Slashdot Mirror
FDA Approves Implantable Microchips
phrontist writes: "Wired is running a story about the Federal Drug Administration ruling that an 'implantable microchip used for ID purposes is not a regulated device, paving the way for the chip's immediate sale in the United States.' Spooky."
The fonts.
The X11 fonts are so terribly, terribly, awful that I just cannot stand to use any web browser or word processor under Linux. It is back to Win XP for me every time that I try it.
You coders are getting close, but you are still so far - the fonts are TERRIBLE. The fonts are so bad, I just cant stand it.
The X11 fonts are so bad for web browing or word processing that I have to turn away when I see it. In fact, I never see it, because the fonts are so bad I won't even run it in the first place.
What is so hard about making an italics font? You would think it was fucking rocket science, cause you dirty GNU hippies just can't seem to figure it out. Yeah, go ahead and mod me -1 Troll now, but I speak the truth and you know it.
The truth that I speak and that you know is that Linux will never approach more than .5% desktop market share until it has fonts that are somewhat readable.
Even reading Slashdot is painful with the default Linux fonts under Konqueror. What do they call it? Micro 11 or something? More like micro shit. Here is a ticket for the clue bus, please catch a ride.
You will NEVER approach the desktop market until you create some readable fonts.
That is all.
Why was Slashdot down for a few minutes? This isn't a troll (really), I'm just wondering why the 404 errors at about 2:40am EST.
my tits are so hard right now my nipples oh god my pussy is burning oh god
Turn on anti-aliased TrueType fonts. KDE 3.0, finally, kicks some royal ass.
That is all.
Holy Shit!
I want to know what happened to Slashdot.
Shit I turned off my proxy and a huge fucking add poped up!
Shit and I had thought those big gaps were problems with the shitty html.
Or are you jsut happy to see me?
Indeed. The benefits of rectal penetration cannot be overstated.
Pushin' 'n dealin', shovin' 'n stealin'
... to encourage widespread popularity of the Telemarketer Game.
The game all the family can play! Destroy a business model while watching TV! I think that phone companies should provide a service where they announce your Telemarketer Game score after each call. Then we can all post our scores on Slashdot and brag about them.
Oops, I posted this comment to the wrong article. Sorry.
Personal Testimony of an Israeli Refusenik
by Asaf Oron
Jewish Peace News
February 24, 2002
[Asaf Oron, a Sergeant Major in the Giv'ati Brigade, is one of the original
53 Israeli soldiers who signed the "Fighters' Letter" declaring that from
now on they will refuse to serve in the Occupied territories. He is signer
#8 and one of the first in the list to include a statement explaining his
action. (There are 251 signers as of February 17, 2002.) Below is the
translation of Oron's statement by Ami Kronfeld of Jewish Peace News.]
On February 5, 1985, I got up, left my home, went to the Compulsory Service
Center on Rashi Street in Jerusalem, said goodbye to my parents, boarded the
rickety old bus going to the Military Absorption Station and turned into a
soldier.
Exactly seventeen years later, I find myself in a head to head confrontation
with the army, while the public at large is jeering and mocking me from the
sidelines. Right wingers see me as a traitor who is dodging the holy war
that's just around the corner. The political center shakes a finger at me
self-righteously and lectures me about undermining democracy and
politicizing the army.
And the left? The square, establishment, "moderate" left that only yesterday
was courting my vote now turns its back on me as well. Everyone blabbers
about what is and what is not legitimate, exposing in the process the depth
of their ignorance of political theory and their inability to distinguish a
real democracy from a third world regime in the style of Juan Peron.
Almost no one asks the main question: why would a regular guy get up one
morning in the middle of life, work, the kids and decide he's not playing
the game anymore? And how come he is not alone but there are fifty... I beg
your pardon, a hundred... beg your pardon again, now almost two hundred
regular, run of the mill guys like him who've done the same thing?
Our parents' generation lets out a sigh: we've embarrassed them yet again.
But isn't it all your fault? What did you raise us on? Universal ethics and
universal justice, on the one hand: peace, liberty and equality to all. And
on the other hand: "the Arabs want to throw us into the sea," "They are all
crafty and primitive. You can't trust them."
On the one hand, the songs of John Lennon, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Bob
Marely, Pink Floyd. Songs of peace and love and against militarism and war.
On the other hand, songs about a sweetheart riding the tank after sunset in
the field: "The tank is yours and you are ours." [allusions to popular
Israeli songs - AK]. I was raised on two value systems: one was the ethical
code and the other the tribal code, and I naïvely believed that the two
could coexist.
This is the way I was when I was drafted. Not enthusiastic, but as if
embarking on a sacred mission of courage and sacrifice for the benefit of
society. But when, instead of a sacred mission, a 19 year old finds himself
performing the sacrilege of violating human beings' dignity and freedom, he
doesn't dare ask - even himself - if it's OK or not. He simply acts like
everyone else and tries to blend in. As it is, he's got enough problems, and
boy is the weekend far off.
