and I don't like it one bit.
You might hear that AMD is unstable from a lot of intel zealots, but the real problem is people are buying extremely cheap motherboards, there are major problems and issues popping up on the forums from this. Just look at the recent boards, ECS's SiS board must have set a record for number of problems, Soyo, MSI, and Shuttle sold a lot of boards, and they really are causing a lot of problems. From what I've seen on forums, there are few complaints about Asus, Epox, Abit or even Iwill boards (with the exception of the initial Epox shipping error).
Remember, just because your chipset is good, doesn't mean your motherboard will be. The boards RAM timings need to be perfect, and cheap boards making 4 DIMMs available is just major problems. So do yourself, and everyone else a favor, don't be a cheap ass, pay a little more and get the quality boards. Even though I know most of you will say "I bought 10 Shuttles or ECS boards and never had a problem" It still doesn't mean the boards are good, and it doesn't mean you won't regret it in the future. For people that say VIA chipsets are unstable, or anything to that matter, these are the people you should never, ever take advice from. Why? Simple, they buy the cheapest boards possible, and while VIA chipsets aren't perfect, they are 100% stable, and its the motherboards which aren't stable.
If a manufacturer is not on this list, then avoid them. They obviously don't like to send out boards for review, and there is most likely a reason for it. I've excluded a lot of names that show up occasionally, and review very poor the few times they are done.
So next time you are confused about which board to get, and why, you have an unbiased opinion to help you. Asking in forums will only yield a bunch of zealots recommending one brand constantly for no reason, and they don't even take into consideration your needs. Decide for yourself, you'll be happier that way.
Previous page - Acorp
"It's technical in a psychometric kind a way" -- C. Parish
-1 Dumbass
I had a lot of problems with my AMD Athlon XP 1700+ with an Asus A7V133-C motherboard in Linux. I thought it was the Athlon/AGP bug, but the fixes for that didn't help. Programs kept segfaulting/causing bus errors, and sometimes the system hang.
Then I happened to find an upgrade to my BIOS, flashed it and suddenly everything worked perfectly. If you have weird problems that you can't seem to get fixed, try to look for a BIOS update! It's always a good idea, even if your system works, to check for new BIOSes regulary.
A motherboard without a BIOS is like a car without an engine. Make sure the BIOS is a good one!
Why isn't there a story on slashdot about this:
u rl =/library/en-us/Dndotnet/html/mssharsourcecli.asp"
"http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?
It's very great technology.
Isn't slashdot about free speech? Yet, censorship is everyday practice it seems.
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Yasser Arafat was found dead today at 03:47 in his compound of an Israeli bullet. Even if you haven't been personally suicide bombed by one of his terrorist minions, I'm sure you've noticed his contributions to Middle Eastern politics. He will be missed; truly a modern-day icon.
For a new free forum project, check out http://www.webvelosix.com
I bought the k7s5a ECS board they mention in the reviews, and low and behold, the board is crap. Constant crashes, and sometimes no booting at all... Then I go buy a new Asus Board, and I am amazed! My AthlonXP 1800+ is running at 1.62 GHZ, which I believe is at 2000+ And the moral of the story is : Dont try to save a buck on your motherboard!
-- Goto Blasto.Net for GOOD, FREE E-Mail, with many names to choose! Really! GO!
If I were a grave-digger or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment. -- Douglas Jerrol
Huh? I could imagine a great deal of people I'd like to help to the other side, but work for?
I already know who needs killing, I need someone to tell me who? I don't think so.
That "fotune" needs deletion -5 Just Plain Stupid
A quick check of most news sites, and CNN. I haven't been able to come up with anything that would indicate his death.
Personally, it's a little tough to generalize based simply on the brand. You'll notice horrible support for older boards on ASUS' and MSI's sites, whereas ECS and Jetway - two companies with less-than-stellar reputations - actually manage to include BIOS and detailed info for many of their products from the Socket 7 days.
I've met many people who've had their ASUS A7V's die on them a few days after the warranty ran out so I can honestly say that brand doesn't account for as much as this review would let on. I was honestly hoping for a SERIOUS motherboard round-up but I'm left disappointed by what seems more like an opinion column than an honest review.
As a Retail level tech i spend most of my days answering questions, Some good, and as you would expect some i just roll my eyes at and walk away. It's good to see someone out there has done a pretty comprehesive review of ALL mobo makers. I personally use Asus and MSI. I've had the best experience with both, not to say i've never RMAed a board by either (1 to each company) but as i see it in the years i've been doing this i've installed well over 5,000 mobos. As with any product the makers of mobos do run into issues, like certian runs of a problem board, i've seen at least 1 bad board by every one if theose companys listed, some i've sent them all back (see:Soyo), so it's good judgment to do a little asking around before you buy. Don't jsut listen to one opinion you'll hate that friend, co-worker, relative later for giving you bad advice. I do agree with most of the findings in this article I'd personally rate MSI a bit higher, and shuttle a bit lower but then again that's just my opinion/experience..another word to the wise.. Where you get your board will have a great effect on your buying experience. Stick with well known companys with good return policies. You will one day get a bad board, trust me when i say this, what happens after you figure out the board is flawed and needs RMAed means alot. Some companys will tell you that your SOL and need to send it back to the maker for replacment which is all fine and dandy but can take some time. (around 6-8 weeks)where as the supplier can get you a ned board in a week. Someone now needs to do a comprehesive write up about the suppliers and we'll be all set.
Just Limin' Mon
The Queen Mother and Yaser are have necrophelia with one another. He is taking his withered seal penis and picked off Queen Mom's scabs off her vagina, getting the puss running, and fuckin that nice smooth puss snatch without feeling any of the sand he has in his camel foreskin.
Don't know your avarage /.ter, but I was fairly OK when using less-than-known MB. Some day I chose to mount an ASUS MB with a new Celeron 900; the board was the CUV4x and I bought it almost when they went out of production.
The board worked for a couple of days, then died completely (won't boot). I got it replaced with a TUV4x (Asus next gen model) and Linux RH7.2 wouldn't install. I only got Win98 and an old Slackware to install with that MB.
I knew I was not alone, like this thread says and I decided to blame on the VIA chipset it mounted. Then I tried to install something better than win98, tried with Win2000 and WinMe, both installations died painfully as the LinuxRH one.
I then threw everything outside the window and bought a Supermicro MB (i418) and a P4. They both rock my day.
So, I ended with a very sour experience with Asus MB, I will hardly buy another one in the future.
I have one, I like it.
Works fine, very stable. Integrated network card works.
If you are going to buy any product with a reputation for DOA, buy it from a good local dealer who will take trade ins.
History
VIA has no real history, as they are less then a year old.
??? or maybe this review is old?
Also, on an unrelated topic, has anyone had problems with via, amd, and the aureal sound chipset under linux? I was hoping they would mention something about it.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I have very bad experience with Epox boards: a friend of mine bought one, and even the parts that were on board had interupt-conflicts with each other. Really horrible design.
But come on, let's be honest: Something that works for me (with my hardware) doesn't have to work for you and vice versa. This review is purely useless!
What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?
I dunno who told these jokers that ECS make underperforming boards, but it's a lie. It is true that they don't have some of the more popular overclocking features, but for stability and performance their boards are up there with the "big boys" at often less than half the price. I wouldn't use anything else in the machines I build for clients OR myself.
Did these guys just make the shit up? I mean, just do a quick google search for 'ECS motherboard' and read the reviews. Look at the benchmarks. Better yet, drop fifty or sixty bucks on one and try it yourself. I am an Asus convert, and I'm never going back. I've got a Windows box that has been up for almost six weeks. WINDOWS! SIX WEEKS! THANK YOU ECS!
And no, I do not work for ECS, but I have had this debate a dozen times IRL and the performance/stability argument is quite simply a load of crap.
Someone else already mentioned how important Bios flashing can be. FYI, I've found that ASUS has a great BIOS updating utility. This is a feature you should definitly consider if you are buying a mobo for the long haul.
Does anyone else experience problems with the P2B series over time? We have about 30 asus p2b based computers in our department, and they start needing replacement at an alarming rate.
The problems show up as solid lock-ups, at first maybe once a month, and then escalating to several lockups a day. The problems can be reproduced with the memtest.exe produced by alegr software (free download) as a lockup on pass 4 (always pass 4). Already tried exchanging all other parts except the motherboard so Im pretty sure Ive narrowed it down.
My theory is that the capacitors dry out over time and thus fails to meet their spec.
Out of thirty wewe so far had five go bad, and the problem is difficult enough to reproduce for the vendors to blame it on software problem.
I used to think of asus as good products, now Im not so sure anymore.
As I am typing this (7:25 a.m. CST) CNN is having a live interview with a reporter who is with Arafat. Reporter says he is quite well and just as defiant as ever.
We now return you to your regular program.
(Maybe I can salvage karma by getting back on-topic.)
Really interesting article re. mobos. I would like better information on stability. I've bought two Athlon/XP boards in the last year, both rated to be pretty good (Aopen AK-73 1394(A) and Iwill KK-266R-Plus). Both have stability problems, even when not overclocked. I use Micron memory, temps are cool, power supplies are good quality & high-power. Nonetheless, both systems will lock up randomly, anywhere from once every two weeks, to sometimes two or three times in one day.
Both systems have Geforce cards - one a G2 Ultra, the other a G3. I had a Sound Blaster Live in one of them; replaced it with a Santa Cruz - didn't help. Using on-board sound on the Iwill until I know which boards do/do not contribute to reliability problems. Both have 3Com NICS. Nothing else in common. I've updated drivers, etc., 'til the cows come home - no joy.
Any ideas? I'm really suspicious of the VIA chip set. I know this article dismissed that idea, says it's only a problem with cheap motherboards. It is the one common denominator I can see.
Every vendor produces some unstable products including ASUS. Do a search on Asus A7V333 and see how many "can't POST with this board" messages you get from January to March, the length of time it took for this motherboard to get stable.
The early adopters and reviewers specify which rev level of the motherboard and bios they used that gave them a stable product.
THE BIG LIE
:"The West Bank is occupied Palestinian land." This phrase is frequently repeated, as a given, by all the governments of the world and by the entire news media.
... with Arabia or Arabs.
DECEMBER 15, 2001
This idea that the West Bank is occupied Palestinian land has been accepted by almost everyone. Yet it is, in fact, the greatest lie ever perpetrated on the whole of humanity.
If you think this is an outlandish statement, please read on and decide for yourself.
Palestinians claim that Palestine is their land, and that Jerusalem is their capital, and that Israel is occupying their land. To resist occupation, they assert the right to send suicide bombers into crowded bus stations, pizza parlors, etc., and kill innocent men, women and children. And all Arab and Muslim countries support them in their claims and actions against Israel.
Because of this alleged occupation of Palestinian land by Israel, because of this alleged crime committed against their Palestinian brothers, all Arabs hate Israel and want to destroy it.
To anyone who is familiar with the facts, and has an objective eye, all this must be fascinating. Because never before has a complete lie, on such a large scale, been so successful.
First, if Arab animosity toward Israel is based on their love and support for their Palestinian brothers - and in wanting their Palestinian brothers to have their own state - where was that love and support before the Jewish state existed? Where were they when the kingdom of Jordan ruled Palestine? Why were they not accusing Jordan of occupying Palestinian land? Why did not the Arab world and the United Nations call on Jordan to stop occupying Palestinian land? Second, where were the Palestinians themselves, with all their grievances and claims, when Jordan occupied the whole West Bank, including Jerusalem?
