"Lebanon keeps Palestinians in poverty in refugee camps instead of integrating them into society" "Yes, indeed. Palestinian society, much like the rest of the Arab world, allows a criminal waste of human potential by diverting energy towards a conflict instead of towards building up civil society. That's why most Arab states have a low (and usually declining) human development index and shockingly inefficient economies compared to Israel."
Of course in the case of Lebanon this has absolutely *nothing* to do with a 15 year civil war, sparked, in large part, due to the presence of the Palestinian refugees in the first place. From the Wikipedia article on the Lebanese civil war:
Between 1968 and 1975, there was a gradual buildup in the assertion by Yasser Arafat's PLO of its right to fight Israel from the Lebanese south, in spite of Lebanese sovereignty. A sample of the incidents includes: Palestinian roadblocks in the city of Beirut killing Lebanese civilians; kidnapping by PLO militants of Lebanese gendarmes; Syria's backing of the PLO included punishing Lebanon by closing the borders between the two countries, which choked the Lebanese economy; incursions by Palestinian contingents of the Syrian Army such as the Palestine Liberation Army, the Al-Saiqa commandos, the Yarmouk Brigades, etc. into Lebanese territory and carrying out massacres against Christian villages in the north and the east; ineffective attacks by PLO militants against the Israeli north were often met with massive and deadly reprisals by Israel against the civilian population; the assassination of the Israeli ambassador in London led to Israel bombing Beirut Airport and destroying the entire fleet of the Lebanese national air carrier - MEA, Lebanese army air force bombing the Palestinian camps, etc. After these incidents, several accords were signed between the Lebanese State and the PLO (examples: The Cairo Accord of 1969 and the Melkart Accord of 1972), only to be violated by the PLO, then backed by Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt.
In the spring of 1975, this build-up erupted in an all-out conflict, with the PLO pitted against the Christian Phalange, and the ever-weaker national government wavering between the need to maintain order and catering to its constituency.
The peace that Lebanon has had since 1990 is still extremely fragile and integrating the Palestinians into Lebanese society would probably shatter that. But go ahead, plunge a nation back into civil war for the sake of potential scientific talent that is being wasted. I hate it when people do armchair politicking, things aren't as easy or uncomplicated as you think. I've spent the past 4 years of my life trying to make sense of this region I was born in, reading books and watching documentaries. And things are just incredibly complex. I used to think "just integrate the Palestinians" and I now know it's just not possible, do that, and someone *will* take up arms and fight it(yes, it's wrong, but they'll do it, so you better make your decision knowing this), I've talked to enough fundamentalists on all sides to know that most people here just aren't rational. But then, can you blame them? Almost everyone I know who's over 40 has lost someone close and feelings and emotions surrounding this issue are still very high.
I thought Israel was "The Only Democracy in the Middle East"(tm) (also, neatly ignoring Lebanon). Why can't the people do anything about it? You can just blame it on the rulers.
How this ever got to +4 insightful I will never know. Rather, it just shows how much pro-Israel propaganda has been successful in the west. The image of Israel as a beleaguered state, surrounded on all sides by enemies while it is only defending itself is largely a creation of the media and has no relation whatsoever to the actual history of the region.
I will not go into a discussion of the conflict here as any not pro-Israeli posts get modded -1 overrated to oblivion but I will point out what I do know and that is wrong with your post. Though if anyone is interested "The Gun and the Olive Branches" is a very informative book(written by a British journalist).
"If the Palestinians are really suffering as much as people claim why has Egypt, Jordon, Lebanon, or Syria never allowed the Palestinians to settle in their lands?"
Each nation has its own situation, in the case of Lebanon(my country, which, by the way, is a democracy and where a large segment of the population does not really have a major issue with Israel -- the Christians, ~40% of the population, and I happen to be one), the Palestinians aren't given citizenship because doing so would upset the current balance of force in the country, tilting it towards the Sunni Muslim side. Given that the country is still in the early stages of recovering from a devastating 15 year civil war(in which the Palestinians played a major role igniting, but they weren't alone) and given the fact that Sunni/Chiite tensions continue to rise year-on-year in the whole area almost all analysts agree that attempting to assimilate the Palestinians into Lebanese society would shatter what fragile equilibrium currently exists.
