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No OLPCs for Cuba, Ever
An anonymous reader writes "In a move going largely unnoticed by developers, the OLPC project now requires all submissions to be hosted in the RedHat Fedora project. While this may not seem like a big deal, the implications are interesting. First, contributors have to sign the Fedora Project Individual Contributor License Agreement. By being forced to submit contributions to the Fedora repository they automatically fall under the provisions of US export law. So, no OLPC for Cuba, Syria and the like. Ever."
because US laws and export restrictions never change. ever.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
things change fast in the world
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I wouldn't say "ever"...both Cuba and Syria have made steps towards getting removed from the US ban list, and with Fidel teetering on death's edge, who knows what the future will bring.
Yet, not too surprisingly, Windows has found its way into Cuba and I'm certain the OLPC will also be found there in mass quantities if it is indeed useful/popular. Physical devices may be harder to find there than software but you'll find them there.
This isn't news. The U.S. trade embargos have been in place on Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan and Syria for a while now. Furthermore, if the laptops are made and assembled outside the U.S.
So let's get creative here, you make and manufacture the hardware outside the United States. Then you ship them to restricted countries (I think the parts are going to come from China anyway). You leave it up to people inside Cuba or where ever to install the OLPC image. Who has violated the TOS? The citizens of the country who really don't give a damn what U.S. export laws they're breaking.
And if these laws are broken, who's going to enforce them? Redhat/Fedora? The U.S. government is going to show up and stop laptops from going to children? The U.S. government is going to shutdown a free open source software hosting site? I highly doubt it.
My work here is dung.
I see it as a good move also, it would be awesome to get technology in the hands of the youth of developing countries, but so many times aid is intercepted by the government, or whoever the "bad guys" are, and something that was intended to aid progress, helps aid regression
wouldn't the laptops themselves fall under United States export laws?
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Yeah, like US Law has never ever changed. Remember trade embargoes during apartheid? Castro's ill, it's not clear who will be taking over. New high-level talks have opened with Syria recently also. Not saying that either of these things are likely to change next month, but "never" is pretty long.
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Yes but in some people cruel behavior triggers pleasure centers, where as in others altruistic behavior triggers pleasure centers. Therefore is can easily be deduced that despite the cause, some people, groups, etc, are more polite and caring of others than some others.
As such, saying that because there's a chemical reaction involved altruism doesn't exist, is like saying that life itself doesn't exist because we can explain all of it's functioning through biology. The explanation of it's function and inner workings does NOT invalidate the concept.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Just put Centos on them...
lol what the fuck do you know about Cuba that you didn't see on FOX?
Sit down, Rambo.
...over goodwill.
Raj Against the Machine! http://social-butterfly.appspot.com/
One day the US will normalise relations with Cuba. The process might not happen until after the current generation of ex-Cubans in Forida is dead, but that's hardly _never_.
In the mean time they could just funnel shipments through a neutral third party. Creative accountants can manage to hide billions from the IRS, why shouldn't they be able to do something socially useful like vanish a couple of shipping containers of laptops.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
That'd teach those kids for living in the wrong countries.
I agree. There are so many ways they could help their people with fuel and other valuable economic riches, but they don't do it as-is. In fact, a lot of these places send government funded militias to seize all incoming RATIONS for their own use, regardless of who it's for. Even some countries who aren't blocked by sanctions will probably see this happen as a common occurence.
Sad, but true.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
According to the linked sugar list message, this restriction only apply to submissions to the Etoys project (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Etoys). This doesn't imply (as the summary states) that all submissions to the OLPC project must be hosted on Fedora.
- Castro dies
- Mutual Defense Pact is unveiled between Venezuela and Cuba, and Castro's successor asks Venezuela for "help."
- Venezuela military moves in under the guise of "protecting" Cuba from invasion from other countries.
- Cuba becomes a satellite province of Venezuela.
Unless the US and other countries have the balls to throw up a naval force and cordon off Cuba so the people of Cuba can handle it for themselves.
I find it interesting how you misread the article. Please let me refresh your memory with a couple of quotes from your own reference:
Which means that the area that tracks what is good for us, tracks what is good for others. You read it as a pleasure response happening when we act altruistically (ergo altruism is ultimately egotistical), but it actually says that it tracks what is good for others (for example, it may as well activate when we watch someone succeed). But don't take my word for it, let's go back to the article:
Need I say more?
I was leaning more toward Syria, but if you actually support Castro, you've got problems.
Go read a book.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
OLPC worse and worse everyday
Don't worry about Cuba, I am seeing a bunch of "Bolivarian computers" in their future...
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
"They don't really give a shit about their people anyway."
...
unlike the us government who gives much shit about their people, plunging 400 billions of dollars in a war for the oil industry, refuse to give health insurance to sick americans to cater for private insurance business, wiretap their citizens,
land of the free!
wow you guys really drank the neocon coolaid. Learn to look through the propoganda, and you might see there is a world OUTSIDE THE US. Fuck off you stupid drones.
Sanctions only exist to subjugate the peoples of these countries,increasing the death rates of the young, and lower the quality of life of the citizens. Sanctions, and withholding of technologies of these "rogue states" (read: any states that have the balls to stand up to US economic and social hegemony), only serves to bolster these regimes(many of which were installed and supported by the CIA/NSA/etc to fight other "threats").
Face it, US foreign policy is one of economic fascism, cultural indoctrination and genocide.
I'm a proud American who is embarassed by the evil imperialists who run our country.
Why can't "we" export the software to [insert country here], and the reseller there can do whatever they want with it, including sending it to Cuba?
"Freedom from paying for goods and services" has never been one of our freedoms. That is a recent perversion of the term.
This is an interesting question, and I too would like to know the answer. I wonder what RMS thinks of this.
Why ? Have you been there ? They have a much better society than they would have had the American Mafia continued running it. They have good education, reasonable health care and while not so much stuff, they do not have foreclosures and bankruptcies the likes that you have been experiencing. Not to mention the next round coming on about now. Even after all these years of embargo by their ever so caring neighbors to the North, they still smile much more than anywhere I have ever seen in the US. I think sir it is you who ought to read a book.
"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa
Does supporting Cuba mean you support Castro? Does supporting Bush mean you support the US?
After looking at the Venezuela-Cuba-US love triangle, here's my guess:
Wow that post is really informative, you've help me meet my quota of learning something new each day.
One Laptop Per Child
The US will make sure that children will suffer for their parents disagreements.
Also, nothing breaks old values faster than McDonald's and MTV.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I think GP was reacting to the rather more ridiculous contention that American politicians by and large give more of a crap about the people they govern than politicans in other countries. That the countervailing evidence manifests as health insurance being inaccessible for a huge swath of the working population (when a good portion of the rest of the world has amply demonstrated is not a necessary situation), and the prosecution of an transpatently profiteering war that has killed tens (hundreds?) of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans (which most of the rest of the world considered if not illegal than just plain stupid to get involved in), is simply a reflection of our own neuroses. Other countries screw over their people in different ways, according to different guiding ideologies.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
The US sponsers a hell of a lot more terrorism than Cuba. For example, what exactly did you think 'shock and awe' was supposed to be? George Bush has now killed far more innocent people that Castro could if he lived to be 200.
Any idea how many US products are over there in Cuba and Syria?
I'll give you a hint, lots.
Just because some provision says "no", doesn't make it so
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
You say this like it is a bad thing. The less IT infrastructure these repressive regimes have the better. I personally think the embargo against Cuba at this point is counter-productive, but I am not going to cry because they can't use this software either.
Umm, may I ask how the hell this got modded as Insightful? If I had mod points I would drop this as Flamebait more than anything.
I get that the US in general has some obsessive hatred of Cuba, but were you to actually go there and meet the people you would come back with the impression only of a society trying to survive under grinding poverty because they cannot trade with a lot of foreign nations due to the embargo, NOT one of wanton cruelty as the Parent is trying to suggest.
Take it from someone who has seen it firsthand.
This is not a sig.
Free-as-in-liberty does not have anything to do with free-as-in-healthcare.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
One statement is true. Which one?
1) Cuba sponsors terrorism directed at the US.
2) The US sponsors terrorism directed at Cuba.
What is true is that none of these machines will be sold directly to such a country, and therefore will not be as prevalent as other countries, assuming that these machines are going to prevalent anywhere. What it also means is that extraneous third parties are going to cut off the sale of these machines.
Of course if we believe that these countries are lawless and without manners, then why do they need the OLPC anyway? All the computers are made in China, a fellow red label state, and if the chinese are willing to ship poisoned food to the States, I see no reason why they would not ship reliable computers to cuba. Likewise, if cuba or syria or any of these countries run unlicensed copies of windows and other software, who is going to stop them. The copyright people are notorious about preferring soft target hard targets, so they are unlikely to mount an offensive against so-called renegade countries.