Did you know that? Did you know that for 19 years, Jordan occupied and ruled the whole West Bank, including Jerusalem? Why didn't they clamor for a Palestinian state then?
All this time, did we hear a word about Palestine being occupied by the kingdom of Jordan? Did we hear anything about a Palestinian state? Or about Jerusalem being the capital of Palestine?
No, we did not.
Why not?
Because there never existed a Palestinian state.
And in the entire history of nations, Jerusalem was never the capital of any country other than that of ancient Israel and modern Israel. So how can there be a claim on Jerusalem as the capital of a state that never existed?
One of the problems here is that so few people know the history of the world. Hence, lies and more lies, repeated often enough, are assumed to be facts.
I have heard many scholars, including an Arab journalist, question the very notion of a Palestinian people. What, they ask, makes a people? Well, there are four elements that define a people: language, religion, culture and cuisine. For example, the Chinese and Japanese are both Oriental. Still, they are two different peoples, because they each have a different language, a different religion, a different culture and a different cuisine.
The Palestinians speak the same language, follow the same religion, manifest the same culture and eat the same cuisine as all other Arabs. They are really Arabs who happen to live in a region called Palestine.
Palestine is not - and never was - the name of a country, or the name of a people.
It is the name of a region - just like Siberia is a region, not a country. There is no Siberian country, nor is there a Siberian people. It is a region. Just like the Sahara is a region, not a country. There is no Saharan country, nor is there a Saharan people. The Arabs living in that region are Libyans, Moroccans, etc. It is a region.
Because Palestine is a region, not a country, England was able to carve out half of it and give it to the Arabs living on the other side of the Jordan River and call it the kingdom of Jordan. Because Palestine is a region, the United Nations was able to divide the rest of it between the Jews and the Arabs living there. Had the Arabs accepted the United Nations resolution, there would have been a newly created Arab state called Palestine. Instead, they rejected the United Nations compromise and went to war to destroy Israel. They lost the war. Hence, no Palestinian state.
Here are some cold facts:
King David built the city of Jerusalem, and King Solomon, David's son, built the holy temple. This commonwealth of Israel lasted for a thousand years. There was only one break, when, 400 years after King David, the Babylonian invaders occupied the land for 70 years. Then, with the help of Cyrus the Great of Persia - yes, Persia - Israel came back to the land, rebuilt the temple and ruled for another 600 years.
Then, the Romans came and ruled the land, then the Crusaders ruled the land, then the Ottoman Empire ruled the land, then the British Empire ruled the land, then Israel returned to its homeland and built a modern Jewish state. It was never - repeat, never - a Palestinian state.
So what is all this talk about occupied Palestinian land?
They certainly have a right to live there freely and happily. Nobody wants to move them away from their land. But from where comes the right for a Palestinian state? Is it because they live there?
Imagine if the Mexican-American community in California, whose numbers are greater than the number of Palestinians in the West Bank, decides tomorrow to claim that the United States is occupying their land, because they live there and they want their own Mexican state. Imagine if, when the U.S. government says, "No, you can live here, but you cannot have sovereignty, you cannot have your own state," they start sending suicide bombers, shooters, mortars, etc. into the rest of the country. What do you think would happen?
This is precisely why there was never any suggestion of a Palestinian state - not under the Romans, not under the Crusaders, not under the Turks, not under the English and not under the Arab kingdom of Jordan - until after Israel was again established in its homeland.
I believe it is the big lie of our generation, and we are all buying into it.
Whatever you believe, don't you think these facts deserve to be raised when discussing Middle East policies?
The History and Meaning of "Palestine" and "Palestinians"
"There is no such thing as a Palestinian Arab nation . . . Palestine is a name the Romans gave to Eretz Yisrael with the express purpose of infuriating the Jews . . . . Why should we use the spiteful name meant to humiliate us?
The British chose to call the land they mandated Palestine, and the Arabs picked it up as their nation's supposed ancient name, though they couldn't even pronounce it correctly and turned it into Falastin a fictional entity." -- Golda Meir quoted by Sarah Honig, Jerusalem Post, 25 November 1995
Palestine has never existed . . . as an autonomous entity. There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc.
Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of one percent of the landmass. But that's too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today . . . No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough. -- from "Myths of the Middle East", Joseph Farah, Arab-American editor and journalist, WorldNetDaily, 11 October 2000
From the end of the Jewish state in antiquity to the beginning of British rule, the area now designated by the name Palestine was not a country and had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries . . . . -- Professor Bernard Lewis, Commentary Magazine, January 1975
Talk and writing about Israel and the Middle East feature the nouns "Palestine" and Palestinian", and the phrases "Palestinian territory" and even "Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory". All too often, these terms are used with regard to their historical or geographical meaning, so that the usage creates illusions rather than clarifies reality.
What Does "Palestine" Mean?
It has never been the name of a nation or state. It is a geographical term, used to designate the region at those times in history when there is no nation or state there.
The Philistines were not Arabs, they were not Semites. They had no connection
The word itself derives from "Peleshet", a name that appears frequently in the Bible and has come into English as "Philistine". The name began to be used in the Thirteenth Century BCE, for a wave of migrant "Sea Peoples" who came from the area of the Aegean Sea and the Greek Islands and settled on the southern coast of the land of Canaan. There they established five independent city-states (including Gaza) on a narrow strip of land known as Philistia. The Greeks and Romans called it "Palastina".
The Philistines were not Arabs, they were not Semites. They had no connection, ethnic, linguistic or historical with Arabia or Arabs. The name "Falastin" that Arabs today use for "Palestine" is not an Arabic name. It is the Arab pronunciation of the Greco-Roman "Palastina" derived from the Peleshet.
How Did the Land of Israel Become "Palestine"?
In the First Century CE, the Romans crushed the independent kingdom of Judea. After the failed rebellion of Bar Kokhba in the Second Century CE, the Roman Emperor Hadrian determined to wipe out the identity of Israel-Judah-Judea. Therefore, he took the name Palastina and imposed it on all the Land of Israel. At the same time, he changed the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina.
The Romans killed many Jews and sold many more in slavery. Some of those who survived still alive and free left the devastated country, but there was never a complete abandonment of the Land. There was never a time when there were not Jews and Jewish communities, though the size and conditions of those communities fluctuated greatly.
The History of Palestine
Thousands of years before the Romans invented "Palastina" the land had been known as "Canaan". The Canaanites had many tiny city-states, each one at times independent and at times a vassal of an Egyptian or Hittite king. The Canaanites never united into a state.
After the Exodus from Egypt -- probably in the Thirteenth Century BCE but perhaps earlier -- the Children of Israel settled in the land of Canaan. There they formed first a tribal confederation, and then the Biblical kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and the post-Biblical kingdom of Judea.
Israel-Judah-Judea has the only united, independent, sovereign nation-state that ever existed in "Palestine" west of the Jordan River.
From the beginning of history to this day, Israel-Judah-Judea has the only united, independent, sovereign nation-state that ever existed in "Palestine" west of the Jordan River. (In Biblical times, Ammon, Moab and Edom as well as Israel had land east of the Jordan, but they disappeared in antiquity and no other nation took their place until the British invented Trans-Jordan in the 1920s.)
After the Roman conquest of Judea, "Palastina" became a province of the pagan Roman Empire and then of the Christian Byzantine Empire, and very briefly of the Zoroastrian Persian Empire. In 638 CE, an Arab-Muslim Caliph took Palastina away from the Byzantine Empire and made it part of an Arab-Muslim Empire. The Arabs, who had no name of their own for this region, adopted the Greco-Roman name Palastina, that they pronounced "Falastin".
In that period, much of the mixed population of Palastina converted to Islam and adopted the Arabic language. They were subjects of a distant Caliph who ruled them from his capital, that was first in Damascus and later in Baghdad. They did not become a nation or an independent state, or develop a distinct society or culture.
In 1099, Christian Crusaders from Europe conquered Palestina-Falastin. After 1099, it was never again under Arab rule. The Christian Crusader kingdom was politically independent, but never developed a national identity. It remained a military outpost of Christian Europe, and lasted less than 100 years. Thereafter, Palestine was joined to Syria as a subject province first of the Mameluks, ethnically mixed slave-warriors whose center was in Egypt, and then of the Ottoman Turks, whose capital was in Istanbul.
During the First World War, the British took Palestine from the Ottoman Turks. At the end of the war, the Ottoman Empire collapsed and among its subject provinces "Palestine" was assigned to the British, to govern temporarily as a mandate from the League of Nations.
"I know this article dismissed that idea, says it's only a problem with cheap motherboards."
:)
they are smoking crack
they still haven't managed to get a PCI bus that works properly on the KT266A >:(
I also find it strange that a lot of people have VIA/Abit problems, yet they've put Abit at the top of the list?!?!?!?!??!?! EXCUSE ME?
"Buy Abit, Abit are good!
BUT IT KEEPS CRASHING!
Then don't buy a crappy mainboard!"
*sigh*
THE BIG LIE
:"The West Bank is occupied Palestinian land." This phrase is frequently repeated, as a given, by all the governments of the world and by the entire news media.
... with Arabia or Arabs.
DECEMBER 15, 2001
This idea that the West Bank is occupied Palestinian land has been accepted by almost everyone. Yet it is, in fact, the greatest lie ever perpetrated on the whole of humanity.
If you think this is an outlandish statement, please read on and decide for yourself.
Palestinians claim that Palestine is their land, and that Jerusalem is their capital, and that Israel is occupying their land. To resist occupation, they assert the right to send suicide bombers into crowded bus stations, pizza parlors, etc., and kill innocent men, women and children. And all Arab and Muslim countries support them in their claims and actions against Israel.
Because of this alleged occupation of Palestinian land by Israel, because of this alleged crime committed against their Palestinian brothers, all Arabs hate Israel and want to destroy it.
To anyone who is familiar with the facts, and has an objective eye, all this must be fascinating. Because never before has a complete lie, on such a large scale, been so successful.
First, if Arab animosity toward Israel is based on their love and support for their Palestinian brothers - and in wanting their Palestinian brothers to have their own state - where was that love and support before the Jewish state existed? Where were they when the kingdom of Jordan ruled Palestine? Why were they not accusing Jordan of occupying Palestinian land? Why did not the Arab world and the United Nations call on Jordan to stop occupying Palestinian land? Second, where were the Palestinians themselves, with all their grievances and claims, when Jordan occupied the whole West Bank, including Jerusalem?
Did you know that? Did you know that for 19 years, Jordan occupied and ruled the whole West Bank, including Jerusalem? Why didn't they clamor for a Palestinian state then?
All this time, did we hear a word about Palestine being occupied by the kingdom of Jordan? Did we hear anything about a Palestinian state? Or about Jerusalem being the capital of Palestine?
No, we did not.
Why not?
Because there never existed a Palestinian state.
And in the entire history of nations, Jerusalem was never the capital of any country other than that of ancient Israel and modern Israel. So how can there be a claim on Jerusalem as the capital of a state that never existed?
One of the problems here is that so few people know the history of the world. Hence, lies and more lies, repeated often enough, are assumed to be facts.
I have heard many scholars, including an Arab journalist, question the very notion of a Palestinian people. What, they ask, makes a people? Well, there are four elements that define a people: language, religion, culture and cuisine. For example, the Chinese and Japanese are both Oriental. Still, they are two different peoples, because they each have a different language, a different religion, a different culture and a different cuisine.
The Palestinians speak the same language, follow the same religion, manifest the same culture and eat the same cuisine as all other Arabs. They are really Arabs who happen to live in a region called Palestine.
Palestine is not - and never was - the name of a country, or the name of a people.