"if someone is bitter at the United States because it allies itself with wretched hives of scum and villainy, as we do on occasion, that is legitimate" "The United States blocks numerous Arab actions against Israel in the UN, and people hate the US in part because of that. That is less legitimate."
The United States doesn't just block Arab actions against Israel, it blocks world actions against Israel. I'll start by saying that I'm an Arab, specifically, I'm Lebanese(and Christian, this matters as a Lebanese person as Christians have tended, historically, to be more pro-Israel). However, I've grown quite detached, emotionally, from the issue.
Read some of the writings of Robert Fisk, David Hirst or Noam Chomsky on the Arab-Israeli struggle. You will see, that despite the western media picturing it otherwise, the case of Israel and any of the other regimes which oppress people and cause hatred is not really that different.
As for it making an easy target, again, I'd have to disagree. It doesn't. People here are actually attracted to western lifestyles(and I'm not just talking about Lebanon, but all the Arab states, I've been to Egypt quite a few times and have been living as a missionary in Syria for the past year) and do not hate the west because of those(except for a minority of fundamentalist bigots, and again, despite the media picturing it otherwise, they are a minority).
It is solely and fundamentally American and Israeli policy that has alienated the region from you, that has created tensions and given birth to Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism in their modern forms. Islamic fundamentalism was born as a result of American tampering in Iran(even pro-west sources such as this book: http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Cold-War-Conflict/dp/0786717319 will tell you as much). It was sustained by the US in Afghanistan and it has now spread to many regions in the middle east. Hezbollah, also as an example, was born of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Internationally condemned with many UN resolutions to testify for this but US(Reagan) backed.
Just one thing, you don't need them to change their password. Upon login, if the password they provide checks out and if it's still using the older algorithm, hash it with the new one and store it. That way, you can transfer accounts to the new hashing algorithm on the fly without your users ever needing to do anything or even notice.
I'm in Syria, and they said 'security reasons', actually, they were quite forthcoming with this. People know what's happening and they're not dumb, the government knows this too and it doesn't try to fool them on these issues. Instead, they're betting on people being too scared of the crackdown and/or being too scared of the country turning into Iraq or Egypt so they'll not ask for change.
So far, this approach is working in Aleppo(which is where I am) which is mainly why this city has remained calm. Aleppo's economy is mainly one of trading and industry(As it's close to the border of Turkey). It is also home to the Sunni elites who are allied with the government. The recent events have hurt its economy really badly as trade routes are closed off and people and companies have cut back spending on almost everything while things unfold. Thus, people here are scared of change and instability so, so far, they haven't joined into the protests.
It may repeat but it's highly unlikely. Right now the two cities that were involved in the 1979-1982 unrest, namely, Hama and Aleppo have been mostly calm(Hama only yesterday started to figure in the news). Victims usually have good memories.
If Aleppo and Hama do rise up however, chances are that the regime will fall apart but it will not be able to repeat its 1982 massacre. In '82 the world was still bipolar with Syria firmly in the USSR's sphere of influence, also, 1982 was a year of considerable unrest in the whole region and mainly in Lebanon to the south-west(with Israel invading 4 month later in June and getting entangled with the Syrian military there). Hafez was much freer to do as he pleased, Bashar(and it's not Bashir btw, just a small correction) is definitely not as free. Currently, the US is seizing this as a chance to force him to weaken or break his alliance with Iran on the one hand and Hezbollah on the other. As Syria provides the crucial link between those two this could be a major win for the US and it is definitely seizing this opportunity to pressure Bashar and it will not allow him to put down large scale demonstrations. Despite what people watching the western news may think, those have not happened yet. In a country of 22million ~10~50k demonstrators simply isn't much(Lebanon's 4~5mil pulled of >1mil demonstrations in 2005 to demand the departure of the Syrian military).
The routers were physically unplugged, I think. At first I could connect over DSL but couldn't even ping the gateway. However, later on, all I got from my DSL modem was 'link down' and that was that. It's working again today, as of about 4hrs ago.
I'm Lebanese but currently residing in Syria, so I can tell you that yes, they're doing quite a bit of those.