You get used to it in a hurry, and many even learn to like it. Where else
can you go out on patrol - that is, walk the streets like a king, harass and
humiliate pedestrians to your heart's content, and get into mischief with
your buddies - and at the same time feel like a big hero defending your
country? The Gaza Exploits became heroic tales, a source of pride for Giv'
ati, then a relatively new brigade suffering from low self esteem.
For a long time, I could not relate to the whole "heroism" thing. But when,
as a sergeant, I found myself in charge, something cracked inside me.
Without thinking, I turned into the perfect occupation enforcer. I settled
accounts with "upstarts" who didn't show enough respect. I tore up the
personal documents of men my father's age. I hit, harassed, served as a bad
example - all in the city of Kalkilia, barely three miles from grandma and
grandpa's home-sweet-home. No. I was no "aberration." I was exactly the
norm.
Having completed my compulsory service, I was discharged, and then the first
Intifada began (how many more await us?) Ofer, a comrade in arms who
remained in the service has become a hero: the hero of the second Giv'ati
trial. He commanded a company that dragged a detained Palestinian
demonstrator into a dark orange grove and beat him to death.
As the verdict stated, Ofer was found to have been the leader in charge of
the whole business. He spent two months in jail and was demoted - I think
that was the most severe sentence given an Israeli soldier through the
entire first Intifada, in which about a thousand Palestinians were killed.
Ofer's battalion commander testified that there was a order from the higher
echelons to use beatings as a legitimate method of punishment, thereby
implicating himself.
On the other hand, Efi Itam, the brigade commander, who had been seen
beating Arabs on numerous occasions, denied that he ever gave such an order
and consequently was never indicted. Today he lectures us on moral conduct
on his way to a new life in politics. (In the current Intifada,
incidentally, the vast majority of incidents involving Palestinian deaths
are not even investigated. No one even bothers.)
And in the meantime, I was becoming more of a civilian. A copy of The Yellow
Wind [a book on life in the Occupied Territories by the Israeli writer David
Grossman, available in English -AK] which had just come out, crossed my
path. I read it, and suddenly it hit me. I finally understood what I had
done over there. What I had been over there.
I began to see that they had cheated me: They raised me to believe there was
someone up there taking care of things. Someone who knows stuff that is
beyond me, the little guy. And that even if sometimes politicians let us
down, the "military echelon" is always on guard, day and night, keeping us
safe, each and every one of their decisions the result of sacred necessity.
Yes, they cheated us, the soldiers of the Intifadas, exactly as they had
cheated the generation that was beaten to a pulp in the War of Attrition and
in the Yom Kippur War, exactly as they had cheated the generation that sank
deep into the Lebanese mud during the Lebanon invasions. And our parents'
generation continues to be silent.
Worse still, I understood that I was raised on two contradictory value
systems. I think most people discover even at an earlier age they must
choose between two value systems: an abstract, demanding one that is no fun
at all and that is very difficult to verify, and another which calls to you
from every corner - determining who is up and who is down, who is king and
who - pariah, who is one of us and who is our enemy. Contrary to basic
common sense, I picked the first. Because in this country the cost-effective
analysis comparing one system to another is so lopsided, I can't blame those
who choose the second.
I picked the first road, and found myself volunteering in a small,
smoke-filled office in East Jerusalem, digging up files about deaths,
brutality, bureaucratic viciousness or simply daily harassments. I felt I
was atoning, to some extent, for my actions during my days with the Giv'ati
brigade. But it also felt as if I was trying to empty the ocean out with a
teaspoon.
Out of the blue, I was called up for the very first time for reserve duty in
the Occupied Territories. Hysterically, I contacted my company commander. He
calmed me down: We will be staying at an outpost overlooking the Jordan
river. No contacts with the local population is expected. And that indeed
was what I did, but some of my friends provided security for the Damia
Bridge terminal [where Palestinians cross from Jordan to Israel and vice
versa - AK].
This was in the days preceding the Gulf War and a large number of
Palestinian refugees were flowing from Kuwait to the Occupied Territories
(from the frying pan into the fire). The reserve soldiers - mostly right
wingers - cringed when they saw the female consscripts stationed in the
terminal happily ripping open down-comforters and babies' coats to make sure
they didn't contain explosives. I too cringed when I heard their stories,
but I was also hopeful: reserve soldiers are human after all, whatever their
political views.
Such hopes were dashed three years later, when I spent three weeks with a
celebrated reconnaissance company in the confiscated ruins of a villa at the
outskirts of the Abasans (if you don't know where this is, it's your
problem). This is where it became clear to me that the same humane reserve
soldier could also be an ugly, wretched macho undergoing a total regression
back to his days as a young conscript.
Already on the bus ride to the Gaza strip, the soldiers were competing with
each other: whose "heroic" tales of murderous beatings during the Intifada
were better (in case you missed this point: the beatings were literally
murderous: beating to death).