It is the name of a region - just like Siberia is a region, not a country. There is no Siberian country, nor is there a Siberian people. It is a region. Just like the Sahara is a region, not a country. There is no Saharan country, nor is there a Saharan people. The Arabs living in that region are Libyans, Moroccans, etc. It is a region.
Because Palestine is a region, not a country, England was able to carve out half of it and give it to the Arabs living on the other side of the Jordan River and call it the kingdom of Jordan. Because Palestine is a region, the United Nations was able to divide the rest of it between the Jews and the Arabs living there. Had the Arabs accepted the United Nations resolution, there would have been a newly created Arab state called Palestine. Instead, they rejected the United Nations compromise and went to war to destroy Israel. They lost the war. Hence, no Palestinian state.
Here are some cold facts:
King David built the city of Jerusalem, and King Solomon, David's son, built the holy temple. This commonwealth of Israel lasted for a thousand years. There was only one break, when, 400 years after King David, the Babylonian invaders occupied the land for 70 years. Then, with the help of Cyrus the Great of Persia - yes, Persia - Israel came back to the land, rebuilt the temple and ruled for another 600 years.
Then, the Romans came and ruled the land, then the Crusaders ruled the land, then the Ottoman Empire ruled the land, then the British Empire ruled the land, then Israel returned to its homeland and built a modern Jewish state. It was never - repeat, never - a Palestinian state.
So what is all this talk about occupied Palestinian land?
They certainly have a right to live there freely and happily. Nobody wants to move them away from their land. But from where comes the right for a Palestinian state? Is it because they live there?
Imagine if the Mexican-American community in California, whose numbers are greater than the number of Palestinians in the West Bank, decides tomorrow to claim that the United States is occupying their land, because they live there and they want their own Mexican state. Imagine if, when the U.S. government says, "No, you can live here, but you cannot have sovereignty, you cannot have your own state," they start sending suicide bombers, shooters, mortars, etc. into the rest of the country. What do you think would happen?
This is precisely why there was never any suggestion of a Palestinian state - not under the Romans, not under the Crusaders, not under the Turks, not under the English and not under the Arab kingdom of Jordan - until after Israel was again established in its homeland.
I believe it is the big lie of our generation, and we are all buying into it.
Whatever you believe, don't you think these facts deserve to be raised when discussing Middle East policies?
The History and Meaning of "Palestine" and "Palestinians"
"There is no such thing as a Palestinian Arab nation . . . Palestine is a name the Romans gave to Eretz Yisrael with the express purpose of infuriating the Jews . . . . Why should we use the spiteful name meant to humiliate us?
The British chose to call the land they mandated Palestine, and the Arabs picked it up as their nation's supposed ancient name, though they couldn't even pronounce it correctly and turned it into Falastin a fictional entity." -- Golda Meir quoted by Sarah Honig, Jerusalem Post, 25 November 1995
Palestine has never existed . . . as an autonomous entity. There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc.
Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of one percent of the landmass. But that's too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today . . . No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough. -- from "Myths of the Middle East", Joseph Farah, Arab-American editor and journalist, WorldNetDaily, 11 October 2000
From the end of the Jewish state in antiquity to the beginning of British rule, the area now designated by the name Palestine was not a country and had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries . . . . -- Professor Bernard Lewis, Commentary Magazine, January 1975
Talk and writing about Israel and the Middle East feature the nouns "Palestine" and Palestinian", and the phrases "Palestinian territory" and even "Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory". All too often, these terms are used with regard to their historical or geographical meaning, so that the usage creates illusions rather than clarifies reality.
What Does "Palestine" Mean?
It has never been the name of a nation or state. It is a geographical term, used to designate the region at those times in history when there is no nation or state there.
The Philistines were not Arabs, they were not Semites. They had no connection
The word itself derives from "Peleshet", a name that appears frequently in the Bible and has come into English as "Philistine". The name began to be used in the Thirteenth Century BCE, for a wave of migrant "Sea Peoples" who came from the area of the Aegean Sea and the Greek Islands and settled on the southern coast of the land of Canaan. There they established five independent city-states (including Gaza) on a narrow strip of land known as Philistia. The Greeks and Romans called it "Palastina".
The Philistines were not Arabs, they were not Semites. They had no connection, ethnic, linguistic or historical with Arabia or Arabs. The name "Falastin" that Arabs today use for "Palestine" is not an Arabic name. It is the Arab pronunciation of the Greco-Roman "Palastina" derived from the Peleshet.
How Did the Land of Israel Become "Palestine"?
In the First Century CE, the Romans crushed the independent kingdom of Judea. After the failed rebellion of Bar Kokhba in the Second Century CE, the Roman Emperor Hadrian determined to wipe out the identity of Israel-Judah-Judea. Therefore, he took the name Palastina and imposed it on all the Land of Israel. At the same time, he changed the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina.
The Romans killed many Jews and sold many more in slavery. Some of those who survived still alive and free left the devastated country, but there was never a complete abandonment of the Land. There was never a time when there were not Jews and Jewish communities, though the size and conditions of those communities fluctuated greatly.
The History of Palestine
Thousands of years before the Romans invented "Palastina" the land had been known as "Canaan". The Canaanites had many tiny city-states, each one at times independent and at times a vassal of an Egyptian or Hittite king. The Canaanites never united into a state.
After the Exodus from Egypt -- probably in the Thirteenth Century BCE but perhaps earlier -- the Children of Israel settled in the land of Canaan. There they formed first a tribal confederation, and then the Biblical kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and the post-Biblical kingdom of Judea.
Israel-Judah-Judea has the only united, independent, sovereign nation-state that ever existed in "Palestine" west of the Jordan River.
From the beginning of history to this day, Israel-Judah-Judea has the only united, independent, sovereign nation-state that ever existed in "Palestine" west of the Jordan River. (In Biblical times, Ammon, Moab and Edom as well as Israel had land east of the Jordan, but they disappeared in antiquity and no other nation took their place until the British invented Trans-Jordan in the 1920s.)
After the Roman conquest of Judea, "Palastina" became a province of the pagan Roman Empire and then of the Christian Byzantine Empire, and very briefly of the Zoroastrian Persian Empire. In 638 CE, an Arab-Muslim Caliph took Palastina away from the Byzantine Empire and made it part of an Arab-Muslim Empire. The Arabs, who had no name of their own for this region, adopted the Greco-Roman name Palastina, that they pronounced "Falastin".
In that period, much of the mixed population of Palastina converted to Islam and adopted the Arabic language. They were subjects of a distant Caliph who ruled them from his capital, that was first in Damascus and later in Baghdad. They did not become a nation or an independent state, or develop a distinct society or culture.
In 1099, Christian Crusaders from Europe conquered Palestina-Falastin. After 1099, it was never again under Arab rule. The Christian Crusader kingdom was politically independent, but never developed a national identity. It remained a military outpost of Christian Europe, and lasted less than 100 years. Thereafter, Palestine was joined to Syria as a subject province first of the Mameluks, ethnically mixed slave-warriors whose center was in Egypt, and then of the Ottoman Turks, whose capital was in Istanbul.
During the First World War, the British took Palestine from the Ottoman Turks. At the end of the war, the Ottoman Empire collapsed and among its subject provinces "Palestine" was assigned to the British, to govern temporarily as a mandate from the League of Nations.
No author, no references and argumentum ad populum reasoning like above. .
Grade: Failed.
The owls are not what they seem
Funny, funny stuff. Thanks for the laugh.
I suppose the problem is that they never filed their official "We Are A Nation" papers with the UN or something? Like living together as a congruent community for 2000 years doesn't make you a nation.
Funny, funny stuff.
http://www.secularislam.org/
I know saying the word "smart Muslim" seems paradoxical, but they do exist in exceedingly small quantities due to the fact that most Islamic governments suppress the shit and intelligence out of their people, the smart Muslims say things like this:
A Call to the Muslims of the World from a Group of Freethinkers and Humanists of Muslim Origins
Dear friends,
The tragic incidents of September 11 have shocked the world. It is unthinkable that anyone could be so full of hate as to commit such heinous acts and kill so many innocent people. We people of Muslim origin are as much shaken as the rest of the world and yet we find ourselves looked upon with suspicion and distrust by our neighbours and fellow citizens. We want to cry out and tell the world that we are not terrorists, and that those who perpetrate such despicable acts are murderers and not part of us. But, in reality, because of our Muslim origins we just cannot erase the "stigma of Islamic Terrorism" from our identity!
What most Muslims will say:
"Islam would never support the killing of innocent people. Allah of the Holy Qur'an never advocated killings. This is all the work of a few misguided individuals at the fringes of society. The real Islam is sanctified from violence. We denounce all violence. Islam means peace. Islam means tolerance."
What knowledgeable Muslims should say:
That is what most Muslims think, but is it true? Does Islam really preach peace, tolerance and non-violence? The Muslims who perpetrate these crimes think differently. They believe that what they do is Jihad (holy war). They say that killing unbelievers is mandatory for every Muslim. They do not kill because they wish to break the laws of Islam but because they think this is what true Muslims should do. Those who blow-up their own bodies to kill more innocent people do so because they think they will be rewarded in Paradise. They hope to be blessed by Allah, eat celestial food, drink pure wine and enjoy the company of divine consorts. Are they completely misguided? Where did they get this distorted idea? How did they come to believe that killing innocent people pleases God? Or is it that we are misguided? Does really Islam preach violence? Does it call upon its believers to kill non-believers? We denounce those who commit acts of violence and call them extremists. But are they really extremists or are they following what the holy book, the Qur'an tells them to do? What does the Qur'an teach? Have we read the Qur'an? Do we know what kind of teachings are there? Let us go through some of them and take a closer look at what Allah says.
What the Qur'an Teaches:
We have used the most widely available English text of the Qur'an and readers are welcome to verify our quotes from the holy book. Please have an open mind and read through these verses again and again. The following quotes are taken from the most trusted Yusufali's translation of the Qur'an.
The Qur'an tells us: "not to make friendship with Jews and Christians" (5:51), "kill the disbelievers wherever we find them" (2:191), "murder them and treat them harshly" (9:123), "fight and slay the Pagans, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem" (9:5). The Qur'an demands that we fight the unbelievers, and promises "If there are twenty amongst you, you will vanquish two hundred: if a hundred, you will vanquish a thousand of them" (8:65).
Allah and his messenger want us to fight the Christians and the Jews "until they pay the Jizya [a penalty tax for the non-Muslims living under Islamic rules] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (9:29). Allah and his messenger announce that it is acceptable to go back on our promises (treaties) and obligations with Pagans and make war on them whenever we find ourselves strong enough to do so (9:3). Our God tells us to "fight the unbelievers" and "He will punish them by our hands, cover them with shame and help us (to victory) over them" (9:14).