Border controls have really been tightened, you are searched more than once. You could probably smuggle microsd cards, but you probably won't be able to travel back and forth without much delay and arousing a lot of suspicion(which means thorougher searching). Also, the whole point of things like tweets and the like is the fast access to information and ability to coordinate which is more than offset in this case. Also, there's the issue of disseminating the data once it's in the country. We weren't just cut off from the internet, all local routes were down as well. My DSL router would connect but I couldn't even ping the gateway.
As for international calling I'm not 100% sure about this but I strongly suspect that *all* international calls are listened in on. This suspicion is due to the fact that there are way too few international lines available at any point in time, calling home in the late afternoon is almost impossible, I sometimes need to re-try as much as 50 or 60 times for my call to connect. Also, there have been several cases of somebody's relatives calling to warn of trouble in a certain area and the call suddenly cutting off.
The only source of news right now appears to be satellite TV, which is very popular around here(one look at the roofs of any major city will confirm, I've even seen receivers mounted on A/C exhaust fans on the side of buildings because the roof couldn't fit any more). However, if need be, these can be jammed, Iran has already done this in similar situations. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_jamming
As for satellite phones, yes, those do exist and are used in the country but they are illegal to own and you could face charges of spying and treason if found in possession of one, and as I said, border controls are tight(I've had my laptop turned on and searched several times at the border as well my phone checked and being asked about books in my possession).
PS: In case you were wondering, as of about 4 hours ago the internet has been working again.
It's interesting that you simply prove the GP's point about having a very poor caricature of Christianity when basing your refutation of what he says on said caricature.
When discussing "Death" or "Hell" in the Christian sense one needs to understand that this stands not for non-(or un-)existence, but rather "existence separate from God". So yes, it is easy to see that any person who does something wrong deserves to be separated from God, that is, Death.
Why did God make the law that way in the first place then, if he was going to change it later? God changed his mind? Isn't God supposed to be all-knowing? A truly omnipotent God would never change his mind.
He never did change his mind. A sinner still deserves death. However, being a loving God he can choose to give Life as a gift. (And again here, Life not as 'existence' but rather as 'existence with God'. God can choose to be with a person who doesn't deserve it)
One last thing, when discussing things like 'before' and 'after' or God 'suddenly [anything]' one must realize that any God that is omnipotent and omniscient stands outside of time. Anyone who insists on discussing God as being within time misunderstands the natures of both God(if he exists) and the Universe. Reading 'A Brief History of Time' by Stephen Hawking is particularly enlightening on the nature of the Universe and of time. Reading 'Mere Christianity' by C.S. Lewis is very useful on understanding what Christians believe. If you're going to have any success in discussing anything with anyone, it is very important to understand their world view, even if you think it all nonsense.
Heh, it just got to -1 with 100% overrated. They should make overrated an option only for comments which are at +2 or more, that way it actually makes sense to say it's "over rated"
Don't usually like to reply to myself, but seriously, "-1 overrated" for a score:1 post that hadn't been rated? Is that a "-1 I don't like this guy's opinion" or something or a "-1 censor" or something?
The classification of "moderate" is a US pat on the back to states that play nice with Israel. However, due to the fact that most of the population doesn't usually want to play nice with Israel you'll only get despots who don't listen to their populations who do and are thus classified as "moderate".
"A lot of different factors"... it's true that they're not that many but it isn't: 'we hate the jews, and everyone will die for the cause!' . I'll come back to that point after a bit of a history lesson.
About the Lebanese war:
At its root, Lebanon's war(and its ongoing troubles) is an identity crisis. Lebanon, initially, used to be just Mount Lebanon, a predominantly Maronite Christian governorate under ottoman rule. Most of the coastal areas, as well as the Bekaa valley were part of Syria(or Syria in it form then) and were predominantly Sunni Muslim. When the French and British divided the spoils of the first world war, Lebanon was placed under French mandate and enlarged to "Greater Lebanon" or Lebanon in its modern form. What you got was a country with two very different populations with very different outlooks on the world living in one country. The Christians wanted Lebanon to be a western-looking country, the Muslims, an Arab one. The difference was so clear that in 1943 when the country achieved independence the foundation of the resulting democracy was the National Pact which basically stated that the Maronites were not to seek foreign(western) support and the Sunnis should give up their demands of uniting Lebanon to Syria.
This all might actually have worked, if the inherent tensions in such cohabitation of two radically different communities wasn't stressed to such a great extent and so repeatedly by the creation of the state of Israel in the south and all the problems that this caused.