So, in the end, given their outlaw status, I bet these countries could get a fully loaded MS Windows PC cheaper than they could an stripped down OLPC.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
"we do altruistic acts for ourselves"
Muahahaha! I just gave some homeless guy a dollar, and now I feel good about myself! Muahahhaha!
Seriously, just because one feels good about being altruistic, that doesn't make one's acts any less generous.
Just to make sure you are aware that not everyone who read your post immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion and donned their flame suit... I read your post as replying to the post you just indicated as well, and it made perfect sense to me. While I might not agree entirely with your sentiment, it seemed clear enough to me that you were not specifically talking about Cuba.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Those are exactly the places you want computers - especially for the poor. The one commodity these government are having a difficult time controlling is information.
I'm not sure what the point of this is supposed to be.
You hate the US. Congrats. I'm sure the people in your social circle will acknowledge you and understand that you agree with them. You'll all have mutual camaraderie toward each other and mutual contempt for the "unenlightened".
But beyond groupthink and contempt, what do you have to offer?
I wonder why Cuba and Syria never seem to make some marvelous new technological advances that the US can envy from afar?
And I claim most people can learn to like something.
There's such a thing as acquired taste. So you could choose to acquire a taste for altruism, even if you don't have a strong innate liking for it.
Or you could choose it as a long term objective decision - many people do things that aren't pleasurable to them, but they get a sense of achievement at the end - even if it's just "Yeeha! Completed my goal".
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 97%
male: 97.2%
female: 96.9% (2003 est.) World Factbook - Cuba
Do you think Castro would allow PC's to be given to children in Cuba, even if they were allowed to send them there?
Support groups and other organizations from the US attempt to defy the government and help Cubas citizens, but are usually in great danger of being intercepted by it's own government.
Do you think there would be half the problems in their society if Castro was gone? Besides, how many presidents have come and gone in the US since his life-long rule, and everyone still has the same opinion.
I don't hate Cubans, but being a lifelong communist dictator and not changing your ways, allowing your country to starve.. isn't USA's problem. Anything you give him will be used against you or thrown back in your face.
I feel bad for their children. I really do. But, you're blind to think that Castro would allow anything of the sort.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
Looks like we better swap that O out with a zero.
0 Laptops Per Cubin.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Well, initially it was the upper and middle classes that stood to loose their wealth due to redistribution and probably some due to their assistance to the people who were at the receiving end of the revolution. Now, after 30+ years of sanctions there are people who wish for more money and the things that accompany it, the same as immigrants from other countries.
I have spent some time in Cuba and have had many interesting conversations regarding the revolution. The funny thing is that many seem to think the embargo is funny. A cigar that sells for 5 Euros in Europe sells for 5 times than on the US market. It is always fun to watch US tourist queue up to purchase them wherever they are available.
Not everyone in the world is dying to leave their country and move to the US, no matter what the boys at Fox say. Rupert is not even there most of the time.
"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa
Because the US terrorists keeps it from happening! Duh.
It's all our fault anymore, where have you been?
Exactly, we get pleasure when we watch someone succeed, so it is in our interests that others succeed. What's so hard to get?
"The fact that we find pleasurable activity in those mandatory tax-like situations strongly suggests the existence of pure altruism," he said.
Seems here his definition of "pure altruism" covers a case where you get pleasure after being forced to sacrifice for someone else. I'd say that pure altruism would be sacrificing for someone else while knowing that it will not make you feel better, and that you will not feel any worse if you don't do it.
Face it, a "good" person is one that:
Of course "good" and "bad" are subjective....
Whether "allowed" or not, these will be pirated as are Windows, Hollywood movies, etc. with not a peep from Mr. Softie, *AA, or anyone else.
It'd take the dumbest /.er five minutes to figure out how to get US goods into any of these "embargo" countries, and a day to implement given the readily available resources.
Needless to say, it's been done and functions very smoothly, thank you very much.
"Nothing to see here, move along"
My take on it is that you can't deny redistribution, but you can chose to not distribute it to whomever you want. I.e. as a US company you can deny selling/download the software yourself by some criteria: in this situation country, but you can also *sell* GPL software, meaning that you will deny giving it to anyone who requests it for free. *However* you can't enforce this choices on third parties *at all*. If I buy a GPL software I can copy it and give copies to my friends, or even put in online for everyone to download. In the same vein, everything that a company doesn't ship to Cuba by its own wishes can end up there in any event since I, living in Europe, can perfectly copy it and put is accessible to anyone else.
Not sure if I'm being clear enough... to sum it up, one can chose to limit the scope of the initial distribution, but can't enforce these limits on third parties. I'm not sure how this works out if someone says "whites only" or "only for woman" though, but I supposed these are covered more by other laws than copyright law.
One person signs the agreement and submits the project to Fedora. Anther person submits the project from Fedora to OLPC. There is no requirement that it's the same person.
By this reasoning, I could build a nuclear weapon with GPL'd code in it and send it to Syria.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
AC says:
The IRA was almost totally funded by Americans. So STFU about funding terrrorism.
Really? So because of someone in the US did something wrong a long time ago, we're never allowed to get it right? We can't even talk about doing the right thing?
Maybe we should just take this as an unlimited license to do the "wrong" thing then. And the anti-US complainers can STFU about it forever.
You're right. It has nothing to do with the dictator that's been in there most of his life and refuses to step down.
Besides, we've had how many presidents in office since he's been in? It could have been dropped, right?
The government has now gained massive income from oil fields, but do you think it starving citizens will see any of it? Please.
In the states, there is impeachment.. in Cuba you have no choice. The US isn't to blame for him being completely insane.
The embargo IS past it's prime, but you can't put ALL the blame on the US.
Again, most of my first post was based on comments to Syria.. but, you get my drift.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
See my comment above... I think that for the GPL to work you must actually have *received* the software in the first place. If you don't, the GPL doesn't apply. Once you do though, they can't force you to any restriction regarding redistribution.
Your typical US citizen couldn't give a damn about Ireland and the IRA. The IRA was funded by a subset mostly made up of *Irish* Americans.
For one second, ignore the propaganda machine that has you brain washed.
Here's one very small county and its largest trading is oppressing it economically for 50 years for purely idealogical reasons. It doesn't take much though to figure out that life is not going to be easy - and some people will choose to leave.
People all over the world are risking their lives and the lives of their families for a better future or way of life. There are even people leaving the US every day for a better life somewhere else.
If the embargo was lifted tomorrow, Castro or no, people would stop leaving. But that will never happen, because the US is terrified that Cuba might prove that a Communist state can work.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Yeah. Everyone we don't deal with is always in good standing, and their government has no reason of harming their own citizens.
Besides, how many countries do we honestly help out with sending food and supplies, yet it's intercepted by it's own government before it actually gets to those who are starving?
I don't know the numbers offhand, but I'm PRETTY sure that most of the countries that have sanctions against them wouldn't use the economy for their own citizens, regardless of the amount or origin.
It doesn't HELP by enforcing a sanction by any means, but it pressures the country to make a change. Otherwise, they'll continue fucking over their own people.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
"Altruism triggers pleasure centers like a drug or sex, which means that we do altruistic acts for ourselves, not for others"
No, it means that altruistic acts are encouraged by our very nature. It does not mean that our only reasons for altruistic acts are selfish. Whether there is such a thing as true altruism or truly selfless acts is a debate as old as the debate about free will. Both of these issues are still firmly planted in the area of philosophy rather than science.
I would guess that once the software has been rebranded under the rights granted by the GPL, Red Hat can't enforce any export restrictions on it (because I'm guessing it would conflict with the GPL. So this story is probably just baseless fearmongering, or perhaps even anti Red Hat FUD.
But Cuba's main agricultural product, besides tobacco, is sugar, and the US has had high tariffs on sugar for a long time. Not only does that prop up US sugar producers (mainly Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida_) by keeping the US sugar price far higher than the world average, but the High-Fructose Corn Syrup lobby likes high sugar prices because they can put their dreck into our soda, while the rest of the world gets to have Coke with real sugar in it. So the Archer Daniels Midland gang also don't want free trade with Cuba.
I'd recommend that next time you're in Canada, you get some Cuban cigars, except for the problem that they put carcinogenic flammable tobacco products in the things....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I know, but he was challenging the concept of altruism as something selfless, so I wanted to avoid the word.
Those dudes are building the Rohas Revolucion Hombre's home computer for near-free. I'm sure oil rich angry expropriate all the industries and nationalize them Marxism can fix everything for them.