The Qur'an takes away the freedom of belief from all humanity and relegates those who disbelieve in Islam to hell (5:10), calls them najis (filthy, untouchable, impure) (9:28), and orders its followers to fight the unbelievers until no other religion except Islam is left (2:193). It says that the "non-believers will go to hell and will drink boiling water" (14:17). It asks the Muslims to "slay or crucify or cut the hands and feet of the unbelievers, that they be expelled from the land with disgrace and that they shall have a great punishment in world hereafter" (5:34). And tells us that "for them (the unbelievers) garments of fire shall be cut and there shall be poured over their heads boiling water whereby whatever is in their bowels and skin shall be dissolved and they will be punished with hooked iron rods" (22:19-22) and that they not only will have "disgrace in this life, but on the Day of Judgment He shall make them taste the Penalty of burning (Fire)" (22:9). The Qur'an says that "those who invoke a god other than Allah not only should meet punishment in this world but the Penalty on the Day of Judgment will be doubled to them, and they will dwell therein in ignominy" (25:68). For those who "believe not in Allah and His Messenger, He has prepared, for those who reject Allah, a Blazing Fire!" (48:13). Although we are asked to be compassionate amongst each other, we have to be "harsh with unbelievers", our Christian, Jewish and Atheist neighbours and colleagues (48:29). As for him who does not believe in Islam, the Prophet announces with a "stern command": "Seize ye him, and bind ye him, And burn ye him in the Blazing Fire. Further, make him march in a chain, whereof the length is seventy cubits! This was he that would not believe in Allah Most High. And would not encourage the feeding of the indigent! So no friend hath he here this Day. Nor hath he any food except the corruption from the washing of wounds, Which none do eat but those in sin." (69:30-37) The Qur'an prohibits a Muslim from befriending a non-believer even if that non-believer is the father or the brother of that Muslim (9:23), (3:28). Our holy book asks us to be disobedient towards the disbelievers and their governments and strive against the unbelievers with great endeavour" (25:52) and be stern with them because they belong to Hell (66:9). The holy Prophet prescribes fighting for us and tells us that "it is good for us even if we dislike it" (2:216). Then he advises us to "strike off the heads of the disbelievers"; and after making a "wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives" (47:4). Our God has promised to "instil terror into the hearts of the unbelievers" and has ordered us to "smite above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them" (8:12). He also assures us that when we kill in his name "it is not us who slay them but Allah, in order that He might test the Believers by a gracious trial from Himself" (8:17). He orders us "to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies" (8:60). He has made the Jihad mandatory and warns us that "Unless we go forth, (for Jihad) He will punish us with a grievous penalty, and put others in our place" (9:39). Allah speaks to our Holy Prophet and says "O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern against them. Their abode is Hell - an evil refuge indeed" (9:73).
He promises us that in the fight for His cause whether we slay or are slain we return to the garden of Paradise (9:111). In Paradise he will "wed us with Houris (celestial virgins) pure beautiful ones" (56:54), and unite us with large-eyed beautiful ones while we recline on our thrones set in lines (56:20). There we are promised to eat and drink pleasantly for what we did (56:19). He also promises "boys like hidden pearls" (56:24) and "youth never altering in age like scattered pearls" (for those who have paedophiliac inclinations) (76:19). As you see, Allah has promised all sorts or rewards, gluttony and unlimited sex to Muslim men who kill unbelievers in his name. We will be admitted to Paradise where we shall find "goodly things, beautiful ones, pure ones confined to the pavilions that man has not touched them before nor jinni" (56:67-71).
In the West we enjoy freedom of belief but we are not supposed to give such freedom to anyone else because it is written "If anyone desires a religion other than Islam (submission to Allah), never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter He will be in the ranks of those who have lost (All spiritual good) (3:85). And He orders us to fight them on until there is no more tumult and faith in Allah is practiced everywhere (8:39).
As for women the book of Allah says that they are inferior to men and their husbands have the right to scourge them if they are found disobedient (4:34). It advises to "take a green branch and beat your wife", because a green branch is more flexible and hurts more. (38:44). It teaches that women will go to hell if they are disobedient to their husbands (66:10). It maintains that men have an advantage over the women (2:228). It not only denies the women's equal right to their inheritance (4:11-12), it also regards them as imbeciles and decrees that their witness is not admissible in the courts of law (2:282). This means that a woman who is raped cannot accuse her rapist unless she can produce a male witness. Our Holy Prophet allows us to marry up to four wives and he licensed us to sleep with our slave maids and as many 'captive' women as we may have (4:3) even if those women are already married. He himself did just that. This is why anytime a Muslim army subdues another nation, they call them kafir and allow themselves to rape their women. Pakistani soldiers allegedly raped up to 250,000 Bengali women in 1971 after they massacred 3,000,000 unarmed civilians when their religious leader decreed that Bangladeshis are un-Islamic. This is why the prison guards in Islamic regime of Iran rape the women that in their opinion are apostates prior to killing them, as they believe a virgin will not go to Hell.
Dear fellow Muslims:
Is this the Islam you believe in? Is this your Most Merciful, Most Compassionate Allah whom you worship daily? Could Allah incite you to kill other peoples? Please understand that there is no terrorist gene - but there could be a terrorist mindset. That mindset finds its most fertile ground in the tenets of Islam. Denying it, and presenting Islam to the lay public as a religion of peace similar to Buddhism, is to suppress the truth. The history of Islam between the 7th and 14th centuries is riddled with violence, fratricide and wars of aggression, starting right from the death of the Prophet and during the so-called 'pure' or orthodox caliphate. And Muhammad himself hoisted the standard of killing, looting, massacres and bloodshed. How can we deny the entire history? The behaviour of our Holy Prophet as recorded in authentic Islamic sources is quite questionable from a modern viewpoint. The Prophet was a charismatic man but he had few virtues. Imitating him in all aspects of life (following the Sunnah) is both impossible and dangerous in the 21st century. Why are we so helplessly in denial over this simple issue?
When the Prophet was in Mecca and he was still not powerful enough he called for tolerance. He said "To you be your religion, and to me my religion" (109:6). This famous quote is often misused to prove that the general principle of Qur'an is tolerance. He advised his follower to speak good to their enemies (2: 83), exhorted them to be patient
(20:103) and said that "there is no compulsion in religion" (2:256). But that all changed drastically when he came to power. Then killing and slaying unbelievers with harshness and without mercy was justified in innumerable verses. The verses quoted to prove Islam's tolerance ignore many other verses that bear no trace of tolerance or forgiveness. Where is tolerance in this well-known verse "Alarzu Lillah, Walhukmu Lillah." (The Earth belongs to Allah and thus only Allah's rule should prevail all over the earth.).
Is it normal that a book revealed by God should have so many serious contradictions? The Prophet himself set the example of unleashing violence by invading the Jewish settlements, breaking treaties he had signed with them and banishing some of them after confiscating their belongings, massacring others and taking their wives and children as slaves. He inspected the youngsters and massacred all those who had pubic hair along with the men. Those who were younger he kept as slaves. He distributed the women captured in his raids among his soldiers keeping the prettiest for himself (33:50). He made sexual advances on Safiyah, a Jewish girl on the same day he captured her town Kheibar and killed her father, her husband and many of her relatives. Reyhana was another Jewish girl of Bani Quriza whom he used as a sex slave after killing all her male relatives. In the last ten years of his life he accumulated two scores of wives, concubines and sex slaves including the 9 year old Ayesha. These are not stories but records from authentic Islamic history and the Hadiths. It can be argued that this kind of behaviour was not unknown or unusual for the conquerors and leaders of the mediaeval world but these are not the activities befitting of a peaceful saint and certainly not someone who claimed to be the Mercy of God for all creation. There were known assassinations of adversaries during the Prophet's time, which he had knowledge of and had supported. Among them there was a 120 year old man, Abu 'Afak whose only crime was to compose a lyric satirical of the Prophet. (by Ibn Sa'd Kitab al Tabaqat al Kabir, Volume 2, page 32) Then when a poetess, a mother of 5 small children 'Asma' Bint Marwan wrote a poetry cursing the Arabs for letting Muhammad assassinate an old man, our Holy Prophet ordered her to be assassinated too in the middle of the night while her youngest child was suckling from her breast. (Sirat Rasul Allah (A. Guillaume's translation "The Life of Muhammad") page 675, 676).
The Prophet did develop a 'Robin Hood' image that justified raiding merchant caravans attacking cities and towns, killing people and looting their belongings in the name of social justice. Usama Bin Laden is also trying to create the same image. But Robin Hood didn't claim to be a prophet or a pacifist nor did he care for apologist arguments. He did not massacre innocent people indiscriminately nor did he profit by reducing free people to slaves and then trading them.
With the known and documented violent legacy of Islam, how can we suddenly rediscover it as a religion of peace in the free world in the 21st century? Isn't this the perpetuation of a lie by a few ambitious leaders in order to gain political control of the huge and ignorant Muslim population? They are creating a polished version of Islam by completely ignoring history. They are propagating the same old dogma for simple believing people in a crisp new modern package. Their aim: to gain political power in today's high-tension world. They want to use the confrontational power of the original Islam to catalyse new conflicts and control new circles of power.
Dear conscientious Muslims, please question yourselves. Isn't this compulsive following of a man who lived 1400 years ago leading us to doom in a changing world? Do the followers of any other religion follow one man in such an all-encompassing way? Who are we deceiving, them or ourselves? Dear brothers and sisters, see how our Umma (people) has sunk into poverty and how it lags behind the rest of the world. Isn't it because we are following a religion that is outdated and impractical? In this crucial moment of history, when a great catastrophe has befallen us and a much bigger one is lying ahead, should not we wake up from our 1400 years of slumber and see where things have gone wrong?
Hatred has filled the air and the world is bracing itself for its doomsday. Should we not ask ourselves whether we have contributed, wittingly or unwittingly, to this tragedy and whether we can stop the great disaster from happening?
Unfortunately the answer to the first question is yes. Yes we have contributed to the rise of fundamentalism by merely claiming Islam is a religion of peace, by simply being a Muslim and by saying our shahada (testimony that Allah is the only God and Muhammad is his messenger). By our shahada we have recognized Muhammad as a true messenger of God and his book as the words of God. But as you saw above those words are anything but from God. They call for killing, they are prescriptions for hate and they foment intolerance. And when the ignorant among us read those hate-laden verses, they act on them and the result is the infamous September 11, human bombs in Israel, massacres in East Timor and Bangladesh, kidnappings and killings in the Philippines, slavery in the Sudan, honour killings in Pakistan and Jordan, torture in Iran, stoning and maiming in Afghanistan and Iran, violence in Algeria, terrorism in Palestine and misery and death in every Islamic country. We are responsible because we endorse Islam and hail it as a religion of God. And we are as guilty as those who put into practice what the Qur'an preaches - and ironically we are the main victims too. If we are not terrorists, if we love peace, if we cried with the rest of the word for what happened in New York, then why are we supporting the Qur'an that preaches killing, that advocates holy war, that calls for the murder of non-Muslims? It is not the extremists who have misunderstood Islam. They do literally what the Qur'an asks them to do. It is we who misunderstand Islam. We are the ones who are confused. We are the ones who wrongly assume that Islam is the religion of peace. Islam is not a religion of peace. In its so-called "pure" form it can very well be interpreted as a doctrine of hate. Terrorists are doing just that and we the intellectual apologists of Islam are justifying it. We can stop this madness. Yes, we can avert the disaster that is hovering over our heads. Yes, we can denounce the doctrines that promote hate. Yes, we can embrace the rest of humanity with love. Yes, we can become part of a united world, members of one human family, flowers of one garden. We can dump the claim of infallibility of our Book, and the questionable legacy of our Prophet.
Dear friends, there is no time to waste. Let us put an end to this lie. Let us not fool ourselves. Islam is not a religion of peace, of tolerance, of equality or of unity of humankind. Let us read the Qur'an. Let us face the truth even if it is painful. As long as we keep this lie alive, as long as we hide our head in the sands of Arabia we are feeding terrorism. As long as you and I keep calling Qur'an the unchangeable book of God, we cannot blame those who follow the teachings therein. As long as we pay our Khums and Zakat our money goes to promote Islamic expansionism and that means terrorism, Jihad and war. Islam divides the world in two. Darul Harb (land of war) and Darul Islam (land of Islam). Darul Harb is the land of the infidels, Muslims are required to infiltrate those lands, proselytise and procreate until their numbers increase and then start the war and fight and kill the people and impose the religion of Islam on them and convert that land into Darul Islam. In all fairness we denounce this betrayal. This is abuse of the trust. How can we make war in the countries that have sheltered us? How can we kill those who have befriended us? Yet willingly or unwillingly we have become pawns in this Islamic Imperialism. Let us see what great Islamic scholars have had to say in this respect.
