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Australian P2P Sites Disappear Overnight
An anonymous reader writes "In the wake of a raid on an Australian ISP, local P2P site operators are shutting down operations in droves, according to community site Whirlpool. The raid was the result of an investigation by Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), who claim they have a number of targets lined up for future raids. Overnight, a number of sites have shut down or been shut down, and ISPs are reporting major drops in bandwidth usage."
Whilst the French might not have fought much in France, "we" the Allies certainly did....
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old. -- Winston Churchill, British House of Commons, 4 June 1940.
Sure I have a license to drug this squirrel.
*sigh* you say that as if everything is absolutely rosy over there. Remember over one and a half thousand american soldiers have died since America "won" the war, and who knows how many local innocent civilians - even if America were directly responsibly for all those things it came at a very very terrible cost, and I don't think you are right to judge its worth. People are rioting and bombing there. It's not as if everyone's wearing the american flag on their shirt chanting "USA USA" (if only because doing so would likely get them shot).
Besides, the other three occurances you mentioned most probably had little to do with the Iraqi war, other than the absolute terror it caused (oh isn't it nice George is acting the tyrant). Besides, the oil contracts supposedly promised you're assuming dictated france's diplomatic policies are now going into American hands. How does that look to everyone else?
Now I'm Australian and I'm not particularly anti-american, anti-european or whatnot (I just hate people talking crap, fud, and spin about politics, no matter what side they're on), but he has a right to his opinions, just as you have a right to yours. However I don't think you have a right to be an arsehole.
No karma because it's offtopic. Please don't mod me up even if you happen to agree with me.
Whilst the French might not have fought much in France, "we" the Allies certainly did....
Why is it that France is often singled out for their collapse when faced with unsermountable odds against a fantastically greater force, when there were 5 or 6 other countries in BOTH World Wars that were taken much more easily than France was? Even the British Expiditionary Force couldnt keep the Germans back, it wasnt until more fronts were opened up with the USSR and in Africa etc that Fortress Europe was weakened from the inside enough to successfully attack.
Like it or not, I can't see how anyone can seriously argue that the war was about oil, or that the US is significantly benefitting from the Iraqi war in terms of oil.
Gas prices are now higher here than they have ever been. The national average is over $2/gallon, and there are numerous angecies saying that it only goes up from here.
Frankly, I don't think that would be the case if old Georgie was seriously trying to secure permanent oil interests in Iraq. Perhaps we will benefit in the long run, but if we do, I suspect that it will be only if greater peace and stability makes it to that region.
As an essentially conservative person, I think that the best thing that could happen in the Middle East would be permanent peace and stability. That would benefit EVERYONE (with the possible exception of a few delusional psychopaths whose only goal is personal power at the expense of everyone else), and EVERYONE should be working for it.
Is Georgie perfect? No. Do I (as an essentially conservative [with libertarian leanings] person) like everything he does? NO!!!
The PATRIOT act, for starters, is a serious problem. The sad truth is that I think George was a much better choice (based on how I weight certain values and political ideals) than the competition. Had the libertarian party sent up a serious candidate (sorry, but Badnarak, for all his qualities, does not have the proven track record necessary), I would have voted that direction. Unfortunately, Badnarak was a poor choice. The libertarians need a candidate with the ability to get positive media attention, a solid track record of leadership/success, and some name recognition.
OH well.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
You know, if Britain and the various Commonwealth countries hadn't been fighting back we would probably be speaking German. Sometimes it takes contributions from more than one party to win something. The United State's involvement in WW2 is not the only reason the Germans didn't win.
Now, you might argue that, since the UK supported the US in Iraq, they were implicity included in your reasoning as to why we aren't speaking German. However, you continuously focus on the US throughout your post, leading me to believe that you had not intended to include the UK in this discussion.
Smokers pay higher life insuirance premiums. Plus cancer is a pretty stiff penalty.
Sometimes fear of getting bombed doesn't and sometimes it does, and sometimes actually get bombed does lead to real, long-term reform. The poster children for this kind of rehabilitation are Japan and Germany, which rose from the rubble they wrought around themselves during WWII to become first-world nations and excellent global citizens. It took millions of lives and an almost unfathomable amount of ordinance, however, to bring them around; and in the post war years, numerous American magazines printed articles asking if we were losing the peace. Look at Life or Time magainze circa 1946 - 1949, and you'll see dozens of examples of articles arguing that we were losing out against the past and failing to win the minds of the people. Those countries were occupied, and although it took a long time, a lot of money and an enormous amount of difficult work, eventually they arrived where they are today.
Since you're referring primarily to Iraq in your post, I assume, I'll say that I'm not convinced that Iraq is going to turn out the same way, but now there is a chance, and that chance didn't exist and couldn't have existed under Saddam's regime. Time is unlikely to render an exact verdict to either side you create, but is likely to see whether Iraq adopts democratic principles and sticks to them. If so, that will mean the occupation is won, as it has been in other places; but it has also been lost in other places, and I suspect those directing American forces are well aware of the historical precedents. The man you dub "the most dangerous" alive knows it and so do his advisers: but they also know that sometimes inaction is far worse than action.
It's popular these days to slam "the most dangerous man alive," but the same people doing that were the same one denigrating Reagan during the Cold War, even though the Cold War ended shortly after his watch. Reagan was right about some things: the Soviet Union was an evil empire, and it deserved to fall, just as in more recent times the Hussein regime was evil and deserved to fall. Time, which you mention, will eventually show whether the United States went about destroying its power the right or wrong way, but whatever arguments come from time are too early to use now to render a verdict.
"The most dangerous man alive," though, does not come from the hand-wringing school of diplomacy, and we have seen where European hand-wringing over the existance of evil has led the world before. Let us hope it does not lead us down an even darker path in the future.
Anyone remember his cameo in some movie of his where he explained that the Top Gun movie was about dick waving? Classic.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?