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Can Open Source Give Comfort To the Enemy?
zlite writes "We make open source Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones), mostly for geomapping and other amateur uses. One of our problems is that most people think of UAVs as Scary Things, and despite our efforts to prove otherwise there's always the risk of regulatory crackdowns. We have amateur UAV participants from around the world, but now they've been joined by an Iranian in Tehran, who has made a UAV in the colors of the Iranian flag. My instinct is that we should welcome everyone, everywhere, but I'm sure some in Washington worry that this looks like helping an 'Axis of Evil' country make advanced weapons. They could shut us down with the stroke of a pen. My question: is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?"
OH GOD THE IRANIAN FLAG!
As if Americans don't festoon their flag everywere.
Patiotic? "Nationalistic"? God.
If you want to do the government's work for them, sure.
If you are shutting down a project based solely on the fear that your government may shut you down in the future (and not for a valid reason), you are only saving them the trouble, and making it that much worse for the next controversial open-source project that comes along.
Just like scientific advancements and knowledge in general are available to anyone, anywhere, so should be open source software. It's a principles thing.
In any case, something tells me no open source UAV software will ever be capable of running a weapons platform without significant contributions. If a country can build a UAV capable of military grade recon or even able to field weapons, they won't have any problem writing the software.
..eh....eh..ehmm. I can't remember.
Enemy of whom? Iran has not been in a war of aggression against any nation, since the 19th century.
Don't bite the propaganda of AIPAC or Dick Cheney! Israel is the nuclear armed agressor in the Middle East.
Persian culture, by way of contrast, produced the world's first assertion and declaration of Human Rights, and is responsible for the foundation of modern mathematics.
You want ethical and humane living? Read the Avesta of Zoroaster. Unlike the rabid Old Testament, it pleads that humanity have good thought, good speech and good deeds, not casting it's neighbors as "abominations" and wishing them plagues.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Attempt to turn him into a double agent for the US. Keep notes of all your attempts. You'll either be rewarded for your patriotism, locked up, or "disappear".
One would think someone infiltrating a group to aid a hostile government would be able to cover their tracks a little better. Maybe use a cutout in Germany, South America or Canada. It would be pretty foolish for the Iranian Air Force to use an IP that traces back to Tehran. Just because they talk with an accent doesn't mean they think with one.
Besides, if the Iranians want advanced UAV's, the Russians will sell them whatever is in their inventory. The Chinese, who probably make a lot of the circuit boards and sub systems for our military, would happily sell them their 100% original design...that just happens to look amazingly like ours. Heeeey.
If they struck out there then they're down to the French, Taiwanese, North Koreans and a half-dozen other countries happy to sell them weapons systems under the table.
Of course, this is the Bush administration we're talking about here. Logic and common sense hold no sway in American government and people get appointed to high office because they're skilled fund raisers. So, yeah, I could see them shaking down you guys just because it makes them feel like they're doing something and they can understand you when you talk...if you limit yourself to simple words. Plus you're convenient driving distance from their offices.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
It seems to me that the Iranians have this type of basic technology - keep in mind, keeping something in the air is no big challenge, nor is waypoint navigation. Also - picking up any field robotics journal will have papers on this sort of autonomous stuff - should be ban those too?
I hate to complicate matters, but...I'm not sure it's so cut-and-dried. The Nazi example above may seem a little silly to some, but it's not totally off-the-wall. It seems to me that the question that needs to be asked is "Who says it's a national security issue?" If it seems like a knee-jerk "He's a Muslim!"-type thing, then we're not really talking national security. But if we're dealing with someone who has a reasonable likelihood of wanting to harm the U.S., and the project itself actually lends itself to that, then...yeah, I suppose you'd need to seriously consider not allowing the guy to participate.
In other words: believe it or not, there are somethings that are more important than "freedom"...as far as SOFTWARE goes. =P
Yes, making a UAV is not trivial, but neither is it incredibly difficult. There are plenty of cheap parts out there that, with a little programming, could tie together a small GPS module and aircraft control servos. It wouldn't be too terribly difficult for any country to make a UAV; I would say with a parts budget of $1K US, I could probably get a simple one (that could fly to a given waypoint) working within a few weeks/months. With $10K, you could make a very capable one -- probably with a range of several hundred km -- which could carry a small payload (a few grams of radioactives go a long way, ya know.)
Bottom line -- trying to restrict such technology is laughable these days. Microchip literally gives away microcontrollers capable of handling a small aircraft, given the right software and interface electronics. These "evil terr-a-rists" will always be able to get their hands on technology. What we need is to find a way to make it politically difficult for them to continue as terrorists. (I.E. find a diplomatic solution.)
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Who the hell modded this insightful?
Its the same ignorant bullshit that people use to validate racism. Someone needs to pay attention to how they spend their mod points.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
Then you will laugh when the next Ice Age comes.
And cry when the next asteroid hits...
The only "hope", if there is a point, is to get geographically diversified. And by geographically, I mean light-years.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
``My instinct is that we should welcome everyone, everywhere, but I'm sure some in Washington worry that this looks like helping an 'Axis of Evil' country make advanced weapons.''
Is anyone still taking these guys seriously? I mean, the "Axis of Evil" was coined at the time when the whole cast was performing a play where they convinced the USAmerican public that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and posed a great threat to the USA. Now that has been exposed for the load of bollocks many of us already saw it for at the time. The whole "Axis of Evil" concept was invented to scare the American public into thinking there was a conspiracy against them, but, in all the time since then, none of the countries on this supposed axis have actually attacked the USA. The only aggressor in this whole stage play has been the USA itself, with the demagogues leading the violence somehow escaping scrutiny. Sure, Iraqis are killing US soldiers _now_, but, well, can you blame them, after said soldiers plunged their country into an anarchy where it's news if there is a day _without_ bombings? And the same guys who came up with the "Axis of Evil" told you that the US soldiers would be received as heroes and bring peace and stability to Iraq.
And now you are saying that X is a good idea, but we'd better not do it because the "Axis of Evil" guys may not like it? I'm not saying the idea is good and you should do it, but _not_ doing it because of those demagogues seems about as bad an idea as they get. They've done enough damage already!
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Imagine if someone decided to design an open source cruise missile.
The U.S.A. already leaned on the New Zealand gov't to shut down a guy making a (non-open source) DIY cruise missile just to prove that he could do it. The NZ version of the IRS hound him into bankruptcy.
Not to mention that his gov't even said it'd be perfectly fine if he sold the technology to Iran. BTW - He didn't.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
TROLL ALERT
It is unbelievable propaganda to equate Iran to Nazi Germany. Israeli disinfo and psyops (MEMRI) deliberately mis-translate stories, and the lapdog media in the US and UK eat it up.
Here is the country, and the people, that you smear as "enemy".
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Because all Iranians agree with their government and UAVs, despite lacking weaponry of any sort, are dangerous weapons that Iran doesn't already have the technology to build, right?
Whoever modded you insightful is even stupider than you, and that's a feat.
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
Open Source can be used by anybody, that's part of the point.
My question: is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?
"Yesterday morning, I received word from Assistant U.S. Attorney William Keane in San Jose, California, that the government's three-year investigation of Philip Zimmermann is over."
Article here. More info here.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
...made a UAV in the colors of the Iranian flag
If you are going to fly it in the US, just paint it sideways. The worst problem you'll then encounter is border patrol thinking its those illegal Mexican immigrants crossing by air.
Technology is not inherently wrong/evil/whatever. Technology is just technology. And if an Iranian kid finds some peaceful apps for technology, good for him, hope he inspires the hell out of his friends to do the same.
Let's face it, you can use a baseball bat to play baseball. Or, you can use it to beat somebody to a pulp. Going to make baseball illegal cause somebody might pick up a bat and hit somebody? Same principle.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Might be a bit offtopic but Wait a minute... there is no war going on between USA and Iran, Since when did Iran become your enemy? Just because your president sais something stupid you see a whole country as "your" enemy?
Call me crazy, but that is just wrong.
I'm from Iran myself and I know that most people in Iran do not see USA as the "enemy" at all. People should not judge a country by the small minority which rules it.
I might be a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
Fly recon against Israel or against American interests in Iraq? Deploy weapons?
It may give a small advantage to terrorists or insurgents for a few times, but in the long run, air defense will adapt to them if they have any perceivable effect.
"My question: is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?"
I doubt it. Once the genie is out of the bottle, there is no way to get it back in. Shutting down a project because the enemy is using will not stop the enemy, just ourselves!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
See, this is the difference you're overlooking... it's in your own words.
This guy working on a non open platform was shut down...
Of course he was. It was a single point of failure in the chain. He didnt share his work with others, so he became an easy target. Had he opened that platform right off the mark then there would have been no point in the IRS targeting him. He likely would have saved himself considerable financial loss by not being so secretive.
How is the US gov't going to "shut down" open discussion hosted on multiple servers around the world? No matter any declared or undeclared "war" they can't even keep child porn off usenet, they're damn sure going to be powerless shutting down talk about model airplanes and electronic servo controllers.
My question: is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?"
Crypto was kept out of the Linux kernel for a long time, since the US had regulation on exporting crypto systems. These were mostly lifted under Clinton, though there's still a list of countries that it's illegal to export to (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria, according to: http://www.epic.org/crypto/export_controls/regs_1_ 00.html).
RMS has stated that if copyright laws in the vein of the DMCA continue to be passed, Free Software development could no longer take place in US borders.
Germany was recently hit with a law that outlawed "hacking software", apparently including nmap or packet sniffers.
It's nice to say that you want to do things for the good of humanity, but beaurocrats have other ideas.
Not a typewriter
PGP.
Bruce Simpson got in trouble ages ago for building a rocket that adaptively kept a cart level. After someone in the US government was quoted as describing his activities as "unhelpful", the New Zealand government stepped in with some financial crap to close down his hobby.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
The Iranian Government currently has the technology to produce:
And you think that stopping a not for profit, model aircraft UAV building group is going to limit their ability to produce a military UAV.
So how many other open source projects may have secret Iranian participants, shall we shut them all down.
How about shutting down Linux because it can be used by the Iranians to build super computers like they do in the west to test bomb designs.?
Lets ban all knowledge because the terrorists may get at it.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
"is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?"
Yes, and I could tell you, but then I'd have to hunt you down and kill you, so....no.
What if performance-enhancing drugs are involved in said baseball?
Bite my shiny metal ass.
I'm not sure what those pictures are supposed to prove--Nazi Germany had cars and trees and apartment buildings and highways too. It is not quite accurate to compare the two, however. Iran is more like pre-Reformation Europe--a civilization whose people are growing more advanced, leading to tensions with a medieval theocratic regime.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
While I do personally agree with your sentiments, that is not really the question being asked. The question being asked is "Is it legal?".
That question is more complex. I am working on a rocket - similar issue arise. ITAR is the governing regulation, and the state department decides what ITAR means. And they are not logical about it.
I want to develop human rocket transports - but anything that goes into space is automatically a weapon, according to the state department. That means that if I talk to a non-US citizen about my improvements to rockets, I go to jail - let alone hiring or working with a non-US citizen.
UAVs seem very likely to fall under ITAR, because the state department will almost certainly say so. Ignorance of the law does not free you from the consequences of it, so I would tread carefully. One of the biggest problems with ITAR is that it is difficult to know exactly what it makes illegal - and so you end up having to consult lawyers every time you want to do anything involving foriengers. Very annoying, and very expensive! But it does lock in big profits for government contractors, of course... (You did know that they get reimbursed for all legal expenses, right?)
My dream is that knowing this will so enrage the Slashdot community that everyone will call their senator and tell them to force the state department to make the ITAR list less inclusive, and only include things that have weaponry as a primary purpose - and get congress to force state to change.
I'd also like a pony...
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
My recommendation is to try to avoid the issue. UAV will almost certainly be seen as a military device. (Very) Remote controlled airplane will not...
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
before you go much farther, i would strongly encourage you to become familiar with itar (international trade in arms) restrictions. there are extremely stiff penalties for any unauthorized export, which includes even discussions of the technical details. (at least that's the way my company's itar representative spins it). as always, your mileage will vary: i am neither a lawyer, d.o.d. or d.o.t. auditor, nor do i play any of those on tv.
What, do you think people in the middle east are somehow stupid or not educated and incapable of
creating a UAV without assistance? Having spent a fair amount of time in the middle east I can tell you that their population in many cases has better access to technology than we do here in the states.
I think if they have the smarts and capability to build a reactor that a UAV would not be real difficult for them.
Got Code?
And who is aiding and comforting him?
o w-three-generations-of-america-to-the-rescue/
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/08/23/daily-sh
Don't bite the propaganda of AIPAC or Dick Cheney! Israel is the nuclear armed agressor in the Middle East.
Huh? Aggressor? Last I checked, it wasn't Israel who was swearing to wipe out other countries, nor do they send suicide bombers to blow up buses of children. Israel is certainly not squeaky clean, but having enemies around you screaming for your destruction tends to make a country trigger happy. The ledger of atrocities is about 10 (if not 100) to 1 in favor of Israel.
Persian culture, by way of contrast, produced the world's first assertion and declaration of Human Rights, and is responsible for the foundation of modern mathematics.
Those civilizations are long dead -- unfortunately for the people of the middle east.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
My question: is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?
National security issues can put the kibosh on nearly anything. Just ask the amateur rocketry hobbyists about the hoops they have to jump through due to the PATRIOT Act. In a few more years you'll probably be lucky to be able to find chemistry sets with experiments more interesting than mixing vinegar and baking soda.
Persian culture, by way of contrast, produced the world's first assertion and declaration of Human Rights, and is responsible for the foundation of modern mathematics.
While I somewhat agree with that sentiment, we need to recognize that Iran isn't exactly the same Persia that we know and love. A lot has changed over the years. Persia finally succumbed to Islam; around 90% of Iranians follow the various Islamic faiths, and there are very few Zoroastrians hanging around. Sure, ethnically, the people are mostly the same as they were during the Empire years, but to say that culture is still pervasive? I don't know about that. Also, you can't berate people who follow the other Abrahamic religions, and then praise a modern country filled with people who also follow an (in my eye) equally stupid, but somewhat different Abrahamic religion. What sense does that make?
I've no doubt that the Iranian people are generally, and individually, great people; still, they're under the influence of assholes. It's no different than the US. Their government lies, our government lies, their leader has a screw loose, our leader has to have a screw loose-and unfortunately he has control over the bombs. Israel is the same way. It would be nice, however, if Ahmadinejad didn't periodically call for the elimination of Israel. Instead of defusing the situation, all they do is throw another stick of dynamite on the pile, and it doesn't further their cause in the international arena.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
If that's the message you want to give your readers, go right ahead and behave as if you are living in fear under the control of a neo-Fascist regime.
You're confused. Israel has never fought an aggressive war. As for Zoroastrianism, however fine a religion it may be, it is of no relevance in determining one's view of modern Iran. Iran has been overwhelmingly Muslim for over 1,000 years. Zoroastrians are a tiny, persecuted, minority.