I knowww... ;) I didn't add that it was more centered around the Syria government.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
That the countervailing evidence manifests as health insurance being inaccessible for a huge swath of the working population
Huge swath? The latest numbers show that 40 million (out of 300 million) people don't have health insurance. The vast majority of these are self employed individuals who choose not to have health insurance. You must have some bizarre definition of "huge".
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
... this will be the one that finally triggers democratic reforms in Cuba!
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
there are a ton of comments about how only the US is in on the embargo - and that not a single other country joins them in it. Now you say that it is a crushing embargo that a 'lot' of nations are enforcing. just as a point of curiosity - which is it?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
so Syria cannot code for the worlds children.
perhaps they will someday join the civilized world and they can begin coding.
Cuba is one of the world leaders in biotech research.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
There was a funny Savage Love article where a woman broke-up with her boyfriend because she found out he had a foot fetish. Come to find out, she was a waitress who would come home to a nice foot massage. When she found out he was enjoying the massage as much as she was, she decided he was a freak. Not noticing that 1) he liked massaging her feet and 2) he wasn't asking for anything in return for it.
:)
Dan's response to this writer was one of the funniest things I've read. The point being, we all do things for a reason. I don't help my friends move because I like moving things - I do it for the free beer. I buy girl scout cookies because I was once a scout myself (and the cookies are also awesome). I give stuff to Goodwill because it makes more economic sense than throwing it away. I've done Habitat because I enjoy carpentry. I'm a horrible, horrible person apparently
Wasn't there a Friends episode about this topic? Seriously though, if someone does something nice to me and ends up feeling bad for having done it - it's not really the kind of help that I want anyway...
Abiding by export restrictions is typically not a GPL violation. The day someone makes it a violation of the GPL to abide by the law is the day every US corporation distributing GPLed software either goes under or stops any activities involving the GPL.
How do you explain [Cuban] people risking their lives and the lives of their families to escape?
The same way you explain everybody else who risks their lives in order to sneak into the US? You know, maybe the ones that the big national debate on "amnesty" is about? Cubans get automatic "amnesty", they don't have to worry about being rounded up by the cops, like the rest of the "illegals".
The guy's probably a Tom DeLay supporter. Did you know that the Tom DeLay Legal Defense Fund actually used a segment of the Colbert Report where Colbert was pretending to support DeLay as evidence that he should be let go?
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Klingon Software is not released, it escapes, inflicting terrible damage onto the enemy as it does
Cuba is not a terrorist state, never really has been. However the government pretty much reserves the right to nationalize anything at any time they choose. This is what they did in 1959 and what they continue to claim they can and will do today.
If someone was greedy and stupid enough you might think you could set up some kind of labor-intensive manufacturing operation in Cuba and export the finished products to the US through Mexico. Lots of people in Cuba out of work and willing to work for next to nothing, right? So much lower labor costs than we have in the US. Sounds like a really good plan.
Except for this little "nationalization" threat and what happened in 1959. Say 10 investors get together and build a factory in Cuba which is marvelously successful. Until the Cuban government decides they want a piece of the pie... well a very large piece... actually, just the whole pie. So the Cuban government kicks the owners and managers out of the country and takes the factory over. Just like 1959.
In the past this was an act of aggression that was essentially a declaration of war. Wars have been started in the past for similar reasons. The War of 1812 wasn't all that dissimilar. I believe there have been several South American countries that have had disagreements (with shooting) over this very subject.
The US has pretty much said over and over since 1959 that they aren't going to go to war over Cuba. When above-mentioned investors come back to their Senator demanding the US "do something" it is entirely possible that "something" would indeed be done. Well, let's just nip that in the bud and say building factories in Cuba isn't allowed. And, partly for past "nationalization" trade with Cuba is heavily restricted.
Today, the trade restrictions are wearing a bit thin. But, conversely the US exports food and little else these days. Everything comes from China and China is under no such trade restrictions. So really, what difference would it make to remove the trade restrictions? Except maybe to allow Wal-Mart to build stores in Cuba. Can you imagine, they would want to bring in their own cleaning staff but the locals would be able to understand them.
I think Cuba is overall better off without trade with the US, at least until the US has something that Cuba needs.
and by blatant troll, you mean someone who shares a differing opinion then yourself.
Klingon Software is not released, it escapes, inflicting terrible damage onto the enemy as it does
Cuba is one of the world leaders in biotech research.
Why should anyone believe that?
It seems 100% ridiculous, and it seems exactly like one of the Cuban-regime-defenders say.
What did the Cubans biotech scientists invent? Research is not an invention. Iran is doing nuclear research, and if they keep it up, they'll be caught up to where the US was in 1944. Do the Cubans super-scientists have a vaccination for cancer we should know about?
I was under the impression that part of the OLPC project was not only to get computers into the hands of people in under developed countries, but also to get them connected. Well, in Cuba it is an offense to have a PC at home without permission and license from the State, and private internet connections are forbidden. Possessing a PC, and having connected to the net can get you 20 years in the pogey. So, the OLPC would likely have been a no go in Cuba anyway. Furthermore, I think the money wasted on OLPC would have been far better spent setting up programs for low intensity, organic agriculture desigend to replace cash crop cultivation with food supply crops. But, I guess feeding people isn't as cool, or sexy as sending them a bright gree, hand cranked laptop. To me, Negroponte is an ass.
Choose to not have health insurance? Are you kidding?
It's a lot easier to dismiss opinions you don't like by alleging they are being propagated by people who don't analyze them, isn't it?
If the embargo was lifted tomorrow, Castro or no, people would stop leaving. But that will never happen, because the US is terrified that Cuba might prove that a Communist state can work.
Well said tovarisch, you should join the John Kerry awkward comedy tour. That's is the funniest thing I've seen on the internet in a while. Actually, the reason why the embargo won't be lifted as long as Castro draws breath is the Cuban ex-pats in Florida would turn on which ever political party lifted the embargo, and Florida is a "swing" state in presidential elections. HTH
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Or as Osama Bin Laden says: "I am still free, how about you?"
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I'm of the philosophy that proportionality is irrelevant when it comes to existential conditions like suffering. That is to say, roughly, a million people dying early through lack of health insurance is a 'huge swath' whether it is a million amongs three million, or a million amongst three hundred million. And seeing as how it is forty million amongst who-cares-how-large a population, that qualifies in my mind as, to put it mildly, a 'huge swath'.
And, as another poster put it sharply, nobody 'chooses' to not have health insurance. Self-employed people have a hard time getting insurance at the same rates as large employers, because large employers benefit from huge quantities of corporate welfare and preferential deals regardings scale when they deal with HMOs that somehow never trickle down to self-emloyed folk. And, just for the record, nobody willingly chooses to die early, which in the vast majority of cases is what not having health insurance practically means. BTW, most of the uninsured aren't self-employed people; most of the uninsured are children of self-employed people. And they, roughly, didn't have any choice whatsoever in their circumstances.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
The researcher confuses signal and cause. The good-feeling is a response to altruism, but that is what drives us toward altruism, not some inherent desire to do good. If altruism produces a feelgood feeling like drugs do, we must recognize that this is the motivator and not altruism itself. We are reacting to the effect, not finding a cause within ourselves to take the action. Otherwise, heroin addicts are taking drugs simply to keep the drugs from getting lonely.
technical writing / development
Of course you did not meet those who oppose the government, because they're either killed by a firing squad or in jail. If those you met opposed the government, they'd be too scared to tell you anyway. You met those who came to accept their poverty as something not caused by their government, but by "Yankee Imperialism"
Even if there were no embargo against Cuba, citizens there don't have freedom to produce or exchange goods, do business, or own any means of production (and even a backyard raised pig is considered so). They can only produce as far as they are employed by the Cuban government; and the Cuban government maintains a policy of "austerity", that is, poverty for everyone but party officials. Even if you could buy them, you won't be sold imported goods in government run shops(everything is run by the government), or a cellphone, or use any of the services intended for foreigners only.
The US may not be the land of the free, but comparing Cuba favorably does not lessen the fact that Cuba is a ruthless communist dictatorship that cares very little about their own citizens.
OLPC Elian Edition?
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
Cuba has oil now(always there I guess)...lots of it. Potentially as much as Venezuela. Canada is helping develop these oil fields. Currently Cuba's national demand is 10 million tons of oil, they are producing 6 million tons...4 years ago they were producing next to nothing. So in 4 more years Cuba will have an oil surplus. With a oil surplus, a thirsty European Union and 2 of the most advanced refineries in the world(Canada)that can process its sulphur rich oil, they will be buying brand new Lenovo laptops from China :P.