Dr. M. Khan the translator of Sahih Bukhari and the Qur'an into English
wrote: "Allah revealed in Sura Bara'at (Repentance, IX) the order to discard (all) obligations (covenants, etc), and commanded the Muslims to fight against all the Pagans as well as against the people of the Scriptures (Jews and Christians) if they do not embrace Islam, till they pay the Jizia (a tax levied on the Jews and Christians) with willing submission and feel themselves subdued (as it is revealed in 9:29). So the Muslims were not permitted to abandon "the fighting" against them (Pagans, Jews and Christians) and to reconcile with them and to suspend hostilities against them for an unlimited period while they are strong and have the ability to fight against them. So at first "the fighting" was forbidden, then it was permitted, and after that it was made obligatory" [Introduction to English translation of Sahih Bukhari, p.xxiv.]
Dr. Sobhy as-Saleh, a contemporary Islamic academician quoted Imam Suyuti the author of Itqan Fi 'Ulum al- Qur'an who wrote: "The command to fight the infidels was delayed until the Muslims become strong, but when they were weak they were commanded to endure and be patient". [ Sobhy as_Saleh, Mabaheth Fi 'Ulum al- Qur'an, Dar al-'Ilm Lel-Malayeen, Beirut, 1983, p. 269.]
Dr. Sobhy, in a footnote, commends the opinion of a scholar named Zarkashi who said: "Allah the most high and wise revealed to Mohammad in his weak condition what suited the situation, because of his mercy to him and his followers. For if He gave them the command to fight while they were weak it would have been embarrassing and most difficult, but when the most high made Islam victorious He commanded him with what suited the situation, that is asking the people of the Book to become Muslims or to pay the levied tax, and the infidels to become Muslims or face death. These two options, to fight or to have peace return according to the strength or the weakness of the Muslims." [ibid p. 270]
Other Islamic scholars (Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi, Ga'far ar-Razi, Rabi' Ibn 'Ons, 'Abil-'Aliyah, Abd ar-Rahman Ibn Zayd Ibn 'Aslam, etc.) agree that the verse "Slay the idolaters wherever you find them" (9:5) cancelled those few earlier verses that called for tolerance in the Qur'an and were revealed when Islam was weak. Can you still say that Islam is the religion of peace?
We propose a solution.
We know too well that it is not easy to denounce our faith because it means denouncing a part of ourselves. We are a group of freethinkers and humanists with Islamic roots. Discovering the truth and leaving the religion of our fathers and forefathers was a painful experience. But after learning what Islam stands for we had no choice but to leave it. After becoming familiar with the Qur'an the choice became clear: It is either Islam or humanity. If Islam thrives, then humanity will die. We decided to side with humanity. Culturally we are still Muslims but we no longer believe in Islam as the true religion of God. We are humanists. We love humanity. We work for the unity of humankind. We work for equality between men and women. We strive for the secularisation of Islamic countries, for democracy and freedom of thought, belief and expression. We decided to live no longer in self-deception but to embrace humanity, and to enter into the new millennium hand in hand with people of other cultures and beliefs in amity and in peace.
We denounce the violence that is eulogized in the Qur'an as holy war (Jihad). We condemn killing in the name of God. We believe in the sanctity of human life, not in the inviolability of beliefs and religions. We invite you to join us and the rest of humanity and become part of the family of humankind - in love, camaraderie and peace.
I'm sorry history is so amusing. I'm sure you find the part about hitler cooking Jews in ovens extra funny.
You should read up, you are probably semetic or sephardic; think: if your "Palestinian" ass tried to take up residence in a "real" arab state, they would hate you worse than the Jews ever did.
Good to hear Abit is on the top! I built a killer system based on the Abit KT7A, and its an awesome board! It has more options than I need, and they didn't make the BIOS friendly, which is good for us geek types that like to tweak. I plan on purchasing another ABIT board when I build my next system.
For those looking at a KT7A, it is an older board. However, the specs on Abit's site are outdated. As of rev 1.3, the board theoretically could go into the 2ghz neighborhood. I'm currently running a 1.4 t-bird.
Strong points (my own, not from the article):
1. BIOS tweaking, BIOS tweaking, BIOS tweaking. This board has the most in depth BIOS setup I've ever seen, with the ability to overclock your system in 1 mHz increments.
2. Stability, even at OC speeds.
3. Board features, such as 4 USB headers, chipset cooler, temperature sensors galore, plenty of fan headers.
4. Nice thick manual.
5. No problems running linux on this board.
My conclusion: Abit good.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Its hard to find an accurate english koran translation, mainly because its rascist towords all non muslims. If you are looking for an excuse to beat your wife, the Koran is for you!!!! Also, murder, pillage. And execute homosexuals!!!! Its packed! lets get to work so i can get pussy off those 70 virgins.
The Qur'an tells us: "not to make friendship with Jews and Christians" (5:51), "kill the disbelievers wherever we find them" (2:191), "murder them and treat them harshly" (9:123), "fight and slay the Pagans, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem" (9:5). The Qur'an demands that we fight the unbelievers, and promises "If there are twenty amongst you, you will vanquish two hundred: if a hundred, you will vanquish a thousand of them" (8:65).
Allah and his messenger want us to fight the Christians and the Jews "until they pay the Jizya [a penalty tax for the non-Muslims living under Islamic rules] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (9:29). Allah and his messenger announce that it is acceptable to go back on our promises (treaties) and obligations with Pagans and make war on them whenever we find ourselves strong enough to do so (9:3). Our God tells us to "fight the unbelievers" and "He will punish them by our hands, cover them with shame and help us (to victory) over them" (9:14).
The Qur'an takes away the freedom of belief from all humanity and relegates those who disbelieve in Islam to hell (5:10), calls them najis (filthy, untouchable, impure) (9:28), and orders its followers to fight the unbelievers until no other religion except Islam is left (2:193). It says that the "non-believers will go to hell and will drink boiling water" (14:17). It asks the Muslims to "slay or crucify or cut the hands and feet of the unbelievers, that they be expelled from the land with disgrace and that they shall have a great punishment in world hereafter" (5:34). And tells us that "for them (the unbelievers) garments of fire shall be cut and there shall be poured over their heads boiling water whereby whatever is in their bowels and skin shall be dissolved and they will be punished with hooked iron rods" (22:19-22) and that they not only will have "disgrace in this life, but on the Day of Judgment He shall make them taste the Penalty of burning (Fire)" (22:9). The Qur'an says that "those who invoke a god other than Allah not only should meet punishment in this world but the Penalty on the Day of Judgment will be doubled to them, and they will dwell therein in ignominy" (25:68). For those who "believe not in Allah and His Messenger, He has prepared, for those who reject Allah, a Blazing Fire!" (48:13). Although we are asked to be compassionate amongst each other, we have to be "harsh with unbelievers", our Christian, Jewish and Atheist neighbours and colleagues (48:29). As for him who does not believe in Islam, the Prophet announces with a "stern command": "Seize ye him, and bind ye him, And burn ye him in the Blazing Fire. Further, make him march in a chain, whereof the length is seventy cubits! This was he that would not believe in Allah Most High. And would not encourage the feeding of the indigent! So no friend hath he here this Day. Nor hath he any food except the corruption from the washing of wounds, Which none do eat but those in sin." (69:30-37) The Qur'an prohibits a Muslim from befriending a non-believer even if that non-believer is the father or the brother of that Muslim (9:23), (3:28). Our holy book asks us to be disobedient towards the disbelievers and their governments and strive against the unbelievers with great endeavour" (25:52) and be stern with them because they belong to Hell (66:9). The holy Prophet prescribes fighting for us and tells us that "it is good for us even if we dislike it" (2:216). Then he advises us to "strike off the heads of the disbelievers"; and after making a "wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives" (47:4). Our God has promised to "instil terror into the hearts of the unbelievers" and has ordered us to "smite above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them" (8:12). He also assures us that when we kill in his name "it is not us who slay them but Allah, in order that He might test the Believers by a gracious trial from Himself" (8:17). He orders us "to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies" (8:60). He has made the Jihad mandatory and warns us that "Unless we go forth, (for Jihad) He will punish us with a grievous penalty, and put others in our place" (9:39). Allah speaks to our Holy Prophet and says "O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern against them. Their abode is Hell - an evil refuge indeed" (9:73).
He promises us that in the fight for His cause whether we slay or are slain we return to the garden of Paradise (9:111). In Paradise he will "wed us with Houris (celestial virgins) pure beautiful ones" (56:54), and unite us with large-eyed beautiful ones while we recline on our thrones set in lines (56:20). There we are promised to eat and drink pleasantly for what we did (56:19). He also promises "boys like hidden pearls" (56:24) and "youth never altering in age like scattered pearls" (for those who have paedophiliac inclinations) (76:19). As you see, Allah has promised all sorts or rewards, gluttony and unlimited sex to Muslim men who kill unbelievers in his name. We will be admitted to Paradise where we shall find "goodly things, beautiful ones, pure ones confined to the pavilions that man has not touched them before nor jinni" (56:67-71).
In the West we enjoy freedom of belief but we are not supposed to give such freedom to anyone else because it is written "If anyone desires a religion other than Islam (submission to Allah), never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter He will be in the ranks of those who have lost (All spiritual good) (3:85). And He orders us to fight them on until there is no more tumult and faith in Allah is practiced everywhere (8:39).
As for women the book of Allah says that they are inferior to men and their husbands have the right to scourge them if they are found disobedient (4:34). It advises to "take a green branch and beat your wife", because a green branch is more flexible and hurts more. (38:44). It teaches that women will go to hell if they are disobedient to their husbands (66:10). It maintains that men have an advantage over the women (2:228). It not only denies the women's equal right to their inheritance (4:11-12), it also regards them as imbeciles and decrees that their witness is not admissible in the courts of law (2:282). This means that a woman who is raped cannot accuse her rapist unless she can produce a male witness. Our Holy Prophet allows us to marry up to four wives and he licensed us to sleep with our slave maids and as many 'captive' women as we may have (4:3) even if those women are already married. He himself did just that. This is why anytime a Muslim army subdues another nation, they call them kafir and allow themselves to rape their women. Pakistani soldiers allegedly raped up to 250,000 Bengali women in 1971 after they massacred 3,000,000 unarmed civilians when their religious leader decreed that Bangladeshis are un-Islamic. This is why the prison guards in Islamic regime of Iran rape the women that in their opinion are apostates prior to killing them, as they believe a virgin will not go to Hell.
I've been following a few candidate mobos for the system I'm building and the best place to hang out seems to be here. There are quite a number of people experiencing problems (which is what you're likely to need help with, not how great it is) so it's a good place to gather insite on the boards you are considering.
Of course, keep a critical eye on what you read, as some people's problems aren't related to the hardware, but inexperience or what they're trying to do which may be beyond recommendation by mfrs.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
One simple basic thing works fine on all the Asus, Epox, Gigabyte, and Tyan motherboards I've ever worked with, and failed on all the Intel motherboards I've worked with. That thing is the PS/2 keyboard port when either not connected at boot/reset time, or connected to an electronic KVM switchbox which has not selected that machine at boot/reset time.