Iran, the muslim brotherhood, and all that other stuff was a much more recent development in Lebanon, mostly a byproduct of the war than anything else. It's funny how you pin the blame on Iran for example, when its foothold in Lebanon's south through Hizbullah was born out of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon by non other than Israel. The Shiite population of the south, which until then had been simple farmers and mostly absent from local politics decided to resist the invader. And out of the chaos that ensued, Hizbullah was born through Iranian intervention.
'we hate the jews, and everyone will die for the cause!' . Arabs don't(or at least didn't use to) hate jews. Now get that through your thick skull. Israel's constant whining as an oppressed state, surrounded by enemies is sickening. Like a bully after having beaten up all the other kids whines about how nobody likes him.
In the early 1900s there was barely any jewish population anywhere in the middle east. Definitely less than 10%. When jews from all over the world decide to migrate 'en masse' to a certain region of the world, then forcefully push out the initial occupants you can be sure that those occupants are going to hate them. It's quite natural, it's human. When millions of Palestinans, to this day, live in refugee camps in sub-human conditions with nothing to do except think about how they were robbed of their lands you can be damned sure that they're going to hate the jews. It's natural.
"Global Terrorism" and "Militant Islam" as they exist in their recent form were born of Israel's actions, their repeated disregard for the humanity of anyone non-jewish and their bullying of neighbor states.
"even if the occupants are unhurt" I think that's the main safety concern whenever designing a car. The most important thing is for the occupants not to be hurt. Cars which are "solid" are actually worse for the safety of their occupants in case of an accident. See: Crumple Zone
So why are people sent to prison? Is it some form of torture? Society exacting revenge? Or is it supposed to correct those that can be correct it and at least remove from society those that can't?
Because if it's the latter, then banning games makes no sense. Having something to occupy their time with can greatly reduce prison violence not the other way around. Too many people with too few things to do all in one place isn't usually ideal as far as not having trouble is concerned.
True, however this particular sample is all people who were kids in 1970, so they're all in the same age bracket(no elderly or non-working youth). I think average income is a good measure in such a case.
Key sentence in the GP's post: "Dont you believe that US citizens have a right to know when killing is being done in their name?"
It's not about Americans being put in danger or not. It's about the world's image of America going further and further down the shithole while an ignorant american public complains about "Terrorism".
When american citizens are targeted in terrorist attacks, they have a right to know, and potentially prevent, their government from taking actions that can put them further in danger as they become more and more hated around the world. If it is their decision that the US's foreign policy and the resulting "attacks on freedom" should go on, then so be it. It should at least be with their knowledge and consent, not hidden and lied about yet perpetrated in their name.
Not exactly because the vast majority of windows programs aren't written with command line usage in mind. So you've got a powerful shell but no tools to use from it, still useless. And yes I could get ports of most of the unix tools but then, I'd rather use *NIX and have them all there or available from a single repository:)
First, you may have a point with the warranty issue, however they can simply take the route google does with the Nexus One => You can unlock the phone but it voids your warranty, I'm pretty sure official software that unlocks the phone along with saying that is easier and cheaper to accomplish than attempts to make the phone un-hackable.
Second, how does hacking your phone give you the ability to "steal software" ? From where would you be stealing it? Software-wise you can pretty much install anything you want, rooting the phone is only useful to load custom firmware not software.
Third, "I don't think we want to know". Security through obscurity? If there are are any security issues with the cell towers then yes we want to know and we want them to be fixed. Having your head in the sand doesn't make the problem go away. And the problem *will* be exploited by malicious users wanting to cause harm(say, terrorists wanting to take down the cell network).
Fourth, that's debatable but I won't go into that particular one now as it's a whole other discussion and your point of view is a valid one even though I may not agree with it.
Slashdot Mirror
"Lebanon keeps Palestinians in poverty in refugee camps instead of integrating them into society"
"Yes, indeed. Palestinian society, much like the rest of the Arab world, allows a criminal waste of human potential by diverting energy towards a conflict instead of towards building up civil society. That's why most Arab states have a low (and usually declining) human development index and shockingly inefficient economies compared to Israel."
