Thereby defying the 2nd law of thermodynamics, eh? You won't get anything out of it. You'll make more fuel, alright, but the energy that it will cost you will far outweigh the energy you can later extract from it.
It's much more difficult to get what you want if you can't back up your threats with the biggest military arsenal in the world.
It's up to the rest of the world to work for peace, and unless stand united against the current neo-consevative expansion, I think a peace 'similation' is the closest we will get.
The word 'terrorist' and 'enemy' are not interchangable.
You also talk of fighting 'fair'. Which part of invading an innocent sovereign nation on false pretenses, with faked 'evidence' of guilt is fair? You seem to forget who started the whole thing with their 'shock and awe' campaign. Was that fair to the civilians who died?
You talk of freedom. What makes you the sole-giver-of-freedom? What makes you think Moqtada is not also interested in freedom? I think he is - just a different kind of freedom: his people's freedom to control their own destiny, as opposed to the US's freedom to rape other countries for all they're worth.
Which terrorist act is worse? Invading a defenseless country and killing tens of thousands, or blowing up a few clear US targets in your own country to try to get them to back the fuck out?
Get of your high fucking moral horse and take some responsibility for the shit you've put the rest of the world through. Without the US's openly aggressive foreign policy, I think we would never hear the word 'terrorism'.
Take your head out of your arse for a second and consider your argument.
The left don't oppose to any type of energy source just because it has the word 'nuclear' ( or nucular for the Bush supporters ) in it.
We oppose energy sources that are clearly dangerous. Nuclear energy is clearly dangerous. The waste stays around for hundreds of time longer than humans have been walking the Earth. No-one has a right to pollute the world with something so toxic. Find another energy source.
Thermo-nuclear energy, as long as it doesn't produce radioactive waste with an incredibly long half-life, is no problem for Greenpeace or the rest of use.
There's nothing worse than someone who knows very little about what they're talking about criticising people who have taken the time to understand the issues.
You can't get more energy out of it by simply 'reprocessing' it. In fact, the act of reprocessing means that the net energy you'll get from it will be lower, not higher.
The only thing that will last for thousands of years is the radioactive waste.
If you wanted more energy from it ( ie to last for thousands of years ) you'd have to extract it from somewhere else ( ie the Sun ). But extracting energy from the Sun and storing it ( somehow? ) in Uranium is both extremely difficult and extremely stupid.
The only real solution to our long-term energy problem is to capture energy from the Sun and store it ( biomass, solar, wind, hydrogen ). Everything else sucks. Unless of course we find another Iraq every 5 years from now into infinity. Now wouldn't that be nice?
But by the same token you can't support the US by saying:
Yeah sure the US have killed tens of thousands by invading Iraq ( or millions through trade sanctions ), but just look at the hundreds that have been killed by resistance fighters since they invaded
That's what you get for bombing the fuck out of the country and completely destabilising the Middle East. Are you obsolutely certain that the US have the high moral ground here? Do you really think the handful of people killed in the struggle for independance measures at all against the number that were killed even in the initial 'shock and awe' campaign? You have to keep things in perspective and keep in mind who started what.
I'm absolutely certain that the US does not have the high moral ground in this case. And while I don't encourage violence of any kind, I am realistic enough to point out that the so-called 'terrorists' in Iraq are merely everyday citizens in extraordinary circumstances. They have been betrayed by the US and by the whole world for decades and now that US forces are on their soil, they're fair targets. And anyone who sides with them are also fair targets. I don't even live there and I can see their point of view perfectly. The US's actions should have a large number of people being investigated for war crimes. The actions of the resistance fighters simply do not compare, and are even defensible when you hear their stories. Instead of me googling around for a story, I'll just let you imagine one. Do it now. Imagine you were in Iraq. Imagine the past 20 years of your life. Now finish it off with the US killing half your family in their shock and awe campaign, and locked up the remaining men and raped and tortured them. What do you do? Welcome them with open arms?
I was not born with my 'anti-USism'. I have accumulated it over the years by watching and learning.
Take Afghanistan. Or Iraq. Or Cuba. Or Venezuela. Or Palestine. Or the Phillipines. Or Indonesia. Or Vietnam. Or Chille.
The US talks of 'freedom' and 'democracy' and saving the world from the horrors of war. In reality, they are the antithesis of everything they claim to be fighting for. So I make no apology for being anti-US. I will change my tune when they change theirs.
I know, I know. The anonymous coward / Postgres fanboy is right.
The thing about generalising is that it's only generalising up to a certain point. After that point it merely becomes commentary on everyday observations.
I know what it can do: Stored procedures, views and triggers. That's the main argument that the elephant fans like parading around with.
MySQL has it's advantages. Different table types with modular engines, for example, that give you maximum performace for the feature level you want. Speed. Ease of use. And a community that doesn't have their heads up their arses.
I've used Postgres. I even run it currently for cases where stored procedures are handy. It's a pain in the arse. It feels archaic. Only very recently has it gained proper 'alter table' support. I seem to remember only 1 year ago having to create a new table, dump my existing data into it, drop the old table, and rename the new one, just to make a small change to the table. Was it renaming a field or dropping a field? I dunno. Something stupid that I was horrified wasn't supported by a so-called enterprise-level database.
And how about the formats of backups changing with each release? That sure is handy.
So yeah I use Postgres. And I like the fact that it has views and stored procedures ( I also like the fact that MySQL-5.x has views and stored procedures ). But I don't kid myself. MySQL has better foundations. It's going places. Postgres has more features on the scorecard, but it really, honestly bites. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. So go vacuum your database and quit accusing me of being a mindless MySQL drone.
The genocide was as a direct result of the US giving Saddam chemical weapons and telling him to test them, in much the same way that the US now give chemical and nuclear weapons to Israel. The US benefitted directly from Iraqi and Israeli testing of their chemical weapons. US military experts and well as representatives of US chemical companies who manufactured the weapons oversaw most of their use.
The fact that Saddam targetted the Kurds in no way proves that the Iraqi people in general are torn by religious or racial hatred. The only thing it proves is that the US shouldn't have given Saddam chemical weapons when they knew exactly what he would do with them.
You jumping up and down about genocide is ridiculous in light of the fact that the US was more to blame than any other entity on the planet apart from the Ba'ath party and Saddam himself. You certainly can't blame the Iraqi population for the killing of the Kurds. How exactly is your Joe Citizen supposed to stop the Ba'ath party with their US-donated weapons and ammunition?
'You Americans' seem to have a difficulty in fathoming that there is more to the world than 'everything that is not American'.
Just because some Saudi terrorists ( with the full backing of the Bush family ) decided to blow up on of your buildings, you don't have the right to invade whatever frigging country you choose, claiming that it was 'them' who did it. It was NOT 'them' ( Iraqis ), it was 'them' ( Saudis ).
That's like saying that Linux can only do a little more than you can do with an abacus and a piece of chalk.
If you want to use Postgres, fine. Use it. But you make yourself look very small when you go out of your way to put down such a fine project as MySQL just because your Postgres can do... what... oh yeah - you didn't even mention.
What I find really strange is the level of hate that Postgres users feel justified in showering on MySQL users. And then you wonder why you get it back. Personally I don't give a flying fuck what database you use, but once you say you are a Postgres user, my estimation of you automatically goes down a couple of notches because of the number of noxious posts by your clan.
All members get tech support. For games that they claim are working, they will give you free online support until your issue is resolved. Have you even tried that yet? I have. I had a few issues with Black & White. All were solved via their support forums.
What they want is to be able to run the country according to their own whims, not caring about the US, the UN, or Joe Iraqi living down the street.
Absolutely right apart from that bit about 'Joe Iraqi down the street'. People in Iraq care as much about their neighbours as the rest of us.
If the US pulled out tomorrow, I suspect Iraqi would dissolve into civil war instantly, with a wide variety of factions going for it.
This is a lie that is perpetrated my the mass media and our governments. The truth is that the Iraqi people are not on the virge of a civil war, and are quite unified in what they want. I've been to forums where people who had actually been to Iraq recently spoke briefly about their experience. We had former human shields, Red Cross workers, and I think a telecommunications contractor. They all said the same thing - that the Iraqi people are all uniting around a common goal: democratic control of their country - and that all the talk we hear of fighting between different religious groups is a myth.
I remember one particular incident - where a mosque was bombed, and the media here grabbed it and paraded it around as an example of the barbaric nature of Iraqis and how they needed our military guidance for them to achieve piece. What they didn't say in the report was that the bombing was by a right-wing terrorist group that is linked to the current interim government, and that immediately after the bombing, people from all religious backgrounds came together to help the injured, and then later came together to mourn the dead. After the mourning was over, they marched down the street with shouting slogans like "Down with the US". The couple that I saw interviewed ( on SBS ) said that they knew the mosque was bombed to provoke fighting between different religious sects, but that they had seen it for what it was, and were instead insisting that the blame lies soley with the US and their supporters.
Obviously they're concerned about the amount of piracy.
For the money that they charge, you'd think that people who actually choose to use their product could bring themselves to pay for it.
I know there are a lot of people who take the 'boycott WineX' approach because they think WineX harms gaming on Linux in the long run. This post obviously has nothing to do with them, as they choose not to run it.
For those of us who choose to run it, I really can't see what the problem with paying for it is. I've paid on 3 separate occassions. On each occasion I'd paid because another game I wanted to play was now supported, and I've been satisfied each time.
So how about the leeches among us start supporting the rare breed of company that shows any interest in Linux on the desktop?
I just bought a PDF instruction manual for building your own fuel cell at http://www.hsolar.com/.
I've just been glancing through it. Looks good. It's certainly big - over 300 pages. And for $12, you can't really go wrong. Some damned serious work has gone into it.
For those interested in the technology, this is a great way to become more acquainted with it, and if your first project works out well, you can always build a whole stack of them and link them together.
The PDF I bought talks a little about using solar cells for electrolysis of water to charge the cells, and the site I bought it from also has another PDF book that specialises in this ( using solar panels ).
And for those thinking about buying it and uploading to to P2P - please don't. The asking price is very fair, and we really should support people doing cool stuff like this and making such a good product available to us for such a small price. Be nice:)
You think all they want is destruction? Do you really think there are people who think like this, or perhaps this is just what the neo-conservatives would like us to believe so we don't think that there are decent people in Iraq who want the US gone.
I'll let you in on a little secret. Terrorists are ordinary people in extraordinary situations. The fact that they turn to violence of such a nature surely points to the stress that they are under. There are no Iraqis that go out and blow things up for fun, or even because they are religious fanatics. They do it because it's the only way they know of sending a message that they are serious about getting the US out. You're "Joe Terrorist" is just one of the many of these people. They are not after death and destruction. They've had plenty of that under the occupation already. They want the US out, and they want control of their own destiny. Just like we would if someone invaded us.
To drive a car, you need a licence. You have to follow rules. You drive on the correct side of the road. You don't drink and drive. You obey the speed limit. And why do we have to follow the fules? It's because there are other people who also want to use the road, and therefore all drivers have a responsibility to ensure that the safety of others is protected.
Sounds like common sense, right? Well the same should apply to placing computers on the internet. If you want to have viruses and backdoors and worms etc running on your home PC, then fine. Whatever. But if you put your home PC on the internet and take absolutely no fucking responsibility for what you are doing then you are waiving all rights you have over the the safety of your computer. If your computer now pisses me off, I'll 'smbdie' it off the internet. If you're fine with all the rest of the shit that's infecting your PC, then you don't really have any right to complain about me rebooting it once every 5 minutes. And yes I'm doing everyone a service. Firstly, the computer is on the internet for less time than it otherwise would have been, so there's less chance of others being infected. Also, the idiot who owns the computer will be far more likely to do a complete re-install, or at least get a god-damned virus checker and get Windows up-to-date.
Do you know how many people come bitching and complaining to me about their PC being rooted, and when I boot it up find that they're running Windows 2000 SP1 and NO virus protection at all? It's not good enough. And the only ways to get them to take responsibility for their computer are:
a) Legislate. No-one wants legislation covering their computer. It will screw things up for the responsible among us and have no effect on the rest.
b) Make it so unconfortable to run an unprotected computer that they get the hint and protect it.
Having said all this, I know most people will still disagree with me. That's fine. Be angels. Just keep your damned computer secure and you've got nothing to worry about.
That's what unions, religious groups and other non-government organisations are for.
When things get bad enough ( as history teaches us time and again ), this ( a revolution ) is exactly what happens. And Iraq isn't far at all from one. I only hope they have the perseverence to stick it out, or the US will take the hint and start on the next in the 'axis of evil' or 'war on terrorism' or 'enemy of the free world' or whatever else they dream up that George Dubya can manage to pronounce.
Complaining to people won't get you anywhere, unless you go to the government and claim that you believe they are terrorists. That will get you some action.
My advise is to firewall them.
Personally I also try giving them a taste of their own medicine. You'd be surprised how many Windows machines are still vulnerable to the old 'smbdie'. I set up a cron job to 'smbdie' all hackers / spammers etc every 5 minutes. But of course this is horrible advise because ( and I'm sure everyone will respond and tell you that it's very naughty to fight fire with fire, and you will most likely go blind or some bullshit. )
So yeah. Firewall them. And if you've got time, email their ISP and tell them that you've firewalled them and if you have any complaints from customers about them not being able to access your sever, that you will advise them that their ISP is harbouring hackers and that they should switch ISPs.
Well, riddle me this? How the hell is militants derailing the election process going to produce a democracy?
It's called a revolution. It starts small, with targeted attacks on visible symbols of the oppressors. It ends in everyone standing up and saying "Yes. Enough is enough. Down with the current system. We'll take over now."
Of course every time a country attempts this the CIA rock up and make sure it fails ( that is unless they instigated it themselves... they do this quite a bit too ). But successfull revolutions do happen. Yugoslavia had one. The US will claim it was their surgical-precision carpet-bombing of civilians that brought regime change. But if you talk to ( or find quotes from ) people who were there, they will tell you that it was the people who all came together to overthrow their oppressor that won the day.
One quote I saw on a film recently from a uni student in the former Yugoslavia:
The people have won the day! And if the US ever wants to save us with their bombs again, PLEASE don't bother; we did it ourselves today, and we will do it again when needed
Now I have a question for you. And I want you to demonstrate that you have considered it seriously.:
You must have seen the most recent uprisings in Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of people went into the streets to protest the current US puppet regime. Clearly the interim government has NO support. How exactly are you going to get a democratic outcome by telling the Iraqis to go home and just deal with the US puppet regime and forget about all their family and friends and political leaders who have been imprisoned, tortured and killed in Abu Ghraib prision and others. Do you really think Iraq is on the verge of democracy? Look at the democracy that the US has set up in Afghanistan? How about the democracy that the Palestinians are entitled to in their own country? The US is not interested in democracy - just in making people think they want democracy, because they think people will agree with them if they claim to be the champions of democracy. The sad thing is that 50% of the people are gullible enough.
For bonus points, name the major sponsor of Afghani militants in the 80's.
Don't know about the 80's. How about the 90's? The Taliban, which was set up by the CIA and backed at every turn by the US and UK governments.
The question is, if these religious fundamentalists have popular support, why don't they just wait for the elections, and win those, rather than blowing up the very people they are trying to rule over with car bombs.
How about because all political opposition who state that they want to run in the next election ends up in Abu Ghraib prison? Don't know honestly think the US are going to let a stupid little thing like national elections get in the way of their plans for the middle east? Look at how the current US government got into power - by stealing the election and having the courts 'appoint' them winners. And who were the judges on the panel? Why they were all appointed by Bush's brother, who just happens to be the governor of Texas! And who funds the Bush family? The Bin Laden family! Do you really think democracy will prevail in Iraq? If you do, you are incredibly naive. We haven't even got it right here yet. I laugh whenever people try to tell me that our 2-party system and our once-every-four-years vote-for-one-donkey-over-the-other is supposed to be the height of democracy.
Iraqi Citizen: Cool! Reign of terror! I hope my family and I disappear in the middle of the night like the good old days.
You forget that Saddam ( like Bin Laden ) was trained by the US and installed by the US and backed by the US. In fact he was one of their closest allies until 1991. I'm not saying that Iraq should return to what they had before. In fact, that is what you are saying by approving of the so-called 'elections'. Elections under the supervision of the US forces and the current interim government will only produce another Saddam. And that's exactly what the US wants.
There are religious fundamentalists and then there are religious fundamentalists. Take the US government for example - the strongest supporters of the Christian fundamentalists to date.
And as for it being wrong to support religious fundamentalists just because they are anti-US... we don't look at it like that. We support any group who tries to free the Iraqi people from their current oppressors. If they happen to be religious fundamentalists, then fine. The Iraqi people should be free to choose whoever they want to run the place, whether you label them religious fundamentalists or not. This is the secret to self-determination. The fact is that they have widespread popular support, and according to our democratic values, therefore earn the right to government.
Been defeated by one too many of my comments, eh? How about giving some constructive arguments instead of complaining generally about my political inclinations?
Of course it is obvious that for me to upset you, you must also have a political axe to grind. But you carefully forgot to mention your own extreme right-wing bias, eh?
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Thereby defying the 2nd law of thermodynamics, eh?
You won't get anything out of it. You'll make more fuel, alright, but the energy that it will cost you will far outweigh the energy you can later extract from it.
It's much more difficult to get what you want if you can't back up your threats with the biggest military arsenal in the world.
It's up to the rest of the world to work for peace, and unless stand united against the current neo-consevative expansion, I think a peace 'similation' is the closest we will get.
The word 'terrorist' and 'enemy' are not interchangable.
You also talk of fighting 'fair'. Which part of invading an innocent sovereign nation on false pretenses, with faked 'evidence' of guilt is fair? You seem to forget who started the whole thing with their 'shock and awe' campaign. Was that fair to the civilians who died?
You talk of freedom. What makes you the sole-giver-of-freedom? What makes you think Moqtada is not also interested in freedom? I think he is - just a different kind of freedom: his people's freedom to control their own destiny, as opposed to the US's freedom to rape other countries for all they're worth.
Which terrorist act is worse? Invading a defenseless country and killing tens of thousands, or blowing up a few clear US targets in your own country to try to get them to back the fuck out?
Get of your high fucking moral horse and take some responsibility for the shit you've put the rest of the world through. Without the US's openly aggressive foreign policy, I think we would never hear the word 'terrorism'.
Take your head out of your arse for a second and consider your argument.
The left don't oppose to any type of energy source just because it has the word 'nuclear' ( or nucular for the Bush supporters ) in it.
We oppose energy sources that are clearly dangerous. Nuclear energy is clearly dangerous. The waste stays around for hundreds of time longer than humans have been walking the Earth. No-one has a right to pollute the world with something so toxic. Find another energy source.
Thermo-nuclear energy, as long as it doesn't produce radioactive waste with an incredibly long half-life, is no problem for Greenpeace or the rest of use.
There's nothing worse than someone who knows very little about what they're talking about criticising people who have taken the time to understand the issues.
You can't get more energy out of it by simply 'reprocessing' it. In fact, the act of reprocessing means that the net energy you'll get from it will be lower, not higher.
The only thing that will last for thousands of years is the radioactive waste.
If you wanted more energy from it ( ie to last for thousands of years ) you'd have to extract it from somewhere else ( ie the Sun ). But extracting energy from the Sun and storing it ( somehow? ) in Uranium is both extremely difficult and extremely stupid.
The only real solution to our long-term energy problem is to capture energy from the Sun and store it ( biomass, solar, wind, hydrogen ). Everything else sucks. Unless of course we find another Iraq every 5 years from now into infinity. Now wouldn't that be nice?
???
But by the same token you can't support the US by saying:
Yeah sure the US have killed tens of thousands by invading Iraq ( or millions through trade sanctions ), but just look at the hundreds that have been killed by resistance fighters since they invaded
That's what you get for bombing the fuck out of the country and completely destabilising the Middle East. Are you obsolutely certain that the US have the high moral ground here? Do you really think the handful of people killed in the struggle for independance measures at all against the number that were killed even in the initial 'shock and awe' campaign? You have to keep things in perspective and keep in mind who started what.
I'm absolutely certain that the US does not have the high moral ground in this case. And while I don't encourage violence of any kind, I am realistic enough to point out that the so-called 'terrorists' in Iraq are merely everyday citizens in extraordinary circumstances. They have been betrayed by the US and by the whole world for decades and now that US forces are on their soil, they're fair targets. And anyone who sides with them are also fair targets. I don't even live there and I can see their point of view perfectly. The US's actions should have a large number of people being investigated for war crimes. The actions of the resistance fighters simply do not compare, and are even defensible when you hear their stories. Instead of me googling around for a story, I'll just let you imagine one. Do it now. Imagine you were in Iraq. Imagine the past 20 years of your life. Now finish it off with the US killing half your family in their shock and awe campaign, and locked up the remaining men and raped and tortured them. What do you do? Welcome them with open arms?
I was not born with my 'anti-USism'. I have accumulated it over the years by watching and learning.
Take Afghanistan.
Or Iraq.
Or Cuba.
Or Venezuela.
Or Palestine.
Or the Phillipines.
Or Indonesia.
Or Vietnam.
Or Chille.
The US talks of 'freedom' and 'democracy' and saving the world from the horrors of war. In reality, they are the antithesis of everything they claim to be fighting for. So I make no apology for being anti-US. I will change my tune when they change theirs.
I know, I know.
The anonymous coward / Postgres fanboy is right.
The thing about generalising is that it's only generalising up to a certain point. After that point it merely becomes commentary on everyday observations.
I know what it can do:
Stored procedures, views and triggers.
That's the main argument that the elephant fans like parading around with.
MySQL has it's advantages. Different table types with modular engines, for example, that give you maximum performace for the feature level you want. Speed. Ease of use. And a community that doesn't have their heads up their arses.
I've used Postgres. I even run it currently for cases where stored procedures are handy. It's a pain in the arse. It feels archaic. Only very recently has it gained proper 'alter table' support. I seem to remember only 1 year ago having to create a new table, dump my existing data into it, drop the old table, and rename the new one, just to make a small change to the table. Was it renaming a field or dropping a field? I dunno. Something stupid that I was horrified wasn't supported by a so-called enterprise-level database.
And how about the formats of backups changing with each release? That sure is handy.
So yeah I use Postgres. And I like the fact that it has views and stored procedures ( I also like the fact that MySQL-5.x has views and stored procedures ). But I don't kid myself. MySQL has better foundations. It's going places. Postgres has more features on the scorecard, but it really, honestly bites. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. So go vacuum your database and quit accusing me of being a mindless MySQL drone.
Uhh .. what about the ... you know ... US?
The genocide was as a direct result of the US giving Saddam chemical weapons and telling him to test them, in much the same way that the US now give chemical and nuclear weapons to Israel. The US benefitted directly from Iraqi and Israeli testing of their chemical weapons. US military experts and well as representatives of US chemical companies who manufactured the weapons oversaw most of their use.
The fact that Saddam targetted the Kurds in no way proves that the Iraqi people in general are torn by religious or racial hatred. The only thing it proves is that the US shouldn't have given Saddam chemical weapons when they knew exactly what he would do with them.
You jumping up and down about genocide is ridiculous in light of the fact that the US was more to blame than any other entity on the planet apart from the Ba'ath party and Saddam himself. You certainly can't blame the Iraqi population for the killing of the Kurds. How exactly is your Joe Citizen supposed to stop the Ba'ath party with their US-donated weapons and ammunition?
'These people', eh?
Which people?
The Iraqis?
'You Americans' seem to have a difficulty in fathoming that there is more to the world than 'everything that is not American'.
Just because some Saudi terrorists ( with the full backing of the Bush family ) decided to blow up on of your buildings, you don't have the right to invade whatever frigging country you choose, claiming that it was 'them' who did it. It was NOT 'them' ( Iraqis ), it was 'them' ( Saudis ).
Clear?
How daft do they come in your parts, anyway?
Sure.
... what ... oh yeah - you didn't even mention.
That's like saying that Linux can only do a little more than you can do with an abacus and a piece of chalk.
If you want to use Postgres, fine. Use it. But you make yourself look very small when you go out of your way to put down such a fine project as MySQL just because your Postgres can do
What I find really strange is the level of hate that Postgres users feel justified in showering on MySQL users. And then you wonder why you get it back. Personally I don't give a flying fuck what database you use, but once you say you are a Postgres user, my estimation of you automatically goes down a couple of notches because of the number of noxious posts by your clan.
All members get tech support. For games that they claim are working, they will give you free online support until your issue is resolved. Have you even tried that yet? I have. I had a few issues with Black & White. All were solved via their support forums.
Absolutely right apart from that bit about 'Joe Iraqi down the street'. People in Iraq care as much about their neighbours as the rest of us.
This is a lie that is perpetrated my the mass media and our governments. The truth is that the Iraqi people are not on the virge of a civil war, and are quite unified in what they want. I've been to forums where people who had actually been to Iraq recently spoke briefly about their experience. We had former human shields, Red Cross workers, and I think a telecommunications contractor. They all said the same thing - that the Iraqi people are all uniting around a common goal: democratic control of their country - and that all the talk we hear of fighting between different religious groups is a myth.
