You really have no rebuttal do you. You have no proof, dismiss factual data and cannot rationally counter the points I made and data I linked. So you come up with the dhimmi-esque statements. You are the dhimmi but are too ignorant to see this. If you have verifiable counter points I'm all ears - but you don't, you lack any sophistry so resort to idiotic pop-psychology arguments. There is no point debating you - you simply won't consider facts presented to you - and instead come up with a bullshit deflection that projects your own jeans-creaming fantasy. Lame.
Well again, it would be easier to disregard that argument if so many of the people who are anti-Islam weren't racists.
That is completely false. Most of the opponents of the *ideology* of Islam are not racist in any way. The are proponents of liberty for all men. The problem is that Islamists slander these liberty defenders as racist (which is completely counter-factual), the mainstream media repeat this slander, and unfortunately moral people (which probably includes yourself) believe the slander rather than independently checking what the counter-jihadis have to say. Counter-jihadis like Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are routinely slandered as racist yet nothing could be further than the truth. They repeatedly say they have no problem with Muslims, they do have a problem with the evil ideology called Islam. If only people like yourself would listen to what the jihadis were saying (that the Qur'an is the motivation for their terrorism), what the counter-jihadis were saying (liberty for all, and Islam is diametrically opposed to Enlightenment/secular humanist values).
Political correctness only requires that you be explicit about which elements of Islam you're talking about.
False again. Political correctness requires you be "nice" and "not offend anyone". You cannot speak *Truth* in case some hyper-sensitive Islamist gets offended by such truth (note: Islamic Law defines slander as something a Muslim does not want to hear - even if completely true). Political correctness is all about not speaking the plain truth, and there is no right to offend. In this way Political Correctness is the antithesis of Free Speech. One cannot support Political Correctness and Free Speech - they are in opposition. I choose to support liberty for all men and Free Speech, Equality for Women, Freedom of conscience, Equality of all races, Homosexual rights, animal rights, protection of minors, etc. That's why I try and make a case against Islam, Political Correctness, and the swathes of the Political Left and Right that support these and oppose Liberty. So don't call us proponents of liberty racists, it just shows you don't understand what we are talking about and what we fighting against.:)
The way you use that word shows you don't really understand it at all.
The problem with that list is that it is basically any attack that a muslim has any sort of involvement in. You could make a similar list of attacks by christians around the world, doesn't mean they are doing it because they are christian.
Could you? you really think that? what a load of bullshit. Plus, there is a fundamental difference. Islam specifically comments all able bodied men to wage jihad on unbelievers. Of course, since you have read the Qur'an you will realise verses like Sura 9:5 abrogate all the peaceful verses and command this. This is *mainstream* Muslim doctrine. Perhaps you haven't ever read the Qur'an and hadiths and don't realise just how evil they are. Rather than acknowledge you are ignorant about the subject you spew insults that opponents of the *ideology* of Islam are 'loons'. Rather than be a dick perhaps you should actually read the Qur'an for yourself. No sane non-dhimmi would ever defend it. Either you are complicit or you are an idiot to defend the indefensible evil. You then proceed to dismiss facts (eg. the massive attack statistics where the jihadis say they are motivated by Qur'anic teachings, but your apply your racist judgement and give them a pass instead of accepting the reasons they *say themselves*) . How about you get a clue and stop excusing evil. You are being a dhimmi and it is undignified and shameful. Stand up for liberty of all people - oppose the evil ideology that is Islam (instead of making excuses for it). Oh yeah, and please do some objective research.
I understand your point of view but it is two decades out of date. The Left is not for individual liberties or Free Speech. Look at how the Left demonize anyone with any dissenting view. Example: If you believe in global warming (undeniable) but are still skeptical/researching its cause (whether the most significant cause is anthropomorphic or not) then you will shot down in flames. If you criticize Islam (an ideology) you are shot down as a racist (its a non-sequiteur, that that doesn't matter to the Left). Yes, the Right are bad, as you say. I agree. It turns out that the Libertarians are the ones promoting individual liberties. Yes, they are not perfect, and their economic programme may be too lassiez faire - but it is all moot if the Left and Right don't act to stop the creeping Sharia and its enabler, Political Correctness, that is eroding Free Society.
Actually (and surprisingly) no. The only true Religion of Peace is Jainism. Here is an excellent (short) video by Sam Harris explaining this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDMOxjHIt0U
"Sam Harris: The Problem with Islamic Fundamentalism are the Fundamentals of Islam"
Actually quite the opposite. What I pointed to is a daily list of fatal attacks. These are *facts*. It must be nice for you to live in a cocoon where you don't to examine *facts* and statistics and instead throw around perjoratives like 'loon' with no basis in fact. You sir, are the enemy for Freedom. Look at the facts/statistics goddamit !