It's not Iran either. It's right here in good old USA. It's changing quickly and moving towards a fascist police state IMO. Our government has built "detention centers" (Gitmo style) all over the USA. Some of them are designed to hold over 500,000 people. Now if they want to give amnesty to the immigrant Mexicans that are coming here then who do you suppose those detention centers are for?? Think and research - The answers are out there. Here is the NYTIMES story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/national/04halli burton.html?ex=1296709200&en=01728da2eba059e4&ei=5 088&partner=rssn
Search Youtube.com for videos
That has to have been the most non-troll way of putting that.
Sorry that your facts are unpopular here...
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
I forgot that two wrongs actually do make a right (-wing politic).
It is unbelievable propaganda to equate Iran to Nazi Germany.
While looking at the pictures of the orchestra, all I could hear was Die Walküre...
Kill the waaabbit...
What?
The research you are doing, while interesting is not so important that it's national security material. No-one in the government is probably giving your efforts a second thought.
Think of all the interactions you've ever had with the government, in any form. Now do you feel like being frightened of them as some large omnipresent and omniscient force? I think not!!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I could care less about baseball. Doesn't bother me in the least if they wanna do 'better ballplay through chemistry'.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
And now that you're older and wiser, re-read it and fix your mistakes.
You ever read failed states or hegemony or survival by noam chomsky?
Not to get into a debate on Chomsky, but he suffers from two major logic flaws: Proof by selective evidence, and he presupposes his conclusions (e.g., Given problem A, the conclusion will be that the U.S. holds the vast majority of blame).
No doubt he's a bright guy, but he has some huge blinders when it comes to politics. Unfortunately, his anger overwhelms his rationality.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I would make a counterargument here.
If it is an open and public community and is not overtly seeking the development of weapons (just multi-use components), I would say that there is not. At worst, the government should see this as a possibility for intelligence for any real terrorist link.
I suppose that if this was an "open source uranium enrichment centrifuge and bomb design project" there would be a case. But even there, I tend to think that the enemy we do no know is more dangerous than the enemy we do. Such an open source project might indeed be a source of a great amount of information for the CIA.
In the end, I think the question is likely to be about the privacy of participants, not national security. If there are national security concerns, you can expect various governments to send appropriate spy agencies to your project. If this is not desirable, you may wish to reconsider.
All in all, I tend to act as if a lot of this doesn't really matter. I would not close down such a project myself, but I would probably open up a discussion on the issues, explicitly saying that there was no direspect intended for your Iranian friend.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
by your comment a gun can be used for shooting people.. or it could be used for shooting people.... wait that wasn't going where i wanted it..
(joking i don't care if people cary guns..)
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
It's sad to see Americans who see themselves as liberals parroting propaganda from extreme anti democratic nationalists, just because those nationalists happen to be Iranian and anti bush. The fact that they are also anti women, anti gay and anti semitic to the point that they deny the holocaust and talk of wiping Israel off the face of the map is conveniently overlooked.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Imagine if someone decided to design an open source cruise missile. ... DIY cruise missile
That guy was developing something that some strategic intel people have been expecting for years - a simple V1-like UAV, but with modern guidance.
The V1 of WWII was a very simple device, built cheaply out of sheet metal with a crude engine. Range of several hundred miles. Moderately reliable airframe. But the guidance systems of that era had trouble finding London, and hitting a specific military target was hopeless. The same airframe with modern guidance could hit specific buildings. It could become the Third World's answer to US bombing strikes - the AK-47 of air warfare. So far, no one has bothered.
What about publishing original research in peer-reviewed journals?
:-) Leave the US ones out of it, and then offer published advice to NASA (and anyone else who can read)....
If you analyze designs of NASA, ESA, and Russian cargo and human transport rockets, and offer ideas for the designs of the future, all based on publically available information?
How about we get better? Lets only look at foreign rocket designs
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
This excuse has been used before, countless times. The simple fact is that if you are not actively working against your goverment, you are supporting them. This goes for any country.
The US population supports the bush administrations war on terror by not acting against it, I support the dutch goverments actions in afghanistan and irag, by not acting against it, and you support your countries hatred of every non-muslim country, by not acting against it.
All the evil needs to flourish is the in-action of some good men.
It don't matter of most people from Iran do not see the USA as the enemy, it matters wether they will pay their taxes to fund the anti-western anti-democracy anti-freedom goverment and will serve its military.
IF Iran launched a war against say Israel, how many of the people you know would refuse military duty, would outcast family members that went to war?
Note that this is NOT just against you, it goes for the entire human race. It sadly is just too easy to just sit back, say "I am against", and then let it happen. From slavery, to the holocaust, to animal cruelty, to child labor. "Good" men have sat back, said they disapproved and then do nothing.
The problem with dreamers is that the world is ruled by those who ACT on their dreams. You and I might share a dream, but it will never happen, unless we act.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You are not exporting plans for a UAV! You and your friends are simply comparing notes on how to build autonomus flying model airplanes. UAVs are weapons. Model airplanes are toys.
Radio controlled flying models have been around for a long time and no one considers them to be weapons. Functionally identical radio controlled drones and especially the larger ones are (e.g., Predator, Global Hawk, etc.). Adding a level of automonmy to a radio controlled "toy" shouldn't make it into a weapon. Making it big enough to carry some sort of ordnance probably does.
Cheers,
Dave
P.S. IANAL, YMMV. They make the rules. If a rule doesn't work the way they want it to, they change the rule.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
It's all approved under regulation 756.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Uh huh. You mean like how the laws against kiddie porn keep that out of the newsgroups? And how the DMCA keeps people from getting access to DeCSS?
You're not paying attention, are you?
I can see it now: proxy up, folks... we're talking about model airplanes!
Believe it or not, there was a time in American history when lots of people carried guns. Used them to catch dinner, too. Shooting a person was considered bad form.
Whether it is unbelievable propaganda is not the point. The point is that some people in the U.S. government believe the unbelievable propaganda. . .
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
You're confused. Israel has never fought an aggressive war.
Right - like the war in 1948 where Arabs were massacred or ethnic-cleansed out of their villages... that wasn't aggressive. And nor was the unilateral "preemptive" strike on the Iraqi nuclear facility. Oh, and lets not forget the unprovoked attack on the USS Liberty (how many Americans were killed in the "accidental" attack that lasted several hours?). Oh, and the invasions into Lebanon... how many times now? Nope, no aggression there.
You use common sense in your arguments. I don't think common sense has anything to do with any gouvernment, so I would be extremely careful and seek legal advice from a lawyer, instead of asking a bunch of geeks on /. what to do. No offence meant.
-- Cheers!
On a hot, tiring day of Jihad, some holy RPG-wielding Islamic terrorist might pick up a tasty Coca-Cola product and indulge in good old-fashioned American refreshment!
So does that mean that Coca-Cola Co. is lending aid and comfort to the enemy??
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
In reality this is a great idea. Having developed software destined for UAV's I am more than happy to use Open Source applications rather than proprietary solutions. The biggest advantage is the "many eyes" approach to software development. When you develop any flight software you spend many hours pouring through code looking for the hidden bug. Economics say that you can't put the same number of eyes looking at a proprietary solution. Besides, who do you think is less reputable a manager of a private contractor who gets the bonus for delivering early and under budget or a government civil servant who is asked to work overtime to oversee the development effort. Personally, I'd trust the Open Source community because they have a natural distain of poorly written applications.
The majority of Bin Laden's lieutenants came from that very oppressive country. The US looks the other way. Once their oil dries up, I am sure the US will pounce on them like a vulture.
I'm registering Republican just for a chance of voting for Ron Paul in the primary, but I doubt I'll be allowed to. The reasonable candidates are always gone by the time California gets to vote and not that my vote has ever counted. California elections are always stolen, at least in the last 30 years when I've been able to vote.
If I had a brood mare, I'd offer you a pony.
(I must be new here too. I use the term "USian" to distance myself from the Americans running the government in Washington DC and hell bent on killing everyone in the world who has something they want. Am I a meme short of a full deck?).
I'm fairly sure it still is considered bad form ;)
Normal people worry me!
A smarter device isn't that hard to create today - a GPS, gyro and a small one-chip computer will make things easy. Failure rate may be higher than for the military spec UAV:s but what's missing in precision can be made up by larger numbers.
So all R/C equipment around may also be a security risk.
I'm sure that this is causing dandruff for some security people. Just accept that the worms are out of the can.
And anyway - there are better ways to streak terror in people than with UAV:s. - They are too visible, rather slow and can be spotted before they are about to cause any big trouble.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
not to mention the fact they dumped thousands of mini-bombs from cluster bombs over wide areas of land and towns. just as powerful if not more so then land mines but much more easy to set off.
You can name just as many atrocities that Muslim Arabs have committed against Israel. Over the years the suicide bombings, the kidnappings, and the rockets add up, you know. This debate is tired and it doesn't go anywhere. Both sides are convinced they are waging a defensive war, and anything can be justified if one thinks one is defending oneself.
You never hear anyone who speaks loudly condemn both sides for their ethical failures over the years. Why does everyone have to declare one side or the other innocent of all crimes?
Why don't we just look at the facts: Israel exists in a sea of Arab countries, some of whom consistently announce their intention to wipe them from the face of the Earth. This tense climate has made both sides afraid, and people who are afraid make bad decisions. Because of these bad decisions, the Muslims in Palestine have become more marginalized and more radicalized. The Israelis have become more aggressive.
This does not exempt either side from culpability, and it also does not make either side the clear moral victor.
The only way peace will be accomplished in the Middle East is if both sides learn to move past their grievances and realize that the past has no rational relationship to how they should proceed in the future. The past is all sunken cost. Both sides need to say to themselves: How do we prevent further death?
They may be poor but they aren't stupid! They don't play by our rules, it's not as simple as who has the most/best weapons. If they can't afford it then they will steal from the people who do! They can easily recover the remains of a shot down UAV, and turn it against the USA, or steal rocket launchers to shoot down aircraft W.O.M.D. should NOT be open source!
Isn't that the beauty of open source? Even if the government does shut you down, the source is open and then this Iranian student can fork the project and have it hosted in Iran.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
So you'd bet 25 years in a pound me in the ass federal prison on that? your mistake is assuming anyone in government will approch the subject with any kind of logic. trust me, all they will see is the words "UAV" and "Iran"
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
By allowing everyone the same rights, neither side has an advantage over the other- it can be used both for good and evil by either side. Rather than contemplating if said open source does anything for "the enemy", it would make more sense to restrict the use of said open source in war situations. This will help make sure the open source in question is not used for evil by your own people as well.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Any military project like this (regardless of country) seems a bit scary to me - it's introducing robotic drones to do a war-maker's bidding.
For quite a while, military training has had the goal of dehumanizing a recruit. A recruit has to be conditioned to kill on command. For most people it's abnormal to kill someone who isn't an immediate threat to themselves or to a loved one, but soldiers have to kill.
You want to see robotic drones? Look for the guys that they call "Private".
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Are you Sarah Conner?
If you take a russian rocket engine into the US, it then becomes illegal to send it back to Russia or to tell anything technical about it to Russians. The only exception is anything "published", which you can quote (but not embellish - even saying "this looks good" could be construed as an ITAR violation).
I've heard that the best way around it is to patent it. A Patent counts as publishing it, which means that you can then talk about it. If you had published it yourself, they would consider that an ITAR violation - but if the PTO publishes it, you are off the hook.
The most annoying and inane rules anywhere. Seriously, call your senator!
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
The enemies of the American people have been using open source software for years. Here are a few examples:
l 4 ,100648,00.html
http://www.netc.org/openoptions/examples/what.htm
http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2005/0,481
Heh? Didn't Iran attack Iraq in the '80s
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Well, the Soviets tried that several decades ago, and, well... Yeah.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
Come on! This is the same State Department and ITAR that banned exportation of strong encryption as being "dangerous to National Security". As a result, the US could not compete in the international marketing of effective encryption, while everybody else could.
They really thought that "security through obscurity" was a viable option.
What a crock.
Eventually they were FORCED to see the light... but the problem is, everybody else saw the light right away... not after many years of argument and litigation.
Rather than getting rid of UAVs, we should lobby to get rid of ITAR. Just about everybody would be happier as a result.
He does not actually ask if it is legal. He asks if "there is a case", which sounds like he wants to know what the right ting to do is.
If he wants to know the law, he should take proper advice.
I doubt if people care. Most people probably agree with the implicit view of the authorities (not just in the US) that there is no need for people to have hobbies like this, and they should spend their spare time watching TV like everyone else. A few geeks and civil liberties types care, but since when did that make any difference?
>Both sides are convinced they are waging a defensive war, and anything can be justified if one thinks one is defending oneself.
But only one side is carrying on a 40 year illegal occupation.
>This does not exempt either side from culpability, and it also does not make either side the clear moral victor.
Moral victors are those trying to gain their independence from an occupying force.
>How do we prevent further death?
Start by ending the occupation. Pull back to the 64 borders, build a wall around yourself, let the UN patrol the other side of the war. Never ever deal with any muslim country again.
evil is as evil does
You don't see Native Americans strapping explosives to their chests and screaming that, in the name of their god, they shall take back their homeland from the filthy paleskins that conquered them, do you? Israel was created generations ago, after World War II came to a close - It seems as though a fair amount of time has passed since then, over half a century. Have the Arab people (or at least their leaders) of those lands surrounding Israel been breeding nothing but unbridled hatred and fury over the past nearly sixty years? Do survivors of World War II teach hatred and distrust of Germans and Japanese, and vice versa? Why must the fighting continue as it is? Why is Israel's mere existence considered such a stain on the face of the Middle East?
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
The U.S. federal government does prosecute people for technology that, while harmless, may seem threatening. Please see this about Steve Kurtz, and artist who was charged with bioterrorism for art using "containing harmless forms of bacteria, and scientific equipment for testing genetically altered food." The charges have since been downgraded to mail fraud, but he has been indicted by a grand jury, and faces trial next year.
No data, no cry
You should try telling this to the current regime over there in Iran.
You don't know what it's like to really create something; to create a life; to feel it growing inside you.
I knew a guy with a tapeworm once. Does that count?
Do you know any other tunes?
You're still not paying attention, are you?
I'm Iranian. Or French. Or Japanese. Or Indian. Or Russian.
Now, let's see you fine me for posting information about my model airplane to a newsgroup.
False comparison. The Native Americans suffered the worst of their indignities centuries ago. Palestinians who are in their 70's and 80's still have their house keys from their homes that they were forcibly removed from.
The Native Americans are allowed to become full American citizens. Palestinians are denied citizenship by Israel. Native Americans are offered economic autonomy, ie casinos and tax-free shopping, while Palestinians are suffering while Israel closes the borders and blocks commerce and electricity.
Really? What do you call the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980's? The one where Iranian children were carrying suicide bombs up to Iraqis? Where do you think the Iranians learned how to fight a guerrilla war against a technologically superior enemy, a craft they're now funding and teaching to occupied Iraq?