I remember one particular incident - where a mosque was bombed, and the media here grabbed it and paraded it around as an example of the barbaric nature of Iraqis and how they needed our military guidance for them to achieve piece. What they didn't say in the report was that the bombing was by a right-wing terrorist group that is linked to the current interim government, and that immediately after the bombing, people from all religious backgrounds came together to help the injured, and then later came together to mourn the dead. After the mourning was over, they marched down the street with shouting slogans like "Down with the US". The couple that I saw interviewed ( on SBS ) said that they knew the mosque was bombed to provoke fighting between different religious sects, but that they had seen it for what it was, and were instead insisting that the blame lies soley with the US and their supporters.
Obviously they're concerned about the amount of piracy.
For the money that they charge, you'd think that people who actually choose to use their product could bring themselves to pay for it.
I know there are a lot of people who take the 'boycott WineX' approach because they think WineX harms gaming on Linux in the long run. This post obviously has nothing to do with them, as they choose not to run it.
For those of us who choose to run it, I really can't see what the problem with paying for it is. I've paid on 3 separate occassions. On each occasion I'd paid because another game I wanted to play was now supported, and I've been satisfied each time.
So how about the leeches among us start supporting the rare breed of company that shows any interest in Linux on the desktop?
I see that many people have beaten me to it and educated you about the existance of patches, but ... well ... I just can't help myself.
You, sir, are a moron.
I just bought a PDF instruction manual for building your own fuel cell at http://www.hsolar.com/.
:)
I've just been glancing through it. Looks good. It's certainly big - over 300 pages. And for $12, you can't really go wrong. Some damned serious work has gone into it.
For those interested in the technology, this is a great way to become more acquainted with it, and if your first project works out well, you can always build a whole stack of them and link them together.
The PDF I bought talks a little about using solar cells for electrolysis of water to charge the cells, and the site I bought it from also has another PDF book that specialises in this ( using solar panels ).
And for those thinking about buying it and uploading to to P2P - please don't. The asking price is very fair, and we really should support people doing cool stuff like this and making such a good product available to us for such a small price. Be nice
You think all they want is destruction?
Do you really think there are people who think like this, or perhaps this is just what the neo-conservatives would like us to believe so we don't think that there are decent people in Iraq who want the US gone.
I'll let you in on a little secret. Terrorists are ordinary people in extraordinary situations. The fact that they turn to violence of such a nature surely points to the stress that they are under. There are no Iraqis that go out and blow things up for fun, or even because they are religious fanatics. They do it because it's the only way they know of sending a message that they are serious about getting the US out. You're "Joe Terrorist" is just one of the many of these people. They are not after death and destruction. They've had plenty of that under the occupation already. They want the US out, and they want control of their own destiny. Just like we would if someone invaded us.
Yeah I know the gentleman's approach.
I don't subscribe to it. I look at it like this:
To drive a car, you need a licence. You have to follow rules. You drive on the correct side of the road. You don't drink and drive. You obey the speed limit. And why do we have to follow the fules? It's because there are other people who also want to use the road, and therefore all drivers have a responsibility to ensure that the safety of others is protected.
Sounds like common sense, right? Well the same should apply to placing computers on the internet. If you want to have viruses and backdoors and worms etc running on your home PC, then fine. Whatever. But if you put your home PC on the internet and take absolutely no fucking responsibility for what you are doing then you are waiving all rights you have over the the safety of your computer. If your computer now pisses me off, I'll 'smbdie' it off the internet. If you're fine with all the rest of the shit that's infecting your PC, then you don't really have any right to complain about me rebooting it once every 5 minutes. And yes I'm doing everyone a service. Firstly, the computer is on the internet for less time than it otherwise would have been, so there's less chance of others being infected. Also, the idiot who owns the computer will be far more likely to do a complete re-install, or at least get a god-damned virus checker and get Windows up-to-date.
Do you know how many people come bitching and complaining to me about their PC being rooted, and when I boot it up find that they're running Windows 2000 SP1 and NO virus protection at all? It's not good enough. And the only ways to get them to take responsibility for their computer are:
a) Legislate. No-one wants legislation covering their computer. It will screw things up for the responsible among us and have no effect on the rest.
b) Make it so unconfortable to run an unprotected computer that they get the hint and protect it.
Having said all this, I know most people will still disagree with me. That's fine. Be angels. Just keep your damned computer secure and you've got nothing to worry about.
That's what unions, religious groups and other non-government organisations are for.