Because I worked in medical research for a decade and Cuban biotech is famous internationally? It's not like this stuff is some big secret or groundless claim by the government, the researchers present at medical conferences around the world (just not in the US), and host important biotech conferences in Cuba (which of course our own researchers can't go to and learn at, which benefits us in no way whatsoever). They do clinical trials in Canada and Europe and Latin America, the same as American companies do when they want to introduce drugs to new regions.
The most famous development was a dirt-cheap Meningitis B vaccine, but since then they've developed inexpensive vaccines and treatments for Pneumonia, Influenza, and even some cancers. Fortunately American companies have convinced the government that we need access to some of these drugs, so a few decades after their development we're able to save some lives that otherwise would have been lost due to our embargo.
I hate to break it to you that you're the one who clearly has a knee-jerk propaganda reflex that assumes any government we dislike must therefore rule over a backwater country filled with cave-dwellers dressed in loincloths and banging two sticks together to make fire.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
40 years after the Cuban missle crisis. 20 years after "Tear down this wall!". 10 years after the Soviet Union dissolved.
Isn't it about time for this piece of cold war bullshit to finally die?
I know this affects other countries as well. Funny, though, that embargo restrictions can be adapted at will for the whims of the politicians. Why not for this?
"Hey, the third matrix movie would have been good except for the plot,story, and acting." --AC
Well, no, only until they are removed from the State Department's List of State Sponsors of International Terrorism. This has happened for Iraq (on, off, on, off), Libya (on account of "Libya's continued commitment to its renunciation of terrorism") and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (merged with the Yemen Arab Republic).
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
So, don't fool yourself. Right now, lack of OLPC notebooks is the least of the problems faced by Cuban children. Or, for that matter, by their parents.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
The US still is under the impression that sanctions and trade embargoes will actually cause regime change in these countries. Even though they haven't worked at all ...
They started working they day they were made. While regime change is nice, it's not the only reason to have trade embargoes. A more fundamental reason is to stop helping tyrants. Trade is always mutually beneficial, the first goal of embargoes is to end that benefit to countries that oppress their own people. A second reason is to maintain the value of your own labor. The whole purpose of oppression is to make yourself rich off other people's work, aka slavery. Trade with countries that use slave labor puts free industry at risk. These goals are noble and worthwile, despite obvious contradictions and omissions like China's most favored nation status and other of our own misdeeds.
That being said, this article stinks. Export controls have been used against free software before and were entirely pointless. The line of reasoning would extinguish any and all network software distribution, free and non free. Focusing that line of reasoning onto free software as "free software aids terrorists" is a tactic that was predicted:
Using OLPC for this purpose is particularly asinine. They might as well outlaw cookbook publication because some hated foreign leader might get his hands on the Joy of Cooking and use the fresh pork section as a guide to cooking babies.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The US actually has a very coherent policy on that. At the top level there are regimes like Saddam, which reach a degree of aggression that will not be tolerated, these will be removed from power with all necessary use of force. The second level is regimes like Castro, too repugnant to have business with, but not enough to merit direct military action. Then there are different levels where business to some degree is allowed, but without what could be called "encouragement". Even if an economic embargo may not work, it's better than saying "OK, since an embargo will not work let's help these dictators".
Even though they haven't worked at all (and in fact have only served to further entrench the regimes in question) over the more than 40 years they've been in place, we're still convinced that if we keep them around just a little bit longer, democracy will flourish.
There's no "what if" in international politics, there's no mathematical model that will let anyone tell if a particular policy will work or not. But I still believe in basic principles, I think it's wrong to help one of the most cruel dictatorships in recent history. Perhaps 40 years is too short a time, after all the Soviet Union survived for 70 years. Maybe if other countries hadn't helped the Castro dictatorship Cuba would be a democracy by now, who knows?
But I must say I admire the firm principles the US government has held against the dictatorship in Cuba. It may not have been the most effective policy, but it does show a basic set of principles. For me, it's better to be right and fail than taking the road most likely to succeed without any regard to what's right or wrong.
Not one single president has ever been impeached. Nixon broke far fewer laws than Bush, but our politicians only grumble about impeaching Bush. It was reported that Bush had broken over 700 laws a year ago, yet no one has began impeachment proceedings and his term is nearly finished.
So we have impeachment on paper, just like we have freedom from illegal searches and seizures on paper. The reality is a bit different, it seems.
The truth, as has been made abundantly clear in this thread, is that how things are in Cuba runs counter to US ideals, not the reality of how things are in the US.
What's it like having such a glaring inferiority complex?
>Not one single president has ever been impeached.
More precisely, no impeachment has led to a conviction in the Senate.
>Nixon broke far fewer laws than Bush.
Do you know the specific laws that Nixon broke?
Can you make a legitimate case that Bush violated the law? Which exact laws did he break, when and how, and what evidence do you bring to the table? Do you think you could persuade a Congressional hearing to accept your argument?
Many people are of the opinion that a genuine legal case against Bush is easily made; they accept it as a foregone conclusion. But when it comes time to articulate the case, much of the evidence consists of speculation and prejudice, and the argument tends to be made from a position of ignorance of the law.
It's a good thing that Bush is the soon-to-be-former President and this administration is exiting. I'm no fan or supporter of the Bush-Cheney bunch. But at the same time, even as I accept that there might be a case to be made for impeachment, when you try to view the merits of such a case beyond the armchair analyist phase and start to consider how it would actually go, in terms of procedure and evidence.
Some good arguments have been made, and in particular, Ramsey Clark's Articles of Impeachment make a well-reasoned complaint. But if you had to be the one to take this a step further, what justification would you use for each of these articles and what evidence would you bring? There are strong defenses for some of these complaints, and others while shameful actions, are simply not crimes.
The belief that impeachment is a foregone conclusion actually tends to do harm to the legitimate business of opposition to the current Presidential Administration. Fortunately, it's just about over anyway.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Cuba's "terrorism" activities consisted mostly of stuff from the 1960s (Castro supported some of the more militant "black power" movements, and one of them was gearing up to blow up the Statue of Liberty), and Castro's support of various pro-Communist movements in Latin America, which stopped about fifteen years ago when the USSR tanked. Even the Congressional Research Service report doesn't point to any concrete instances of terrorist activities out of Cuba in recent years.
The US boycott of Cuba is mostly about getting votes from Cuban exiles in South Florida.
If it's true, I'm glad to know it. There's just a lot of this "did you know that no one ever dies of a preventable disease in our socialist paradise" type talk. I hear Castro is going to live to be 200, for example. So I'm skeptical.
A link to credible information would be informative -- more informative than "trust me, I'm someone on the Internet who claims to know". I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt at this point, but the doubt still remains.
...usually a fork will do.
I imagine it's just the encryption laws that are the main restriction. Fork da projekt and den like remove teh crypto. They'll get a crypto-less OS, and I guess they'll have a reason to employ mathematicians.
The point of why this is a bad move for OLPC isn't just about what's bad with the Cuba export ban specifically. That ban *is* indeed stupid, but this also subverts the international intention of the OLPC project to the narrow whims the US administration.
Perhaps some other country or countries will be declared official enemies next year. Especially if, say, MS and Intel can persuade a US administration that a mandate for Free Software in, say, Peru or Bolivia, is "contrary to US interests". Or even if such a ban is declared for completely unrelated reasons, the OLPC should not allow itself to be derailed by partisan or sensationalist whims of a USA administration.
Buy Text Processing in Python
"the OLPC project now requires all submissions to be hosted in the RedHat Fedora project"
As I understand it, submissions are concerned, not the use of OLPC.
wtf.n0x.org
I agree that sanctions and trade embargoes cause regimes to be more anti-US, more aggressive and more violent, but the big thing here to remember is that as these regimes become more hostile they also become a lesser threat as their society, economy and industries are slowly strangled to death by cutting their ties to outside world. In example if trade would have continued normally with Iran and west after the Islamic revolution, Iran would probably now have many nuclear reactors, have had sooner all equipments and materials to make a nuclear bomb and have a better and more modernly equipped army thus being a bigger threat as it is now.
It should also be noted that sooner or later the people of a country that is in under sanctions and embargoes will rise up and revolt or the inner circle of government makes a coup d'etat and stops the activities that have put the country and it's people under suffering and misery. It may take longer time than sending few carrier groups and marines to the country, but it's still all in all cheaper and more safer method on destroying the regime.
All in all I think that sanctions and embargoes work. They also would work better if all industrialised countries where behind in them. In example of Cuba it's a pity that we Europeans trade with them. I'm sure that if Europe and Canada would now cut all ties to Cuba the regime would collapse in over night as the last breathing holes for the regime would be closed.
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
And you suggest that 40,000,000, or 13.5% of the population, is trivial?
This is about 5x the population of the state in which I live. I consider that pretty damned significant.