Israel is dangerous, but Iran and nuclear weapons scares me more because they have no aim. The Israelis at least hit what they're aiming at. (As they've demonstrated against Iranian nuclear power plants.)
His blinders on linguistics are even worse (it was his original field). The idea that all humans speak the same fundamental language, programmed into their neurology, matches his political beliefs. And it's as unnessary as a theory, and as demonstrably wrong.
Oh noez!! I haz a pair of ducks![*]
The only thing that's relevant to any discussion of any contemporary political regime is how they act today and the recent past. Pining over long dead civilizations and trying to impart a few choice characteristics some idealized version of them on to their contemporary decendents while ignoring all intervening history is extremely sophmoric.
----
[*] Thank you. Thank you. I'll be here all week. Two shows on Friday and Saturday: 7 and 10. No kids at the 10. It gets a little blue.
I don't suppose you see the irony of this.
If an American kid built a drone, and painted it in the colours of the American flag, you wouldn't think there was anything wrong with that, would you?
And what is all this talk of 'enemies'? Iran is not your enemy. Yes, the republican party try to whip up hysteria about supposed foreign enemies to distract voters from their failures at home - it's something that right wing governments the world over have done since the time of the Romans at least. Iran not only does not threaten America, Iran could not threaten America even if it wanted to.
Even the 'War on Terr'r' is a nonsense. Face it: car drivers in America kill fourteen times as many Americans every year as Al Quaeda have ever killed. Do you have a 'War on Cars'?
This guy has built some cool technology, and he's sharing it with you. He's not taking your technology, he's freely offering you his. Can you use it? Would it be 'unpatriotic' to use it?
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Their Marx worship was just as much a religion as christianity, islam, mormonism, hinduism, etc. are. If it quacks like a duck and all that. Of course their propaganda denied that, but that was just their way of saying that there is only One True religion.
Your argument does nothing to disprove the original premise.
The fact you you make this an "open source" issue shows that you really have no standing or credibility to even talk about what your posting. Open source licenses dont exist. Posession is 9/10s of the law as it always has been and if you give you stuff away... You have no further right. Anyway nice try at getting attention for yourself by saying OH were open source. Whatever. Its called free, and noone cares about your plight after the download. Grow up loser.
That summary is over-concise. The 1979 Islamic Revolution was a result of growing unease with the US-backed monarch, installed through the 1953 coup when the elected prime minister didn't want to share the country's oil with the West. Say what you will, but under the Islamic government education improved, with female literacy improving tremendously.
The issues that the Iranian government is known for abroad are not necessarily interesting to normal Iranians. My Iranian friend happened to be there during the British hostage thing. The Iranians saw their government stance merely as a silly show-off. The Iranians I know are unhappy with the low economic growth and high unemployment rates rather than theological tensions.
Funny how they used to call these clubs and competitions. Now it's open source, get a grip america. Wake up slashdot.
PGP, anyone?
-l
You never hear anyone who speaks loudly condemn both sides for their ethical failures over the years.
Wrong. Lots of people do. But those who do are despised by BOTH the sides (instead of just one of the sides) so they get much less media coverage. SO it ends up that anybody that talks against Israel's landgrabbing is labelled antisemitic (which is ridiculous if not else because the Palestinians are as much semitic as the Israeli, and actually often more semitic because most of Israeli are Jew but with lots of caucasic blood in their veins, so even from a purely racist point of view the label doesn't even make sense), and anybody that talks against the Palestinians terrorism acts is labeled as 'sold-out to the Israelf-US capitalistic landgrabbing agenda' or whatever.
Also, the main problem is that people keep talking about culpability instead of thinkin in terms of find a solution. This is exactly the same reason why most vendettas go on for centuries. (Plus, if we have to talk about culpability in the Palestine case I would go for the UN, which almost literely threw the Jew colonists to the lions, by supporting the creation of the State of Israel despite the clear and loud voices against it from the neighbouring nations. And please nobody mention the Belford declaration, that was before WWII and the promise to wipe Israel out of the face of Earth if it got founded was declared right after WWII, and before the foundation of the State. As for the right of a nation to have a State, that goes for lots of persecuted nations around the world, but nobody gives a shit about them so that's quite obviously not enough of a reason.)
So the solution has to rely on a current analysis of the situation, and the current analysis is that Israel is still landgrabbing, using the settlers (or squatters, depending on the point of view) outside of its borders as an excuse to extend its control over Palestine. Until they dismantle those settlements (that serve no purpose but landgrabbing) and fully retreat within the UN-declared borders they simply have no right to complain about the Palestinian terrorism. Likewise, Palestine should officially and once for all acknolwedge the State of Israel (within the UN-declared borders) and cease all hostile activity against Israel.
Of course, it's not something that I foresee happening anytime soon.
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
"ITAR is the governing regulation, and the state department decides what ITAR means. And they are not logical about it."
I think you misunderstand the problem. In the US we have multiple branches of government. The laws are written by one branch, and enforced by another. Of course, every person in the government has their own political agenda. This means that when an agency is looking at enforcing a law, they don't ask "what did the writers of this law intend" instead they ask "how can this law be used to further my agenda". I am not being cynical, I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with things working this way. Indeed, if enforcement agencies always set about enforcing the spirit of the law, it would give legislators far too much power.
I think you'll find that regulatory agencies' interpretation of the law makes a lot more sense when you consider the agencies' basic goals.
It's nice to see a voice of a reason from time to time. However, we have to remember, there is not one type of Israelis and one type of Palestinians. There are Israelis that think that the land was given to them by the God, not by the UN, and God decides how large it is (through the downstream messengers) and they are also reasonable Israelis. There are Palestinians, who would gladly sign in for a one-way ticket to Israel with too much explosive stuff in their backpack and there are Palestinians who would gladly put those backpackers into prison for long years. Unfortunately, the problem is that radical elements on both sides have simply more power / shout louder :-( Because I don't think that blowing yourself on a bus is a solution for one side, the same way I do not think that concrete fencing off (accidentally pushing the border in the only correct direction) others is a good idea either...
Well.. I guess I will have to be clear on that one, Iranian mustn't have any nuke or long way rockets
Israel doesn't even declare they got/don't got any nukes and they don't intend to use what they got (or not), because Israel doesn't look to use their nukes unlike Iran, which currently doesn't got any Nukes and actually their president said that They will use their nuke A.S.A.P to wipe Israel out of the map
Also, in-favor of Israel, Israel doesn't support terrorism unlike Iran, which actually want to do what the Nazi's had tried to do in WW2.
So if you ask me, which country out of both should hold a nuke, that would be Israel for sure, they actually keep the whole middle east calmed with the thought they might have nukes, keep it that way Israel.
Read and Comment at my BLOG
!!!
Instead of asking a bunch of Slashdotters what they think the government might say, why not ask the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency themselves. ICE and the Department of State have joint jurisdiction over ITAR. I've never been able to figure out who handles what, but I'd recommend starting with ICE. You can call them at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE. (Yes, this may be the first time in Slashdot history that someone has recommended calling DHS not as a joke.)
4 .htm
ICE has a program called Project Shield America that is designed for exactly this type of thing. Their goal is to try to educate industry about what can and can't be exported.
http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/factsheets/shield07120
Lastly, IANAIA (I am not an ICE agent) but I suspect their answer is probably going to be that exporting UAV technology to Iran is a no-no. I'm sure it depends on exactly what you are doing, but from a quick googling, it looks like a lot of UAV related technology is restricted.
Why is it that I feel like I'm about to get modded back into the Stone Age?
How can that be moderated insightful? Iran is a heavily islamic state. Zoroastrians have either converted or migrated to India 1000 years ago. All their achievements are in distant past. Just because Iranians are clearly brighter than their neighbours doesn't mean that we can ignore that islamic loonies are running their country.
Yes, I can see where you are coming from on this, and yes his conclusions are almost always resultant against US foreign policy. But can you say that the US (or any other country for that matter) mass media does not wear the same blinders of a different sort? His view are no more or less distorted than that of the average popular opinion piece. Yet, somehow his view never gets any airplay. Why is that? Anyone can bitch about the state of things but Noam actually proposes some ideas to change it, which is much more than I could say for any politician that I have ever heard. Quite frankly, whether you agree with him or not, atleast he has some ideas. Unfortunatley it seems that ideas seem to get you trouble now.
In fact, in regards to your criticism, I would like for you to present any politician who has not used selective evidence or presupposes his conclusions because I would like to vote for him/her. I really can't think of anyone in the modern era who fits that mould.
He doesn't necessarilly place blame on the US he just states the obvious that no one, it seems, can accept. The US is after total world domination and nothing else will do.
You cannot use a baseball bat to put a 500 Kg steel ball in orbit, which would make a weapon as good as a nuke, and a cleaner one. Aiming it would be only slightly difficult, but for a large city it would not matter.
As for UAV, it depends: if the project is about building model planes with a camera on them, I would not worry. If the project is about building a flying platform that can fly for hours and can carry 2-3 kg of gears, I would worry about it, and would not make it open source.
Being a Israeli, I know the claims you raise about massacre during the war in 1948. That has been a research work at the Haifa University, which was debunked in court by soldiers who were members of the fighting squads at the said battle. Eventually the university had to pull this research off due to the many incorrect claims in that work.
As for the invasion to Lebanon - I think last august proved that it was (and still) needed, as it's still a hostile country that attacks and provokes when the opportunity arises.
The Iranian who is making his own UAV is a 17 year old blogger / tech geek. If we openly share with him and help him, we're building bridges. If we cut him out just because of his nationality we're going to have one pissed off guy with a good reason for ill will towards the US.
When people across national borders can grow up knowing each other and interacting over the internet, there's a good chance that they'll have more common sense and open minds to apply towards international politics down the road. It's not the final solution to world peace but it's certainly a good step in the right direction.
Let's correct it, carrying occupation only because of hostility of territories around it.
Personally I am at no one side, but I clearly understand Jews more than Palestinians and Arabs. And let's not talk about media vacuum or one side reporting here. I have read so many docs on these topic so I can clearly claim that I am fairly objective.
What causes my angriness and why I don't understand believers in Islam, is that that they are gaming this situation at every step they go. And usually their motives are confusing, radical and very violent ones (blowing up civilians in big numbers doesn't count as fight for something right in my book). It is like there are no almost situation where honest people (those who want to live in peace, not to kill or shout very radical slogans) are given chance.
Don't want to sound like troll, flamer or something, but I have to say - actions of Islam believers in this conflict frequently bears feel of obscurantism and illiteracy. And that worries me most. It is clear that they don't know what are good for them. They simply refuse to live in this life without conflict and seeks very antagonistic attitude.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
The question being asked is "Is it legal?".
My impression is that US authorities do not care much about law if national security issues are conjured up to be involved.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Stephan
So what if they are?
It's only baseball, and if the players want to take those personal risks..let them-it's their health/career.
You should stick to bad car analogies until it's time to get rid of your training wheels, kiddo.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
A little of topic but I think you misunderstood what he was trying to say. We don't all speak the same 'language' but all languages use similar constructs which are pre-wired into the human brain allowing us to acquire language (something that only humans can do). The theory is not unnecessary - it is vital to understanding the development of language, and it is demonstratively true. He is very well respected within linguistics - but his writings on politics are rather one sided.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
The ledger of atrocities is about 10 (if not 100) to 1 in favor of Israel.
It's this type of thinking that truly galls me (as well as helps what's going on in the Middle East to continue). There's no "scorecard" to look at, and there's no such thing as, well, these atrocities are not as bad as those ones, therefore we should side with these guys. In case you haven't noticed, both sides are equally guilty of atrocities; both are just as bad as the other based on the measurement that they are atrocities. For every atrocity someone picks out about one side, there's certainly something equal to find from the other.
So, let's look at your claim: "10 (if not 100) to 1 in favor of Israel". Let's assume, like you do, that there is some sort of scorecard you can use to support this. How do you measure this?
Number of civilians killed? Israel has certainly killed more.
Number of times innocent civilians are targeted intentionally? Israeli Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur admitted in 1978 that Israel intentionally targeted civilian populations. Israeli military analyst Deev Schiff remarked on the comments at the time saying: "In South Lebanon we struck the civilian population consciously, because they deserved it ... [T]he importance of Gur's remarks is the admission that the Israeli army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously ... the army, he said, has never distinguished civilian [from military] targets...[but] purposely attacked civilian targets even when Israeli settlements had not been struck." The same pattern was again repeated in the most recent Lebanon invasion, echoing the comments of Abba Eban's "rational prospect ... that afflicted populations would exert pressure for the cessation of hostilities", terrorism in ever sense of the word.
Number of civilian targets and infrastructure destroyed? Just counting the recent war with Lebanon would put Israel in a clear lead.
What about terrorism, or genocide, or ethnic cleansing, or other human rights measurements such as torture etc.? Is that a measure of how bad an atrocity is? Do some reading about what Israel actually did to the civilian population during the first Lebanon war. For example, most men between 16 and 60 in Southern Lebanon were rounded up and imprisoned without any reason. Countless numbers were tortured, beaten, starved, and killed, quite intentionally, with the laughter and racist insults of their captors ringing in their ears. Or perhaps go further back and look at what Ilan Pappe (Israeli historian) calls "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine", detailing quite accurately how the plan to forcibly transfer the Arab population from their land "was a clear-cut case of an ethnic cleansing operation, regarded under international law today as a crime against humanity."
And what about being an aggressor? You imply they've always been on the defence, which is untrue. The 1956 Israeli-French-British attack on Egypt was not defensive. The 1978 invasion of Lebanon was not defensive. The 1973 Arab attack was an Israeli defensive war in that they were defending territory that they occupied. Even the 1967 war is not conclusively one of Israeli defence: Menachem Begin remarked that "In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him."
The point I'm trying to make here is that blame is not a zero sum game. Until there is some sort of even handedness against both parties - in other words, until there is an embargo against Israel on a par with what has been put in place against the Palestinians - there is simply not going to be peace in that region until one side is exterminated, and at the moment that is likely to be the Palestinians.
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
Muslims game everything for their benefit. It is written down in their scriptures. It is also written in their scriptures "not to take christians and jews as friends", "to fight them until they submit" ("islam" means "submission" BTW), "to terrorise them wherever they are", and so forth and so on. All of islam is an endless litany of hate incomprehensible to someone who is not muslim or who has not had extensive dealings with muslims. If you go here, http://www.faithfreedom.org/ you will learn more than you ever wanted to know about islam.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Israel is the nuclear armed agressor in the Middle East. Israel's had nuclear weapons for 50 years, and has never used them against its neighbors, even when those neighbors were actively attacking the country. What were the Iraqi's in the early 1980's planning to do with their reactor? What is the point of the Iranian facility built under a mountain? Research? How incredibly naive you must be. If you're an Israeli civilian, what would you make of the Iranian government's support of Hezbollah? What of their leadership's pronouncements that Israel would be "wiped off the map"? It's all evil Zionist propaganda, isn't it?