If the keyboard is not plugged in at all, and then you plug it in later, it doesn't work. Linux sees a keyboard device, but no keypresses ever get through until you reboot (and Ctrl-Alt-Del doesn't work).
If the keyboard is plugged in to the electronic KVM switch, and the switch has not selected that machine at the time, then it gets even worse. Something (BIOS or chipset) just hangs. Video sync comes up but the screen is blank except for a cursor. When the KVM is switched over to that machine, still nothing. If you move the mouse, sometimes it will start up and BIOS will initialize and boot the system. However, the keyboard and mouse ports are now transposed electically or logically in the chipset. Mouse movements go in as garbled keypresses, and real keypresses occaisionally tickle mouse logic.
It's not a fundamental chipset flaw that I can see, as I have some cases of the same chipset on both Intel and ASUS boards, and the ASUS boards work fine. It might be how the chipsets are configured by the engineers, though I personally suspect the BIOS is the major culprit.
As a desktop, this is OK. As a server, this sucks. Even the rack mount Intel ISP-1100 (TX440 motherboard, BX chipset) has this problem, and that machine is clearly intended for the server market. I have contacted Intel support and after the issue was bounced around several engineers, it finally came back as "Not supported with a KVM switch" and they just dropped the issue.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
these guys obviously did a lot of research. from the article (on Gigabyte):
;-)
Stability
Their boards are being focused on reliability and stability. The dual bios option is just one sign. From personal experience, I've noted their boards to have a high degree of stability. They aren't extremely stable, but they are far above average. Their stability during their performance market days was questionable.
Rating: 7.5/10
funny. a review from Tom's Hardware pissed all over the dual bios saying it caused more problems than it fixed, making stability a very touchy issue.
Seems to me this article was written by a couple of DIY'ers who've heard the term "overclock," but never "benchmark." Oh, and as for history???? I sure as shit hope they don't tell everyone to run out and buy a 3Dfx board "because they were the original high-end 3D graphics board maker"
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
My review wasn't meant to be completely analytical. If you really wanted a board to board comparision, you would go check a review, since every model does differ.
The whole point is that each company makes board pretty much in the same way, even after 5 or 6 years. Some have changed direction, which is why you might see their overall score lower then you'd like, but you can always look at the specfics and judge for yourself.
Do some people really expect me to benchmark a dozen boards from each company? ya right, get real and stop bitching.
Some people mention bios problems, like gigabytes dual bios. It doesn't make their boards unstable, it just doesn't always work, especially if you screw up the bios in a weird way. Board makers always can't forsee what will happen, which is the point of bios updates, so as long as companies don't have excessive updates fixing simple things, they don't lose points there either.
Just a reminder, these aren't my personal opinions, its how things are. I had to grit my teeth when giving some companies good ratings because of how much I dislike them.
I sell and configure custom computers almost everyday, and one thing I will take issue with is the articles opinion of Abit and support.
Abit performs well, they are reliable, and they come with nice features... As I heard a tech at my company told a customer once, "if you get a bad one, forget about getting your problem fixed."
We as a company refuse to stock them any longer. Having a pile of 4 dozen motherboards with issues that we can't RMA'd or get credit for made that decision easy. Even the istributers we buy from dropped them. I haven't confirmed this, but I've been told this last week by two customer's that Fry's won't carry them any longer for the same reason.
I tell customers this everytime they want to special order a Abit motherboard, "I can order it in, but it is purchased 'as is.' We wlll not accept it in return, refund, or exchange. All warranty issues must be dealt with by you directly with Abit. Payment is needed at time of order." It's the only way to protect the company and most people ask why we have that policy, I explain, they buy Asus or go elsewhere.
Basically, Abit rocks, except when you get that 1 out of 200 bad board. My opinion, buy Asus, their RMA and support is the best I've ever seen, and they perform realiably.
You can tell the writer worships their arse.
Going on about Abits history of great stability/support/reliability etc.
Bullshit, just a couple of years ago Abit had worse RMA rates than bloody PC Chips/ECS, AT 10%. Ontop of that Abit charged a RMA fee
(even when it was 100% their fault) of $20, forcing retailers to charge an extra $2 on every Abit board to make sure they didn't lose out on the 10% that failed.
Mind you they're improved since then, the box I'm typing this on has a Abit board.
It transforms those ECS Athlon boards from shit to the bargin of the century, well almost.
Why can't somone, with support from IBM and Motorola, persuade the motherboard manufacturers to make motherboards for PowerPCs? Why should only the Mac people have all the fun? Since Linux is becoming very popular, don't you think it would be a good idea? Maybe they have to take some loss initially, but don't you think it will take off (they can probably cover the loss if IBM and Motorola's support)? I love my linux desktop,and KDE and GNOME is getting better each day! Love to hear your comments. Hem Ramachandran
"where does it say in ANY biblical text that its 'ok' to slaughter children "
It seems the Pals are just folling our example, only they have the guts to sacrifice their own lives too.
The article is good. But what I want, is a good listing of failure rates for all the boards.
-Oy Vey
Have a comment? Have something worth mentioning?
You're free to come and talk kietch with the author of the article at either #queenofgeeks or #aselabs at the chat.planetz.net server on port 7000
__________
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
I'm afraid my expectations to this review was set too high. They sure do look at a large ammount of boards, but they only compare features which i could do myself with a little help from a web browser.
But the reason im really posting is that i disagree with their rating of Asus' support. Especially regarding Bios updates, or should i say the lack of Bios updates. I have been using a beta bios for almost 2 years now to get a 40 Gig harddrive to work on a P5A. There havent been a single bios upgrade since i bought my board... I have had similar experiences in the past.
I can't say if they have improved over the last few years but i somehow doubt it and i dont care, the P5A is my last Asus board and it is the next one in line to be replaced.
I followed the links from a reply that purported to be from the author (at the moment the AnandTech forum appears to be /.ed.) The author's home machine has 256MB of RAM, a ATI Radeon 8500 retail, and Windows XP Pro. I refuse to trust anything said about computers from a person who has this setup. There's nothing wrong about the individual pieces, it's the tradeoff in the aggregation that bothers me. How can someone who claims to have advanced knowledge of motherboards decide to go with only 256MB of RAM while blowing money on the latest generation of video card? Never, ever scrimp on RAM. The opinion of someone who doesn't know this as a first principle should not be trusted.
Just because every board you bought of manufacture X works fine doesn't mean the board's any good ... so you sez ... Huh ???
You may be right..
Not that I'm pushing nVidia.. but they deserve to be in the comparison. Especially with quotes like:
If a manufacturer is not on this list, then avoid them.
I just watched him in a public announcement that's only two hours old!!
You people are lousey, board consuming punks! Eat Karma!
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
"ECS's SiS board must have set a record for number of problems"
You have GOT to be shitting me!! Have you read any reviews on ECS' latest boards? Check out the K7S5A in particular. It's dirt cheap in price, but has a good feature set and is rock-solid in the stability category, which is proabably the most important of all. I bought one after researching the new boards for over a week and haven't been disappointed in the least.
In fact, one of the main reasons for choosing that board was to get away from the VIA chipset. God, I had an Asus K7M and had nothing but problems that all seemed to trace back to VIA (and Creative...bastards). Friends and many, MANY anecdotal postings on messageboards confirmed this as well.
$300CDN is just a waste of money for features I'll never use (onboard software-based RAID, no thanks..) And considering that every time I want to upgrade my CPU I need a new motherboard because the industry decided on a new slot/socket design or form factor, there's no point in wasting a whack of cash on one.
http://www.cosmicshell.com/~doublec/chat/
In case you want to visit #queenofgeeks
Meet the almost girl-friend of the author;)
(if only he'd quit calling her fat!)
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
ECS == PCCHIPS.
PCChips is one of the lowest scum of the earth manufactuers.
They pirate BIOSes, remark CPUs, glue plastic squares on their boards instead of cache chips, don't mark manufacuters' names on board or model numbers (most of the time), make inferior voltage regulation for processors, fake processors speeds and bus speeds, and the specific board you have is so poorly designed it can't handle a 1.4 Ghz processor (try it and you will see I am 100% right).
Spend 5 minutes on deja, or look up the "pcchips lottery" to see that I'm right. BTW: Your board is availiable in a slightly different shade from various PCCHIPS manufactuers. Have fun and see if you can spot the board on amptron's site (another PCCHIPS distributor). I know the one you find there that looks the same is identical, since I had one of each (an ECS model and an Amptron model) in my hot little hands and spent a good few minutes inspecting them. The differences? Color and FCC logo position.
BTW: Tom's hardware can bite me. They don't deserve to be called a review site after giving anything from PCChips a good rating.
Don't believe me? Take your computer to a used computer store and ask them if they will even buy it off you. Just don't forget to mention you have a PCChips board.
>$300CDN is just a waste of money for features I'll never use (onboard software-based RAID, no thanks..)
Agreed. You can, however, find good boards from MSI, and lower end ASUS boards for under $150 if you look around.
actually...
I started with win98, where 256 is more then enough. I moved to XP, and wanted to get more RAM, but the price is so high for DDR now, that I'm holding off, I still want more though.
This tactic of retailers telling you that "you got a bad board? Tough, send it back to the manufacturer, not me" is bullshit in the extreme.
In Canada, the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) protects people against this sort of garbage, but many retailers still pull it because very few people know about it. Basically, it states that the contract of sale is between you and the retailer, not the manufacturer. You have warranty "within reasonable limits" on what you purchase from them. If it's broke, it's up to the retailer to handle the RMA to the manufacturer/supplier/whoever, NOT YOU.
However, if the manufacturer warranty is longer than the reasonable retail warranty and you've passed the point of being able to return it to the retailer, it goes without saying that you have to deal with the mfg directly.
I wouldn't trust this list further than I could kick it. It is simply too subjective of an issue. There are certainly brands that tend to have problems or poor manufacturing, but I'm cracking up at the score they gave SuperMicro. It scored a perfect 10.0 for reliability, but since it is poor for overclocking and built-in motherboard features it ended up getting the lowest score of the bunch. My best overall home machine is a dual P3-500 SuperMicro machine that runs 24/7/365 and has never given me problems. The box is simply rock solid. On the other hand, my Shuttle based machine is down constantly. It's obvious the testers were much more concerned with maximum performance (speed, overclocking, built-in features) vs. maximum stability/useability. Besides, what do I care about some piece of crap video and audio subsystem layered on my motherboard. I'd simply turn it off in BIOS anyway and add my own cards.
OK, so I built a machine for my fiancee's parents (gigahertz-class duron, 256 ram, geforce 2 derivative, etc. quite a jump from the p200mmx they had). I went with the ECS board, becuase of all the good things I heard about it. The first motherboard suffered a catastrophic error, some widget on the underside of the board sort of exploded and the motherboard basically soldered itself to the case, shorting it. It's the first time I'd ever seen computer hardware _literally smoke_, and I don't mean just a little puff. (There's still a great big scorch mark on their case.) This also nuked pretty much everything plugged into the board except the cdrom and floppy. Thankfully, the shop we bought everything from (axtiontech, here in houston tx) really bent over backwards, giving us no problems about returning components. The next ecs board we got has been running flawlessly for a couple of months now. I guess we just got that one in a million lemon.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
and wanted to get more RAM, but the price is so high for DDR now, that I'm holding off
I know what you mean! $80 for Corsair 256MB PC2100. I'll have to save my allowance for MONTHS to be able to afford that!!