Of course in the case of Lebanon this has absolutely *nothing* to do with a 15 year civil war, sparked, in large part, due to the presence of the Palestinian refugees in the first place. From the Wikipedia article on the Lebanese civil war:
Between 1968 and 1975, there was a gradual buildup in the assertion by Yasser Arafat's PLO of its right to fight Israel from the Lebanese south, in spite of Lebanese sovereignty. A sample of the incidents includes: Palestinian roadblocks in the city of Beirut killing Lebanese civilians; kidnapping by PLO militants of Lebanese gendarmes; Syria's backing of the PLO included punishing Lebanon by closing the borders between the two countries, which choked the Lebanese economy; incursions by Palestinian contingents of the Syrian Army such as the Palestine Liberation Army, the Al-Saiqa commandos, the Yarmouk Brigades, etc. into Lebanese territory and carrying out massacres against Christian villages in the north and the east; ineffective attacks by PLO militants against the Israeli north were often met with massive and deadly reprisals by Israel against the civilian population; the assassination of the Israeli ambassador in London led to Israel bombing Beirut Airport and destroying the entire fleet of the Lebanese national air carrier - MEA, Lebanese army air force bombing the Palestinian camps, etc. After these incidents, several accords were signed between the Lebanese State and the PLO (examples: The Cairo Accord of 1969 and the Melkart Accord of 1972), only to be violated by the PLO, then backed by Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt.
In the spring of 1975, this build-up erupted in an all-out conflict, with the PLO pitted against the Christian Phalange, and the ever-weaker national government wavering between the need to maintain order and catering to its constituency.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War#First_phase_1975.E2.80.931977
The peace that Lebanon has had since 1990 is still extremely fragile and integrating the Palestinians into Lebanese society would probably shatter that. But go ahead, plunge a nation back into civil war for the sake of potential scientific talent that is being wasted. I hate it when people do armchair politicking, things aren't as easy or uncomplicated as you think. I've spent the past 4 years of my life trying to make sense of this region I was born in, reading books and watching documentaries. And things are just incredibly complex. I used to think "just integrate the Palestinians" and I now know it's just not possible, do that, and someone *will* take up arms and fight it(yes, it's wrong, but they'll do it, so you better make your decision knowing this), I've talked to enough fundamentalists on all sides to know that most people here just aren't rational. But then, can you blame them? Almost everyone I know who's over 40 has lost someone close and feelings and emotions surrounding this issue are still very high.
Shhhhhh.... Don't talk about that, Israel doesn't steal
I thought Israel was "The Only Democracy in the Middle East"(tm) (also, neatly ignoring Lebanon). Why can't the people do anything about it? You can just blame it on the rulers.
How this ever got to +4 insightful I will never know. Rather, it just shows how much pro-Israel propaganda has been successful in the west. The image of Israel as a beleaguered state, surrounded on all sides by enemies while it is only defending itself is largely a creation of the media and has no relation whatsoever to the actual history of the region.
I will not go into a discussion of the conflict here as any not pro-Israeli posts get modded -1 overrated to oblivion but I will point out what I do know and that is wrong with your post. Though if anyone is interested "The Gun and the Olive Branches" is a very informative book(written by a British journalist).
"If the Palestinians are really suffering as much as people claim why has Egypt, Jordon, Lebanon, or Syria never allowed the Palestinians to settle in their lands?"
Each nation has its own situation, in the case of Lebanon(my country, which, by the way, is a democracy and where a large segment of the population does not really have a major issue with Israel -- the Christians, ~40% of the population, and I happen to be one), the Palestinians aren't given citizenship because doing so would upset the current balance of force in the country, tilting it towards the Sunni Muslim side. Given that the country is still in the early stages of recovering from a devastating 15 year civil war(in which the Palestinians played a major role igniting, but they weren't alone) and given the fact that Sunni/Chiite tensions continue to rise year-on-year in the whole area almost all analysts agree that attempting to assimilate the Palestinians into Lebanese society would shatter what fragile equilibrium currently exists.
"if someone is bitter at the United States because it allies itself with wretched hives of scum and villainy, as we do on occasion, that is legitimate"
"The United States blocks numerous Arab actions against Israel in the UN, and people hate the US in part because of that. That is less legitimate."