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
In islam, 100% of everything is about the religion. This leads to some very weird, distorted, and downright pathological thinking and actions. Although Iran is heavily muslim, most of those "muslims" are muslim in name only, very much the way a lot of christians in the USA are christians in name only.
The country seethes with hatred and discontent, mainly directed at the ruling clergy and not necessarily towards the USA and Isreal. Most Iranians couldn't give two shits about Isreal or the USA, they have too many problems of their own, like massive (>30%) unemployment, drug abuse, the mullahs pimping out Iranian women to the rest of the middle east, and so on and so on.
>Let's correct it, carrying occupation only because of hostility of territories around it.
That's the lousiest excuse I have ever heard for apartheid.
>blowing up civilians in big numbers doesn't count as fight for something right in my book
Sounds to me like you are perfectly fine with it when israel does it.
>Don't want to sound like troll, flamer or something,
And yet you sound exactly like a troll and a flamer.
>And that worries me most. It is clear that they don't know what are good for them. They simply refuse to live in this life without conflict and seeks very antagonistic attitude.
This sentence applies to the israeli side more then it applies to the palestenian side.
But I know what you will never admit that. You have already made an excuse for 40 years of brutal occupation of 3.5 million people.
evil is as evil does
against the government; all patent applications are screened to see if there is a national secutrity interest involoved. If the gov. decides there is, there is no application published, and the idea/device becomes property of the governent for as long as they deem appropriate.
They seem to have all the bases covered.
America can only control Americans.Open Source is world wide and will continue without regard to anything Washington can dream up. And as far as messing with Americans most people in the Linux community know how to shield their transmissions from would be intruders anyway. And the underside of the issue is that we might actually receive better code than we write from foreign sources. Who is to say where the next remote control genius pops up. The best code may not always be written in Kansas. It might come from Austria, Poland or even a hut in Iran.
"Most American citizens are fully aware about government corruption."
Probably all your friends and family are educated. But most people in the U.S. aren't like you. For most people in the U.S., TV is their only education about how the world works.
"I have been in Saudi Arabia and when I came back I kissed the US floor."
That is EXACTLY the reason for the problem. Even some Saudis from rich families believe that there needs to be political change in Saudi Arabia.
Oil company investors like Cheney and Bush and their associates use taxpayer money to assure profits for their investments. In exchange for using U.S. military money to assure the dictatorship of the family of al Saud, the Saudi government cooperates with Cheney and Bush corruption goals. When George W. Bush holds hands with people like "Prince" Bandar and other Saudis, people like Osama bin Laden believe that is evidence of a loss of sovereignty and, effectively, a declaration war.
In no way do I accept any kind of violence. However, some people are drawn into the way the U.S. government does things, and believe that, if the U.S. government kills Arabs, then Arabs should kill people in the United States. In my view, that is exactly as stupid as the interference of the U.S. government with Arab countries, and the violence of the U.S. government towards Arabs. I don't see one as better than the other; they are both destructive.
Open source Nuclear Reactor Open Source assault Rifle (No it doesn't have software, but if you open the spec/blueprints....) Open Source Assault Vehicle Open source Wiretapping software for phones Open source spamming/junk mail circumvention software (Nobody LIKES spam) Basically6 anything that might pose a danger to society by the nature of the project itself. Anything the general public should not have based off of other laws, Should, not be allowed to be made. Most of these devices have serious regulatory concerns outside their open sourced-ness, and thus should be regulated. However, depending on the nature of the unmanned aircraft, I think it should be safe to leave an open spec. Just as long as it's not designed to takeover manned aircraft (disable them, whatever), or have them packed with explosives to drive them into buildings..... if the bad part is in the SPEC, then the project should be axed out of existence by EXISTING regulations... Of course regular autonomous planes for aerial photos are OK. Provided distance laws are upkept (must fly above XXXX ft) are kept when flying - Also helps keep things private. These planes obviously shouldn't be for spying through my bedroom window. :)
More importantly the current culture in Iran bears little to no resemblance or connection to the culture that spawned Zoroastrianism. Drawing conclusions about modern Iran based on the culture of ancient Persia is even less valid than drawing conclusions about modern Mexico based on the culture of the ancient Mayans.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Palestinians are denied citizenship by Israel.
Whoa there!
Is the West Bank and Gaza occupied territory or is it a part of Israel?
If the Palestinians become Israeli citizens you have to make the assumption that they are a part of Israel which is completely wrong.
I'm all for Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the West bank and letting the Palestinians have their own state and be rightful citizens of their own nations.
But if you are to confer them Israeli citizenship you no longer admit them to have their own free country and that those occupied territories are just an extension of Israel proper (which most Palestinians would say they are not). It would be like telling the Bosnians that there are going to get full citizen rights as Serbians.
So lets talk about given the Palestinians sovereignty rather than a foreign country's citizenship shall we? I'm sure they feel the same way.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I see, i just recall that most of the war was on Iraq soil.
And that Saddam sucked greatly until he used chemical weapons.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
I think that as we approach closer to the election, we will see more incidents with Iran. Sadly, once the election passes is when a major incident will occur that will "require" our sending rockets, bombs, etc.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It seems that I failed to emphasize distinction between Iranians in general ("clearly brighter than their neighbours") and their rulers ("islamic loonies"). The guy in question is just a guy who's interested in UAV. But when mullahs want to build some recon/combat UAVs they'll grab him by his balls and he'll do it. Not because he's bad, but because he's within their reach. His view on the government won't matter at all.
I thought that the US had signed the international agreement that anything that goes into space must not be a weapon???
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
How about the guy that could only hit the ball to the wall, now with drugs, he can hit it out of the park? His run will be countered by the other other team that probably has someone else at the same batting skill level. Or it may be countered by the faster outfielder, the faster pitch, etc., but the outcome is still the same.
Also, I don't remember hearing much complaining when some of the parks brought their walls closer to the plate to increase the number of home runs.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jonathan_stee
Sounds like regime change to me. Sounds like Bush in fact.
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http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jonathan_stee
Of course it's handy to paint the guy as more insane than he really is. It makes invasion much more supportable.
Deleted
Chomsky is a capable linguist, and obviously a passionate man. But why do we qualify him as an expert on the Middle East? What unique insights does he have?
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
Enemy of whom? Iran has not been in a war of aggression against any nation, since the 19th century.
So that little decade long stalemate with Iraq back in the 80's doesn't count?
Ask your lawyer what the minimum you have to do in order to keep yourself, your project, and contributors out of trouble.
Then follow his advice.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Hence what the GP said about speaking loudly... they may try to shout, but that's no louder than 98% of the folks who have something invested in the situation. "Talking loudly" today really means "talking in a manner that's likely to get picked up by the media"; unfortunately, that goal can conflict with the original goal (rational discourse). It's not altogether different from "talking loudly without shouting in a room of shouting, opinionated people".
And the claim is fundamentally mistaken. There's a basic claim in his writings (which I read back in college), that there is a fundamental linguistic structure that is inherent in all languages: an underlying structure, a universal language referred o as the "q-language".
*THAT* is where Chomsky went overboard. He reasoned from this as a fundamental basis for human language, that it was inherent in human physiology and that all language understanding was based in translation to this underlying q-language. But it's not there: like the music of the spheres or the idea that there are only earth, air, fire, and water as elements, it's a mis-representation of the observable facts and leads to serious error if taken too seriously.
But hey, his politics are also founded on wishful thinking stated with strong argument but not borne out by reality, so it remains popular among people who aren't suspicious and don't compare the claims he makes to history or to the actual events around htem.
Depends on who is getting shot. :(
You are where you are at the time you are there.
(I apologize for this being a little off-topic)
I agree with you wholeheartedly, it's just funny that our special interests governed government of the USA doesn't understand this when it comes to:
Some plants that grow in the dirt.
You never hear anyone who speaks loudly condemn both sides for their ethical failures over the years. Why does everyone have to declare one side or the other innocent of all crimes?
In this case, the reason is that we have been revving up for war against Iran for the past year, at least. The war propaganda is ratcheting up. We are saying that they have ties to Al Qaeda, that there will be another 9/11 if we don't do something, that they obviously have WMDs. This sounds familiar, doesn't it? Regardless of how evil Israel is, we're not going to bomb the Israelis. We're ARE planning on bombing Iran. So the poster was drawing a comparison against this aggressive, possessive, cruel nation that is our ally, and this other nation that we want to kill. Because comparisons help with critical thinking.
The funny thing to me about the connections to Al Qaeda debate is that as far as I know, we gave them all their money and weapons originally, didn't we? But that's not a connection, that's history.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
California allows write-ins. Vote for yourself if you want to.
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That is a load of bullshit. I'm not a Muslim (well technically I am, but only by the definition used in the Quran, not by the definition used in this conversation), but I have read the Quran and the quotes you provide are taken woefully out of context. The Quran is a philosophical and enlightening book and if you pay careful attention to the context, not violent either.
The fanatical lunatics who terrorise civilians and who drag the Prophet's Name, Peace be upon Him (although he probably ends up rolling in his grave every time they defile His name with their acts), through mud at every chance they get are no more faithful Muslims than the Spanish Inquisition were loving Christians.
Feel free not to take my word for it, but rather than visiting some anti-<insert religion here> site, go to the source and read their holy scriptures with an open mind. Also do not forget to bear in mind the time and place they were revealed, that help explain some of the more interesting laws.
As far as translations of the Quran go, I've been given to understand that George Sale's translation is very good.
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Honestly, yes.
It isn't a weapon. It may be idiotic, and it may be converted into a weapon, but making a law that says you can't be evil doesn't effect those that are bent on being evil - it only effects those of us that are not evil. Evil people can get around the law now!
Obvious abuses can be tried in a court anyway.
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
But can you say that the US (or any other country for that matter) mass media does not wear the same blinders of a different sort? His view are no more or less distorted than that of the average popular opinion piece.
Everyone has their own blinders. But it's a question of degree. His views ARE far, far, FAR more distorted than the average opinion piece. Just because everyone has bias doesn't mean everyone's opinions are equivalently valid.
And secondly, he doesn't argue from honesty. I don't know if it's deliberate, but he's infamous for quoting out of context and oversimplifying to the point of absurdity. I tend to think that he's not dishonest, but he does have some psychological problems.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Are tomorrows enemies. And vice-versa.
And sure, open-source can be used by the enemy. Much as stolen closed source ( be it software, or weapons manufacturing technology ) can be.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Anybody who 'excels' at any sport is by definition a genetic abberation. The people who are 'best' at all the Olympic events start out as being physically ideal in some way and then train further in the given activity. So since they're already genetic freaks, what's the difference if they're chemically augmented genetic freaks?
Big brutish football players, and freakish tall basketball players would deserve our sympathy if there wasn't an entertainment industry eager to draw our attention to them (and to the advertising played in parallel with their performances)
There. The nerd interpretation of sports.
Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
The US is after total world domination and nothing else will do.
If by the term 'the US' you mean certain ideas of democracy and freedom, yes, proponents of those ideas are hoping to spread them far and wide across the whole world.
This disturbs many local and parochial despots in other parts of the world. Some of said despots confuse 'indigenous culture' with their right to stomp on and oppress the other people living near them.
A third group, of course, is corrupt interests within the US who use 'spreading the ideals of the US experiment further in the world' as an explanation for their bald rampant imperialist aims.
Unfortunately, there is a complicated big mix of people out there and it's sometimes difficult to determine which people are which.
Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
Just one thing. Please don't assume we Americans are a monolithic block of people who all think the same way. This country is deeply divided politically, and there are many millions of us who strenuously disagree with what our government has done and is doing in other countries. Unfortunately, there are way too many of us who vote for people based on image rather than substance; I've read that many Bush supporters actually disagree with him on major issues (one person in Wisconsin was quoted as saying that she voted for Bush because he was in favor of stem-cell research, though he has actually thrown up many roadblocks against it).
-Mike
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
Have the Arab people (or at least their leaders) of those lands surrounding Israel been breeding nothing but unbridled hatred and fury over the past nearly sixty years?
Actually, the Arab 'nations' (whose borders, of course, were established by European colonialists) surrounding the territory of Israel have aggressively refused to assimilate the populations of people who were displaced by the Israelis. The 'Palestinians' are fenced into compounds, essentially concentration camps, and not allowed to move on and become citizens of another country. The 'helpful, friend of the Palestianian struggle' countries surrounding Israel keep these people contained as hostages, captive in camps where their hatred can be brewed and cultivated, so they can be released against Israel from time to time.
It's really a sick situation, and one created by all sides in the conflict.
Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
You are a hardened cynical person who subscribes to the arguements of one side in a bitter dispute with complex origins and only complex possible solutions.
Further, you sound like a pamphlet reader from a disinterested third party country. That makes you an opportunist troll creature who feeds and thrives on the energy of the conflict.
That makes you a far sicker individual than the zealots on either side in the original conflict.
Seek help.
Oh, shit. Never mind. Just go to Sundays Rally and wave your fucking banner if it helps you feel more in power of your destiny.
Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
Is the West Bank and Gaza occupied territory or is it a part of Israel?
_ return
Who said anything about the West Bank or Gaza?
There are many Palestinians who were born in parts of modern day Israel. The founder of Hamas is one example.
You really might want to read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_of
OK, so they're not all literally Big-Haired, from Mississippi, or Women; but that archetype typifies the kind of person who ends up implementing security policy in the DoD. They're minimally educated low to mid level administrators. They're hard working, but solidly average intelligence folks. Watch a little prime time TV and imagine the sort of person who enjoys it. It's people like that that are actually turning the crank that makes the bureaucracy machine go. When you hear about the government moving to classify a bunch of formerly unclassified information, the temptation is to think that the decision to do so originated from Cheney or Scooter...err..Bush, but the reality is that the notion that it ought to be done at all originated from below, from the BHWfM, and the "terrorists are everywhere" paranoids just signed off on it. Even outside those single wholesale orders to classify info, the BHWfM are responsible for a continuous and irrational "classification creep" that you don't even see unless you work in the system. It works like this: XYZ Corp designs a rocket (call it the X-123) for the DoD. The X-123 rocket design is reviewed by the DoD project managers, who tell their BHWfM to stamp it "top secret". A couple years pass, and XYZ Corp submits some design modifications to the LOX pump of the X-123. It's a bog-standard pump design, straight out of an engineering 101 textbook, but it's part of the top secret X-123 rocket, it too is stamped top secret by the BHWfM. A year later, XYZ Corp designs an improved life support module for the ISS and they re-use the same pump. Whoops! DoD says no go, because it uses a top secret LOX pump design! Since once something is classified it's nearly impossible to get it declassified, they have to create a new pump design.
Now imagine that happening every day, and not just with big, tangible things like LOX pumps, but with mundane crap like a table of performance characteristics of mild steel that was included in some report. It's totally asinine, but apparently unstoppable.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
The original premise being the One True religion in your mind?
