I don't think Assad actually did such suicidal step. He might be quite brutal dictator but he and his regime certainly have self preservation instinct. Otherwise he would be overthrown long time ago. My suspicion is that this horrible act was actually done by rebels^H^H^H^H^Hal-Quaeda as act of desperation. Assad regime that has strong motive to avoid such thing at all costs. It was clearly winning this war since taking over Qusair in June this year. Assad army was basically mopping up remaining rebel groups. Carla de Ponte, UN chief inspector digging through Syria CW issues said all things indicate rebels are behind August attack in Damascus, pretty much the same as in Aleppo case, April this year. But (surprise! surprise!) - since she said that, approx. two weeks ago, all mentions of UN Syria inspection magically disappeared from US mainstream media ! And even now, when Russians basically did 'check mate' to US administration, virtually everyone in the sane world is against intervention (except for Israel, Saudi Arabia and some EU politicians paying lip service to their US masters^H^H^H^H^Hcounterparts but passively resisting), Kerry and friends are still in warmongering binge, indicating his 'ultimatum' Syria accepted was "rhetorical". Overthrowing table after getting check-mate doesn't look good.
My take is this: United States is desperately trying to do a regime change in Syria, regardless of human costs. They basically don't give a crap about civilian casualties and if you don't believe, ask some Libyans how are they since being "liberated" (there are still full fledged atrocities and cleansings in Libya with thousands upon thousands civilian casualties, yet your lovely corporate media "forgot" reporting about this - which is expected, by the way). CW issue was a convenient pretext, yet as it just has fallen apart, your Noble Prize War Monger In Chief will invent another pretext soon. Expect more drastic provocations. Like, for example, rebels attacking targets in Israel, shooting sarin shells from Syria territory and Israel immediately bombing the hell out of Damascus before rest of the world gets aware what's going on (so no diplomacy will be possible to derail invasion plan).
And above it all: resisting terrorist government activities (like: US govt financing and arming al-quaeda terrorsits in Syria and waging iillegal war against Syria in order to aid and bring al-quaeda to power) is now considered terrorism. Strong double think abilities are required to grasp conduct of US government officials.
It was deliberate, somewhat shortsighted lie. This is how every fuckin big fat corporation behaves these days. It is worse than communism. Just compare Fukushima fiasco to old commies handling Chernobyl. They did everything they could to NOT let this crap hit watertable. They've put liquid nitrogen injecting installation under the reactor to make sure it won't burn through the basement and won't contaminate ground waters. They've put 600 thousands people to work to clean up their mess (every man for one minute or so). Compare this to the crap, lies, corruption and cost cuttings TEPCO is doing on their site. Our corporate fascist system is failing us badly and if we won't put them all in check soon, consequences of their misdeeds, greed and corruption will hit us hard.
Depleted uranium is used because of its pyrophoric properties (in addition to high density). No explosives are needed for it to explode when hitting target. But it is toxic and radioactive crap that causes cancers and birth effects. When oxided, it quickly finds its way to ground water, poisons and irradiates local population for a long time. Just check how Falujah suvrivors are doing these days: 12-fold increase in child cancers, lots of other symptoms remarkably similar to those in Hiroshima. Depleted uranium should be banned for good reasons but it is (still) allowed to use partly because of some technicalities in international law, partly because The Mighty US Army is not going to stop shooting this crap at "liberated targets" and there is nothing on this planet that can force those fucks to abandon it.
Still, most of GS bad trades have been DK'ed. You see, for Goldman Sachs this is 'Heads we win, tails we win' kind of market. They're above the law in every respect. I'm curious what will happen to those tech folks. Will Goldman jail them in retaliation like they did with Aleynikov ? As much as they can call puppet US government to overturn their bad trades, they also can call govt to jail anyone they wish...
All components required to impose totalitarian regime were in place for some time. Now, our lovely, corporate-sponsored fascist and criminal government decided to turn the key.
So, instead of fixing its behavior (or at least make it a bit less visible), US government (and its corporate sponsors) decided to go out and spy+opress its citizens officially. You're at the tipping point, folks. Your lovely government is now switching from covert police state to overt tyranical regime. This process will propably take another year or two until you'll get pretty much where nazi Germany was in 1939. Your favorite TV station will inform you every day how many "enemies of America" were caught/jailed/murdered this week and you'll fear every day if FBI squad will raid your house because of some phony suspicion.
Having said that, I'd recommend Americans, especially young ones to have second passport and be ready to leave this shithole when things go full retard (eg. your fucked up government starts some mega-war and will need as much cannon fodder as possible).
My guess is that Snowden is side-show in overall USA-Russia relations, albeit a good pretext for both Obama and Putin. Syria is propably the most important issue impacting USA-Russia relations. Anti-ballistic missile shield aimed squarely at Russia might be another one.
Which is propably the case. My biggest fear is that instead of curbing those crooks it will make them doind the same crap overtly. And overtly opressing everyone opposing them. Some crooks have already become proud, overt pricks (eg. Holder saying he won't prosecute big banks and on the other hand praising Aaron Schwarts treatment).
So, they don't use this data to curb drug trafficking, money laundering, cyberattacks. And it turned out that only one terrorist plot was POSSIBLY curbed with all this giant spying operation. This is enough to convince me that governments, banksters and corporations around it are using this surveillance to keep themselves in power and control US population regardless of how much fraud and outright crimes will the government do. From the beginning this had nothing to do with safety of ordinary americans and has everything to do with protecting corrupt, criminal US elites from US population. They don't give a crap about our safety or well being - should they care, they wouldn't defund and dismantle local police and fire departments just to ensure their fellow banksters have bigger profits (thanks to bailouts). They built this monster for the same exact reason STASI built its apparatus. Everything this surveillance would do to benefit citizens is regarded as unnecessary cost and we know what corporate aparatchics and their government cronies do with such "excess costs".
Our corporate overlords from Goldman Sachs not only get scott-free from any conceivable fraud. They also have god-given right to put in prison anyone they wish. We - proles - have no rights at all. We're just a cannon fodder for military-industrial-banker-prison complex and we must obey. Corporate fascism with all its "features" (two-tiered justice etc) at its best.
With latest revelations going mainstream, we're transitioning from stealth surveillance and oppresive state to overtly oppresive corporate fascist state. How long will it take for government opressions to become mainstream ? US police and security apparatus is already quite oppresive and corrupt (propably the worst in the developed world with the biggest prisoner population in the whole world), yet people tend to ignore this. Opressions from corporate fascist state will become part of everyday life sooner than people expect.
UEFI was never intended to improve security. Along with Microsoft's extensions it was designed as a lock-in tool. Too bad we had to wait until it pops up everywhere just to realize it.
Obama promised not to scramble jets to get Snowden and two days later he forced a presidential plane down on suspicions that Snowden might be onboard. Of course, technically he didn't lie as he did this by his european puppet proxies. Eric Holder is even worse than Obama - overtly corrupt as contrasted to typical politicians who at least try to look honest. If he says he "won't torture nor kill", this is propably on the table. US of A desperately wants to make an example of Snowden - even if it will be messy and incur severe political costs. Those fucks want to prevent future whistleblowers by setting example now painful it is to have spine and resist criminal behavior of US government or US corporations.
Congress rejected this bill "very narrowly" (205-217) with 12 abstains. They split themselves into good cops and bad cops almost evenly. How convenient...
Something tells me this was carefully staged political reality show intended to convince people that they still have "some choice", yet it "didn't work out this time". Which is a big lie. They were all complicit in keeping NSA money flowing, they just chose among themselves who will act "good guy" and who will be "bad guy" in this episode.
Your government chose to do bad, bad things that happen to be profitable for them and as their misconducts are becoming more and more blatant, they chose more and more opressions instead of less wrongdoings. Don't expect things to improve anytime soon, it's propably too late.
From TFA: "The Highway Patrol is investigating and checking in with sign makers to see if they filled the unique order.". So if they find someone, throw 42 totally ridiculous charges at suspect and put in prison for next 64 years. This is american way of dealing with pranksters (since 1980, with twice power since 2001).
Political kabuki theatre aside, I don't think congressmen are in position to negotiate any deal with NSA. My suspicion is that NSA tightly holds most, if not all congressmen by the balls. With amounts of data they've collected, they can blackmail just about any politician into submission. Congress will propably vote exactly what NSA wants. Face it, folks. There is no functioning democracy in the US - just as one ex-Presidedent told us. Security aparatchics have all the power - just like in old communist countries or banana republics.
Yet everyone should have hope and avoid apathy. My hope is that I'm wrong and Congress will do The Right Thing tomorrow...
Does anybody still believes what federal study "finds" ? They lied aboud GoM. They lied about financial fraud for years. They're busy covering up malfeasances of their corporate friends and they don't give a crap about ordinary citizens. They're busy spying everyone and jailing folks who point out their corruption and coverups. Is there anybody who still believes statements from our lovely government ?
I'm not sure it is possible anymore. Those fucks just obtained right to jail citizens for indefinite time without court order (NDAA injunction has been struck down by Obama's cronies in 13 circuit, and good lock with SCOTUS). US of A 2013 reminds me Germany 1936. Scary times ahead...
Compiler was one of many skews in this "honest" benchmark. Aside of deliberately "fixing" benchmark code for intel and deliberately breaking ARM benchmark by disabling NEON. In my opinion they should run identical code, trying to maximize its performance on both platforme and in case of Intel use both compilers and post both results. This would lead potential customer to correct conclusions - as opposed to a bunch of lies and misinterpretations AnTuTu actually posted.
Every person who lived in soviet block remembers similiar slogans. It was everywhere: in communist factories, on the streets, everywhere. For me current form of corporate capitalism is very similiar to old communist system. These are two sides of the same coin: centralization. Corporate central planning masquerading itself as "free market" (which it isn't) with almost the same side effects, parasites (party comrades in old system, corporate CEOs in new system) and inefficiencies. This will fall sooner or later in the same way old soviet system has fallen.
... another bunch of lies and misinterpretations on behalf of US government. IMO they intended to spy on US population from the beginning and all these murky '51%' interpretation, loopholes and corner cases have been put in place in order to obfuscate practices on spying on US citizens. Forget about all this 'terrorism danger' nonsense, it's all about controlling US population and squashing dissent as soon as possible. It's all about your granting full impunity and god-given profits to US upper class (corporate managers, financiers and politicians) and protecting them from dissent on behalf of citizenry. You're all wasting your time discussing minor technicalities (51%) of major problem (being governed by a bunch of criminals) and this is what those crooks want.
Or are you trying to apply corrupt US law onto Sweden ? There was similiar case in Poland (napisy.org) few years ago. Police raided site administrator and some folks who did actual translation. Then it tool 6 years for prosecutor to determine that those translations were actually legal because it was voice->text translation, not text->text, so it did not constitute derivative work. Yet prosecutors did everything in their power to prolong this case, so it took 6 years to close this case. From copyright cartel point of view it is mission accomplished: napisy.org is still defunct. Falkvinge is right that we truly have two-tiered justice system worldwide. It is totally corrupt, yet as long as people still get their daily fox-news-style crap-propaganda, everyone is apathetic enough to just get along with whatever fraud our corporate overlords instigate on us.
With such vast amount of data (possibly collected in near-real-time fashion) TPTBs can manipulate public in any way they want. As sad as it is, if we lose this round, there will be nothing that can stop this criminal syndicate from intruding even more and more into our lives, liberties, stealing even more wealth from citizens and killing even more people overseas. If this trajectory won't change in time, we might descend into new dark ages in a few decades (with a few small ridiculously rich enclaves and everything else looking like Honduras or even worse...).
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I don't think Assad actually did such suicidal step. He might be quite brutal dictator but he and his regime certainly have self preservation instinct. Otherwise he would be overthrown long time ago. My suspicion is that this horrible act was actually done by rebels^H^H^H^H^Hal-Quaeda as act of desperation. Assad regime that has strong motive to avoid such thing at all costs. It was clearly winning this war since taking over Qusair in June this year. Assad army was basically mopping up remaining rebel groups. Carla de Ponte, UN chief inspector digging through Syria CW issues said all things indicate rebels are behind August attack in Damascus, pretty much the same as in Aleppo case, April this year. But (surprise! surprise!) - since she said that, approx. two weeks ago, all mentions of UN Syria inspection magically disappeared from US mainstream media ! And even now, when Russians basically did 'check mate' to US administration, virtually everyone in the sane world is against intervention (except for Israel, Saudi Arabia and some EU politicians paying lip service to their US masters^H^H^H^H^Hcounterparts but passively resisting), Kerry and friends are still in warmongering binge, indicating his 'ultimatum' Syria accepted was "rhetorical". Overthrowing table after getting check-mate doesn't look good.
My take is this: United States is desperately trying to do a regime change in Syria, regardless of human costs. They basically don't give a crap about civilian casualties and if you don't believe, ask some Libyans how are they since being "liberated" (there are still full fledged atrocities and cleansings in Libya with thousands upon thousands civilian casualties, yet your lovely corporate media "forgot" reporting about this - which is expected, by the way). CW issue was a convenient pretext, yet as it just has fallen apart, your Noble Prize War Monger In Chief will invent another pretext soon. Expect more drastic provocations. Like, for example, rebels attacking targets in Israel, shooting sarin shells from Syria territory and Israel immediately bombing the hell out of Damascus before rest of the world gets aware what's going on (so no diplomacy will be possible to derail invasion plan).
And above it all: resisting terrorist government activities (like: US govt financing and arming al-quaeda terrorsits in Syria and waging iillegal war against Syria in order to aid and bring al-quaeda to power) is now considered terrorism. Strong double think abilities are required to grasp conduct of US government officials.
It was deliberate, somewhat shortsighted lie. This is how every fuckin big fat corporation behaves these days. It is worse than communism. Just compare Fukushima fiasco to old commies handling Chernobyl. They did everything they could to NOT let this crap hit watertable. They've put liquid nitrogen injecting installation under the reactor to make sure it won't burn through the basement and won't contaminate ground waters. They've put 600 thousands people to work to clean up their mess (every man for one minute or so). Compare this to the crap, lies, corruption and cost cuttings TEPCO is doing on their site. Our corporate fascist system is failing us badly and if we won't put them all in check soon, consequences of their misdeeds, greed and corruption will hit us hard.
Depleted uranium is used because of its pyrophoric properties (in addition to high density). No explosives are needed for it to explode when hitting target. But it is toxic and radioactive crap that causes cancers and birth effects. When oxided, it quickly finds its way to ground water, poisons and irradiates local population for a long time. Just check how Falujah suvrivors are doing these days: 12-fold increase in child cancers, lots of other symptoms remarkably similar to those in Hiroshima. Depleted uranium should be banned for good reasons but it is (still) allowed to use partly because of some technicalities in international law, partly because The Mighty US Army is not going to stop shooting this crap at "liberated targets" and there is nothing on this planet that can force those fucks to abandon it.
Still, most of GS bad trades have been DK'ed. You see, for Goldman Sachs this is 'Heads we win, tails we win' kind of market. They're above the law in every respect. I'm curious what will happen to those tech folks. Will Goldman jail them in retaliation like they did with Aleynikov ? As much as they can call puppet US government to overturn their bad trades, they also can call govt to jail anyone they wish ...
All components required to impose totalitarian regime were in place for some time. Now, our lovely, corporate-sponsored fascist and criminal government decided to turn the key.
So, instead of fixing its behavior (or at least make it a bit less visible), US government (and its corporate sponsors) decided to go out and spy+opress its citizens officially. You're at the tipping point, folks. Your lovely government is now switching from covert police state to overt tyranical regime. This process will propably take another year or two until you'll get pretty much where nazi Germany was in 1939. Your favorite TV station will inform you every day how many "enemies of America" were caught/jailed/murdered this week and you'll fear every day if FBI squad will raid your house because of some phony suspicion.
Having said that, I'd recommend Americans, especially young ones to have second passport and be ready to leave this shithole when things go full retard (eg. your fucked up government starts some mega-war and will need as much cannon fodder as possible).
My guess is that Snowden is side-show in overall USA-Russia relations, albeit a good pretext for both Obama and Putin. Syria is propably the most important issue impacting USA-Russia relations. Anti-ballistic missile shield aimed squarely at Russia might be another one.
Which is propably the case. My biggest fear is that instead of curbing those crooks it will make them doind the same crap overtly. And overtly opressing everyone opposing them. Some crooks have already become proud, overt pricks (eg. Holder saying he won't prosecute big banks and on the other hand praising Aaron Schwarts treatment).
So, they don't use this data to curb drug trafficking, money laundering, cyberattacks. And it turned out that only one terrorist plot was POSSIBLY curbed with all this giant spying operation. This is enough to convince me that governments, banksters and corporations around it are using this surveillance to keep themselves in power and control US population regardless of how much fraud and outright crimes will the government do. From the beginning this had nothing to do with safety of ordinary americans and has everything to do with protecting corrupt, criminal US elites from US population. They don't give a crap about our safety or well being - should they care, they wouldn't defund and dismantle local police and fire departments just to ensure their fellow banksters have bigger profits (thanks to bailouts). They built this monster for the same exact reason STASI built its apparatus. Everything this surveillance would do to benefit citizens is regarded as unnecessary cost and we know what corporate aparatchics and their government cronies do with such "excess costs".
Our corporate overlords from Goldman Sachs not only get scott-free from any conceivable fraud. They also have god-given right to put in prison anyone they wish. We - proles - have no rights at all. We're just a cannon fodder for military-industrial-banker-prison complex and we must obey. Corporate fascism with all its "features" (two-tiered justice etc) at its best.
With latest revelations going mainstream, we're transitioning from stealth surveillance and oppresive state to overtly oppresive corporate fascist state. How long will it take for government opressions to become mainstream ? US police and security apparatus is already quite oppresive and corrupt (propably the worst in the developed world with the biggest prisoner population in the whole world), yet people tend to ignore this. Opressions from corporate fascist state will become part of everyday life sooner than people expect.
UEFI was never intended to improve security. Along with Microsoft's extensions it was designed as a lock-in tool. Too bad we had to wait until it pops up everywhere just to realize it.
Obama promised not to scramble jets to get Snowden and two days later he forced a presidential plane down on suspicions that Snowden might be onboard. Of course, technically he didn't lie as he did this by his european puppet proxies. Eric Holder is even worse than Obama - overtly corrupt as contrasted to typical politicians who at least try to look honest. If he says he "won't torture nor kill", this is propably on the table. US of A desperately wants to make an example of Snowden - even if it will be messy and incur severe political costs. Those fucks want to prevent future whistleblowers by setting example now painful it is to have spine and resist criminal behavior of US government or US corporations.
Content critical of the government, banksters and corporations is already included in this list as "esoteric material".
Congress rejected this bill "very narrowly" (205-217) with 12 abstains. They split themselves into good cops and bad cops almost evenly. How convenient...
Something tells me this was carefully staged political reality show intended to convince people that they still have "some choice", yet it "didn't work out this time". Which is a big lie. They were all complicit in keeping NSA money flowing, they just chose among themselves who will act "good guy" and who will be "bad guy" in this episode.
Once again, there is no functioning democracy in the US these days. US government has gone full retard with spying everyone everywhere, setting up inconvenient folks and even killing inconvenient journalists with enough audacity to warn others that it can happen to them (at least this is how I interpret Richard Clarke's statement).
Your government chose to do bad, bad things that happen to be profitable for them and as their misconducts are becoming more and more blatant, they chose more and more opressions instead of less wrongdoings. Don't expect things to improve anytime soon, it's propably too late.
From TFA: "The Highway Patrol is investigating and checking in with sign makers to see if they filled the unique order.". So if they find someone, throw 42 totally ridiculous charges at suspect and put in prison for next 64 years. This is american way of dealing with pranksters (since 1980, with twice power since 2001).
Political kabuki theatre aside, I don't think congressmen are in position to negotiate any deal with NSA. My suspicion is that NSA tightly holds most, if not all congressmen by the balls. With amounts of data they've collected, they can blackmail just about any politician into submission. Congress will propably vote exactly what NSA wants. Face it, folks. There is no functioning democracy in the US - just as one ex-Presidedent told us. Security aparatchics have all the power - just like in old communist countries or banana republics.
Yet everyone should have hope and avoid apathy. My hope is that I'm wrong and Congress will do The Right Thing tomorrow ...
Does anybody still believes what federal study "finds" ? They lied aboud GoM. They lied about financial fraud for years. They're busy covering up malfeasances of their corporate friends and they don't give a crap about ordinary citizens. They're busy spying everyone and jailing folks who point out their corruption and coverups. Is there anybody who still believes statements from our lovely government ?
I'm not sure it is possible anymore. Those fucks just obtained right to jail citizens for indefinite time without court order (NDAA injunction has been struck down by Obama's cronies in 13 circuit, and good lock with SCOTUS). US of A 2013 reminds me Germany 1936. Scary times ahead...
Compiler was one of many skews in this "honest" benchmark. Aside of deliberately "fixing" benchmark code for intel and deliberately breaking ARM benchmark by disabling NEON. In my opinion they should run identical code, trying to maximize its performance on both platforme and in case of Intel use both compilers and post both results. This would lead potential customer to correct conclusions - as opposed to a bunch of lies and misinterpretations AnTuTu actually posted.
Every person who lived in soviet block remembers similiar slogans. It was everywhere: in communist factories, on the streets, everywhere. For me current form of corporate capitalism is very similiar to old communist system. These are two sides of the same coin: centralization. Corporate central planning masquerading itself as "free market" (which it isn't) with almost the same side effects, parasites (party comrades in old system, corporate CEOs in new system) and inefficiencies. This will fall sooner or later in the same way old soviet system has fallen.
... another bunch of lies and misinterpretations on behalf of US government. IMO they intended to spy on US population from the beginning and all these murky '51%' interpretation, loopholes and corner cases have been put in place in order to obfuscate practices on spying on US citizens. Forget about all this 'terrorism danger' nonsense, it's all about controlling US population and squashing dissent as soon as possible. It's all about your granting full impunity and god-given profits to US upper class (corporate managers, financiers and politicians) and protecting them from dissent on behalf of citizenry. You're all wasting your time discussing minor technicalities (51%) of major problem (being governed by a bunch of criminals) and this is what those crooks want.
Or are you trying to apply corrupt US law onto Sweden ? There was similiar case in Poland (napisy.org) few years ago. Police raided site administrator and some folks who did actual translation. Then it tool 6 years for prosecutor to determine that those translations were actually legal because it was voice->text translation, not text->text, so it did not constitute derivative work. Yet prosecutors did everything in their power to prolong this case, so it took 6 years to close this case. From copyright cartel point of view it is mission accomplished: napisy.org is still defunct. Falkvinge is right that we truly have two-tiered justice system worldwide. It is totally corrupt, yet as long as people still get their daily fox-news-style crap-propaganda, everyone is apathetic enough to just get along with whatever fraud our corporate overlords instigate on us.
With such vast amount of data (possibly collected in near-real-time fashion) TPTBs can manipulate public in any way they want. As sad as it is, if we lose this round, there will be nothing that can stop this criminal syndicate from intruding even more and more into our lives, liberties, stealing even more wealth from citizens and killing even more people overseas. If this trajectory won't change in time, we might descend into new dark ages in a few decades (with a few small ridiculously rich enclaves and everything else looking like Honduras or even worse...).