Commodity PowerPC mobos were available back in the mid-1990s.
Nobody bought them, which is the main reason you can't buy one now -- that and the fact that nobody wants to pay to maintain the Windows PPC port (which is a majority of the desktop market and a good chunk of the server market).
Both IBM and Moto expected great things in the desktop market, didn't find them after spending an assload of money, and retreated to safer markets.
I always wondered what would happen if trolls got caught it a feedback loop...
Joshua, Chapters 10-12
i beleive that the K7S5A is an awsome board... not only is it fast and mostly stable(arguable but its not BAD nor is it GREAT) but its CHEAP...
i beleive that a cheap mobo IS good... most of the time your mobo is NOT the problem and some other cheapo part is... if you can save $20 (or more usually with the ECS K7S5A) on your mobo then you can get a better power supply or ram which usually ARE the source of a problem...
the cost recovered by a cheaper board is quickly justified when suddenly you can buy ECC ram or throw another 50W on a power supply
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
I've built a few computers over the years and have used motherboards from several companies. I've been lucky to not have gotten a DOA board so far. I've used boards made by AZZA (which was not in his review) and have been happy with them. AZZA's website has had good support for current and discontinued products. In fact, they published an ap note on how to use the K6-266 and K6-300 cpu's on an older board that would only work with speeds up to 233. The mod involved changing out a surface mount resistor in the power supply and lifting a leg off a surface mount IC (not for the faint hearted or far sighted!). I was able to make the change, and it worked fine!
I have switched to Tyan boards for my last two computers since they had the mix of features I wanted. They were the last guys making a slot-1 AT style mb with ISA slots. A good MB which is still in use here. My current machine uses their trinity series which supports flip chip and slot 1 intel processors. It has a PIII-866 (maybe if I ever find a 1GHZ PIII on sale cheap somewhere I'll upgrade, but the small increase in speed simply isn't worth very much vs the price of the cpu). I have 768mb of dram (maxed out) and this board is VERY stable, even running win-98, though it is mostly a Linux box that can dual boot. The single isa slot has a hacked up old style printer card that will be used to drive a home brew prom burner, or the DDT-52 emulator (byte). I'm sorry he gave Tyan a lower position than the others, but I guess he is more hacker than system guru. Tyan desktop MB's are not too expensive and they are discounted by many mail order houses. You do pay dearly for their servers boards, but you don't want a shity MB in a server! I'd gladly pay the price for a machine that was keeping my business up!
I was a little dissapointed that the article didn't mention some of the higher end motherbard manufacturers like SuperMicro. If you want to build a really stable and reliable system most of these Tiawanese specials are a little lacking.
> I haven't confirmed this, but I've been told this last week by two customer's that Fry's won't carry them any longer for the same reason.
I just searched Fry's online store (www.outpost.com) and found this:
Search Results Showing items 1 through 2 out of 2.
Item_# Product_Name Manufacturer Platform Shipping Price
2995165
Abit TH7-RAID i850 P4 Motherboard
Abit
For PC
Same Day
$99.90Buy
3078699
Abit KG7-RAID AMD 761 Motherboard
ABIT
(no platform listed)
Same Day
$99.90Buy
Is the maximum memory that can be placed on a x86 motherboard 4gb?? If not, can someone point me to where I can purchase a motherboard with a greater RAM capacity?
Thanks,
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
I was trying to get the onboard via8233 sound chip to work, and not getting anywhere.
I emailed Epox tech support, and someone emailed back in about 4 hours with ALSA drivers attached and instructions on how to compile and configure. Crank ON!
Admittedly, the sound chip appears to suck anyway (mp3s are fine, but sound in Tribes 2 is horrible - on my Athlon 1600XP). But you have to congratulate their tech support for jumping in with the ALSA drivers. I was expecting to be told to use the kernel drivers (which don't work) and seek support in newsgroups...
If it's not on the list, is it even worth considering? Newegg has the Biostar M7VKQ for $52, and I'm thinking of using one for an MP3 player. Onboard video and LAN.
Any love/horror Biostar stories?
DoC
The only EPoX board I've bought was awhile ago, the MVP3G-M (a Super7 board I used with an AMD K6-III 450).
I got it because it was the highest rated board for its type. It never failed me, and I'm certainly glad I got it.
Rock solid, good drivers. EPoX's website was always friendly. I never had a reason to contact their customer service though.
Aureal went out of business a couple of years ago. (its a shame, they made good sound cards that were priced pretty good) Right now, Drivers support is sketchy for Windows 2000 as well as Linux. Try looking at www.vortexofsound.com or searching for aureal on SourceForge. I was able to get my Aureal sound card to work on RH Linux 6.2 once though. The driver only works for kernel 2.4.2 and wont work for RH 7.x.
$cat
Pals are so toast, only the media gives a shit about them, the rest of the world governments know the real deal. Thats why nothing is done to stop a bunch of police from doing what they have to to stop criminals.
And germany? hahahahahah. The children of Dresden? hahahahahahahahaa BWAHAHAHA. Lets side with ADOLF HITLER to prove the Palestinians are right? hHAHAHAHAHAQHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Side with te 3rd reich to prove palestine is justified. HAHAHAH. kills me.
Good one, HAHAHAHHAHA.
"We must fight this terrorism, in an uncompromising war to uproot these savages, to dismantle their infrastructure, because there is no compromise with terrorists."
"He's got to make it absolutely clear that the Palestinian Authority does not support these terrorist activities " George Bush on Yasser Arafat (Note, Arafat will never be clear on this issue. Arafat is a two faced liar.)
Hezbollah Open Light Weapon Fire Sunday Midnight on Israeli Positions Guarding Western Sector of Israel-Lebanese Frontier - Second Attack in Three Days (Arab aggression, unsolicited yet again)
Also Sunday Night, Israeli Tank and Ground Units Reach Center of West Bank Town of Qalqilya Amid Exchanges of Fire (Again, a response to unsolicited fire)
In Address to Nation, Sharon Declares Israel Is at War, Names Arafat as Terror Source and Leader, Enemy of Israel and Free World and Threat to Regional Stability (Like Sharon doesn't have enough problems being a leader of a decent country, he is having to put politics aside and do everything he can to defend his people)
Earlier, Six Israelis Were Injured, One Critically, When Palestinian Suicide Blew up First Aid Post at
Gush Etzion Town of Efrat Near Bethlehem - Where He was Employed (Good moral high grounds, a Palestinian employee of a first air post blows up injured and former co workers)
Suicide Attack in Haifa "Matsa" Restaurant Sunday Claims 16 Lives, Leaves 38 Injured, 5 Critically,
and Guts Restaurant -Passover Terror Toll Soars to 47 Israelis Killed, 219 Injured in Six Outrages in Five Days (Palestine the bloody piece of shit, good work!)
Tanzim Chief Barghouti Believed Hiding in His Home Village of Kobar, South of Ramallah Israeli Forces Detain Locals For Questioning on His Whereabouts (Again, police are looking for crime lords and the Palestinians hide them, international criminals)
Senior Security Sources: To Complete Arafat's Isolation, Israeli Troops Expected to Bring Senior Terror Activists out of His Office Among them: Tawfiq Tirawi, Commander of Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Its Suicide Attacks Soldiers Will Also Impound Documents (Good, so the documents can show that Arafat is a criminal who does business daily with TAWFIQ TIRAWR, an international criminal)
ARAFAT is a CRIMINAL, he associates with CRIMANLS. That is all there is to it.
Abit KG7-RAID AMD 761 Motherboard
ABIT
(no platform listed)
Same Day
$99.90 Buy"
Shit! I bought that same board for $179 3 weeks ago. grrr. I should of waited. Oh and with that board you can not turn on apm without apic support on as well. This means its useless for linux unless you turn off apm. At least with abit you can turn it off. The soyo ones keep it on making it a windows only board. Apic is real evil. Just a little warning here for linux users thinking about buying this board.
http://saveie6.com/
The webpage was written by an 11 year old. He wants to be like the big boys as a hardware reviewer but doesn't have the patience to test motherboards objectively. Instead, this pre-teen made up rankings for the heck of it.
2 seconds into reading the reviews, I knew I was reading pure BS.
Ignore it. Maybe the boy will grow up. If he doesn't just ignore him forever, like his parents and teachers. Maybe he'll go away.
I've got a P3V4X that's never once crashed on me in over two years of hard use, and I'm overclocking a slot-1 P-III/600 coppermine to 800MHz with it (huge Alpha HSF keeping the cpu cool).
:-).
Just upgraded this weekend to a shiny new P4T-E and 1.6a OC'd to FSB133 and 2.13GHz, rock solid stable and running cool at 1.5v
ASUS mobos definitely earn their #1 ranking, though I can't agree with the review only giving genuine Intel mobos only a 5.5 on performance. Every Intel mobo I've seen runs equally as fast as it's ASUS counterpart when at stock clocking speeds.
If your thinking of getting a great board for a server then look no further then chaintek. WHen I here of chainteck I think of reliable. Just this board and WindowsNT could keep your server up for ages.
check out:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/c/cyrusgre.asp
Cyrus the Great See also: Ancient History Middle Eastern Biographies
(sires), d. 529 BC, king of Persia, founder of the greatness of the Achaemenids and of the Persian Empire. According to Herodotus, he was the son of an Iranian noble, the elder Cambyses, and a Median princess, daughter of Astyages. Many historians, following other ancient writers (such as Ctesias), deny this genealogy, and the whole of Cyrus' life is encrusted with legend. Cyrus overthrew Astyages, king of the Medes, sometime between 559 BC and 549 BC He entered Ecbatana and, taking over the Median kingdom, began to build a great empire after the Assyrian model. Cyrus' objectives were to gain power over the Mediterranean coast, secure Asia Minor, and civilize the east. Croesus of Lydia, Nabonidus of Babylonia, and Amasis II of Egypt, joined by Sparta, tried to build a strong alliance against him, but to no avail. He defeated and captured Croesus (546 BC), and Lydia became a satrapy under the Persian government. The Chaldaean empire of Babylonia fell to Cyrus in 538 BC He did not conquer Egypt, but he prepared the way for later Persian victories there. Cyrus demanded the surrender of the Greek cities that had been under Lydia, and they also became satrapies of Persia. Cyrus was much admired by the Jews, whom he favored, placing them in power in Palestine. His motive was probably to create a buffer state between Persia and Egypt, but the result was a rehabilitation of Israel. Cyrus was admired as a liberator rather than a conqueror, because he respected the customs and religions of each part of his vast empire. The exact limits of Cyrus' eastern conquests are not known, but it is possible that they reached as far as the Peshawar region. He used Susa, Ecbatana, and Babylon as his capitals but was buried at Pasargadae, where he had built a splendid palace. At his death his son Cambyses succeeded him, despite the ambitions of another son, Smerdis.
Jerusalem's history stretches back about 5,000 years. About 2500 BC, the Canaanites inhabited the city. Later, Jerusalem became a Jebusite citadel. When DAVID captured the city (c.1000 BC), the Jebusites were absorbed into the Jewish people. David made Jerusalem the capital of his kingdom, and SOLOMON built the first Temple to house the Ark of the Covenant. In 586 BC, the Babylonian NEBUCHADNEZZAR II destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple and exiled the Jews to Babylonia. Fifty years later (537 BC), CYRUS THE GREAT of Persia conquered Babylonia and permitted the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple.
No, the Jews are real criminals, they are the Nazis of our time.
JERUSALEM--Since Yom Kippur in 1973, Israel has not experienced a violent Arab attack so laced with savage contempt for our people and our heritage as we experienced on Pessah Eve this year.