"Muslims want self-determination, but not an American-imposed and defined democracy. They don't want secularism or theocracy," said the professor of Islamic Studies at Georgetown University in Washington.
More Leftists bollocks. Remember, the BBC has fallen greatly and is no longer an impartial source. How about you cross-check multiple independent sources as a proper researched would do. Then you would encounter survey results like these: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1510866/Poll-reveals-40pc-of-Muslims-want-sharia-law-in-UK.html http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Muslim_Statistics_(Shari'ah)
Well, they already have that with 87 Sharia courts already operating in the UK. It is quite possible that these courts will be extended to non-Muslims in the future when they have disputes with Muslims. This has already happened in numerous states in the US, where the Constitution has already given way to Sharia in several court cases. Google is your friend if you want to find the truth.
So stop being lazy and use the Scientific Method - cross-check the *facts*.
Your counter facts, please. Otherwise you could look at some of the references I supplied and get a clue at what I was trying to say:) That link, http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html#Attacks ought to clue you in to the reality of Islam a fair bit. The Obama Administration is deluded by the Leftist "narrative" of cultural equivalence and that "moderate" Islamists can be supported and "extremists" sidelined.
The *facts* are that the mainstream of Islam approves and supports jihad and global Sharia (Google for the surveys). Negotiation and appeasement won't work. This is a fight to the death between the supporters of Enlightenment values and the Islamists.
I suggest you do the research yourself. Look at the agenda of the OIC (Stephen Coughlin's videos on YouTube are simply the best explanation). Read the Qur'an and hadiths - they would be condemned as an ideology of utter hate speech if they weren't cloaked in a fig leaf of plagiarized superstitious mumbo-jumbo. Check the *facts* rather than just going by what you think you know. That's all I ask.
What facts do you have to oppose this? What is known about Benghazi is that Ambassador Stevens was closely working with groups against (monstrous) Gaddafi who had given up his WMD programme, was still a brute, but was fighting Al Qaeda in the Maghreb. The US organized for weapons to go to the rebels in Libya. Note that Benghazi as a city has supplied Al Qaeda with more homicide bombers than any other city in the World. The Benghazi embassy was organizing to ship ex-Libyan weapons to the Syrian Sunni rebels through Turkey. The attack on the embassy was watched by US drones in real time and the President and Secretary of State did nothing. What they did do is deflect their undercover activities with a bogus story about the Innocence of Muslims video (and even though factual and under the First Amendment rights of the producer they worked to suppress it). The Obama Administration is petrified that the truth about Benghazi gun running comes out. They believe they can arm Muslim "moderates" but the thing is Muslims may be moderate but the ideology of Islam is never moderate (so said Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister).
So, your facts and references please. Yes, it sounds incredible that a US Administration would do this - but that is what they did. Unfortunately some Al Qaeda militias went and ruined their plan. The Obama Administration's foreign policy is coming apart at the seams (although the complicit mainstream media tries to deflect it as much as they can). The reason it is coming apart is because reality is catching up with them. Obama thought the US was bad and the cause of the troubles of the Middle East and by promoting "moderates" he could suppress the dangerous Salafis. This was completely delusional - but the Left has always acted on ideology and theory rather than look at actual reality and facts.
There is a great deal more to tell. I won't bother starting with it unless you are actually interested and have an open mind (in which case I'd be happy to point you in the correct direction). Some people do have an open mind and can see the *facts* I'm trying to relay - that's why they kindly gave me +5.
You give the solution in the post. The Free World needs to enact laws that essentially state the following:
All citizens are subject to the same laws (no exceptions!), and
Citizens are only subject to national laws (no foreign laws).
These conditions prohibit the application of Sharia in the West. This is the most substantial part of what needs to be done. The last thing to do is to enforce the existing local laws. That means you don't let Muslim rapists off "because they didn't know" (as happened very recently in Britain), or let Muslims terrorize the media and populace when those people exercise Free Speech rights that are critical of Islam (just as they are free to be critical of every ideology and religion).
Hey fella, you know the Soviet Union died back in 1990 right? The Cold War's over. We've been drinking the authoritarian right kool-aid for quite some time now.