When things get bad enough ( as history teaches us time and again ), this ( a revolution ) is exactly what happens. And Iraq isn't far at all from one. I only hope they have the perseverence to stick it out, or the US will take the hint and start on the next in the 'axis of evil' or 'war on terrorism' or 'enemy of the free world' or whatever else they dream up that George Dubya can manage to pronounce.
Complaining to people won't get you anywhere, unless you go to the government and claim that you believe they are terrorists. That will get you some action.
My advise is to firewall them.
Personally I also try giving them a taste of their own medicine. You'd be surprised how many Windows machines are still vulnerable to the old 'smbdie'. I set up a cron job to 'smbdie' all hackers / spammers etc every 5 minutes. But of course this is horrible advise because ( and I'm sure everyone will respond and tell you that it's very naughty to fight fire with fire, and you will most likely go blind or some bullshit. )
So yeah. Firewall them. And if you've got time, email their ISP and tell them that you've firewalled them and if you have any complaints from customers about them not being able to access your sever, that you will advise them that their ISP is harbouring hackers and that they should switch ISPs.
It's called a revolution. It starts small, with targeted attacks on visible symbols of the oppressors. It ends in everyone standing up and saying "Yes. Enough is enough. Down with the current system. We'll take over now."
Of course every time a country attempts this the CIA rock up and make sure it fails ( that is unless they instigated it themselves
One quote I saw on a film recently from a uni student in the former Yugoslavia:
Now I have a question for you. And I want you to demonstrate that you have considered it seriously.:
You must have seen the most recent uprisings in Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of people went into the streets to protest the current US puppet regime. Clearly the interim government has NO support. How exactly are you going to get a democratic outcome by telling the Iraqis to go home and just deal with the US puppet regime and forget about all their family and friends and political leaders who have been imprisoned, tortured and killed in Abu Ghraib prision and others. Do you really think Iraq is on the verge of democracy ? Look at the democracy that the US has set up in Afghanistan? How about the democracy that the Palestinians are entitled to in their own country? The US is not interested in democracy - just in making people think they want democracy, because they think people will agree with them if they claim to be the champions of democracy. The sad thing is that 50% of the people are gullible enough.
Don't know about the 80's. How about the 90's? The Taliban, which was set up by the CIA and backed at every turn by the US and UK governments.
How about because all political opposition who state that they want to run in the next election ends up in Abu Ghraib prison? Don't know honestly think the US are going to let a stupid little thing like national elections get in the way of their plans for the middle east? Look at how the current US government got into power - by stealing the election and having the courts 'appoint' them winners. And who were the judges on the panel? Why they were all appointed by Bush's brother, who just happens to be the governor of Texas! And who funds the Bush family? The Bin Laden family! Do you really think democracy will prevail in Iraq? If you do, you are incredibly naive. We haven't even got it right here yet. I laugh whenever people try to tell me that our 2-party system and our once-every-four-years vote-for-one-donkey-over-the-other is supposed to be the height of democracy.
You forget that Saddam ( like Bin Laden ) was trained by the US and installed by the US and backed by the US. In fact he was one of their closest allies until 1991. I'm not saying that Iraq should return to what they had before. In fact, that is what you are saying by approving of the so-called 'elections'. Elections under the supervision of the US forces and the current interim government will only produce another Saddam. And that's exactly what the US wants.
There are religious fundamentalists and then there are religious fundamentalists. Take the US government for example - the strongest supporters of the Christian fundamentalists to date.
... we don't look at it like that. We support any group who tries to free the Iraqi people from their current oppressors. If they happen to be religious fundamentalists, then fine. The Iraqi people should be free to choose whoever they want to run the place, whether you label them religious fundamentalists or not. This is the secret to self-determination. The fact is that they have widespread popular support, and according to our democratic values, therefore earn the right to government.
And as for it being wrong to support religious fundamentalists just because they are anti-US
Hey arsewipe!
Been defeated by one too many of my comments, eh?
How about giving some constructive arguments instead of complaining generally about my political inclinations?
Of course it is obvious that for me to upset you, you must also have a political axe to grind. But you carefully forgot to mention your own extreme right-wing bias, eh?
Their religious system has nothing to do with it.
In both cases the previous regime was installed and supported by the US.
Where does religion come into it?
And how do you explain the nation-wide co-ordinated resistance to the US occupation?