"Hey, the third matrix movie would have been good except for the plot,story, and acting." --AC
The government in Cuba restricts web access such that even doctors in hospitals do not have it. I know this because I have had correspondence with one whose only outlet is email. The absurdity of keeping a doctor from researching medical information online is beyond comprehension. On the other hand, they can't risk having people finding out that Cuba isn't such a paradise compared to the rest of the western world.
As long as the Cuban govt jails those who would dare speak ill of the government (including journalists), then I'm not too interested in the rants people have about embargoes. Say what you will about our horribly mismanaged government and all, but we can bitch and moan all we want. I doubt you could get away with calling Fidel or Raul an idiot in Cuba.
You're being extremely short-sighted. Have you ever been to Syria? It's one of the most warm-hearted and hospitable countries on earth. The government is corrupt and oppressive, no doubt, but the people are the ones getting shafted here -- embargoes on places like Cuba and Syria have demonstratively done nothing to weaken the hold of tyrannical governments. If anything, they've done the opposite. How? Because, see, it gives those governments a scapegoat. North Koreans believe that everything shitty about the DPRK is all the fault of the US and Japan, and with trade sanctions as they are, the government of the DPRK (and of Syria, and of Cuba) actually can claim that that is the case and use it to cover up the corrupt nature of their own governments.
Newsflash: embargoes don't prevent fancy American luxury items from getting into the nation, they just limit the use of those goods to the very wealthy, ie, the government cronies. So the people who get shafted are, as usual, the poor, who are already oppressed by their own governments.
How long have we had an embargo on Cuba now? Syria? North Korea? Do any of these countries show even the slightest sign of caving in? No. Their people starve, the local governments blame us for it and use the embargo as proof, all while continuing to live like kings.
People here who keep saying "Castro will be dead soon" are ignoring something fundamental about Cuba, too -- it is not, despite what you may have heard, a dictatorship. It is a one party state, and there's a huge difference. A dictatorship's government centers around a dictator, and when that dictator dies, the government acts like a body without a head. In a one-party state (ie, China, the old Soviet Union, Syria, Singapore, etc) there is typically a party whose head (chairman, president, whatever) leads the state with input from the party. The Cuban Communist Party is not beholden to Fidel, and is quite capable of running the country without him, as has been demonstrated recently. Rather like the PRC didn't collapse when Mao died, the USSR didn't collapse when Lenin or Stalin kicked the bucket, and Syria is still a thorn in the US's side even after Hafez al-Assad's death in 2000.
I didn't mention North Korea because I'm not sure how much power the Korean Worker's Party actually has -- there's a fair amount of evidence that their existence is ornamental and that real power rests in the military and that Kim Jong Il is in firm control of it. Also, Kim Il Sung, who was appointed by Stalin to lead North Korea after the Korean war, was Kim Jong Il's father, and he groomed his son for power the way a prince would be in a monarchy, which is not how one-party states generally function. (It's worth noting that Kim Il Sung was, especially in his later years, far less crazy than his son is, and was actually talking to the South Korean government when he died in 1994).
Bolivarian refers to the revolutionary, Simón Bolívar. I doubt that it was a botched attempt to reference Bolivia, the country. Hugo Chavez calls his policies Bolivarian after the ideas espoused by Bolívar. Hugo Chavez is buddy-buddy with Cuba.
Hope that helps.
You don't have to take anyone's word for it, just google "Cuba Biotech", Cuba Hepatitis B, etc. Heck, call up GlaxoSmithkline and ask them.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Without the US there would be no OLPC. Lovely that you should side with thieves who confiscated everyone's property in Cuba and handed it over to their cronies. Maybe someday you too will have the pleasure of being on the wrong side of that circumstance.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Does this non-anecdotal evidence disagree with you?
U SL2273073120070523
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/id
I suspect your opinion about Americans being assholes has more to do with you than with Americans.
even though geographically it's in Cuba.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
If it's true, I'm glad to know it. There's just a lot of this "did you know that no one ever dies of a preventable disease in our socialist paradise" type talk. I hear Castro is going to live to be 200, for example. So I'm skeptical.
Given the extremely high level of education in Cuba and the large number of doctors, it's a perfectly reasonable idea.
The "a lot of this $IGNORANT_BULLSHIT" is only coming from you and you're only demonstrating your pig ignorance of simple basic facts which contradict your extremist nutjob world view.
I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt at this point, but the doubt still remains.
Here's a hot tip. Since you're so obviously an ignorant fool about the entire topic, why don't you go away and do some research so you don't sound like such a fucking moronic partisan hack in the future?
There are bad things about Cuba, but when you come in and prove yourself to not know a single damned thing about the place, you tend to make people dismiss anything you say as the ignorant ravings of a fool.
So how about you try taking a skeptical view on the issue for once instead of spouting delusional nonsense which only proves your own ignorance and go out and inform yourself?
So I export it to Bob in the UK, and he resells it to Joe in the UK, and Joe exports it Cuba. Assuming the law requires me to track Bob's business dealings, how am I supposed to know that Joe wasn't an end user?
Why was this marked as flamebait? It's a valid argument. We do good things because they feel good; altruism is an adaptive trait, not a mark of enlightenment. Yes, the poster is obviously a raging cynic, but the statement that giving is not inherently meaningful does not deserve flippant derision.
Here's a perk of living in (even rural) Canada: I go down to the garage/general/liquor store, and there on the shelf is Havana Club, "Ron puro Cubano," mmm, great is right. And cuban coffee in the cupboard, it's only pretty good but it's organic.
There may be long-term competitive benefits accruing to Cuba out of the blockade and its hardships.
The whole island has pretty much gone organic, as part of the austerity produced by the embargo, and they're trying to turn that constraint into a strength. When the embargo finally drops in the US, watch for cuban specialty products showing up in the organic food stores.
They need an internationally credible domestic certification system to really flourish, however the embargo has forced them to look hard at their local food security, so they'd be okay if international trade was interrupted. They have international trade in things like organic fruits and coffee, and they've made interesting innovations with domestic distribution in mind, like the Organopónicos.
The embargo has created constraints that make it an interesting testbed for development without the overwhelming influence of large transnationals. It's a race between the international organic sector to help establish Cuba as an entrenched organic ag system and the influx of Life Sciences transnationals that might happen if there's regime change.
Cuba's ripe turf for donated linux-ready systems, so support that goal in some way. There's enough real zeal for independence and common interests to make it a interesting test bed for a society running on open-source software.
Damn those pesky terrorists
You are aware, of course, that Canada is part of North America?
While it is completely fair to criticize the US for allowing a place like "Gitmo" to exist, the comparison to Cuba's government is not really fair. The US court system has been slowly reining in the Bush administration, and Guantanamo Bay will soon be closed. While it took way too long for this to occur, Cuba has no such system to protect the rights of its own citizens, much less a bunch of foreigners caught (allegedly) subverting the Cuban government.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I question the conclusion here, for two reasons. First, the license that the contributor grants to Red Hat is non-exclusive. If you want your software to be distributable to countries embargoed by the United States, all you have to do is provide it via an additional route. Second, since the hardware is provided by a US source, it is subject to US trade restrictions, so I don't see how restrictions on software further restrict the distribution of OLPCs. If the project can't supply the machines to, e.g., Syria, does it matter if a piece of software cannot be exported to Syria?
BTW: US laws don't (yet) apply in the UK.
How can you possibly say that Cuba "has a much better society than they would have had the American Mafia continued running it." That is pure speculation.
The fact is that Cuba took everything from the rich and... kept it. The plantations are still there, and the same people still work on them. The people of Cuba went from being poor plantation workers to being... poor plantation workers. Sure, they may be doing okay right now, but just 10 years ago they were starving. What other country in the Caribbean had a famine? Haiti, that's who. What a nice club Castro is in there.
Castro promised revolution - he delivered a dictatorship.
Not that I am excusing the US's ridiculous embargo, but Castro brought it on himself by forcing out all of the educated and powerful people. They are still a community and they hold enough political sway in the US to try invasions and sustain embargoes. What did he expect to happen? The rich people would all just go away and not try to get back their homes and power? You keep seeing the same thing with the dictatorships in Africa - the loosing "group" sets up shop in a neighboring country until they are strong enough to start a new rebellion.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It is important to note that those people are without health insurance, not health care. Any one of those 40 million people can walk into any US emergency room and receive treatment - it is illegal to refuse treatment.
It's not an ideal system, and I am a big fan of a health care overhaul - but it doesn't do anyone much good to make the problem seem worse than it is.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
While I agree with some of what you say, infant deaths rates are LOWER in Cuba then the US https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html
Cuba has invested in educating the people. On a trip there last year I required a hospital stay and will clearly state that their health system is well run, funded and staffed.
