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IT Growth: Exponential No More
BreadMan writes "The Economist has has an article about growth in the IT industry coming off a period of unsustainable growth. Compares IT to growth industries of the past like railroads and automobiles."
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Fuck trollkore.. tk is a bunch of faggots like the editors.
microsoft rules...I mean seriously, who honestly doesn't think that IE is currently the best option out there?
IT GROWTH LINEAR
THEY come from all over the world. Their supposed mission is to help the people of Iraq. Their concerned frowns and even their clothes all proclaim the message: "We're the good, caring people . . . and you're not."
But if actions speak louder than words, then many of the international charitable organizations called NGOs (non-governmental organizations) here are less interested in doing good works than in moral posturing and haranguing the army that won a war most of them opposed.
Ask any soldier who patrols this city, and you'll hear the same thing: The NGOs have been here for weeks, but they're not out in the streets. They cite "security concerns" - though journalists and soldiers alike move around the city, using common sense and taking precautions.
(This absence is also true of the United Nations, which has a fleet of $65,000 SUVs sitting uselessly in the sun outside its headquarters at the Canal Hotel. One U.N. program is active - the food program - but on its first day on the job, one of its workers was caught looting and arrested by the U.S. Army.)
TO catch the NGOs in "action," you must go to the daily meeting at 1700 hours at the palazzo occupied by CMCC - that's the Civilian Military Coordination Center. (It used to be CMOC - the civilian military operations center - but the NGOs complained that the name implied that they were operating together with the military!)
At the meeting are NGO representatives, officials from the U.S. Organization for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid (ORHA) and Army officers from headquarters around Baghdad.
At the head of a long table in the middle of the room sits an army "facilitator," Maj. Tony Coleman - a man with the patience of Job. On rows of gilt chairs on all sides of the table sit about 30 civilians and a sprinkling of soldiers.
A few of the civilians are Iraqis. The rest are international bureaucrats, most of them shiny with privilege, all of them bursting with self-righteousness.
Army officers stand all along the walls. Compared to the aid workers (with their new clothes and expensive haircuts), they look dirty and tired.
The soldiers must doff their rifles and sidearms before they enter the area because the NGO folk - who depend on these men and women for their protection - object to the presence of firearms.
Many other complaints follow the lines of: I was over there yesterday. You said it was safe but I heard a shot.
AFTER the official briefings on health, power, sewage, security and even subjects like animal welfare, you get to hear the long discussions of how the next meeting should be run: Certain topics must be highlighted; it's important that there be "break-out" sessions. It's there that you'll hear every shortage here blamed on the Americans and their war, even though there were severe problems here before March 20.
"All they do is complain," said a colonel who attends these meetings. "And you know what, I'm getting school supplies here with the help of my church at home quicker than all these NGO guys. A lot of units here are doing the same.
'ALL these guys do is talk, talk, talk. The only NGOs I've seen out here are the ICRC - and they're driving around, not working. These guys are more bureaucratic than the Army!" (They're also more secretive, excluding the media from their meetings and trying to keep them out of the CMCC sessions.)
Certainly almost every question is delivered in accusatory tones. Indeed, more often than not they aren't really questions but statements: "You should understand that the military should not occupy schools because that's an abuse of civilian structures," admonished one NGO leader on Sunday.
A little later, another informs the room that "we as an organization will adhere to humanitarian principles and not use any military aircraft. . . . It is unacceptable for humanitarian supplies to come in on military transport."
The issue of moral pollution by contact with U.S. forces sometimes seems to be the NGOs'
Quit saying "please note", you sound like a huge repetitive fag.
Please note you're a fag.