The Soviet Union did spread its ideology to the West (eg. funded many Leftist groups, particularly in academia). While the Soviet Union did collapse much of its points of view are now very fashionable amongst the political elites and academic institutions. The Left is all about equality. That sounds good in theory but in practice it is totally against individual initiative, entrepreneurship, individualism and unorthodox thinking. Equality trumps everything else. The left believe that "discrimination" in any form is a problem - but discrimination is required for discernment. Without discernment everything is equivalent, there is no good and evil, everything is relative. There is no superiority of the Free World over barbaric and inhumane practices because cultural relativity says they are equivalent. Hence, there is no reason to oppose evil in the World because one man's evil is another man's good. This is complete bullshit and is this is why strong and aggressive Islamists (eg barbarians) are able to agitate and bend the West to their will. The Leftist agenda lacks the moral clarity to analyze and oppose the Islamist agenda. In fact, the Left is so determined not to pass discernment/discrimination that they actively aid and abet the Islamists. The Left choose to ignore what the Islamists have been saying for 1400 years - that the Islamist goal is not mutual tolerance but the goal of Islam is to dominate the entire World, sooner or later.
Even worse than the lack of discernment by the Left is their rapid suppression of any dissenting views. They also are completely for conformity to their views and shut down any opposing views, even it factual, through personal attacks (eg. slandering Geert Wilders and the EDL as if they were decendants of Nazis and the KKK, when their agenda is defending individual liberties exactly as the original Left did). The new Left supports the collective over individual rights. The funniest thing is that the new Left basically have the same goals and tactics as the old political Right. It is the new Right (eg. libertarians) who believe in dissenting views, morality over equality and individual rights and the new Left opposes it. Black has become white and white has become black in our crazy world. We also get what used to be the bastion of liberty (the US) no longer promoting liberty but installing and defending opponents of liberty (Islamists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood). The political Left are also much more ideologues (who ignore facts and realpolitik) than the libertarians.
So, with regard to the Islamists the actions of the political Left can be described best by a quote from Winston Churchill
"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
Appeasement is the policy of the Leftist political elite in the West and of the academics supporting them (and the academic and educational institutions that are inculcating our young with a Left-friendly and Islamist-friendly politically correct agenda). The whole culture of the West is being steeped in appeasement rather than standing up for liberty
Islamic democracy functions like this: One man, one vote . . . once.
Exactly! Alan Dershowitz made the same statement with regard to Hamas. If anyone is under the illusion that the Islamist agenda and secular democracy are compatible you know have two case studies for this point of view. When the "torch is passed" from wimpy suicidal democracies to Islam each man will get one vote, one time.
Does any Free Man want this? hell no! and we shouldn't accept it for our fellow global citizens in other countries. Support anyone who believes in an supports *individual liberties* and opposes the tyranny that inevitably arises from the non-individualist *collective*.
If you are in the US that means take a look at the facts of the Obama Administration. Do they support individual liberty? (no) are they supporting the (evil Islamist) Muslim Brotherhood? (yes). That Administration believes it knows better than its citizens what is good for them. It promotes the (heartless) collective at the expense of the individual. Don't believe me? Then please look at the track record of decisions. Obama certainly has pizzazz and glamor, but his policies are against the Constitutional Rights of US citizens. Yes, Obama is not alone in this, both Democrats and Republicans want Big Government at the expense of civil liberties (although the citizens are heavily taxed to pay for the Big Government and its entitlement promises). Again, support anyone who is for individual liberties - that is the only way you will revive your Republic (which has largely been scuppered, if you look at the evidence; just think of the things you cannot say in public anymore; or what border agents can do to you; or how Obama's NDAA can kill US citizens on US soil without any judicial oversight whatsoever). ps. I'm not a Republican nor a US citizen. I just see that at the time the World needed strong US leadership to promote liberty and freedom around the globe there is instead a neo-Marxist ideologue that is aiding and abetting inviting the enemies of the Free World (eg. the Muslim Brotherhood) into decision making in the White House. Unbelievable! What would be great is a strong leader in the US that would stand up and promote liberty and freedom for all global citizens around the World. Sadly, Obama is not that man. The "change" he promised appears to be a Big State that progressively strips the liberties of US citizens, and stands idly by while oppressed masses yearning for true democracy in Iran and Egypt call for at least a few words of encouragement from a US President.
If by "Egypt" you mean the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist dominated government has every right to deny what 80 million Egyptians see then you'd be right.
If by "Egypt" you mean that the 80 million people ought to have a right to make their own minds up as to what is good and what is bad, they you most decidedly are *wrong*.
No one is arguing about Egypt's sovereign right to do this. The problem being discussed is that a small group of people are dictating what a great mass of people can and can't see. Egyptian society is going backwards and the liberties of its people are being eroded. Egypt is not headed for Enlightened democracy, it is on a path to become a hellhole of the magnitude of Saudi Arabia (or Iran). Nice one Obama! (you fskn clueless ideologue!!!111)
You cannot be for Free Speech and think that a government is doing good by censoring *all of YouTube*. So please don't be clueless. Those in the Free World are doing good by making noise about the freedoms denied to our fellow citizens. It's not because we see ourselves as superior (although our culture is superior to Islamism) but because we want the Egyptians to experience the same freedoms we have. Our lives and governments are not perfect, but they're a damn sight better than where Egypt is now, or where it is headed.