Compare the health related section between Cuba http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/country.cfm?country=CU and the US http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/country.cfm?country=US and it is clear that they while they may do a lot of stuff to the negative of their people, health care is not one of them.
The problem is, indeed, that bad. Emergency care is like a bandaid for a bullet-wound for a very large percentage of medical conditions. Chronic and recurring conditions, from asthma to cancer, are not well managed much less treated by punctuated visits to a local emergency room. The problem is that refusing access to health insurance simply prices out a large portion of the population away from management of chronic and recurring illnesses which will, in the end if not treated, kill them much earlier than if they recieved treatment. I agree it is nice that at least we have recognized it is a bad idea to let people die of acute or accidental conditions simply because they are poor, but it is nevertheless the tip of the iceberg.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
You know, you could have saved yourself the trouble of behaving like a jackass and simply given him some links.
But taking the low road like you did can work too...
"and has been at war every year since its inception."
I'd like to see a source for this please. Please provide a link or admit you're a liar.
Notice that given the opportunity they trade the joy of the rusted cage for the horrors of our each man for himself society.
The problem that I have is that people don't talk about the actual difficult decisions that need to be made - health care has to be rationed, but by who and by what criteria? Right now it is obviously rationed by economics. Shall we ration cancer treatment by age? By existing health? Do we preferentially treat a 20-year-old heroin addict over an otherwise healthy 80-year-old?
:)
We have worked this out in other areas - transplants are currently rationed out based on various criteria, for instance. But first we have to admit that not everyone can get free, unlimited health care. Right now the conversation isn't honest or genuine... on the one side you have people resisting any changes at all - which is nuts because there is clearly a problem. On the other side you seem to have people pushing for a full-blown socialist system, which is nuts because it has drawbacks that Americans probably won't accept.
Americans probably will accept some mixed system... some level of rationed, minimal care for the uninsured masses, while still allowing a private system to exist in parallel for people who hold private insurance or have enough money to bypass waiting lists or care rationing. But you never hear anyone proposing this, and so we just have the same silly argument over and over again, ever since Hillary Clinton's report way back in '93.
Her plan was a bit naive in that it included a big pile of government regulation to "improve" health care, but I like that it at least tried to keep much of the system private - if regulated. I think a basic government-run clinic system would be sufficient to take pressure off of emergency rooms and provide some of the longer-term care that you describe. This system should be funded at the Federal level and administered at the state level... while this might increase some complexity, I really like the concept of states acting like laboratories which each can copy from the successes and learn from the mistakes of others.
Oh, and we have to let the government negotiate for drug prices in the clinics!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"@dharbee, I'm actually a liar. The US has engaged in military action every year since 1776."
"has been at war every year since its inception."
So you admit then that you were lying, because "engaged in military action" is not even remotely near "at war". You made both of the above statements, which one is the lie?
As to your source, it's Ward Churchill. That's all that needs to be said about that.
why don't you go away and do some research
Not a high enough interest level in the subject.
I don't think you're qualified to judge the truthfulness of my statements or my source's statements, given the fact that you just altered a quote of what I'd said to say something different. That's all that needs to be said about that.
now write "AIPAC" fifty thousand times
Wow. Perhaps you are trolling, but if not maybe this will literally save your life.
My wife works in health care. People without insurance go without care unless ones life is in immediate danger. Cancers go untreated, limbs do not get re-attached, faces do not get re-constructed, chronic conditions go untreated. The stories she brings home are heart breaking, and tragic.
If health insurance continues to creep up in price, I simply won't pay and I will take my chances
One question. Who will pay when you need life saving treatment, and you can't afford it?
My wife deals with people who expect her and her clinic to work for free, just because they have a "need". Often they drive better cars, and make more money than her, but expect service for free. She's been mistreated so often by patients with unreasonable expectations, I'm bitter. Why should my family suffer when you refuse to pay for your own life saving treatment? When someone treats you (for ethical reasons), and you go bankrupt, they lose. Clinics close, people go without. One car accident, one bacterial infection, one lump is all it will take to make your happy life turn tragic. You think you're losing out at $20/mo for health coverage? What a fool you are.
Is "at war" the same as "engaged in military action"?
n duct_issues
Have someone else answer that if it makes you feel better, liar. They'll tell you no too.
As to what I altered, I was simply making your statement accurate. Way to avoid admitting I caught you in a lie.
Stop trying so hard to find excuses and just own up. You'll feel better.
And as far as your "source", here's some knowledge for your ass
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Churchill_misco
You "source" is a prove liar too. Two peas in a lying pod you are.
Also
Given the extremely high level of education in Cuba and the large number of doctors, it's a perfectly reasonable idea.
I've heard there's a high education level in Cuba. (So what do they need cheap laptops for? They seem to be able to educate people without them, according to you.) I've heard they have doctors there. I've also heard Castro is going to live to be 200 years old. I've heard the people in Cuba go hungry. I've heard lots of different things.
A country where the people routinely don't have enough food seems like a place that might not be on the leading edge of biotech. But, hey maybe they are. (Seems like poor resource planning to me, and they could do with more farmers and fewer doctors if that's true.) North Korea has a nuclear problem while the NK people starve, so who knows.
Any and all "information" about Cuba is more-or-less suspect and subject to the need for verification. Communist dictatorships without a free press are seldom reliably honest.
- This has nothing to do with the OLPC Project submitting to the terms of the Fedora Project Individual Contributor License Agreement. It also has NOTHING to do with the GPL. These don't matter, period. The OLPC project is run by Americans, in Cambridge from what I gather. This means that the OLPC project was already subject to US export regulations, regardless of any license agreement or what have you.
- Yes, the hardware is also subject to US export regulations
- The Fedora Project Wiki entry for Legal/Export is outdated and inaccurate. For example, Iraq is still listed under "Embargoed Destinations". Iraq is not embargoed (*somehow* that changed when we invaded)
- There are two US agencies that are important when discussing the Cuba sanctions/embargo. The Department of Commerce and the Treasury Department.
- Here's a nice 6 page overview of the US embargo of Cuba from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (Treasury). Notice the text stating:
To whom do these sanctions regulations apply?All U.S. citizens and permanent residents wherever they are located, all people and organizations physically in the United States, and all branches and subsidiaries of U.S. organizations throughout the world
- And here's a nice overview from the Bureau of Industry and Security (Commerce) discussing exports and reexports to Cuba. Note that you will need to obtain a license from BIS for shipping something like an Xbox or OLPC to Cuba. Also note that there is a general policy of denial in place (meaning it's unlikely that these exports will be authorized by BIS)
- No, you can't be a "middle man" or you'd be violating US export control regulations. There are these pesky things called General Prohibitions that, you know, "prohibit" certain things. General Prohibition 10 in Part 736 of the Export Administration Regulations states:
You may not
sell, transfer, export, reexport, finance, order,
buy, remove, conceal, store, use, loan, dispose of,
transfer, transport, forward, or otherwise service,
in whole or in part, any item subject to the EAR
and exported or to be exported with knowledge
that a violation of the Export Administration
Regulations, the Export Administration Act or
any order, license, License Exception, or other
authorization issued thereunder has occurred, is
about to occur, or is intended to occur in
connection with the item
The US export regulations are the broadest in the world, with more unilateral controls than other other country. I could write a friggin book here, but I'll stop before I ramble any further. Let's just sum it up by saying that this article really isn't news at all and nothing has changed for the OLPC project (in regards to export controls). Microsoft can't ship Windows or an Xbox to Cuba, and the OLPC project won't be selling laptops to the Cuban government unless they get a license for it.Apparently not the interstate ;/)
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
That's one of the most insightful posts I've seen on this topic.
Why aren't the many thousand's of naturalized chinese in the US screaming for an embargo against their homeland? Probably because they realize that it really harms the innocent while it benefits neither side. I wish the Cuban exile community saw it this way. But as many have said already, Big Sugar also has a lot to do with the continued embargo.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
AC says:
yeah, the ninties were so fucking long ago
Long time, short time, medium time. What's the point supposed to be?
Oh yeah: "The US is bad and we don't like it. All of us enlightened folks agree. Congrats to us." I don't know why you guys don't just say that.
"We don't care about Cuba's or Syria's victims. Because there's no congrats to us for not liking Syria. You can't social-climb that way at all."
There's a difference between getting pleasure because someone succeeds and getting pleasure because I help him to succeed. What's even more, I can still help someone and then see him not succeed (theoretically getting no pleasure).
Am I altruist only when the help I provide is successful in the end? No. If, as the article states, I get pleasure when someone succeeds, then there is altruism that doesn't lead to such pleasure (when it doesn't work). Eventually, a relation may be found, but this is certainly not it.