The United States doesn't just block Arab actions against Israel, it blocks world actions against Israel. I'll start by saying that I'm an Arab, specifically, I'm Lebanese(and Christian, this matters as a Lebanese person as Christians have tended, historically, to be more pro-Israel). However, I've grown quite detached, emotionally, from the issue.
Read some of the writings of Robert Fisk, David Hirst or Noam Chomsky on the Arab-Israeli struggle. You will see, that despite the western media picturing it otherwise, the case of Israel and any of the other regimes which oppress people and cause hatred is not really that different.
As for it making an easy target, again, I'd have to disagree. It doesn't. People here are actually attracted to western lifestyles(and I'm not just talking about Lebanon, but all the Arab states, I've been to Egypt quite a few times and have been living as a missionary in Syria for the past year) and do not hate the west because of those(except for a minority of fundamentalist bigots, and again, despite the media picturing it otherwise, they are a minority).
It is solely and fundamentally American and Israeli policy that has alienated the region from you, that has created tensions and given birth to Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism in their modern forms. Islamic fundamentalism was born as a result of American tampering in Iran(even pro-west sources such as this book: http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Cold-War-Conflict/dp/0786717319 will tell you as much). It was sustained by the US in Afghanistan and it has now spread to many regions in the middle east. Hezbollah, also as an example, was born of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Internationally condemned with many UN resolutions to testify for this but US(Reagan) backed.
This: http://www.amazon.com/Gun-Olive-Branch-Violence-Middle/dp/1560254831 is a good book to start from if you want to read about the history of the region. Check the author out if you don't think he can be trusted to be objective or knowledgeable on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hirst_(journalist)
Just one thing, you don't need them to change their password. Upon login, if the password they provide checks out and if it's still using the older algorithm, hash it with the new one and store it. That way, you can transfer accounts to the new hashing algorithm on the fly without your users ever needing to do anything or even notice.
So where does that anti-US sentiment come from... I wonder...
I'm in Syria, and they said 'security reasons', actually, they were quite forthcoming with this. People know what's happening and they're not dumb, the government knows this too and it doesn't try to fool them on these issues. Instead, they're betting on people being too scared of the crackdown and/or being too scared of the country turning into Iraq or Egypt so they'll not ask for change.
So far, this approach is working in Aleppo(which is where I am) which is mainly why this city has remained calm. Aleppo's economy is mainly one of trading and industry(As it's close to the border of Turkey). It is also home to the Sunni elites who are allied with the government. The recent events have hurt its economy really badly as trade routes are closed off and people and companies have cut back spending on almost everything while things unfold. Thus, people here are scared of change and instability so, so far, they haven't joined into the protests.
It may repeat but it's highly unlikely. Right now the two cities that were involved in the 1979-1982 unrest, namely, Hama and Aleppo have been mostly calm(Hama only yesterday started to figure in the news). Victims usually have good memories.
If Aleppo and Hama do rise up however, chances are that the regime will fall apart but it will not be able to repeat its 1982 massacre. In '82 the world was still bipolar with Syria firmly in the USSR's sphere of influence, also, 1982 was a year of considerable unrest in the whole region and mainly in Lebanon to the south-west(with Israel invading 4 month later in June and getting entangled with the Syrian military there). Hafez was much freer to do as he pleased, Bashar(and it's not Bashir btw, just a small correction) is definitely not as free. Currently, the US is seizing this as a chance to force him to weaken or break his alliance with Iran on the one hand and Hezbollah on the other. As Syria provides the crucial link between those two this could be a major win for the US and it is definitely seizing this opportunity to pressure Bashar and it will not allow him to put down large scale demonstrations. Despite what people watching the western news may think, those have not happened yet. In a country of 22million ~10~50k demonstrators simply isn't much(Lebanon's 4~5mil pulled of >1mil demonstrations in 2005 to demand the departure of the Syrian military).
The routers were physically unplugged, I think. At first I could connect over DSL but couldn't even ping the gateway. However, later on, all I got from my DSL modem was 'link down' and that was that. It's working again today, as of about 4hrs ago.
I'm Lebanese but currently residing in Syria, so I can tell you that yes, they're doing quite a bit of those.