-knewter
Actually, the Iranians are more anti-zionist than anything else. There are Jews living in Iran who can travel easily to Israel, and are not persecuted. They are typically left alone by the "morality police" and are even mandated to automatically get a seat in parliament. There are a few Kosher delis there even.
There is more to science than physics!
www.iomalfunction.blogspot.com
Palestinians are also denied citizenship by all Arab states, due to an Arab League decision of NOT allowing Palestinians to be absorbed by any Arab country (thus keeping the pressure against Israel).
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
When I read the title I really thought this was about MS submitting licenses to OSI, turns out it was a pseudo-patriotic, crazy FUD. Heck, OS gives confort to your military anyways, why shouldn't other countries do that?
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
But we're talking about Persians here not Arabs. A completely different set of people and with a completely different history. If Iran is a hostile country one should consider that it became that way because of constant interference by the U.S. government and it's oil influenced foreign policy. Shooting down a democratic representative of the people and replacing it with a tyrant is probably a pretty good reason to be pissed off.
In addition to mathemtics, persian cooking is the precursor to the monglai cooking that most people commonly refer to as Indian food.
It doesn't matter what you think of Iran. What matter is what they do and how our leaders see that. Supporting hezbohla and some other terrorist organizations with money and weapons doesn't exactly make the clean and innocent like you try to insinuate.
Yes, what matters is what the leaders think. And to that point even more so when the question was involving the government thinking they were helping Iran and sending him away. You can convince him all you want that Iraq isn't bad and everyone has them misunderstood. But in the end, if our leaders aren't as dumb as you, it does nothing to help this guy.
And wartime tends to necessitate the suspension of certain freedoms.
Those are the freedoms the military is fighting to protect, right?
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Iran's financial and political problems are inseparable from its "theological tensions". A rational government, if it could be free of Islamist intimidation, would do Iran immense good.
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I have only one thing to say to all you naysayers and administration fanbois: Oh how easily we forget.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,79450,00.html
Fox News
February 24th, 2003
Iraqi Drones May Target U.S. Cities
WASHINGTON -- Iraq could be planning a chemical or biological attack on American cities through the use of remote-controlled "drone" planes equipped with GPS tracking maps, according to U.S. intelligence.
The information about Iraq's unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program has caused a "real concern" among defense personnel, senior U.S. officials tell Fox News. They're worried that these vehicles have already been, or could be, transported inside the United States to be used in an attack, although there is no proof that this has happened.
Secretary of State Colin Powell showed a picture of a small drone plane during his presentation to the U.N. Security Council earlier this month.
"UAVs outfitted with spray tanks constitute an ideal method for launching a terrorist attack using biological weapons," Powell said during his speech. "Iraq could use these small UAVs, which have a wingspan of only a few meters, to deliver biological agents to its neighbors or, if transported, to other countries, including the United States.
[...]
Fool me once once, shame on me, fool me twice, sham... WILL NOT BE FOOLED AGAIN.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Excuse my ignornce, but isn't a UAV essentally a slighty oversized RC airplane that's controlled by a computer and has a camera. Sure sounds scary to me. Ban RC planes and helicopters (these helicopters are too damn hard to control).
"They're worried that these vehicles have already been, or could be, transported inside the United States to be used in an attack, although there is no proof that this has happened."
i n570588.shtml
And note how the Fox News article concedes in the first full paragraph that there is no proof whatsoever that this is happening, but then goes on for another eighteen paragraphs quoting administration sources telling us how deadly afraid we should be of this impending attack.
Stories about the unmanned drones were all over; this wasn't just Fox News.
And I'll remind you, when we got over there we found what we should have known all along: there was no weaponization of unmanned drones whatsoever, certainly not WMDs, they were primitive short range, essentially big model airplanes.
And we also found out in the aftermath that the Air Force analysts had been telling us all long that these unmanned vehicles posed no threat to us or Iraq's neighbors.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/28/iraq/ma
NEVER AGAIN
The only way you can be sure is to register and vote in the primaries NOW for a candidate who has stood up against the war from the start, and rejects warmongering and militarism in all its forms. That isn't Hillary. That isn't Giuliani. That isn't Obama. That isn't Romney or McCain or Thompson. But if you don't act now, two of those will be your only choices.
All you have to do is what the people at OpenBSD, OpenSSH, and a number of other encryption-based OSS projects have done. Just put a disclaimer at the top of the license agreement that says "You are not allowed to download, or export this product to $CountriesTheUSHates."
That will please the government and cover your ass. It will also ensure that noone in $CountriesTheUSHates will download the software. Really. It will.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Israel, the aggressor?
Hardly. Sounds like you've bought the propoganda of the other side. When the Palestinians decide they really want to live in peace, they'll stop indoctrinating their kids to be suicide bombers, stop praising the actions of Nazi Germany, and start building parks, hospitals, and schools instead of pipe bombs and mosques.
I wouldn't trust Iran, Saudi Arabia, or any other rabidly islamic country bent upon forcing sharia law upon the world.
If a project were mine, and it had national security stakes, you bet your ass I'd lock out participants from those nations.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
Palestinians are not denied the ability to become citizens..... except by other Arab nations who forceably keep the refuge camps in place for propoganda purposes.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
Would you like the pony with or without armament?
Inane Comments are Generously Disregarded
"But only one side is carrying on a 40 year illegal occupation."
Yes, and we're carrying on a 230+ year illegal occupation of British land.
And we're carrying on a 500 year illegal occupation of Native American land.
Are you ready to turn your home back over to Joe Cherokee? Do you think you have an ethical obligation to? I didn't think so.
If you're not, I suggest you show yourself the door.
And not living in North America doesn't get you anywhere I'm afraid. It's just a matter of how far back you want to go.
Call me cynical, but "The only way peace will be accomplished in the Middle East is if" Jerusalem was turned into a pile of molten slag. That would piss off all local religions and deny comfort to the enemy, nevermind allies. And then again, people would still be looking for blame rather than solutions. Even with a 5 year preemptive warning, a modern day Solomon would find lots of babies cut in two.
Now, to get back on topic, I thought "enemy" here refered to Microsoft... reading the summary dashed my hopes of yet-another anti-M$ paranoid rant.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
I'm not one to drink the neocon Kool-Aid, but your post is kind of ridiculous. Modern Iran is not the Persia of Cyrus the Great, emancipating Jews, building roads, and encouraging humanitarianism. American culture heralded the ideal that government should fear its citizens and that all men are created equal. Look at us now, and that's only been 200 years! The Persia you're talking about was 2500 years ago!
9 215.php)
Yes, the Avesta says exactly what you say that it says. Do you know how many Zoroastrians are left in Iran? A little over 20,000-- half the number that were there before the Islamic Revolution. Why? Because they're being persecuted by the government, since, in the words of one of Khomeini's aides: "[Non-Muslims] cannot be called human beings but are animals who roam the earth and engage in corruption." (Source: "Zoroastrian Lawmaker Faces Slander Charges" http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/00
Finally, Iran does not need to fight an overt war of aggression, because we (the US) are a bunch of idiots who are accomplishing their goals in the region for them. By completely destabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan we've created a power vacuum that will give Iran's radical beliefs a place to spread, whereas before Saddam (Sunni) and The Taliban (Sunni) provided a natural foil for Iranian hegemony. They don't need a declaration of war when they can just train insurgents and send them into Iraq with supplies for their friends. They don't need a declaration of war when they can use their puppet Hezbollah to murder Iranian civilians.
It's a wonder to me how your post is modded +5 Insightful when it says nothing at all about Iran as it exists now, which is under a dictatorial regime who like saber-rattling at every opportunity about how Israel must be destroyed to pave the way for the 12th Imam. It's nothing personal, but I don't see how your post can be anything other than grossly misinformed, or a troll.
All of that said, I don't think we need to do anything. If wrecking two middle eastern countries didn't do us any good, wrecking a third one won't either. The PEOPLE of Iran are basically good, and want to be free as much as anyone else does. These aren't ignorant yak herders. Iran has several modern, cosmopolitan cities, as well as their fair share of intellectuals, artists, and dreamers. They are simply set upon by their own government, and that's a situation that can't last forever. I figure if we give it time the people of Iran will do just fine for themselves, and maybe this time the US and Britain will stay the hell out of it.
--Obyron
"Moral victors are those trying to gain their independence from an occupying force."
Don't go anywhere. I'll go round up my Native American buddies. We'll swing by your place first thing Monday.
We'd like our land back, thank you. It's time to end the illegal occupation.
"Iranian civilians" should read "Israeli civilians."
--Obyron
Do they offer an optional shark DNA upgrade option for that pony?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Also some were just terrified of what the Israeli military might do and fled. However, when it looked safe to go back to their homes, they discovered that they were not allowed to return. Israel has always had a problem which is that it wants to be both a Jewish state, but also a democracy. The only way you can really do that is by ensuring that the majority of people in that state are Jewish. This is why the Palestinians were not allowed to return. It also explains why so many of the Holocaust Jews ended up in Israel. Many of them didn't want to go an live in some Middle Eastern desert. They were Europeans and would much have preferred to go to the US, Canada or perhaps some other European country. They were being deliberately channelled into Palestine to build up the numbers.
Actually, no he wouldn't. McLuhan talked about the uses of technology. He'd be looking at how people would use this technology.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
The ledger of atrocities is about 10 (if not 100) to 1 in favor of Israel.
That's quite debatable. And maybe if the "other side" had all that fancy American technology, they wouldn't feel the need to use suicide bombers. It's the only weapons delivery system they can afford right now. Don't think for a second that Israel wouldn't do the same thing under similar circumstances. As far as targeting civilians is concerned, there are no innocents. Make no mistake, the rules are economically motivated.
What?
>500 Kg steel ball in orbit, which would make a weapon as good as a nuke
Tell ya what. De-orbit that into San Diego Bay. I'll stand on the beach and watch.
And then I'll go have a fish dinner. Nukes have a wee bit more power.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
It's not nonsense. These are the fruits of the Persian culture, and the real nature of the people. Not the arab-flavoured bullshit of a clerical super-minority.
I don't support IRI, nor their methods of political control - but I'll guarantee you that Israel tortures many more people than Iran does, and has turned Gaza into an open-air prison with millions under illegal, collective punishment.
But they're the "good guys" - who get 30 Billion of your American dollars, while your bridges collapse and cities flood at home...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Here's the thing: if you're a pilot, UAVs are scary things.
We're already trained to look for birds, which are bad enough bad at least have the courtesy to move in a way that attracts the eye naturally. But UAVs are very hard to see and do not talk on the radio to let other aircraft know where they are ("I see you about 2 miles off my wing"). They can't even look around to see what other VFR aircraft (who are not required to carry anything more complex than eyeballs to avoid collisions) they might be nearing and steer clear.
Outside of controlled airspaces, these things are deathtraps waiting to happen unless very clear rules govern their deployment, just as there are rules for other moving hazards like sykdivers ("sykdivers in the air from x-thousand feet in the area imediately south of mumblefrotz airfield, traffic steer clear"). Too many, and they're be the only things in the sky. Too few, and there won't be enough general awareness of their use in VFR airspaces.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
If the project is about building a flying platform that can fly for hours and can carry 2-3 kg of gears, I would worry about it, and would not make it open source.
But would you try to prohibit others from doing so? And what would your methodology be? Shut down the internet?
What?
In your example, you'll find out a lot more about the residents of Chiapas and Oaxaca, that if you study the Catholic church, or reference Spain or the US.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Normally I wouldn't want to feed a troll, but you have replied with the exact same answer I would expect from the Pentagon. Part of standard terrorism tactics is turning everyday things like airplanes or remote control cars or little old ladies, into weapons. The denial of technologies to the whole culture will only fuel terrorist sympathies. What needs to be confronted is the source of the tension, fanaticism combined with polygamy. Large portions of your terrorist producing cultures are young men that have no hope of ever having a wife because they are not rich/powerful/status enough, and so cannot negotiate with the bride's parents. Combine this with religious leaders who promise an afterlife with a whole harem if you manage to martyr yourself and you get people who will do any and everything to achieve the task assigned to you by the fanatical religious leader.
Technology isn't going to change the problem, culture is. If through international projects/interaction/communication we can take the edge off a culture with some dangerous imbalances then we are helping to solve the problem.
We are all just people.
First I'm not sure that your religious example holds water because Iranians are now predominately Shia Muslims, and Judaism, Islam and Christianity are all Abrahamic religions so the rabid Old Testament of one is the rabid Old Testament for all. Maybe the world would be better off if everybody was a Buddhist.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I helped provide security at the Atlanta Olympics at the Boxing venue, I saw the boxers behind the scenes practicing for their upcoming events and for many of them I was truly frighted at the thought of them competing; what you see on TV isn't representative of the vast majority of the contestants, but the result of the TV pool cherry picking the best matches for ratings.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Lol.. He wasn't talking about the power of a nuke. He was talking about the weight of one. As in the 500kg of steel would be about the weight of a warhead. So anyone who could do that with a 500k steel ball could likely do it with a nuclear capable warhead also. And this idea of dual use is why and what needs to be looked at respectively.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
You never hear anyone who speaks loudly condemn both sides for their ethical failures over the years.
That's right. You never hear... Not because it's not being said, it's that you(editorial) choose not to listen. But those voices condemning both sides is quite loud. You all just need to take out your earplugs.
What?
If the current manufacturer won't move offshore, competing products will be developed overseas. With access to larger global markets, they will drive out the domestic product. Then you're back to the first scenario, with defense contractors reselling relabeled foreign technology.
Have gnu, will travel.
It's not about averting disaster. No one really cares about that after a point. What they want is a human to blame it on so everyone can feel better afterwards.
Wow. You have some severe problems with your world view. God never came into the situation. And you do realize that they worship the same god right?
The houses were bulldozed because the area were being used for mortar and rocket attacks and the gunmen were hiding in the houses. This is not a completely innocent act. Hiding people who prey on innocent civilians is inviting trouble. And that is why the rest of the world didn't care. It had nothing to do with god. It had everything to do with bad people doing bad things.
Its no more of a threat than Radio Shack or Home Depot.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
You will find, if you scratch beneath the "Islamic" surface of the Persian, that there is a much older culture, ethic and metier present - something you don't find elsewhere in the moslem world - except in the Iranized parts of central Asia.
12er Shi'ism in Iran has morphed into a vehicle where some popular expression of this culture can manifest itself under the veil of Islam. The repressive arab-semitic aspects still dominate, but they are softened by the Indo-Iranian element.
The mission of Zartosht and that of Gautama Buddha are so close. They are different expressions of the deep, unitary mysticism rooted in the Indo-Iranian consciousness. This is continued by the Persian Sufism of Love, as revealed through Byazid and Ruzbehan Baqli - a continuous perfection of the kernel that is found in Hinayana schools.
It was eastern, Indo-Iranian cultured people who introduced Buddhism to China and the Turko-Mongolians - from the realms of their Gobi oasis kingdoms of Shanshan and Kashgar.