The message Palestinian terrorists are sending us is crystal clear: We will murder you at every opportunity, in every place, at any time--even on the holiest of your days.
An unremitting carnage that indiscriminately slaughters all who come within the murderous reach of Palestinian terrorists shows the depths of their hatred. Clearly, the only constraint for Arab terrorists is their destructive capability. Given the power, they would destroy all of us, down to the last infant.
The primary objective of Yasser Arafat's terrorist regime is not to establish the 22nd Arab state, but to destroy the only Jewish state. This was and remains the heart of the conflict.
In 1948, the Arabs rejected an international resolution that would have established an Arab state, and instead attempted to destroy an embryonic Jewish state. Fifty-two years later, Arafat rejected a similar offer and demanded the flooding of Israel with millions of Palestinians, a measure that would effectively bring about the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.
With such a regime, whose ultimate objective is our destruction and which pursues this objective by the most barbaric means imaginable, there is no place for negotiations and no hope for reaching any sustainable peace agreement.
Indeed, the much vaunted political solution to end the conflict was in fact attempted two years ago at Camp David, and it utterly failed. Arafat rejected a scandalously far-reaching Israeli offer of a sovereign Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, which included half of Jerusalem, and instead chose to unleash the present war of terror against Israel.
There is only one option that is now available to Israel: to decisively win the war that has been forced upon us. What is required of us today is not a willingness to clench our teeth and bear this ongoing violence. We must instead seek a total military victory against an implacable enemy that is waging a terrorist war against us.
First, we must immediately dismantle the Palestinian Authority and expel Arafat. Second, we must encircle the main Palestinian population centers, purge them of terrorists, and eradicate the terrorist infrastructure. Third, we must establish security separation lines that will allow Israeli armed forces to enter Palestinian territory, but prevent Palestinian terrorists from entering our towns and cities.
The choice we face today is not between military victory and a security separation. Rather, we must do both together. Only by combining the two can we stop the terror, restore a deterrence that has been dangerously eroded in the last two years, and enable a realistic and moderate leadership to emerge among the Palestinians with which we can pursue a political settlement in the future.
Like a partial dose of antibiotics that is not sufficient to cure the disease, the partial actions of the government and the fitful changes between a policy of restraint and half-hearted military action has not and will not achieve anything. Our excessive concern about the international community has also borne bitter fruit. Israel's refusal so far to act, as would any other self-respecting nation, heightens the doubts in the minds of our friends of our belief in the justice of our cause and encourages our enemies to increase the bloodshed.
The only way to win international understanding for our position, especially in America, is to steadfastly assert our basic right to defend ourselves and achieve a quick and decisive military victory that will stop the terrible massacre of our citizens.
Finally, the claim that we have tried all military means to end the terror is baseless. We have used but a small fraction of our military power, and even that has not been directed at the right target: ending Arafat's regime. Today, after 18 months of terrorism, the government continues to work under the illusion that it is possible to stop terrorism without dismantling this main terrorist engine.
What is absolutely clear is that we cannot continue, even for one more day, on a path of indecision, without a goal or a policy. We must do what any nation in our position would do: stop bickering among ourselves, fight the war that has been forced upon us, and vanquish an enemy who is determined to annihilate us.
What a load of crap but what do you expect from a nation that elects a war criminal Isreal deserves what they get
Muslim Conference Split Over Whether Suicide Bombers Are Terrorists
By Rohan Sullivan Associated Press Writer
Published: Apr 1, 2002
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Muslim countries were split over whether to condemn Palestinian suicide bombers as terrorists at the start of a major Islamic conference Monday.
Fault lines appeared immediately as the Palestinian representative disagreed with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, the meeting's host, who said that suicide bombers killing Israeli civilians should be regarded as terrorists.
"It is not necessary to condemn the suicide bombers, because we have to take into consideration the reasons behind somebody willing to lose his life," Palestinian Foreign Minister Farouk Kaddoumi told reporters at the conference. (A Palestinian "dignitary" calling terrorists martyrs. HAHAHAHAHA.)
Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories is "the highest and worst kind of terrorism, and the human being, if he sacrifices his life - there must be a reason," Kaddoumi said. "The reason is state terrorism." (Oh fucking please, please. This is such cock biting bullshit. IDF has become the mommie and daddie police officers for these stupid losers, who call themselves Palestinians)
Deputy Foreign Minister Ivica Misic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, chief of his country's anti-terrorism team, disagreed. (Thank God, a reasonable person is present)
"I don't care about race or religion," Ivica said. "I agree that if a person kills or harms a civilian he is a terrorist, no matter how noble his struggle may be." (DING DING DING DING, our survey says most rational people agree)
An attempt to paper over the divisions with a resolution condemning Israel for state terrorism was passed unanimously, but the conference risked bogging down under the old dilemma: when is a terrorist a freedom fighter? (Never. You stupid fucks. You never kill innocent people.)
Mahathir, a vital U.S. ally in the campaign to crack Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, called for agreement that any attack on civilians - by the Sept. 11 hijackers, Israel's army or Palestinian suicide bombers - be labeled terrorism. (Thank you, thank you. Voice of reason here boys)
"Muslims everywhere must condemn terrorism, once it is clearly defined," Mahathir said. "Bitter and angry though we may be, we must demonstrate to the world that Muslims are rational people when fighting for our rights and we do not resort to acts of terror." (So far, no good. No Muslim countries have done this for very long. Its almost an act for them. They really are out of control corrupted regimes that can not act civil for more than a decade)
Mahathir, Asia's longest-serving leader, hopes that the three-day meeting of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference will lead to a United Nations convention to define terrorism and an accepted way to hold perpetrators accountable, including governments. (Thank you, if your government is a PIECE of TERRORIST shit, say, time to nuke, con te partiro, fuckstickus maximus)
Malaysia has been pushing for an international conference since Sept. 11, which Mahathir said had hurt the image of Islam. (Shoulda happened sooner. Man these Mulsims are shitty at Public Relations, and they got that Islamic ball sucker Christiana Amanpour licking Islams nuts all over CNN. Al Jazeera is a hooligan terrorist sponsored crime ring as well.)
The gathering of foreign ministers and other officials follows escalating bloodshed in the Middle East. Palestinian suicide bombings killed 15 Israelis on Sunday and Israeli troops deepened their invasion of the West Bank.
Malaysia, which has urged participants to refrain from emotional rhetoric so the meeting will be seen as positive by the non-Muslim world, resisted Arab pressure to include a condemnation of Israel in the main declaration, which should be issued Wednesday. (Of course it did, Israel isn't doing anything wrong.)
In a compromise, a separate statement was adopted in Monday urging the U.N. Security Council to provide protection to Palestinians "and apply deterrent sanctions against Israel."
Israel's actions were "dragging the region toward an all-out war," the statement said.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, who arrived late, said the United Nations had failed so far to reign in Israel because "they are allies of the Israelis."
Any final declaration on terror could meet death in committee. Qatar's foreign minister, Sheik Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani, chairman of the Islamic Conference, suggested forming a panel to study an anti-terror document agreed to in 1999.
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, asked by reporters about the suicide bombings, said that "civilians should be spared. At the same time, if we are looking for a solution to this problem, we have to look at the cause of this conflict."
Mahathir said the Sept. 11 attacks, blamed on Saudi-born Islamic radical Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida group, were an "unmitigated disaster" for the world's estimated 1.2 billion Muslims, with the religion becoming increasingly perceived as rooted in violence.
Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and other groups have produced terrorists, and singling out one religion was unfair, Mahathir said.
Malaysia is a prosperous Southeast Asian country of 23 million people and has jailed 24 people accused of involvement in an al-Qaida-linked plot to blow up U.S. targets in Singapore. They include a former army captain who hosted two of the Sept. 11 hijackers at his apartment in 2000.
Terrorists suck. You know, when someone else has to jerk you off and wipe your ass, they never do it as well as you can. Same goes true for the world and cleaning up criminals. Id Uncle Sam has to traipse halfway across the globe to clean up your shit, or if Israel has to do it, don't fucking complain when they don't do it "right," whatever that means. Its war, its ugly, if you don't like it , do what M.L. King and Gandhi did so well and try the pacifism hat on for a fucking change, PLEASE.
This is very well written. It amazes me that Jews (the author says he or she is Jewish) are so skillful at lying to themselves.
The issue is not whether there was ever a Palestinian state. The issue is why the Jews annoy the surrounding cultures until the other cultures want to kill them. This has been happening for 3,200 years.
I read the Intel review; it contains the same horses**t that most so-called enthusiasts heap on Intel the boards. Let's review some of the issues:
Granted, Intel boards are more expensive. But overall, they do not deserve the bad reputation from enthusiasts.
For the book says, "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."
Palestinian Tanzim Militiamen Hold 10 Priests and Nuns Hostage in Bethlehem's Santa Maria Church
April 2, 2002. Death to Infatedeh
Islam is Death, Death to Islam.
Of course he uses DOLLARS. Fucking raghead.
Wednesday, April 3, 2002; 11:01 p.m. EST
Saddam's Suicide Bomber Reward Yields Deadly Results
It's been a month since Iraqi madman Saddam Hussein decided to boost the reward he offers to suicide bombers from $10,000 to $25,000 - and the pay raise is apparently paying off.
Since Iraq upped the suicide incentive, 12 Palestinian bombers have successfully blown themselves to smithereens inside Israel, including one man who killed 25, the Associated Press noted today.
The families of three human hand grenades recently reported that they received $25,000 checks.
The kamikaze killers are also often honored as fallen heroes, with their families reaping praise for their sacrifice to the cause. A particularly deadly bomber may even be memorialized with a street named after him.
One pro-Iraqi Palestinian leader told the AP the support payments for relatives often helped potential bombers to make up their minds.
"Some people stop me on the street, saying if you increase the payment to $50,000 I'll do it immediately," he added in apparent jest.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Palestinian Attack on Powell Motorcade Foiled
DEBKAfile Special Report
12 April: Israeli security foiled a Palestinian terrorist attempt to hit the motorcade driving US secretary of state Colin Powellfrom Ben Gurion Airport to Jerusalem Thursday night, April 12, shortly after he landed. The Secretary was accompanied by Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres and heads of the US embassy.
Just before 9 pm IT, two hours before the US Secretary arrived, a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance was stopped by a hidden Israeli security patrol near the gas station on the Modi'in-Jerusalem Highway 443. The driver and his mate had all the necessary permits for transporting a dead Palestinian policeman to the Gaza Strip. However, since Yasser Arafat's confinement in Ramallah, security has been intensified on all traffic coming from the direction of the Palestinian town, in case of an attempt to smuggle him out. In any case, in a war situation, in which passage from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip has been suspended, all permits are checked for forgeries.
The ambulance was therefore opened up and searched carefully. Hidden under the corpse was a large supply of explosives and a suicider's bomb belt.
According to some of DEBKAfile's sources, the two Palestinians admitted under questioning that they had planned to pull the ambulance up on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv expressway, the route taken later by the Powell motorcade. One of the men was to stay in the vehicle, while the other strapped on the bomb belt and hid in some roadside bushes. When the secretary's car drove by, the ambulance was rigged to explode. The second bomber was then supposed to leap into the milling crowd of officials and security men and blow himself up.
At 22:07 IT, the booby-trapped Red Crescent ambulance was blown up in a controlled explosion, creating a bang loud enough to frighten dwellers in a broad radius and start the rumor of a rocket attack. Israel security is now investigating the provenance of the Red Crescent ambulance and the official permits.
Islam is Death, Death to Islam