Slashdot Mirror
Former Intel Engineer Pleads Guilty To Taliban Aid
theodp writes "Following up on an earlier Slashdot story, software engineer Maher "Mike" Hawash pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiring to provide services to the Taliban, agreeing to testify against other suspects in exchange for the dropping of other terrorism charges. He will serve at least seven years in federal prison under the deal. In March, federal agents seized Hawash from a parking lot outside Intel Corp., where he worked, and held him as a material witness until charges were filed five weeks later."
fp
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Li Europan lingues es membres del sam familie. Lor separat existentie es un myth. Por scientie, musica, sport etc., li tot Europa usa li sam vocabularium. Li lingues differe solmen in li grammatica, li pronunciation e li plu commun vocabules. Omnicos directe al desirabilita de un nov lingua franca: on refusa continuar payar custosi traductores. It solmen va esser necessi far uniform grammatica, pronunciation e plu sommun paroles.
Ma quande lingues coalesce, li grammatica del resultant lingue es plu simplic e regulari quam ti del coalescent lingues. Li nov lingua franca va esser plu simplic e regulari quam li existent Europan lingues. It va esser tam simplic quam Occidental: in fact, it va esser Occidental. A un Angleso it va semblar un simplificat Angles, quam un skeptic Cambridge amico dit me que Occidental es.
Most on this board were wrong and they MODDED by my comments down about the guy being a terrorist. Wouldn't be surprised if BinLaden is a Moderator on this board.
/me sowwy...
History and Introduction
The history of the Crips began in the nineteenth century, when a secret society was formed to protect the people of Los Angeles. Los Angeles was occupied by White forces. A group of Los Angeles residents fled into the countryside to escape, and later to fight, the encroaching forces.
This group became the Crips.
The groups original intentions were to create a sense of loyalty and respect for tradition, culture and family. The Crips protected its members' interests and promoted protected individuals and businesses in exchange for loyalty and monetary tribute. As time passed, and the Crips expanded to the Americas, the Crips became more criminal, engaging in provision of illegal services and collection of taxes in defiance of the legitimate government.
It is the purpose of this work to argue that the Crips, a criminal organization, meets the criteria to be considered a government. The terms Crips or gang used in this work should be considered to be synonymous and to refer to the American Crips. The Cripss structure is similar in nature to a feudal government system, with agents reporting to regional governors, who in turn report to the organizations leader. While the gang may or may not possess an overall head, individual regions of the gang may be thought of as a form of local government. The Crips, as it is currently being discussed, exists within the confines of the United States, and thus may be in competition with, or at least overlapping the geographic areas of other government systems.
Definitions of Government
Ayn Rand has much to say on the proper function of government, but it is unclear as to what she considers a formal definitionon of what exactly categorizes an organization as a government. Her most specific response to the question appears in the opening sentence of The Nature of Government. The opinion is that the use of force and the enforcement of rules should be limited to government. (Rand)
Randall Holcombe references Robert Dahl and Max Weber, summarizing their points of view that a monopoly on the use of force in a given area is the defining characteristic of government, thus adding a spatial characteristic to the definition. Holcombe further points out that obviously a monopoly on the use of coercive force is not required as can be seen from examples of overlapping area and jurisdictional authority within the federal, state, and local governments in the United States. Finally Holcombe puts forth the idea that, for a positive economic view, the hallmark of government is the ability to tax all parties within a given geographical region, for the purpose of financing its operations. (Holcombe)
Crips as Government
Would the Crips meet the criteria of Rand, Dahl, or Weber? Except in certain isolated instances, probably not. The United States federal government exerts coercive influence over practically all individuals or firms living or operating within its boundaries, not to mention state and local agencies. Of course, by any definition requiring a monopoly of use of force, whether spatially limited or not, the real governments dont qualify as governments either.
Following Holcombes definition, which does define the aforementioned federal, state, and local agencies as governments, where does the Crips fall in respect to being considered as a government? In other words, can it be argued that the Crips has the power to tax all businesses or individuals within a geographic area? Armed with only information from hearsay and popular culture, the answer would have to be yes. Systemized extortion or protection fees could very well be collected for all within a given area. It may be that the popular image is inaccurate, which may affect the classification, but for the sake of argument it is considered an accurate assessment here.
The issue may be raised as to the legality of the gang. It may be argued that they cannot be considered a government as they are criminal.
Help fight continental drift.
your name is hilarious. nice one bruvva!
Hmm...
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Yet another
crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when recently IDC confirmed that *BSD
accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the
latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this
news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray,
as fittingly exemplified by
failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin [amazingkreskin.com]
to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future.
In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are
looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market
share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having
lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time
FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point
more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD
are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in
ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on
Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users
of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore
there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of
FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on,
FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled
OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick
and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will
be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could
save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact:
*BSD is dead
(-1, Republican)
Karma: Dyn-o-mite!(mostly affected by Jimmy Walker reading your comments)