I suggest reading In Search of Zarathustra for an entertaining exploration of the very real and modern presence of Zoroastrian elements in the life of nominally moslem Iranians and Tajiks - although the author lingers overly on the Mithraic cults of later Zoroastrianism.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I'm not sure I would place too much stock in Wiki articles. For all you know, they are slanted and authored by a tenured professor living in moms basement in kentucky who does such a good job that no one at his university has ever heard of him including human resources who issues the pay checks. The link you mention about Ahmed Yassin says he was born in the Palestine territory Not Israel. Of course in the creation of Israel, everyone was welcome to come. Read about the Balfour proclamation and the British mandate of Palestine. And read about it from some independed sources then wikki.
But anyways, history shows us that the Palestinians were the first aggressors. And this aggression dates back before the 1300's. The ottoman empire sold the jews the land around Israel, there have been squawks between them for ages. After WW1 this flared up again and now Israel is an independent state and Palestine is still a territory making bad decisions. Israel was originally intended to be open to all without regard to their religion. Under the Balfour proclamation, this was supposed to be the way. With Israel getting attack and successfully defending herself, that is gone.
Palestine started a war they couldn't win and they lost land in the process. Every time Israel intends to give the land back, and they have made more then enough concessions, the Palestinians attacked Israel again. They make it clear they only want th land to launch ranged attacks at innocent civilians. I don't see why that is acceptable to some. But if Israel really had issues fermenting from religion, they could easily just wipe all the palastine people out and be done with it.
Really, the notion that the US funded bin Laden is ridiculous on the face of it, as bin Laden is fucking loaded. Seriously, the man's a billionaire. He didn't need CIA money or guns. The idea that "we gave them all their money and weapons" is at best a gross mischaracterization
I stand corrected, however, I was talking about the US Restistance Fighter Starter Kit that we give violent groups when we need to use them for something. Not that we've funded them since we got them rolling.
Good info, though. I'm just saying that we've of late been starting wars based on logical fallacies, and I have a hard time believing that it's not on purpose. And unnecessary.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Actions of supplying Iran, Cuba, Syria, North Korea and the other countries on the weapon export list with the technology or know how to build weapons can result in jail time.
You forgot China because it undermines the premise.
There is nothing on a UAV list the "bad guys" don't already have. Violations come when big dumb companies like Boeing provide countries with technology that improves the accuracy of ICBMs in a real way. Something that can be thought up by a few people in their garages is something you should assume the enemy already has.
This kind of bullshit was predicted three years ago:
First note that this is not an Open Source problem. Lists that work with commercial software and hardware have the same set of concerns.
Nor is it a problem of lists. There's no reason to keep a person off a list. If this were true, it would be easy to DoS every list in existence by creating "Iranian" or "North Korean" sock puppets. It's what you put on the list that you have to be careful with and you should really expect information you share to go where you don't want it to. Each individual contributor has to be careful with what they put up.
Being cavalier and saying he shouldn't worry about it till they shut him down is encouraging him to gamble with his freedom.
A country where people can't get together and talk about their toys is a country that has abandoned its freedom.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Yeah. I was being a nit-picker. There's also the weight of a shipping container, which we bring through our ports daily in the hundreds of thousands.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Thing is, the time does make a difference. A lot of the people who were driven away are still alive. So are those who drove them away. It is not yet fully a matter of punishing the N:th generation descendants of the violators for the crimes of their ancestors. As such, having the Israeli settlers move back in to Israel's proper territory is merely forcing the very people who illegitimately took the land from Palestinians to relinquish it.
Incidentally, this part of the reason for the settlements - if they can remain in place for several generations, it will become an injustice against the descendants of the initial Israeli settlers then living there (who could possibly be innocent of any offense committed against the Palestinians) to force them to move away.
Linus, e.g., allows people to enter patches into his tree only if he feels like it. There's no stated rationale. He uses his judgment.
... though cause should be stated. E.g., "No spamming policy violated.")
So, as stated, projects can limit their membership for whim, reasons of convenience, or any other reason they feel like.
What's sensitive is closing the code. That's dependent upon the license...AND upon the copyright ownership.
Without investigating your project or license I'd propose this:
1) He can't be a member of your project, but he can submit code patches
2) You recommend that he start his own local project, and you have a license that allows code to be shared. Between the two. (GPL3?)
3) Have a friendly mailing list that has an open subscription policy...but only subscribers can post. (And subscriptions can be revoked
Seriously consider having shared copyright ownership and a "version 3 or later" clause in the license. Possibly something to allow a 2/3 majority of the copyright holders to vote for a license change? That gets tricky, though. Legal morass. KISS.
Possibly have multiple projects as the copyright owners. May make it easier to track down who needs to approve license changes. License changes should be possible, but quite difficult. The question is "Just how difficult?"
Just for an example: Suppose that the project develops a flying autonomous vehicle. Autonomous means that it makes it's own decisions as to how to act. I.e., intelligent. (Well, not this year, probably.) Clearly is should own itself, unless you think that slavery is proper. Shouldn't it? If not, why not? To what extent? Current licenses don't cover this situation at all, but it could become quite important. It could make the difference between robots working with us and a robot rebellion. (Yes, I know it all depends on the code. I can't show you the code because it hasn't been written. Yet.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Make children pay for the sins comitted by their ancestors 700 years ago... That's the essence of a Muslime or Jew worldview right there.
There is one true way to fix this mess: their countries should be invaded, their leaders shot, their priests jailed and reeducated, and their populace converted to Christianity.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Well, there's the little thing that Israel started the whole mess by driving the Palestinians from their homes. Not all of them directly, of course. Just making examples of a few villages works wonders in convincing people to leave. Examples like killing everyone and then bulldozing the place to ground.
So if Israel wanted peace, they might start by apologizing for that. Another good step would be to stop using settlers to grab more land from outside their official borders and force the current settlers to move back into Israel's proper territory.
Of course, the Palestinians are not exactly innocent anymore, having gone over certain ethical boundaries while resisting Israeli aggression. But yes, Israel is the aggressor there.
I disagree, I think the only way to judge a religion is by judging the actions of its members. What thier holy book says is irrelevant if they don't follow it.
Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
My wife is a direct descendant. There is an extensive genealogy - one of the meticulous disciplines maintained by both Zoroastrianism and Shi'ism.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Anyway you would have to ask yourself why the world centre of Bahai is not in Iran with it's aforementioned 'Declaration of Human Rights' but in Israel. The Bahai's were in Israel/Palestine long before the founding of Israel. The founder was driven away there by the Sultan of Turkey in a bit of ethnic cleansing. A pure interpretation if Islam states that all forbearing religions are sacred. However that is not considered true about new ones which are considered heretical. This belief is not really unique to Islam but the Iranians pursue it with great zeal and so being in a Bahai in Iran is risky business.
http://www.bahai.com/thebahais/pg59.htm
The Iranians don't really care about human rights and the misery of the Palestinians and they don't have any real moral position to argue against the behavior of the Israelis. Ahmadinajad cannot stand up and cry for the rights of Palestinians whilst Bahais in Iran exist much as Jews did in Germany before 1935. http://news.bahai.org/story/570. No jobs, No university education. Forced faith conversion. Risk of violence, imprisonment and death just for practicing their religion.
Also as an aside: from my speaking to Bahai's they do not seem to have reported any persecution in Israel at the Hands of the Jews. Just to check I tried Googling for this topic but didn't come up with anything. An interesting point for thought and contrast.
K
The bikini - security through obscurity since 1943
Free Software/Open source is a global idea. So yes, the US could cut off open source projects with "a stroke of the pen" however I think they would find that first, the projects would be carried on anyways, just not in their backyard, and second the education that Free Software/Open source gives would be lost to the American public, and third, the ideal of free speech would make this "stroke of the pen" very hard to do.
I think there are three important things to consider here:
1) Chances are by working with Amir he'd be doing absolutely nothing to harm national, or aid terrorists, or anything that could be considered harmful. In fact he'd be more likely to help national security by improving relations with Iran (though this would be on a pretty small scale).
2) If this ever does enter the political arena, and start getting into talk shows and pundits (1) is completely irrelevant. Most likely Amir will be branded as a potential terrorist and this fellow as either irresponsible or naive.
3) Homeland security is more concerned about 2 than 1.
That being said I'd ask someone like the EFF or ACLU for guidance if for no other reason than to make sure that he won't get into too much trouble if 2 or 3 come into play.
I stole this Sig
A Persian culture of the past may have cared about human rights. The current Iran, though, executes teenagers just for being gay.
The current Iranian regime, from a human rights point of view, is repulsive.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I've also gathered that there was dissatisfaction with the gasoline rationing, that many people want a more democratic system. Is this accurate? I wouldn't expect the Iranian people to have the same complaints about their government that we do, mainly because they're affected by different policies than we are.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Not to mention that a a warhead in space alone is pretty useless (unless if you want to create an EMP).
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Why would you assume[...]
No one said anything about
Perhaps GP can use his brain and see GGP post for what it is?
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Ah, the good old days...
I second the statements of parent.
.
I would like to add that:
Christianity may be viewed as a faith of lost morality
Judaism is a faith of the "chosen" one's
Islam my be viewed as a faith of hate
CNN just had this special "God's Warriors" (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/gods.warriors/)
Just read though the site it's really good.
I personally have lived with people of many religions.
My family is a religious MIX.
Grandfather was a muslim, went twice to Mecca for Hajj.
Grandmother on the other side was a religious jew.
My parents are Orthodox Christians and I have a very nice mix of those 3 religions.
Oh and for the people that are against islam, I would like to remind you that in Russia Islam Christianity and Judaism live side by side for over 5 centuries.
Not sure if I agree or disagree with parent, but just last week I had a chat with an Iranian (now US citizen) who explained that Iran is actually the most progressive Muslim country in the world. The reason, as I understand it, is mostly that Iranians are not Arabs, but Persians, and only "adopted" Islam after they were invaded and conquered by Muslim Arabs. So Iran, part of the Axis of Evil, actually has values that are most closely aligned with "western" values - women can get university degrees and occupy political offices. Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, given billions of $$$ by the Bush government and preceding presidents, women are second-class citizens. Wahabite Islam, the form prevalent in Saudia Arabia, is the spiritual home of Osama Bin Laden, while Iran is Shia, and supports the Shiites which were on the whole the greatest victimes of Saddam Hussein, along with the Kurds. Which country and society do you, the US, really want to support??? But on the point of the post: it doesn't matter whether or not Iranians can build their own UAV by themselves, what matters is whether US law allows US citizens to tell them about something that counts as weapons technology according to the three branches of US government. You can lobby to have the laws overturned, but until them, you are bound by them as US citizen and resident. That's just the principle of "rule of law".
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
...and is responsible for the foundation of modern mathematics. and Chess!I shut up 'cause I got so hoarse, then I noticed no one was listening. We all want to side with the underdog, and in our fervor to help the weak we're forgetting they're both at fault.
Consider yourself spoken to.
Palestine started a war they couldn't win and they lost land in the process.
No, the Palestinians didn't start anything. Maybe you're confusing them with the Egyptians, Syrians, and Jordanians? They attacked in 1948 and 1967. Why punish the Palestinians for the aggression of other countries?
Your username makes it clear you're a Rush Limbaugh fan.
Tell me, are there no Christian terrorists? Isn't freedom of religion guaranteed in the US Constitution, as well as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
Ann Coulter's idea was rebutted so many times since 9/11 that it's not worth rehashing. You failed.
So, Israel's defense is that the Arab countries do it too? Palestinians lived on land that is now known as Israel. They came from places like Haifa, Jerusalem, etc. They have a legitimate claim to be a citizen of that land, not faraway Amman. It's like deporting Native Americans to Mexico.
Yeah; good thing there was no genocide of Native Americans...oh wait. But, I guess if we just wait a few centuries, we can ignore how Palestinians were forcebly moved from their land?
"To illustrate this point further, note that after occupying the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, Israel could have annexed and integrated those territories into Israel by providing the Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. However, Israel did not do this and instead chose to treat the West Bank and Gaza as if they were part of Israel physically without providing the Palestinians in those territories with citizenship, political rights or civilian rule. Among the reasons Israel did not integrate the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza into Israel is because Israelis were afraid of a demographic problem. The Israelis feared that if they gave the Palestinians equality, political and civil rights that the Palestinians may one day out number the Israelis and vote Israel out of existence." -- Solving the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict. You know, that sounds virtually identical to Native American history. In any case, Native Americans weren't instantly granted American citizenship. I am interested, though. Is it that Palestinians can't get Israeli citizenship or "suspect terrorist" Palestinians can't? Because I'm pretty sure "suspect terrorist" Native Americans couldn't either.
You mean like how Native Americans have the economic autonomy to grow hemp. Oh, right, they can't do that. It's funny how much lack of autonomy Native American "nations" really have.
But you are right, to an extent. The analogy is false because, unlike the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, the Native American conflict is "resolved"--ie, there is no more serious fighting going on. No matter how oppressive or unworkable Israeli's approach is to ending the conflict, I think one can give it 200 years to solve itself. At least, that's the case so long as the conflict is truly about land and isn't some sort of religious war; religious wars can last for eons.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Both were north-Indian (Indus) discoveries - with tremendous refinement and extrapolation at the hands of the Persians.
The current vogue is to hold up an enlightened "western" civilization against a decadent and benighted "eastern" one. This is ahistorical.
I propose that there were two "cradles" of the civilizations we know. A Mesopotamian one and an Indus one. The Indus civilization gave us inner vision, personal relations with the divine, and a humanistic philosophy. The Mesopotamian one tended to blood sacrifice, and authoritarian polytheism.
The Greeks - coming on a northern migration from central asia and in close communication with teh Indo-Iranian word is an expression of the Indus culture - not the Egyptian/Judeo/Babylonian axis. The religion and culture of these second peoples becomes somewhat humanized and oriented towards compassion only in contact with the Zoroastrian and Buddhic peoples of Indo-Iranic revelation.
The birth of Jesus is greeted by three Magi of the Indo-Iranian world, not three Pharisees or Shamen of the barbarians.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
If you are having a compitition for creating the best word processor and some kid from Iran pipes up and says: "Hey look at mine." Great.
If you are talking about an open source evolution for UAVs where the inovation can be a new algorithm designed to double the flight time, conserve fuel some manner not ever thought of before, or maybe the inovation is some way to double the resolution of current on board cameras, then you will have a substantially large problem.
The problem isn't if the Iranian kid is the one who figures out the algorithm. The problem is if you or some other American figures out the algorithm and then gives it to the Iranian kid to incorporate into his design.
Maybe he isn't an Iranian kid though. Maybe he is an Iranian Intelligence officer working with an Iranian programmer, designing a new type of UAV to be better than anything in the curent U.S. arsenal. Maybe the inovation is resolution doubling for some on board camera and six weeks or six months down the road that algorithm is used on an Iranian UAV to pinpoint something in Iraq that the Iranians shouldn't know about. Maybe then some Iranian intelligence officer transmits that data to the Iraqi freedom fighters inhabiting that area and the next day six U.S. soldiers were killed, and you read about it in the newspaper or see it on the web. Maybe one of those that dies is the brother of some girl you really like and she is now so distraught that she has to quit school, at least for the semester, and she goes home and in a depressed state she takes her own life.
Let's review, in the spirit of cooperation, you have a UAV open source project that allows the Iranians to build a better camera for the one UAV they have devoloped, U.S. soldiers die and the girl you were destined to spend the rest of your life with is now dead from an overdose of NoDoz sleeping pills.
Never mind that what have committed is probably treason. There are laws, and IANAL and I don't know which ones, but there are laws that you may already have broken in your effort to bring Open Source to software governing matters of National Interest and Self Defense.
While the scenario I have presented is pattently absurd, please take the warning to heart. The U.S. government will prosecute you if anything that looks like it might be or might need to be a national secret is transmitted out of the United States. Anything concerning UAVs would fall under that catagory.
Beware the wood elf!!!
How can you be clear on what he said when you don't quote everything. He said You cannot use a baseball bat to put a 500 Kg steel ball in orbit,which would make a weapon as good as a nuke, and a cleaner one. It is the Bat as the launch vehicle.
I don't know why this is an issue. It is in plain black and white or what ever colors you have you browser render. He is clearly talking about the "baseball bat". You see, when I read "You cannot use a baseball bat", I take it to be the subject of the sentence. You should too.
There are terrorists that call themselves Christian, yes. There are sick people in every religion I guess, but that's not the point. On average, however, a non-Christian (particularly a young Mouslime man) is a much more likely terror perpetrator.
And since when did the US Constitution apply to terror foreigners in a foreign country?
Ann Coulter is an entertainer, whatever was done to her butt does not affect me in the least.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Muslims game everything for their benefit. It is written down in their scriptures. It is also written in their scriptures "not to take christians and jews as friends", "to fight them until they submit" ("islam" means "submission" BTW), "to terrorise them wherever they are", and so forth and so on. All of islam is an endless litany of hate incomprehensible to someone who is not muslim or who has not had extensive dealings with muslims. If you go here, http://www.faithfreedom.org/ you will learn more than you ever wanted to know about islam.
Wow, that sounds almost as bad as things like:
10And the congregation sent thither twelve thousand men of the valiantest, and commanded them, saying, Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the children.
11And this is the thing that ye shall do, Ye shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman that hath lain by man.
12And they found among the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead four hundred young virgins, that had known no man by lying with any male: and they brought them unto the camp to Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.
Or
19But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the LORD: they shall come into the treasury of the LORD.
...
21And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
Or how about this little story of a raid
17That the LORD spake unto me, saying,
...
24Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the river Arnon: behold, I have given into thine hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land: begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle.
32Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz.
33And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people.
34And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:
35Only the cattle we took for a prey unto ourselves, and the spoil of the cities which we took.
3So the LORD our God delivered into our hands Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people: and we smote him until none was left to him remaining.
4And we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, threescore cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
5All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates, and bars; beside unwalled towns a great many.
6And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city.
7But all the cattle, and the spoil of the cities, we took for a prey to ourselves.
And on and on. Now here's a good one:
They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)
Not enough?
Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
>>500 Kg steel ball in orbit, which would make a weapon as good as a nuke
>Tell ya what. De-orbit that into San Diego Bay. I'll stand on the beach and watch.
>And then I'll go have a fish dinner. Nukes have a wee bit more power.
Let's see, an object falling from LEO yields about say 35 MJ/kg; for 500 kg, that's 1.75e+10 J, the equivalent of about 4 tons of TNT. That's about one percent of the yield of the smallest nuke available. Still, a pretty big bang.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Uh, never drove through New Mexico and saw the slums of the reservations that many Indians are still trapped on, have you? Don't know that in California atrocities continued until the 50's in many areas--including relatives of mine (Salinan Indians) who were murdered for the crime of having red skin by deputies who were a little drunk and trigger happy. Were you aware that in my lifetime (and I'm 41) that it has been illegal for "my kind" to drink alcohol in some southwestern counties?
If you think the indignities of the Native Americans ended "centuries ago", you're either an ignorant fool or you are putting on historic blinders just so you can make a point.
And if you think Native Americans all won the lottery of life by getting to universally open casinos and shop tax free, I have a newsflash: for each politically connected tribe which was able to persuade the government to allow them to open a casino and got rich, you have a dozen tribes who are either too remote to open a casino that raises any effective cash, and the dozens more who are not affiliated with a Bureau Of Indian Affairs recognized tribal family--cut out of the cash flow because Indians like everyone else suffer the same human weaknesses of greed and power hunger and are more than happy to cut their tribal competitors off at the knees.
And that sets aside the racist assumption that the only way us "injuns" are ever going to get off the rez is by scalping the white man of his hard earned cash.
So please, STFU about shit you don't know a damned thing about.
In 1964 the Palestinians started the PLO and during the lead up to the six day war, Egypt was arming the PLO in the Gaza strip and encouraging them to launch insurgent attacks. During the six day war in 1967, Israel took back the lands that are in question today and now control that same amount of land that was divided to them from the UN mandate in 1947 that triggered the who uprising.
Israel isn't clean in this, But they aren't near as dirty as the Palestinians are. Now, it can be argued about the jews right to exist in the arab land. The fact that the ottoman empire sold them lands and right to minerals and such goes a long way to making the case that they should be there. That started around the 1300's and that is pretty much when the idea of going back to the homeland started. Now, I can empathize with the Palestinians to some degree. Jewish bignesses would only hire jews to work and jewish farms would only hire jews to farm their lands. This left a lot of unrest to the Arabs in the areas. However, Israel has offered on more then one occasion to attempt to make things right and it has been rejected each and every time by the Palestinians. Each offer has been responded to with violence and hate. Even when they were giving the lands back, they started using them as rocket and mortar bases with the homes around them giving off protection and hiding the attackers.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I was told that the number of bats sold in Scotland has no relation with the small number of baseball players.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
If you think I quoted less then you, I think you either need to reread the thread or get you glasses checked. And no, it isn't changing the argument at all.
I'll give you a hint. The GP I was refering to said "You cannot use a baseball bat to put a 500 Kg steel ball in orbit, which would make a weapon as good as a nuke, and a cleaner one". When responding to the comment "Let's face it, you can use a baseball bat to play baseball. Or, you can use it to beat somebody to a pulp. Going to make baseball illegal cause somebody might pick up a bat and hit somebody? Same principle".
It is clearly about the baseball bat. As for it being "he suddenly meant the bat- which is an even dumber argument". I have to ask, dumber then what? Surely not your misconception of the argument being presented. I mean arguing something outside the face of facts is pretty dumb. At least I relied on the facts of the conversation to make my statement. I think there is a saying somewhere about opening your mouth when you don't know what is going on? I can't remember it maybe you can and remind me.
a medieval theocratic regime.
Actually, from what I understood, the idea of a country run by clerics not by caliphs or secular leaders was revolutionary (as in "Islamic Revolution"). Maybe Iran is more like Calvinist Geneva.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
In reading many of the postings it is clear that people do not understand the concept of a false flag operation.
What if the Iranian teenager is simply a photograph and the people contributing and benefiting from the project are really the Iranian government, blocked by sanctions and other means from otherwise acquiring other UAV equipment.
We see this in the US all the time with people posing as sexually curious teens to entrap adults. Why wouldn't a government do this if there was some benefit to it?
Yes, there is a great deal of similarity between a RC model airplane and a UAV. An Iranian living in the US buying a RC airplane is not a cause for concern. Modifying the airplane to carry a payload starts to be a cause for concern. But that isn't the point. The point is there are governments that will use any and all available tools for oppressing the people that reside within their borders. And beyond oppressing, there are other tactics such as those being used in Sudan.
How would you feel if there was an article in an Arabic newspaper about the use of a new device to further the goals of the Sudanese government in clearing out the Christian vermin that infest parts of their country? And it was made clear that this device was only possible because of some Americans that clearly must want to further the gains of the Islamic forces in Sudan.
Sure, it is all nice and fun to believe that we are all working towards the same goals and that happiness and prosperity are things that we can all agree on and strive towards. Helping people to achieve their goals is fine when you understand that the goals are the same as yours. Helping people to achieve their goals when you do not understand their goals or know their goals are quite different from yours is very, very different.
People are not the same the world over. All people do not have the same goals and aspirations. Not understanding this is where some of the biggest mistakes in human history have come from.
Just recently I read about the best successful strategy being "Co-operate at first step, then Tit from there on.
,then take restrictive action next.
http://brembs.net/ipd/tft.html
So I guess it is best to co-operate first and if it misused
Who knows, that Iranian kid could have some brilliant idea.
K
tension, fanaticism combined with polygamy.
While fanaticism shares responsibility polygamy has nothing to do with it, you're thinking of polygyny. Polygamy is where a person, whether a male or female, can have more than one spouse. It is Polygyny, where a male can have more than one wife, that is mostly practiced. Besides these two, there's also polyandry in which females can have more than one husband.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I'm registering Republican just for a chance of voting for Ron Paul in the primary, but I doubt I'll be allowed to.
I'm registered no party preference but when the primary comes around I'll switch my registration to Republican just so I can vote for Ron Paul in the primary. Of course afterwards I'll switch back to no party preference.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I hope people realize the whole question is a hypthetical one.
"But what should I do if Amir or someone like him from a country associated with Bad Stuff posts on our own forums looking for technical advice?"
The whole thing is a what if, Amir designed and built the plane on his own without any help from the blogger. The blogger is simply afraid of what happens "if" Amir happens to ask a technical question and oh god help him he might give him an answer.
Iran certainly doesn't have any universities or access to technical books so this forum would be the only source they would have for such advanced knowledge.
I would suggest Chris stay far far away from anyone whose country might do "Bad Stuff" like invade other countries or I dunno torture people in secret prisons.
Vidi, vici, veni. (I saw, I conquered, I came)
by your comment a gun can be used for shooting people.. or it could be used for shooting people....
Or it can be used to prevent someone else from shooting you. Or it may make a tyrannical government give another thought to an action it's about to take. I don't know about you but I fear government more than I do criminals and terrorists combined. Government is the real terrorist!
FalconShould there be a Law?
Believe it or not, there was a time in American history when lots of people carried guns. Used them to catch dinner, too. Shooting a person was considered bad form.
What many don't even know is that even slaves owned firearms through and after the USA Revolutionary war. Slaves even fought in the war, on both sides.
FalconShould there be a Law?
As for UAV, it depends: if the project is about building model planes with a camera on them, I would not worry. If the project is about building a flying platform that can fly for hours and can carry 2-3 kg of gears, I would worry about it, and would not make it open source.
Why would you worry? That 2-3 kg of gear being carried for hours could be movie camera equipment, or anything else. Unless you're harmed what does it matter? When I started high school I was in a model rocketry club on campus, at least once a week we'd launch rockets in a field on campus. However now I'd be concerned about any child I had being in such a club now. I'd support them but be concerned about a government label being applied to the child as a "person of interest".
FalconShould there be a Law?
Chaotic systems work both ways.
You must be new here. We have quite a few spineless PC (Politically Correct) viewers on Slashdot.
For all you PC modders: grow some cojones!
Go ahead, mod me as a troll. But remember, I will always be a Martyr for the truth. Karma be damned!
Life is not for the lazy.
No doubt he's a bright guy, but he has some huge blinders when it comes to politics. Unfortunately, his anger overwhelms his rationality.
A blinder many other Americans wear. For instance did you know the US is partially responsible for the massacre of some 200,000 East Timorese, 1/3 the population of East Timor? Then president Ford and Henry Kissinger supported Suharto's Indonesian invasion of East Timor after Portugal granted them their independence in 1975-76 which led to the death of these East Timorese. Ford and Kissinger also supported Gen Pinochet's overthrow of the democraticaly elected government in Chile. There tens of thousands simply "dissappeared" while many thousands more were tortured and or killed. Again all with the support of the US admin. And there are other examples of US support for the overthrow of governments and massacres of people.
Oh, lest you think I'm not American, not only am I one but I also served in the US Army. I'm not anti-American either, I oppose some of the actions the government has taken in the name of the USA.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You don't see Native Americans strapping explosives to their chests and screaming that, in the name of their god, they shall take back their homeland from the filthy paleskins that conquered them, do you?
They didn't have the technology then but some Indian tribes did fight, and were almost exterminated. Others didn't mind too much having settlers living near or around them but did mind that European settlers then claimed the land as their own. Even now the US has Leonard Peltier in prison as a political prisoner for standing up for NDN rights.
Israel was created generations ago, after World War II came to a close - It seems as though a fair amount of time has passed since then, over half a century.
Yes, NDNs have had far longer to assimilate. However before and after WWII the British considered Jews as the terrorists. Heck, Hitler and the NAZIs even trained European Jews to fight against the British in Palestine. Members of the Stern Gang, Lehi, were some of those so trained.
Have the Arab people (or at least their leaders) of those lands surrounding Israel been breeding nothing but unbridled hatred and fury over the past nearly sixty years?
Unfortunately this is all too true. They've felt the land was theirs to begin with, though there were Jews as well as Christians living on the land too. After independence some Christians and Muslim stayed and became Israeli citizens. There are even Arab members of the Israeli government.
Do survivors of World War II teach hatred and distrust of Germans and Japanese, and vice versa? Why must the fighting continue as it is? Why is Israel's mere existence considered such a stain on the face of the Middle East?
The allies, victorers, didn't split up and create new nations out of Germany or Japan, but the Middle East was carved up, and after Jewish terrorists drove out the British from Palestine they created their own Jewish nation. This despite the fact most people living there weren't Jews. What were they supposed to do, roll over and die?
FalconShould there be a Law?
The Native Americans are allowed to become full American citizens. Palestinians are denied citizenship by Israel.
Why much of what you say is true, those Arabs or Palestinians who stayed where they lived, are Arab citizens of Israel. There are even Arabs in the Israeli government. Of course Arab Israelis are treated like second class citizens.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I think you misunderstood me. I said "The Native Americans suffered the worst of their indignities centuries ago," in comparison to today. I was thinking trail of tears when I wrote it, and of course Native Americans are still suffering. I hope you don't think I implied they're prospering, because I don't think that to be the case for everyone. I was using their example to make a point, not show their successes. I'm actually quite good friends with a few native americans, and I know they don't have it all roses.
I love it how you guys turn this from a discussion about open-source to blaming the Jews for propaganda and "nuclear armed aggression" in the middle-east. Let's just be honest, shall we? This isn't about open-source, this is about bigots such as yourself looking for excuses to scapegoat people you don't like.
:)
You don't need to bring Israel into the picture when discussing why Iran's recent behavior is problematic. They openly support the use of terrorism against civilians (just read their newspapers), they oppress their women and they openly call for the destruction of their neighbors. One the one hand they deny that they are developing nuclear weapons while on the other hand they declare no one has the right to deny them those same weapons. There is decade-long evidence that they are developing these weapons on top of other weapons they already openly admit to having (and wanting to use) such as chemical and biological weapons. Having them is one thing, declaring they will use it is another. Just look at what they did during the Iraq-Iran war! They don't even value their own people, having sent children into mine-fields during that war. What kind of corrupt leadership does this? Contrary to what people say, there is a world of a difference between a democracy having access to WMDs and a xenophobic expansionist dictatorship having those same capabilities.
I also take issue with people trying to compare Palestinians to Native Americans. The last I checked, Jews of the middle-east were in fact the original Native Americans to be wiped out of the middle-east by one wave of invasion after another. Although only a minority of Jews remained in Israel during the past thousands of years it does not invalidate their position as a native to the land. I find it amusing how some of you are labeling Palestinians are being native to the region while simultaneously invalidating the Jews' own claim as natives to the region. If one is true then the other must certainly be true too. You can't have it both ways
It is ironic that no one mentions the fact that the majority of land was purchased legally from Arabs in the early 1900s by immigrating Jews. Everyone was getting along just swell until the blood riots of 1929 (when Arabs massacred the Jews of Hebron) and again in 1947-1948 when local Palestinians started attacking their Jewish neighbors followed by a en-mass invasion by surrounding Arab countries.
It is no coincidence that the UN voted to partition Palestine in 1947. Land was divided based on the population in each area; whomever had a majority population in any given area was given that land. Again the vast majority of land the Jews inhabited was purchased legally from Palestinians prior to the war. It is only after the war that the situation shifted somewhat, but we must keep in mind that in times of war one cannot purchase land from one's enemy. Furthermore, no one seems to mentioned that more Jewish refugees were forcibly removed from Arab countries in the 1948 war than Palestinian refugees, and this in in spite of the fact that the Palestinians were stirring up violence against their neighbors whereas the Jews in Arab countries were not.
Israel has offered on more then one occasion to attempt to make things right and it has been rejected each and every time by the Palestinians.
There's one tyme you've missed. After Camp David failed negotiations started in Taba, Egypt in 2001. An agreement was almost reached when Israel not Palestinians pulled out.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Yea, I watched Christiane Amanpour's "God's Warriors" earlier. Christiane does pretty good at cover extremists, whether Jew, Christian, or Muslim.
I would like to add that:
Christianity may be viewed as a faith of lost morality
Judaism is a faith of the "chosen" one's
Islam my be viewed as a faith of hate
I liked how a professor I had for Understanding Religious Man put it:
FalconJudaism is the law
Christianity is a translation of the law,
and Islam is the law in practice.
Should there be a Law?
The funny thing to me about the connections to Al Qaeda debate is that as far as I know, we gave them all their money and weapons originally, didn't we? But that's not a connection, that's history.
Not only did the US arm and support the Mujahadeen which gave rise to Al Qaeda and the Taliban but shortly after taking office pres Bush gave the Taliban $43,000,000 of US taxpayer money.
FalconShould there be a Law?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Jews#Discrim
This is what I was alluding to with the cartoon I posted about American liberals. If Muslims in the West were treated in the way that Jews are treated in Iran, there would be an outcry. And yet the same people will happily believe the Ahmadinejad goverment is treating its Jewish minority well, based purely on government controlled media. All the positive stuff like the Jewish seat in parliament and the Kosher delis comes straight from propaganda from the Iranian government, and remember that even the Nazis claimed to be treating Jews well in their propaganda - until the regime goes we have no idea how Iranian Jews have been treated.
Looking at the article, it seems like the more Islamic the government in Iran, the worse the treatment of Jews. And there is plenty of evidence that Iranian people have a long tradition of viceral anti semitism that pre dates Islam. E.g.
So it's hard to believe that Jews are considered to be equal to Muslims there. In fact as Bernard Lewis pointed out
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
>You are a hardened cynical person who subscribes to the arguements of one side in a bitter dispute with complex origins and only complex possible solutions.
Nah. I just believe apartheid is wrong. South africa gave it up and israel will too. It's just a matter of time.
>Further, you sound like a pamphlet reader from a disinterested third party country. That makes you an opportunist troll creature who feeds and thrives on the energy of the conflict.
At least I am not an apologist for apartheid and mass murder.
evil is as evil does
We made the native americans citizens and gave them full rights.
That makes us better then the israelis.
evil is as evil does
Really, the notion that the US funded bin Laden is ridiculous on the face of it, as bin Laden is fucking loaded. Seriously, the man's a billionaire.
Here, you're wrong. The bin Laden family may be worth more than a billion dollars, barely if at all, but Osama isn't worth that much. When he left Saudi Arabia Osama bin Laden was worth $250 million. As for the Taliban, shortly after taking office pres Bush in 2001 gave the Taliban $43 million of taxpayer money, ostensibly for fighting opium. However while the Taliban did fight some farmers and others dealing with opium the Taliban also militarily supported others who then paid the Taliban. As it is now the Taliban is benefiting from a Record-breaking opium crop .
FalconShould there be a Law?
Enemy of whom? Iran has not been in a war of aggression against any nation, since the 19th century.
So that little decade long stalemate with Iraq back in the 80's doesn't count?
It was Saddam and Iraq that attacked Iran not the other way, Iran didn't start the war Iraq did. The aggressor wasn't Iran.
FalconShould there be a Law?
even the Nazis claimed to be treating Jews well in their propaganda
For a short tyme NAZIs did treat Jews well. They even trained Jews as terrorists to fight against the British in Palestine. Some of the members of the Stern Gang, Lehi were some of those trained by the NAZIs. The Stern Gang even proposed a colaboration with NAZIs during WWII.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Sorry for nitpicking: The term "antisemitism" does not (anymore) derive its meaning from "anti-" and "semite". Since the 19th century (or so) it is established as the term for _racially_ motivated adverseness against jews (in particular) -- as opposed to anti-judaism, which is the term for religiously motivated adverseness against jews. It's an unfortunate diction, but that's the way it is.
How about Bruce Simpson's '$5000 Cruise Missile' project http://aardvark.co.nz/
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
You might be interested in moving to Switzerland. We have More or less direct democracy.
In some regions you can even vote if you want to give some people a swiss passport or not.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Party worship in the USSR was fundamentally very different from any form of Christianity and most other religions. One cannot deny its powerful brainwashing effect, but the pivotal difference was that discourse of party policy was at least framed, if not conducted, in an intellectual and scientific/rational manner, not based almost exclusively on faith and spirituality as religions are. (The reason this discourse led to insidious results was that it was conducted based on false information.)
(Specific "Marx worship", on the other hand, never existed. If you think Marx himself was some kind of all-encompassing deity for the Soviets on the order of the Christian God or Allah, you're either misinformed or delusional. Lenin was the only person deified like that, and even he was far less central to the brainwashed Soviet psyche than a Christian God is to a brainwashed Christian.)
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While I am sure you are correct in most cases, some athletes are just ordinary people who acquired extraordinary skills through hard work since elementary school age. Those are the most unhappy about a competitor getting the same muscles in a few months by taking hormones.
As I said, either you are ignorant--assuming the indignities of the Palestinians were worse than the Indians and thus worthy of terrorism (as opposed to the Indians, whose indignities are not)--or you are deliberately ignoring reality in order to score rhetorical points.
Either way, again, please STFU about shit you know nothing about--especially the part about how somehow the indignities of Native Americans are somehow not all that significant or so far in the past that it doesn't somehow count.And I'm sure some of your best friends are black, too.
As with anything else, broadly distributing the information renders it impossible to censor;
Broadband the information now, so that if the jackboot comes down the information is already pervasive.
~!J!
it makes more sense when you put it in the context of all the larger evils that could have happened -- but didn't through the actions of the U.S.
And what evil was there in letting East Timorese elect their own government? Or the Chileans elect their's? What threat did the Mayans massacred in Guatemala pose?
To use one example, the dropping of the atomic bombs. The Chomsky screaming version is, "The U.S. dropped the only two atomic bombs ever used in war!!!
I don't know what Chomsky thinks or says of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, but I will say though I know it was necessary to end the war I still hate that it was needed. Without the bombing Japan would of had to be invaded which would have caused many deaths, both Japanese and American. However World War II never would of been needed to be fought if France, Great Britain, and the US had not allowed Hitler to rearm Germany in the 1930s. And without fighting in Europe Japan would of been crazy to declare war in the Pacific.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I agree, but I do think that one plausibly good argument is that anabolic steroids have a bunch of unhealthy side effects, and thus if they are legal, players will be "forced" to accept these side effects in order to keep their jobs, and that's not probably not fair. Of course, that same argument could be applied to things that are presently relatively acceptable in some sports (such as playing and training to the point that after a few years your body is a profoundly worn out piece of shit) and thus it becomes an argument more for "fair treatment for athletes" as a general rather than an argument specifically against steroids.
But yes, I do think that the "drugs are unsportsmanlike" argument is retarded.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
Iran, in 1979, committed an act of aggressive war by not observing its obligation to protect the US embassy.
Iran has waged several proxy wars using Hezbollah against the US and Israel and Lebanon.
Iran is today waging a perfidious aggressive campaign of arming, training and leading mostly Shia secterian militias in attempted genocide in Iraq.
That wonderful persian zoroastrian culture is being actively and significantly repressed by 12er Shia bigots who run the government there. Iran is currently on a slow simmer of internal revolt with active resistance to the central government with arab bombing campaigns in the SW, Balochi rebellion in the east, kurdish violent resistance in the NW and periodic outbursts of protest and even violence by the large Azeri minority.
All ethical and humane living? I don't think so
Uninventing guns worked out real well for the samurai of Japan, NOT. They ended up having the US in their harbors whether they liked it or not.
Banning guns is working out very well for the people of the UK, NOT. Gun crime is rising significantly post ban.
Don't feed the troll they say. Well, I can try only this time, because I feel you are not more trolling as just misunderstood me.
See, I have nothing to argue you against, because you have already answers - so, in fact, you don't want to even listen or even understand me. That's fine, everyone does it time after time. But I want to do simple explanation again.
I NEVER said that Israelis didn't blow people up, that they don't do wrong. BOTH sides have done very wrong in this conflict. And biggest wrong is to wanting to *continue* to do that, whatever reasons are.
HOWEVER - and listen carefully this time, because it could be very new concept for you - I UNDERSTAND Jews more easily than OTHER side. UNDERSTANDING in my book doesn't mean that I AGREE with them. Got it?
Yes, Jews has done terrible things with Palestinians. However, it is frequently very isolated layer and we can pinpoint actually which radical wing in Israel it is. Most of Israelis wants peace (shocking) as, I believe, most Palestinians. However, there are radical jerks with righteous attitude in both sides.
I can connect with logic of Jews radical side - to fight for protecting of existence of Israel state (because it is their only home country in the world). Palestinian radicals and Muslim radicals (which usually games support for former as platform for their violence) rarerly can give any *real* reason for their actions - usually it is just emotional answer to something unjust (they killed our children, ohh, let's kill their people too). You know, two wrongs doesn't make one of them right. It gives a feeling that Palestinians actually doesn't want country with borders, they want to destroy Israel and restore like it was before World War II.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
>Palestinian radicals and Muslim radicals (which usually games support for former as platform for their violence) rarerly can give any *real* reason for their actions -
You mean other then trying to throw off an occupying army and gain their freedom?
>It gives a feeling that Palestinians actually doesn't want country with borders, they want to destroy Israel and restore like it was before World War II.
You get that feeling because as you admitted you know nothing about the palestenians. Here let me help you by quoting some americans.
"give me liberty or give me death".
"Don't tread on me".
"I have but one life to give for my country".
"It's wrong to steal peoples land and build houses on it".
"Apartheid is wrong".
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
See if any of those phrases help you understand what's going on over there.
evil is as evil does
there are strategic nukes, and there are tactical nukes ... a big steel ball, or even a chunk of rock, would perform good enough; my point is that there are technologies that should not be shared.
We have an atmosphere. A goodly percentage of that energy would be shed in re-entry before impact. However, you'll note I said, 'on the beach' - not 'in a yacht.'
Technology should be monitored, but the present ITAR regime isn't working well.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Wonderful, mob rule, the only way to go!
Ignoring the politics, this question is kind of similar to a debate of who is better, Van Gogh or Michelangelo.
For every negative/positive you can say about open source/closed source software you can argue something positive/negative in the other direction.
Considering most bugs now adays are found through fuzzing, not code review, it probablly doesn't make a huge difference either way, regardless of whether you are talking commercial or gov defense.
Not to mention, 90% of the software out there is based off of open source technologies or RFCs that are available.
Looks at Microsft's SQLServer. The only way you could get a perl DBI module to work with it was if you used the Sybase module(may be a new MS module, haven't checked in a while), but it wasn't coincident it works, nor is it coincident that half of the commercial SSL/VPN device finger prints smell of Linux and OpenSSL.
Just because it comes with a service contract doesn't mean it is closed source and or secure.
ok maybe ease up a bit.
Native Americans appear to have preferred the flight instinct while those who preferred to fight remained in europe and develeped technology by competition and the pains of war. It turns out that migration to avoid conflict is a less successful survival strategy in the end game, than is stay and fight. It could have turned out differently, but it didn't and you seem to be expressing angst toward the descendants of "fighters" because they don't fully appreciate the "flighters".
This is unreasonable because neither you nor he are personally responsible for the long string of experimental choices which prcedes each of us. Yeah, the past is unjust, but justice is a fleeting whimsical fantasy defined by the victors of war for the purpose of aggregating cooperation. The process of natural selection on the other hand doesn't moralize conflict or its outcome, and we must all admit that we benefit from the resolution of these competitive conflicts, - without which we would be grunting monosyllables while pounding nuts with stones, or worse.
Maybe consider dropping te chip on your shoulder, and ask yourself, what have you done lately for the cause of tolerance and diversity? So often minority groups march for diversity while the actions suggest they really just crave the advancement of their own.
AIK
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
I don't think so - it hasn't given Microsoft much joy.
Indian Wars
Indian Wars, like the Indian Plagues, are examples of re-introducing two divergent cultural/genetic lineages.
The Europeans had suffered the costs of both plagues and wars, and had developed war technology, large-scale cooperative behaviors, and disease immunity. The A-Indians were further behind in this development track, and they appear to have paid the price of catching up in one major balloon payment.
Today, we cringe at the loss of an interesting people, society, and maybe some gene trait which would be useful today, but at the moment of re-introduction, the composite characteristics were less developed.
Morality is but a fleeting temporal Nomic intended to aid in the aggregation and maintenance of large cohesive cooperative groups. Appeals to morality in the preset tense, based on wrongs outside the temperal scope of the nomic are generally unpersuasive, and bear a disporportionate cost to benefit ratio for the complaint as they are likely to waste time energy and the opportunity to participate in the current society by trying to tar them with the sins of their forefathers.
So while the outcome of the Pilgrim/Indian conflict is in part regrettable all around, it might be more usefully viewed as a chapter in human evolution - an amoral process by which we all benefit from the early demise of the lesser fit.
AIK