Border controls have really been tightened, you are searched more than once. You could probably smuggle microsd cards, but you probably won't be able to travel back and forth without much delay and arousing a lot of suspicion(which means thorougher searching). Also, the whole point of things like tweets and the like is the fast access to information and ability to coordinate which is more than offset in this case. Also, there's the issue of disseminating the data once it's in the country. We weren't just cut off from the internet, all local routes were down as well. My DSL router would connect but I couldn't even ping the gateway.
As for international calling I'm not 100% sure about this but I strongly suspect that *all* international calls are listened in on. This suspicion is due to the fact that there are way too few international lines available at any point in time, calling home in the late afternoon is almost impossible, I sometimes need to re-try as much as 50 or 60 times for my call to connect. Also, there have been several cases of somebody's relatives calling to warn of trouble in a certain area and the call suddenly cutting off.
The only source of news right now appears to be satellite TV, which is very popular around here(one look at the roofs of any major city will confirm, I've even seen receivers mounted on A/C exhaust fans on the side of buildings because the roof couldn't fit any more). However, if need be, these can be jammed, Iran has already done this in similar situations. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_jamming
As for satellite phones, yes, those do exist and are used in the country but they are illegal to own and you could face charges of spying and treason if found in possession of one, and as I said, border controls are tight(I've had my laptop turned on and searched several times at the border as well my phone checked and being asked about books in my possession).
PS: In case you were wondering, as of about 4 hours ago the internet has been working again.
It's interesting that you simply prove the GP's point about having a very poor caricature of Christianity when basing your refutation of what he says on said caricature.
When discussing "Death" or "Hell" in the Christian sense one needs to understand that this stands not for non-(or un-)existence, but rather "existence separate from God". So yes, it is easy to see that any person who does something wrong deserves to be separated from God, that is, Death.
Why did God make the law that way in the first place then, if he was going to change it later? God changed his mind? Isn't God supposed to be all-knowing? A truly omnipotent God would never change his mind.
He never did change his mind. A sinner still deserves death. However, being a loving God he can choose to give Life as a gift. (And again here, Life not as 'existence' but rather as 'existence with God'. God can choose to be with a person who doesn't deserve it)
One last thing, when discussing things like 'before' and 'after' or God 'suddenly [anything]' one must realize that any God that is omnipotent and omniscient stands outside of time. Anyone who insists on discussing God as being within time misunderstands the natures of both God(if he exists) and the Universe. Reading 'A Brief History of Time' by Stephen Hawking is particularly enlightening on the nature of the Universe and of time. Reading 'Mere Christianity' by C.S. Lewis is very useful on understanding what Christians believe. If you're going to have any success in discussing anything with anyone, it is very important to understand their world view, even if you think it all nonsense.
Heh, it just got to -1 with 100% overrated. They should make overrated an option only for comments which are at +2 or more, that way it actually makes sense to say it's "over rated"
Don't usually like to reply to myself, but seriously, "-1 overrated" for a score:1 post that hadn't been rated? Is that a "-1 I don't like this guy's opinion" or something or a "-1 censor" or something?
The classification of "moderate" is a US pat on the back to states that play nice with Israel. However, due to the fact that most of the population doesn't usually want to play nice with Israel you'll only get despots who don't listen to their populations who do and are thus classified as "moderate".
"A lot of different factors"... it's true that they're not that many but it isn't: 'we hate the jews, and everyone will die for the cause!' . I'll come back to that point after a bit of a history lesson.
About the Lebanese war:
At its root, Lebanon's war(and its ongoing troubles) is an identity crisis. Lebanon, initially, used to be just Mount Lebanon, a predominantly Maronite Christian governorate under ottoman rule. Most of the coastal areas, as well as the Bekaa valley were part of Syria(or Syria in it form then) and were predominantly Sunni Muslim. When the French and British divided the spoils of the first world war, Lebanon was placed under French mandate and enlarged to "Greater Lebanon" or Lebanon in its modern form. What you got was a country with two very different populations with very different outlooks on the world living in one country. The Christians wanted Lebanon to be a western-looking country, the Muslims, an Arab one. The difference was so clear that in 1943 when the country achieved independence the foundation of the resulting democracy was the National Pact which basically stated that the Maronites were not to seek foreign(western) support and the Sunnis should give up their demands of uniting Lebanon to Syria.
This all might actually have worked, if the inherent tensions in such cohabitation of two radically different communities wasn't stressed to such a great extent and so repeatedly by the creation of the state of Israel in the south and all the problems that this caused.