Going on patrol duty with these guys once was all that I could take. I went
up to the placement officer and requested to be given guard duty only.
Placement officers like people like me: most soldiers can't tolerate staying
inside the base longer than a couple of hours.
Thus began the nausea and shame routine, a routine that lasted three tours
of reserve duty in the Occupied Territories: 1993, 1995, and 1997. The
"pale-gray" refusal routine.
For several weeks at a time I would turn into a hidden "prisoner of
conscience," guarding an outpost or a godforsaken transmitter on top of some
mountain, a recluse. I was ashamed to tell most of my friends why I chose to
serve this way. I didn't have the energy to hear them get on my case for
being such a "wishy washy" softy.
I was also ashamed of myself: This was the easy way out. In short, I was
ashamed all over. I did "save my own soul." I was not directly engaged in
wrongdoing - only made it possible for others to do so while I kept guard.
Why didn't I refuse outright? I don't know. It was partly the pressure to
conform, partly the political process that gave us a glimmer of hope that
the whole occupation business would be over soon. More than anything, it was
my curiosity to see actually what was going on over there.
And precisely because I knew so well, first hand, from years of experience
what was going on over there, what reality was like over there, I had no
trouble seeing, through the fog of war and the curtain of lies, what has
been taking place over there since the very first days of the second
Intifada.
For years, the army had been feeding on lines like "We were too nice in the
first Intifada," and "If we had only killed a hundred in the very first
days, everything would have been different." Now the army was given license
to do things its way. I knew full well that [former Prime Minister] Ehud
Barak was giving the army free hand, and that [current Chief of Staff] Shaul
Mofaz was taking full advantage of this to maximize the bloodshed.
By then, I had two little kids, boys, and I knew from experience that no
one - not a single person in the entire world - will ever make sure that my
sons won't have to serve in the Occupied Territories when they reach 18. No
one, that is, except me. And no one but me will have to look them in the eye
when they're all grown up and tell them where dad was when all that
happened. It was clear to me: this time I was not going.
Initially, this was a quiet decision, still a little shy, something like "I
am just a bit weird, can't go and can't talk about it too much either." But
as time went by, as the level of insanity, hatred, and incitement kept
rising, as the generals were turning the Israeli Defense Forces into a
terror organization, the decision was turning into an outcry: "If you can't
see that this is one big crime leading us to the brink of annihilation, then
something is terribly wrong with you!"
And then I discovered that I was not alone. Like discovering life on another
planet.
The truth is that I understand why everyone is mad at us. We spoiled the
neat little order of things. The holy Status Quo states that the Right holds
the exclusive rights to celebrate the blood and ask for more. The role of
the Left, on the other hand, is to wail while sitting in their armchairs
sipping wine and waiting for the Messiah to come and with a single wave of
his magic wand make the Right disappear along with the settlers, the Arabs,
the weather, and the entire Middle East. That's how the world is supposed to
work. So why are you causing such a disturbance? What's your problem? Bad
boys!
Woe to you, dear establishment left! You haven't been paying attention! That
Messiah has been here already. He waved his magic wand, saw things aren't
that simple, was abandoned in the midst of battle, lost altitude, and
finally was assassinated, with the rest of us (yes, me too) watching from
the comfort of our armchairs. Forget it. A messiah doesn't come around
twice! There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Don't you really see what we are doing, why it is that we stepped out of
line? Don't you get the difference between a low key, personal refusal and
an organized, public one? (and make no mistake about it, the private refusal
is the easier choice.) You really don't get it? So let me spell it out for
you.
First, we declare our commitment to the first value system. The one that is
elusive, abstract, and not profitable. We believe in the moral code
generally known as God (and my atheist friends who also signed this letter
would have to forgive me - we all believe in God, the true one, not that of
the Rabbis and the Ayatollahs). We believe that there is no room for the
tribal code, that the tribal code simply camouflages idolatry, an idolatry
of a type we should not cooperate with. Those who let such a form of idol
worship take over will end up as burnt offerings themselves.
Second, we (as well as some other groups who are even more despised and
harassed) are putting our bodies on the line, in the attempt to prevent the
next war. The most unnecessary, most idiotic, cruel and immoral war in the
history of Israel.
We are the Chinese young man standing in front of the tank. And you? If you
are nowhere to be seen, you are probably inside the tank, advising the
driver.
I am into the copy and paste.
The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.
Ever hear of Bohemian Grove?
Harvest us?
This sounds like a B-Movie script, you're not one of them Xenu hating folks are you?
Your posting history suggests more of an MJ12 / illuminati freakery, but then you go on about all this programmed & harvesting stuff. So which is it. Give us the synopsis? What's your poison? Us poor dumb chickens need a label.
i am laughing so hard after reading your comment, thanks man.
Well I did hear about this Canada place but I thought it was just a myth, like Mexico.
Remove it and you will see..
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc