Slashdot Mirror
The FBI's Newest Tool — Google Images
lee317 writes "The FBI recently used a photograph of Spanish politician Gaspar Llamazares as an example of what Osama Bin Laden might look like today. According to Reuters, Special Agent Jason Pack said a forensic artist had been unable to find suitable features from the FBI's database of photographs and used a picture from the Internet instead. That photo turned out to be one of Llamazares, who apparently looks strikingly similar to what the FBI thinks Bin Laden would look like with a few extra years on him. 'I am stupefied the FBI has used my photo — but it could have been anyone's — to compose a picture of a terrorist. It affects my honor, my own image and also the security of all us,' Llamazares said."
We should constantly live in fear of tribal men in caves 8000 miles away at all times. It's the new American way.
Of course, the irony in that statement is that now the top link for osama bin laden now HAS a picture of the Spanish politician.
Does the FBI own the rights to the image they're showing around? Aren't they violating copyright? Can't they be sued for millions in made up damages?
You know I've never seen Bin Laden and this Gaspar Llamazares fellow in the same place at the same time. Just saying...
The same can be said for capitalism. Indeed, all economic systems inherently favor those who exploit flaws in the system to gain power and money or goods. Even the barter system. Short of having so much abundance that everyone's needs are fully met, there will always be people who are willing to abuse the system for personal gain. It's not even clear that this would go away even with such abundance.
Power attracts the corrupt and the corruptible. All economic systems require someone to have power to maintain order the system, whether it's the judges in a tribal barter system, the leaders of Russia's communist party, the heads of corporations, etc. Therefore, abuse of any economic system is guaranteed, given sufficient time.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Oh, that wasn't the only reason. Add trade embargoes, cold war, foreign intervention and so on - every time a communist country emerges suddenly half of the world tries to destroy its political and economical base.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
not that it can work on the scale of a country...
No pure ideology works on the scale of a modern country (pop > ~1,000,000)
Pure democracy doesn't work for anything larger than Ancient Athens. Democracy still has pretty good ideas that are worth implementing in a system to govern a large populace. Communism is the same thing.
Just because the US was in a 40-year penis-waving battle with a country that claimed to be communist doesn't mean anything. Open Source certainly borrows much of its core ideology from communism. Linux, Firefox, Apache, etc all seem to be working quite well for me.
You see the same thing with Socialism. "La-la-la, health care, Obama, socialism, I can't hear you!". We've had socialist fire protection service in the US for 200 years. Everybody pays, everybody is covered, and that works much better than the alternative systems of the past.
Communist. Democratic. Socialist. Capitalist. Fascist. Republican. Anarchist.
Why worry about the labels? Take the best ideas from all of them and mix them to make a system that works.
Our populace has many kinds of idiots, including those that think the only reason communism has failed everywhere it's been tried is because the right people weren't in charge.
If you look at many communist states they grew spectacularly despite many abuses in the system. Russia under communism for instance grew from a pre-industrial backwater that got beat down by the Japanese to a world superpower that pushed back the german war machine. Cuba grew from a defacto US plantation colony into an independent state with an infant mortality rate lower than that of the US. China became the workshop of the world under communism and the biggest US creditor holding USD 740 billion in U.S. debt. All 3 of these grew from dirt poor to states with good healthcare and education surpassing others in their region. To say they have "failed" is simplistic at best.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
So that's why fire trucks are red.