Face it, babies try to calm their distraught companions. It doesn't seem to bring them much pleasure, but they still do it. Feeling good about doing good or bad things doesn't seem to enter the equation.
What if you got in a car accident? Had a previously unknown heart defect? Fell down a flight of stairs and broke your back?
Many young people think they don't need health insurance because they're healthy. Well, you're healthy now, but an accident could make you very unhealthy very quickly, and your medical bills could easily be more than you could possibly afford. In that situation, taxpayers end up paying your way.
Try this New York Magazine article which includes the story of a healthy young guy with no health insurance who got appendicitis.
This
"Sorry, no."
Proves this
"I suspect your opinion about Americans being assholes has more to do with you than with Americans."
I stopped reading immediately after that first "sentence" because it was clear my assessment was correct, and anything you had to say would be another baseless rant with no real substance.
I'm sure I was right about that too.
Yes it's better to leave book bans to school boards and the like. "Harry Potter promotes witchcraft" and all that American jazz. George Orwell's 1984 was attacked by American pressure groups as communist propaganda. See the irony there?
Or were you really saying that the CIA, makers of the CIA World Factbook, are left-leaning? Someone tell the prez!
I agree wholeheartedly that the calculus of resource distribution is hideously complicated in the case of Health Care. What especially seems to complicate the matter are two factors: one, we have a hard time coming to terms with monetizing the worth of human life (an eminently reasonable hestitation, I think), and two, sickness and health are hideously unpredictable factors where things even as simple as length of treatment cannot be determined ahead of time.
My thing is we can make even reasonable conservative assumptions about these factors and still come to a conclusion that strongly tends towards the favorability of greatly expanding care. For example, economically everyone suffers when a person is sick, and benefits when a person is well. Even a poor laborer who is sick is a huge potential economic liability for society, as his capacity to continue earning not only affects his employer (who depends on his labor) but also his family, and the likelihood that they will maintain or improve their living circumstances (which relates to the probabilities that they will engage in behaviors, like crime, that are economically net-negatives).
If a smoothly functioning productive society is a healthy society, then we should err a bit on the side of improving care despite increasing costs, till at least we reach a level of strictly diminishing returns. I think a mixed system might work, but only if there were a serious (not simply nominal) attempt to provide decent subsidized medical coverage for preventative care and a decent amount of continuing or chronic care, such that those who depend upon supplementary private coverage are driven to doing so for reasons of comfort and not necessity. I don't believe that the HMO industry will want for customers in such a situation; they can still sell their Lexuses and Rolls Royces of medical coverage even if everyone is guaranteed a Toyota Corolla, and people capable of paying will undoubtedly still buy it.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
You know, you could have saved yourself the trouble of behaving like a jackass and simply given him some links.
But taking the low road like you did can work too...
You could call it the "low road", but if you're always taking the "high road", you'll never end the day with any of the fish you've caught left over to feed yourself.
The depth of his ignorance will never be solved with a few links when he's already decided to believe, without question, extremist anti Cuba propaganda (as opposed to non extremist, informed criticisms of which there are plenty) and blatantly deny the possibility of anything different than the idiocy he's programmed himself to respond with regardless of how easy it is to look up the particular facts he has dead fucking wrong this time.
But yeah, I could have just thrown the idiotic moron a fish and called myself a good person for doing so.
Just thinking, they got pissed and threw Lansky and buddies out for "exploiting" them during the Batista regime. We haven't exploited them for the past 40+ years and now they're pissed about *that*.
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
And, as another poster put it sharply, nobody 'chooses' to not have health insurance.
First off, you can't say that "nobody" makes that choice, not in a population of 40 million. I guarantee there's at least one person who has knowingly chosen not to have health insurance.
Second, the self-employed who do not have health insurance do choose not to have it, because, for them, it's better to be self-employed without insurance than to work for someone else and have it. You might not agree with their rationale, but there are millions of people who share it, and it seems to work for them in the main.
Lastly, children suffer the consequences of their parents decisions. That's life, and it convey any responsibility on you or me to change things for them. You can't force adults to conform to your values, not without sacrificing some pretty important values (like liberty) along the way.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
I've heard there's a high education level in Cuba. (So what do they need cheap laptops for? They seem to be able to educate people without them, according to you.) I've heard they have doctors there. I've also heard Castro is going to live to be 200 years old. I've heard the people in Cuba go hungry. I've heard lots of different things.
And not taken a second to figure out which are true which are false and which are batshit insane. You seem to think that ignorance and skepticism are the same thing. They're not.
Any and all "information" about Cuba is more-or-less suspect and subject to the need for verification. Communist dictatorships without a free press are seldom reliably honest.
Well, you can leave out "Cuba" and "Communist dictatorships without a free press" and the statement will still be true.
Had you any interest in actually knowing what you're talking about, though, you'd know that those simple matters of public record which you deny while admitting you have no way to even know weren't pulled out of one of Castro's addresses.
If as you said in the other response you just don't have a high enough interest to learn *anything* about the subject, then you might consider the saying , It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
You have successfully removed all doubt.
Congratulations.
There's a difference between getting pleasure because someone succeeds and getting pleasure because I help him to succeed.
If you get pleasure from watching someone succeed, then you'll want others to succeed so you can experience the pleasure. Just because the pleasure is not from the ego boost of helping someone doesn't make it altruism. There was another study that showed that we get pleasure from seeing "bad guys get their just deserts for doing bad things", even if the bad things did not involve us in any way and we had no hand in dealing out the justice. Does that make it altruism? I think not.
What's even more, I can still help someone and then see him not succeed (theoretically getting no pleasure). Am I altruist only when the help I provide is successful in the end? No. If, as the article states, I get pleasure when someone succeeds, then there is altruism that doesn't lead to such pleasure (when it doesn't work).
Huh? When I bite into an apple, I expect it to taste good. If the apple turns out to be rotten on the inside, that didn't change the fact that the reason I bit into it was because I thought I'd enjoy it. Unless you're saying that you know in advance that you will not be able to help him succeed, but attempt it anyway? In that case you simply enjoy attempting to help. Or you think that an attempt to help will make the other person feel better, thereby making you feel better. Or you know you'll feel bad if you don't make the attempt.
Face it, babies try to calm their distraught companions. It doesn't seem to bring them much pleasure, but they still do it.
How do you know it doesn't bring them pleasure? What do you think is more pleasant - being next to a baby that's bawling it's eyes out or being next to one that's calm?
People are hardwired to do things they expect will make them feel good (or at least less bad.) People are either hardwired or conditioned to feel good when other people feel good. Put 2 and 2 together.
Weaving through the nitpicks... :)
I guarantee there's at least one person who has knowingly chosen not to have health insurance.
Of course, you are right. At least one almost certainly exists. I figured I was communicating with an audience that could distinguish between descriptive statments meant to generalize over a class and those that are meant to apply directly to every member of that class. If it makes you feel better, I'll insert the word "nearly" before "nobody" and now there is no more ambiguity of that sort.
Second, the self-employed who do not have health insurance do choose not to have it, because, for them, it's better to be self-employed without insurance than to work for someone else and have it...
I strongly suspect that they "choose" not to have insurance because they "choose" to prioritize their shelter and food over health when making economic decisions for themselves. This "choice" is due to the inaccessibility by price of private insurance to individuals as opposed to plans bundled with corporate employment.
Lastly, children suffer the consequences of their parents decisions. That's life, and it convey any responsibility on you or me to change things for them. You can't force adults to conform to your values, not without sacrificing some pretty important values (like liberty) along the way.
That is true to a point. However, one cannot be so obtuse as to recognize that independent of their parents, children are *human beings* and as such have the right to pursue their continued right to exist, above and beyond some conception of parental sovereignty over childrens' lives. If a parent makes a decision callously indifferent to the continued survival of a child under their care, it is not a significant "infringement of liberty" to either aid the child apart from the parents' wishes or remove te child from the care of the person who gives no weight to their continued health. As you elude, these sorts of chains of logic if not mitigated by a proper respect of domain can lead to infringements of *real* parental rights, such as teaching a child whatever values they desire and correcting and punishing children within certain bounds of reason (a parent does not have the right, for example, to torture a child in order to enforce discipline). But the idea that a parent abrogates their responsibility for the basic care of their child is a "too bad, so sad, but not my problem" sort of situation is morally repugnant and unduly eliminative of a society's role in protecting its members from harm not resultant from that own members' actions.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
Is that why trips to the US from places like Europe and Canada are at an all-time low? There are two major issues on which every civilized nation in the world except the United States has fallen in one place: death penalties and universal healthcare.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
How is referencing facts from the Central Intelligence Agency socialism?
