While it's true that Sykes-Picot redefined borders and boundries over the "natural" ethnic and cultural ones - Iraq is a different nation than it was, even 3 years ago. Saddam took a cue from the old Soviet Union, and deliberately relocated ethnic groups, in order to stress a national iraqi identity over any tribal ones that existed. In some cases, this was simply a matter of positioning his cronies, for example, putting a loyal sunni oil minister into a kurdish region, displacing a kurdish family, etc., as a reward for the loyalty. Some of this mixture happened 20-30 years ago, so there has been intermarriage, and cross-ethnic social bonding.
Some of this is being undone - as evidenced by the internal displacement of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi families, reconsolidation of Turkmen in Kurdistan, and frankly, the mass exodus of Chaldean Christians from all areas of Iraq. But the end result is not going to be a pre-western-meddling Iraq. Sunnis and Shiites had some bad blood before the US invasion - that's true. But after the horrendous bloodletting and death squads and mosque bombings - Iraq will never again be the same. Prior to about two years ago, it may have been possible to recompose the Iraqi army, impose order by force (with elements of the Iraqi army working with the US army), and maybe, just maybe, the Sunnis and Shiites could have mended fences and a unified Iraq could have resulted. But after recent events - I'm not so sure that these two subgroups can ever live peacefully side by side again. I'm starting to think that the only long-term solution is relocation of the Sunni population to Jordan and Saudi Arabia, maybe Syria (particularly the Baathists). I know - that's just despair talking. But here we are.
Male Bonobo chimps pay for sex. Most females will mate for an orange. I'd say that the dynamics of prostitution go WAAAAAY back in our genetic makeup. (I know - we aren't descended from Bonobos, but there is a common ancestor, and it's not unreasonable that this behavior existed in that common ancestor).
At this point, the dollar is so inflated that you by all rights should be tossing 5's. Or you REALLY need to raise your standard
I don't know about your standards, but the US is statistically the most obese country in the world, so, really, fivers are a bit much for most of these cows.
Too bad no one could figure out how to tie Mother Nature to terrorists.
Q.E.D.
The white-collar terrorists sitting in the boardroom of Exxon-Mobil, who make money while their product destroys our planet's ability to sustain life. The white-collar terrorists who billed the public for a CAT-4 survivable levy system, and didn't deliver. The white-collar terrorists who billed the public for a responsive disaster-relief organization and didn't deliver. The white-collar terrorists who portrayed the event on television as "a bunch of dumb looters who didn't leave when they saw a storm coming".
It's been there as long as there's been a Win key (including 2000) - however, some of us poor schmucks got stuck with keyboards that don't have win keys (for example, the keyboard tray IBM has for some of their rackmount servers).
Re:Harddrives wear worse from int Amps than 24/7 u
on
Why Vista Took So Long
·
· Score: 1
My machine is located in my bed room. The fans, the hard drive, make noise. When I sleep, my machine sleeps.
1. If someone refers to God as "Providence" or "Divine Providence", they are not referring to the Christian Deity. They are referring to the Deist Deity - who is called different names by different cultures; Allah, Jehova, Yahweh, etc. But Deists do not believe in scriptural inerrancy. In fact, they believe that scripture, by it's worldy and physical nature, by the fact that it was written by men, is flawed, both unintentionally, and intentionally.
2. Trying to claim George Washington as anything other than a hardcore Deist has got to be some kind of sick joke. His quote was merely being respectful to a certain group.
For some, yes - it's boredom, and the "meaning of life thing" - (packaged up in a neat little book that just about anyone can understand, for the same reason that a McDonald's Cheeseburger is packaged into a neat little box that just about anyone can enjoy).
At least in America, anyway, I think that over the past 40-50 years or so, there's been a growing sense of loss of control of our country, our laws, and our governments. The Evangelical movement has arisen primarily as a tool, a corporate tool, to make money, and keep people distracted from the real problems that affect their lives and make them angsty. Don't worry about Sony installing rootkits on your computer, Jesus is Coming! Don't worry about Wal Mart tracking you with RFID tags, Jesus is coming! Don't worry about nightclubs scanning your driver's license, Jesus is Coming! Don't worry about the bank giving your purchasing information to the FBI, Jesus is coming!
(then there's - Worry about the evil terrorists, Mohammad is coming!)
The nature of this movement is evident when you look at the sheer ruthless industrial efficiency of the new suburban "mega church". A tax-free enterprise, with relatively low operating costs; all they need to do is tell sweet stories a couple hours, one day a week, 2000 or so believers at a time, and sit back and rake in the tithing. Occasionally sponsor a mission or a soup line. And all those angsty people learn is; don't associate with those heathen hippies and their commie ideas.
This is coming from someone who DOES believe in a God, and Jesus.
I used to go to my local suburban megachurch, after I relocated to a different part of the country. What they're teaching, is not the Christianity I was raised with. A whole new set of memes has taken hold. A set of memes that used to be relegated to lunatic fringe wingnuttery. For example: The official stance of the Catholic church, as long as I've been aware, was that Evolution was God's way of making Mankind on Earth - and if it took hundreds of millions of years - well, that's how long it took, and don't hold the scripture to perfect inerrancy, because some parts are allegorical. That shit's just out of style now.
I don't really know what, if anything, can be done to stop this trend. Maybe after a few more scandals, people will stop realizing that their leaders are not God's Messengers. If nothing else, this has brought their leaders great power, and power always always corrupts. (and stealing God's power is "absolute power"). And from that corruption comes arrogance. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
That's bullshit. I never once questioned Israel's right to exist. I don't even question their (or anyone's) right to legitimate self-defense. However - there is a responsibility in how one defends one's self, particularly when there is an overwhelming strategic advantage, as is the case here with Israel vs. Lebanon, or Israel vs. Palestine. Just because scumbag Hezbollah leaders use civilians as shields, does not make it okay for Israel to target civilians. In particular, to use a recent example, Israel's use of cluster munitions to effectively mine southern Lebanon is particularly vile. The mines will not discourage Hezbollah, but they will kill and maim innocent civilians for the next 10 years.
If Israel has a problem with Hezbollah's tactics, then they should file a formal complaint with the UN, get these leaders arrested, and tried at the Hague for crimes against humanity. They don't do this, because having these enemies gives them an excuse to act dispicably themselves.
The money would be much better spent putting more police out on the streets.
You put police on the streets, and then you have to pay them enough money to live in the UK, you have to pay their healthcare premiums, you have to pay their pensions, and if any of them end up playing slappy-face with a punk, then the state gets sued for 5 million pounds.
Cameras are so much less expensive./cheap-labor-conservative
Allowing a Pharmaceutical company to patent 100% of an idea that came say 50% from public money is also an expression of a false dichotomy.
The patent should only give the Pharmaceutical company a monopoly on their portion of the profit. The rest of that IP belongs in the public realm, including that proportion of the profit.
What the public decides to do with that profit is another thing altogether. I'd favor the earlier poster's suggestion of reinvestment in more R&D. Sadly - a complete solution may not make it to the market unencumbered anyway. But perhaps some of the funding could go to discount programs for the disadvantaged - although such programs are fraught with administrative perils.
Saddam Hussein controlled and supressed opposition parties in his country, and manipulated the press.
(Just like we do in the US.)
That's what made him a fascist dictator, despite the elections. Fuck, even the Soviets had elections. Even crazy-as-fuck Ahmadinijad was democratically elected.
That's the whole point of this Bush thing. If you don't respect Liberties, even under a contrived "war" (ie. "The bill of rights isn't a suicide pact!") then you're a fascist dictator. Tampering with the democratic process turns it into nothing more than a jingoistic slogan.
Yeah. Never mind the air strike on a Lebanese family picnicing on the beach.
Hostilities on both sides had been building for weeks. The enablers and excuse-makers in the US media pretended that the breakout of open war was a surprise - - "nobody could have predicted that. . . " (where have we heard that before?).
When two powers want to go to war, they rattle sabers, build tensions, and stage incidents. It's rarely the case that any attack is completely unprovoked. Even the US expected Japan to attack before Pearl Harbor - because the US was embargoing Japan's oil supply. Does not make Japan's surprise attack right - but you certainly can't blame the whole war on that one incident. It's a childish and ill-informed position to take. But dishonestly taking such a position is very useful, when you're trying to justify barbarism.
My criticism of Israel is based on love of Liberty. While it's true that Israel is very free (for Israeli citizens) compared to many other middle eastern countries - they're way behind the US in many areas (like Family Law), and their foreign policy and security practices suck. Let's just say I'm really glad I don't live in a country within 1000 miles of Israel.
Jews? Jewish people? Who cares? - it's a culture. The culture has very little to do with the fascist policies of the Zionist movement. In fact, I know a lot of Americans of Jewish heritage who agree with me on the policies of Israel.
Bottom line is - I really will not put up with the McCarthyish character assassination of blaming all criticism of Israel on "antisemitism" - - there IS antisemitism out there. But it's a logical fallacy to assume all criticism of Israel is driven by it. It's not just a logical fallacy, it's fucking insulting, and in many cases, it's an accusation made specifically to silence legitimate criticism.
Citizens of the former Soviet Union very quickly learned to not trust Pravda (official gov. newsmedia) for their news, because it was a given that it was pure propaganda.
Today in the US - people falsely believe we have a "free press" - or even worse; a Liberally Biased newsmedia. I think that the more of this crap they pull, the better. Because people already know not to trust FoxNews (when they - oops! label a disgraced Republican congressman as a member of the Democratic party, repeatedly, most people are not stupid enough to believe that's an honest mistake). The more of this happens, the less people will trust the newsmedia for accurate reporting. And this is a good thing. A very good thing.
Sadly, unlike the fable "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" - we will not be treated to the entertainment of watching the lying newsmedia being devoured alive by wild beasts. Though we may be treated to watching a major city being vaporized by terrorists using a nuclear weapon. . . won't that be shaedenfraude?
For my CIS degree, right now, I'm enrolled in class called "Discrete Math" - it is part of the CIS program, not part of the Math department (although it's taught by a mathematics professor). Discrete Math covers set theory, logic, truth-tables, proofs, logic circuits, venn diagrams, algorithms, functions, etc.
For me - with a very poor math background, this is a very difficult class. I think most of the other students are having a really hard time with it too. The other classes in this program, the programming classes in particular, are like a vacation in comparison. It's not just the workload, it's the concepts. The teacher acknowleges that its one of the most difficult math subjects to teach, because of the chicken/egg nature; foundational concepts are functions and set theory, and you need to know functions to understand set theory, but you also need to understand set theory to understand functions. So the big problem is bootstrapping into that little cyclical dependency. But an even bigger problem is, for writing proofs, the student needs to have a good background in mathematical stipulated definitions and axioms. That's outside of the scope of this class, and depends on a strong background in algebra. (as in; you can't have coasted through your high-school and college algebra with c's).
I've dabbled in programming for 14 years, and there are many programming-type tasks that I can do. But after a couple of weeks in this class, I've learned that this class presents the foundational concepts to computer programming, and equips students with essential tools to get past some of the most basic problems in computer programming, and progress to some of the really more complex issues of branching logic, and database design, etc. I don't know if I'm going to get as much out of this class as I could. I'm considering re-taking it. Not because I need a better grade - but because, after 14 years, this class, and the concepts in it, is really the main thing I need to take with me in my career as a professional programmer, out of the entire CIS program.
Yes! You win today's "Spot the war-profiteer" game!
Your prize?
You get to be called a "member of the tinfoil-hat-wearing loony-left!" And then you get to work hard while corporate fatcats spend YOUR tax dollars on worthless boondoggles, while they call your patriotism into question for even mentioning it.
Slashdot Mirror
While it's true that Sykes-Picot redefined borders and boundries over the "natural" ethnic and cultural ones - Iraq is a different nation than it was, even 3 years ago. Saddam took a cue from the old Soviet Union, and deliberately relocated ethnic groups, in order to stress a national iraqi identity over any tribal ones that existed. In some cases, this was simply a matter of positioning his cronies, for example, putting a loyal sunni oil minister into a kurdish region, displacing a kurdish family, etc., as a reward for the loyalty. Some of this mixture happened 20-30 years ago, so there has been intermarriage, and cross-ethnic social bonding.
Some of this is being undone - as evidenced by the internal displacement of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi families, reconsolidation of Turkmen in Kurdistan, and frankly, the mass exodus of Chaldean Christians from all areas of Iraq. But the end result is not going to be a pre-western-meddling Iraq. Sunnis and Shiites had some bad blood before the US invasion - that's true. But after the horrendous bloodletting and death squads and mosque bombings - Iraq will never again be the same. Prior to about two years ago, it may have been possible to recompose the Iraqi army, impose order by force (with elements of the Iraqi army working with the US army), and maybe, just maybe, the Sunnis and Shiites could have mended fences and a unified Iraq could have resulted. But after recent events - I'm not so sure that these two subgroups can ever live peacefully side by side again. I'm starting to think that the only long-term solution is relocation of the Sunni population to Jordan and Saudi Arabia, maybe Syria (particularly the Baathists). I know - that's just despair talking. But here we are.
Thousands of years?
Male Bonobo chimps pay for sex. Most females will mate for an orange. I'd say that the dynamics of prostitution go WAAAAAY back in our genetic makeup. (I know - we aren't descended from Bonobos, but there is a common ancestor, and it's not unreasonable that this behavior existed in that common ancestor).
don't wanna be a Canadian Idiot.
At this point, the dollar is so inflated that you by all rights should be tossing 5's. Or you REALLY need to raise your standard
I don't know about your standards, but the US is statistically the most obese country in the world, so, really, fivers are a bit much for most of these cows.
There *IS* a lot of talk lately about eliminating the dollar bill.
I think it's the lowest-value paper currency in the industrialized world - by something like a factor of 4.
One thing would be nice though - if they'd stop making dollar coins the exact size of quarters.
The judge didn't say we have to FIX the problem.
He said we had to start working on it.
And besides, the Roberts Supreme Court is expected to strike this ruling down on appeal anyway.
Heh.
All I need to know about Six Sigma, I learned from last Sunday's Dilbert strip.
Oh yeah, and the failure of my last two employers who were suckered-into Yet Another Consultancy Scam.
Too bad no one could figure out how to tie Mother Nature to terrorists.
Q.E.D.
The white-collar terrorists sitting in the boardroom of Exxon-Mobil, who make money while their product destroys our planet's ability to sustain life.
The white-collar terrorists who billed the public for a CAT-4 survivable levy system, and didn't deliver.
The white-collar terrorists who billed the public for a responsive disaster-relief organization and didn't deliver.
The white-collar terrorists who portrayed the event on television as "a bunch of dumb looters who didn't leave when they saw a storm coming".
Somebody shut that motherfucker up!
It's been there as long as there's been a Win key (including 2000) - however, some of us poor schmucks got stuck with keyboards that don't have win keys (for example, the keyboard tray IBM has for some of their rackmount servers).
My machine is located in my bed room. The fans, the hard drive, make noise. When I sleep, my machine sleeps.
1. If someone refers to God as "Providence" or "Divine Providence", they are not referring to the Christian Deity. They are referring to the Deist Deity - who is called different names by different cultures; Allah, Jehova, Yahweh, etc. But Deists do not believe in scriptural inerrancy. In fact, they believe that scripture, by it's worldy and physical nature, by the fact that it was written by men, is flawed, both unintentionally, and intentionally.
2. Trying to claim George Washington as anything other than a hardcore Deist has got to be some kind of sick joke. His quote was merely being respectful to a certain group.
For some, yes - it's boredom, and the "meaning of life thing" - (packaged up in a neat little book that just about anyone can understand, for the same reason that a McDonald's Cheeseburger is packaged into a neat little box that just about anyone can enjoy).
At least in America, anyway, I think that over the past 40-50 years or so, there's been a growing sense of loss of control of our country, our laws, and our governments. The Evangelical movement has arisen primarily as a tool, a corporate tool, to make money, and keep people distracted from the real problems that affect their lives and make them angsty. Don't worry about Sony installing rootkits on your computer, Jesus is Coming! Don't worry about Wal Mart tracking you with RFID tags, Jesus is coming! Don't worry about nightclubs scanning your driver's license, Jesus is Coming! Don't worry about the bank giving your purchasing information to the FBI, Jesus is coming!
(then there's - Worry about the evil terrorists, Mohammad is coming!)
The nature of this movement is evident when you look at the sheer ruthless industrial efficiency of the new suburban "mega church". A tax-free enterprise, with relatively low operating costs; all they need to do is tell sweet stories a couple hours, one day a week, 2000 or so believers at a time, and sit back and rake in the tithing. Occasionally sponsor a mission or a soup line. And all those angsty people learn is; don't associate with those heathen hippies and their commie ideas.
This is coming from someone who DOES believe in a God, and Jesus.
I used to go to my local suburban megachurch, after I relocated to a different part of the country. What they're teaching, is not the Christianity I was raised with. A whole new set of memes has taken hold. A set of memes that used to be relegated to lunatic fringe wingnuttery. For example: The official stance of the Catholic church, as long as I've been aware, was that Evolution was God's way of making Mankind on Earth - and if it took hundreds of millions of years - well, that's how long it took, and don't hold the scripture to perfect inerrancy, because some parts are allegorical. That shit's just out of style now.
I don't really know what, if anything, can be done to stop this trend. Maybe after a few more scandals, people will stop realizing that their leaders are not God's Messengers. If nothing else, this has brought their leaders great power, and power always always corrupts. (and stealing God's power is "absolute power"). And from that corruption comes arrogance. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
...once everyone who criticizes the government identifies themselves, you go clean them up. Pretty straightforward.. . .
. . . which is why Karl Rove didn't rig the 2006 mid-term elections. . .
So - it's not even worth it to TRY Rule-of-law? givingup on civilization already?
That's bullshit. I never once questioned Israel's right to exist. I don't even question their (or anyone's) right to legitimate self-defense. However - there is a responsibility in how one defends one's self, particularly when there is an overwhelming strategic advantage, as is the case here with Israel vs. Lebanon, or Israel vs. Palestine. Just because scumbag Hezbollah leaders use civilians as shields, does not make it okay for Israel to target civilians. In particular, to use a recent example, Israel's use of cluster munitions to effectively mine southern Lebanon is particularly vile. The mines will not discourage Hezbollah, but they will kill and maim innocent civilians for the next 10 years.
If Israel has a problem with Hezbollah's tactics, then they should file a formal complaint with the UN, get these leaders arrested, and tried at the Hague for crimes against humanity. They don't do this, because having these enemies gives them an excuse to act dispicably themselves.
The money would be much better spent putting more police out on
/cheap-labor-conservative
the streets.
You put police on the streets, and then you have to pay them enough money to live in the UK, you have to pay their healthcare premiums, you have to pay their pensions, and if any of them end up playing slappy-face with a punk, then the state gets sued for 5 million pounds.
Cameras are so much less expensive.
Allowing a Pharmaceutical company to patent 100% of an idea that came say 50% from public money is also an expression of a false dichotomy.
The patent should only give the Pharmaceutical company a monopoly on their portion of the profit. The rest of that IP belongs in the public realm, including that proportion of the profit.
What the public decides to do with that profit is another thing altogether. I'd favor the earlier poster's suggestion of reinvestment in more R&D. Sadly - a complete solution may not make it to the market unencumbered anyway. But perhaps some of the funding could go to discount programs for the disadvantaged - although such programs are fraught with administrative perils.
Saddam Hussein was always elected with 100%
Saddam Hussein controlled and supressed opposition parties in his country, and manipulated the press.
(Just like we do in the US.)
That's what made him a fascist dictator, despite the elections.
Fuck, even the Soviets had elections.
Even crazy-as-fuck Ahmadinijad was democratically elected.
That's the whole point of this Bush thing.
If you don't respect Liberties, even under a contrived "war" (ie. "The bill of rights isn't a suicide pact!") then you're a fascist dictator. Tampering with the democratic process turns it into nothing more than a jingoistic slogan.
Yeah. Never mind the air strike on a Lebanese family picnicing on the beach.
Hostilities on both sides had been building for weeks. The enablers and excuse-makers in the US media pretended that the breakout of open war was a surprise - - "nobody could have predicted that. . . " (where have we heard that before?).
When two powers want to go to war, they rattle sabers, build tensions, and stage incidents. It's rarely the case that any attack is completely unprovoked. Even the US expected Japan to attack before Pearl Harbor - because the US was embargoing Japan's oil supply. Does not make Japan's surprise attack right - but you certainly can't blame the whole war on that one incident. It's a childish and ill-informed position to take. But dishonestly taking such a position is very useful, when you're trying to justify barbarism.
My criticism of Israel is based on love of Liberty.
While it's true that Israel is very free (for Israeli citizens) compared to many other middle eastern countries - they're way behind the US in many areas (like Family Law), and their foreign policy and security practices suck. Let's just say I'm really glad I don't live in a country within 1000 miles of Israel.
Jews? Jewish people? Who cares? - it's a culture. The culture has very little to do with the fascist policies of the Zionist movement. In fact, I know a lot of Americans of Jewish heritage who agree with me on the policies of Israel.
Bottom line is - I really will not put up with the McCarthyish character assassination of blaming all criticism of Israel on "antisemitism" - - there IS antisemitism out there. But it's a logical fallacy to assume all criticism of Israel is driven by it. It's not just a logical fallacy, it's fucking insulting, and in many cases, it's an accusation made specifically to silence legitimate criticism.
What, besides faith in (free market == personal freedom) makes you think this wouldn't happen?
That's essentially what we're talking about.
It's faith.
Starry-eyed members of the Church of the Invisible Hand.
On the bright-side though;
Citizens of the former Soviet Union very quickly learned to not trust Pravda (official gov. newsmedia) for their news, because it was a given that it was pure propaganda.
Today in the US - people falsely believe we have a "free press" - or even worse; a Liberally Biased newsmedia. I think that the more of this crap they pull, the better. Because people already know not to trust FoxNews (when they - oops! label a disgraced Republican congressman as a member of the Democratic party, repeatedly, most people are not stupid enough to believe that's an honest mistake). The more of this happens, the less people will trust the newsmedia for accurate reporting. And this is a good thing. A very good thing.
Sadly, unlike the fable "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" - we will not be treated to the entertainment of watching the lying newsmedia being devoured alive by wild beasts. Though we may be treated to watching a major city being vaporized by terrorists using a nuclear weapon. . . won't that be shaedenfraude?
For my CIS degree, right now, I'm enrolled in class called "Discrete Math" - it is part of the CIS program, not part of the Math department (although it's taught by a mathematics professor). Discrete Math covers set theory, logic, truth-tables, proofs, logic circuits, venn diagrams, algorithms, functions, etc.
For me - with a very poor math background, this is a very difficult class. I think most of the other students are having a really hard time with it too. The other classes in this program, the programming classes in particular, are like a vacation in comparison. It's not just the workload, it's the concepts. The teacher acknowleges that its one of the most difficult math subjects to teach, because of the chicken/egg nature; foundational concepts are functions and set theory, and you need to know functions to understand set theory, but you also need to understand set theory to understand functions. So the big problem is bootstrapping into that little cyclical dependency. But an even bigger problem is, for writing proofs, the student needs to have a good background in mathematical stipulated definitions and axioms. That's outside of the scope of this class, and depends on a strong background in algebra. (as in; you can't have coasted through your high-school and college algebra with c's).
I've dabbled in programming for 14 years, and there are many programming-type tasks that I can do. But after a couple of weeks in this class, I've learned that this class presents the foundational concepts to computer programming, and equips students with essential tools to get past some of the most basic problems in computer programming, and progress to some of the really more complex issues of branching logic, and database design, etc. I don't know if I'm going to get as much out of this class as I could. I'm considering re-taking it. Not because I need a better grade - but because, after 14 years, this class, and the concepts in it, is really the main thing I need to take with me in my career as a professional programmer, out of the entire CIS program.
Yes! You win today's "Spot the war-profiteer" game!
Your prize?
You get to be called a "member of the tinfoil-hat-wearing loony-left!"
And then you get to work hard while corporate fatcats spend YOUR tax dollars on worthless boondoggles, while they call your patriotism into question for even mentioning it.
Congratulations!
(and welcome to the club)