Iran, the muslim brotherhood, and all that other stuff was a much more recent development in Lebanon, mostly a byproduct of the war than anything else. It's funny how you pin the blame on Iran for example, when its foothold in Lebanon's south through Hizbullah was born out of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon by non other than Israel. The Shiite population of the south, which until then had been simple farmers and mostly absent from local politics decided to resist the invader. And out of the chaos that ensued, Hizbullah was born through Iranian intervention.
'we hate the jews, and everyone will die for the cause!' . Arabs don't(or at least didn't use to) hate jews. Now get that through your thick skull. Israel's constant whining as an oppressed state, surrounded by enemies is sickening. Like a bully after having beaten up all the other kids whines about how nobody likes him.
In the early 1900s there was barely any jewish population anywhere in the middle east. Definitely less than 10%. When jews from all over the world decide to migrate 'en masse' to a certain region of the world, then forcefully push out the initial occupants you can be sure that those occupants are going to hate them. It's quite natural, it's human. When millions of Palestinans, to this day, live in refugee camps in sub-human conditions with nothing to do except think about how they were robbed of their lands you can be damned sure that they're going to hate the jews. It's natural.
"Global Terrorism" and "Militant Islam" as they exist in their recent form were born of Israel's actions, their repeated disregard for the humanity of anyone non-jewish and their bullying of neighbor states.
"even if the occupants are unhurt" I think that's the main safety concern whenever designing a car. The most important thing is for the occupants not to be hurt. Cars which are "solid" are actually worse for the safety of their occupants in case of an accident. See: Crumple Zone
So why are people sent to prison? Is it some form of torture? Society exacting revenge? Or is it supposed to correct those that can be correct it and at least remove from society those that can't?
Because if it's the latter, then banning games makes no sense. Having something to occupy their time with can greatly reduce prison violence not the other way around. Too many people with too few things to do all in one place isn't usually ideal as far as not having trouble is concerned.
True, however this particular sample is all people who were kids in 1970, so they're all in the same age bracket(no elderly or non-working youth). I think average income is a good measure in such a case.
Key sentence in the GP's post: "Dont you believe that US citizens have a right to know when killing is being done in their name?"
It's not about Americans being put in danger or not. It's about the world's image of America going further and further down the shithole while an ignorant american public complains about "Terrorism".
When american citizens are targeted in terrorist attacks, they have a right to know, and potentially prevent, their government from taking actions that can put them further in danger as they become more and more hated around the world. If it is their decision that the US's foreign policy and the resulting "attacks on freedom" should go on, then so be it. It should at least be with their knowledge and consent, not hidden and lied about yet perpetrated in their name.
From TFA which you so obviously didn't read:
[...]The nine lenses split light from each bank of pixels and send it to nine points in front of the TV
If the viewer sits in one of these sweet spots they get the 3D illusion.
The nine spots should enable several family members to watch a 3D image at the same time.[...]
Not exactly because the vast majority of windows programs aren't written with command line usage in mind. So you've got a powerful shell but no tools to use from it, still useless. And yes I could get ports of most of the unix tools but then, I'd rather use *NIX and have them all there or available from a single repository :)
Well, as long as you're a gamer you can't be Intel, nVidia and windows free. ATI drivers are still really shitty on linux, getting better though.
How did that get to +4 interesting?
First, you may have a point with the warranty issue, however they can simply take the route google does with the Nexus One => You can unlock the phone but it voids your warranty, I'm pretty sure official software that unlocks the phone along with saying that is easier and cheaper to accomplish than attempts to make the phone un-hackable.
Second, how does hacking your phone give you the ability to "steal software" ? From where would you be stealing it? Software-wise you can pretty much install anything you want, rooting the phone is only useful to load custom firmware not software.
Third, "I don't think we want to know". Security through obscurity? If there are are any security issues with the cell towers then yes we want to know and we want them to be fixed. Having your head in the sand doesn't make the problem go away. And the problem *will* be exploited by malicious users wanting to cause harm(say, terrorists wanting to take down the cell network).
Fourth, that's debatable but I won't go into that particular one now as it's a whole other discussion and your point of view is a valid one even though I may not agree with it.
But what about friend classes?