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
So then why do we see Cuban's risking their lives on makeshift rafts trying to reach Florida soil unnoticed so they can claim amnesty? They do this leaving all their possesions behind, knowing that if they succeed they will not be able to return, and if they don't succeed and are turned back at sea, they will likely be punished for their actions when they arrive back in Cuba. If things are so good in Cuba, why would anyone bother trying to escape to Florida? It can't just be the higher standard of living because they try to escape to Mexico too, only Mexico sends Cubans back when they find them. Maybe Cubans should build slightly better boats and head south to Venezuela. I hear they have a good health care system.
Yeah, Giulani is completely Irish and completely not running for President.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Really? What's GW's total now? Is anyone keeping count of this murderous beast's non-combatant body count?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
You're right of course, but go have a look at the US/Mexican border on Google Earth some time. There's a hell of a lot more cars backed up on one side than the other. Maybe one side just has really slow border control...
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
My original comment was an attempt to argue this point by taking it to an absurd extreme in imagining if I made an obviously restricted device - say a nuclear weapon - and incorporated GPL'd software on it (most nuclear weapon delivery systems, I imagine, are running some sort of embedded OS) - then clearly the fact that there was GPL'd software on the device would not supercede federal and international restrictions controlling the distribution of weapons of mass destruction.
Perhaps the brevity of the remark led you to believe I had grossly misinterpreted the nature of the GPL and it's applicability, and led you to miss the larger point about the naivite of the original poster. I sincerely hope this more verbose explanation will sufficiently illuminate the matter.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Red Hat Fedora Rawhide is certainly available in countries under US embargo. It can be legally exported (or just downloaded) to countries where it can be legally exported/downloaded to these countries. Why would OLPC's distribution be any different, regardless of the Red Hat license? This stuff is all under GPL or some other Free/Open Source license.
This is actually a much more complicated question than the poster makes out. It is true that the US does not permit computer exports to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, or Syria. (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Pakistan have been removed from the list.) [source: Commerce Dept. Web site] However, it is not necessary to export them from the US in order to get them to those countries. The computers will be made in Shanghai (that is, inside Communist China), by a Taiwanese company, Quanta (which also makes iPods, among other things). I have no idea what the legal status of such products is under US law, nor do I know whether its status under US law even matters.
But suppose OLPC can't sell computers made outside to US to some country. What if China were to take out a manufacturing license to support their 150 million+ children and a few others around the world?
What if the design were put out under an Open Source hardware license?
I don't doubt that there would be a political outcry if XO clones appeared in embargoed countries. Doubtless there would be investigations and all the rest. But actual criminal charges? I don't know, and I don't think you do either, for any random value of "you".
"A knot!" said Alice, ever ready to be useful. "Oh, do let me help to undo it!"
I think you might be confusing Cuba with the Middle East.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
No: If Cuba wants toe embargo lifted, they have to destroy the farmers' lobbyists. Either that, or wait until I run for President in twenty some odd years.
I want health insurance with a $5000 deductible. Of course I want to pay much less for it.
You have to do a few horrible things to people with no health insurance or else there'd be no incentive. The reason HMOs were created, however, is to convince the healthy to subsidize the sick. Group policies are the product of retarded tax laws.
What are the evidences of sponsoring terrorism? Or... are you repeating like an idiot the first thing you hear instead of using your head?
When was that? Evidence please.
The exception to never, ever is in the case where haliburton sells goods and services to iran illegally. Cuba does not train and sponsor terrorists but iran does. Go figure...
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
Why should we be giving these terrorist regimes access to technology to help them kill us?
It's about 2 mouse clicks and six words to install EToys into a squeak image. I fail to understand the point of this article - EToys is probably being used in Cuba already as it's a great environment to let kids loose in, see http://www.squeakland.org/
I've been there twice, and the cuban people really suffer. The embargo halted a lot of technology entering the country, making it a live museum for tourists, but even without the embargo they would be too poor to afford any of it. There is a lot of prostitution from poor girls (their own will, not pushed by pimps). Since the russian stopped their money-feed, the economy is turning into a tourism-only income. The only people besides the government who have it good are the owners of the "casas particular" who earn tourist money by renting out 2 rooms in their house.
The cuban government watch their people closely, and you could reported by a neighborhood spy for having an unfavorable opinion on the government. It is forbidden for a cuban to approach a tourist or sit at the same table in a bar. Yet it happens, tourists driven towards the authentic bars and neighborhoods by romantic Buena Vista Social Club tunes are meeting cubans hungry for democracy and freedom. They are educating themselves indeed, but not via the government. It takes another president to understand that democracy and freedom is possible without capitalism. Maybe a few other presidents. Let's hope they get there peacefully.
So the embargo will not throw over the government, tourism will.
First, our states are about the same as your contries. Do you know ALL of the American states AND the Canadian provinces? Does even most Europeans? I seriously doubt that.
/. can do this (there is a bit of a educated group here).
Disregarding that, taking one data point (yourself) makes NO sense. If you want to, I can point out all of the NA, SA, Oceania and European (though I do have issues with some of African and Asian; 35 years since studying geography does that). In fact, I would guess that most, if not nearly all, of the ppl on
You say that most Americans do not know the difference between Sweden vs. Switzerland. Actually, I think that most American do KNOW which is Switzerland. I would guess that they are going to mix Sweden and Finland. And at this time, the average American may get wrong a lot of the Eastern EU. One of the issues with Europe is that your borders have been re-drawn so many times (due to WWII/cold war). No doubt the current group of kids are learning it, and my kids will certainly tell me that I mixed up Estonia and Latvia, but they will know.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I agree. However the part about watching their people is not just them. This also happens in almost every South and Central American country, and increasingly in the Northern ones as well. People not having money to buy stuff is also correct however could this not be due at least in part to the embargo. The revolution could not have happened if there was not frustration with the system. There were problems then as now. However I would guess that being pimped by your own people is better than by a foreign power. The fact that there is poverty, as in all underdeveloped countries is a by product of many policies. I have never thought much of Castro but I can not say that he has been an altogether asshat either. It must be hard to run a country while your nearest neighbor is scheming to kill/overthrow you, blocking trade, funding mercenaries and ex pats, constantly enticing people to defect and all.The Cuban population of Florida is not devoid of their own problems either. I can honestly say that when I worked there I met many people who believed that life was meaningful and that the future would be better. These people were not planning on leaving, but hoping to find a solution to their problems.
"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa
How many Soviet Nukes could be bought with profits from the Castro familly farm? I'd guess none. But hey, I'm sure Castro's familly have faced economic hardship once "the people" got what was rightfully thiers.
"Whatever it takes."
I guess this explains why you think it's ok to lie when you post.
It's not, and you're a liar. I caught you and you ran and hid instead of owning up to your proven lie.
Stop lying, liar.
The reason why they're smiling so much when you give them your 'imperialist' dollars is because they Have To. Anybody who would break the illusion might just have their families on the blacklist.
Think about what you're describing as positive points... None of those things are impossible without communism. In other words, you don't have to give up everything you have, your rights, your freedom, just to have good education and healthcare.
How do you think things got the way they are in Cuba? Do you think it was a Food Not Bombs commie-punk circle jerk which magically made the country fall into ruin?
They took everything by force, not by a peaceful decision to march along with Marxism. Communism was forced upon the Cuban people, and nobody with any sense should see that as a good way to political change.
I think you make some interesting points. However, I think that something which runs beneath your arguments is an unspoken presumption that I think is evidentially problematic: human beings are rational cost/benefit maximizers. I don't believe that people, even in regards to large or life-changing decision, tend to use exclusively or even preferentially the logical-rational mode to make decisions. Emotionality, sentimentality, schizotypy, and prejudice tend to be at least equal factors to reason in any major decision. As such, while I agree that increasing the size or ponderousness of a bureaucracy is not a solution, simply advertising options and presenting choices often is not sufficient (especially when the goal is to induce a person to act on behalf of a disabled actor over whom they hold responsibility, such as their child).
Likewise, while the decision to remain self-employed can in many cases be due to a simple preference to "not have a boss", that decision and the resultant impoverishment of health coverage has effects (economic and social) that radiate far outside of the domain of that person. Since as you say (and I agree) it is important that a society not interfere with the choice simpliciter to not have a boss which for that person seems to better approach their pursuit of fulfillment, happiness, etc., that nonetheless a society can and should act to limit the impact or frequency of those negative effects to others that result from the decision. Since the pursuit of happiness and the actions and states that a person chooses to achieve it need not be and usually are not strictly logical, any social system of support should operate in a mode that is effective even in the relative absence of rational actors.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
Stop Paying Taxes. Start a revolution. Or move out of the USA.
I Live in Argentina, I Don't vote, since I'm againt the current system. I Don't pay my taxes, and i don't care. I Do something about it, I complain, I Write.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?