The rights of the 80 million people (well, whatever proportion have YouTube access, which is still more than most non-Egyptians think) are more important than the theocratic ideology of the Egyptian Government. No Free Man should support the blanket censorship of YouTube by a Government unless it is actually hate speech (which this video certainly wasn't; it was merely *true facts* that exposed the tyrannical warlord Mohammed for the monster he was).
So stop giving your consent to evil! Free Men must research and oppose the evil ideology called Islam.
Political Correctness is the *enemy* of Free Speech and Liberty. Don't be fooled by the MSM ! Escape The Matrix and do your own research - the media is lying to you by omitting critical facts that don't fit their "narrative". Islam and its enabler 'political correctness' are the enemies of every free person and every Enlightenment liberty.
I agree with you - I just didn't want to get side-tracked on the fact that none of the claims of religions are scientifically verified. Unfortunately some of the people resisting True Evil (tm) also known as "The Ideology called Islam" just happen to be hard-core Christians and Hindus. They are right about Islam, even if it is what an atheistic might consider the wrong reasons (atheists/humanists see Islam as a dire and increasing threat to liberty; other religious just claim Islam is wrong). At this stage of the game I'll accept them into my camp.
Once we defeat "The Religion of Peace" (ha, what a joke - this is such a lie as shown by the facts: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/) then we can have reasoned debate with those with religious delusions (eg. show them the massive amount of contradictions documented in the Skeptics Annotated Bible: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/)
At the moment most of the Free World are not aware of the 57-country Organization of Islamic Cooperation's (OIC) control of the UN (they are the largest single voting bloc, and dominate outfits like the UN Human Rights Council). The OIC claims jurisdiction over any country that has Muslims (that's right, their claim includes where you live). Since they dominate the UN HRC they are slowly but steadily making progress in implementing Islam-friendly laws. Then we have the muppets in the Free World going along with this to be 'nice' (eg. Hiliary Clinton's abject sell-out of the US First Amendment when she co-sponsored the Sharia-compliant UN HRC Resolution 16/18; disgusting behaviour for a US leader). The Muslim Brotherhood has just taken the chair of the OIC. Their plans are proceeding quite nicely and the West mostly remains asleep. A few do notice but are mostly stiffled by those with an ideological Left bent (part of the Red-Green Alliance; where the political Left support the Islamist goal of bringing down the existing international order that has maintained some semblance of international stability).
So yeah, I agree with your anti-Religious 'rant'. However, I think it is prudent to use all the Allies we can muster to defeat the rising tide of Islamism. If we stay balkanized in factions (atheists vs Christians, Catholics vs Protestants, Democrats/Progressives vs Republicans/Libertarians) then we remain divided and weak against the single biggest and focussed ideological threat to all of us: devout Islam.
It is important to note that while Christianity may be wrong, it is definitely a mistake to assert it is equally wrong as Islam. Islam is much more wrong because it is totalitarian and covers all aspects of life (especially political). Islam claim full dominion over non-adherents (that means *you*, Slashdotters) whereas Christianity does not make this claim (not these days at least).
Now it might be a crummy video, but don't mistake poor production values for being factually incorrect. The video is based on statements in the Qur'an and hadiths - please go and check these things for yourself: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/index.htm [Skeptics Annotated Qur'an].
It gets worse though. Both Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama were opposed to the video to cover up their arming of Al Qaeda elements in Libya through the embassy in Benghazi - and this backfired because the Obama Admistration are in total denial about jihad as a motivation of Islamism (as *mandated* by the Qur'an). The foreign policy of the US Administration is unbelievably misguided - because the political Left (which this State Department and Administration is) will not let the facts on the ground get in the way of their narrative. They are denying reality but the reality is rapidly catching up - and the securitry of the Free World is being traded for appeasement (in the hope that Islamists will be "moderate" - which is a ridiculous idea if you have ever read the Qur'an, hadiths and have an understanding of Islamic history for the last 1400 years).
Appeasement will not work with Islamists. Selling Israel out will not work (the jihadis have been in business for 14 centuries before Israel was established - you can't blame the joos for the actions of the jihadis). Making concessions to Muslims will not work (since the Islamists do not believe in quid-pro-quo; they believe they are right, the Free World is wrong, and its their way *only*). The Obama Administration abandoning the rest of the globe comes at exactly the wrong time - but perhaps this is no surprise given the number of Muslim Brotherhood members in the Administration influencing policy (which is why they are so afraid of Michelle Bachmann calling for an investigation - such an investigation would reveal that the Administration is so thoroughly penetrated it can barely be trusted to lead the Free World).
Fortunately there are signs of hope. Florida just passed a bill to outlaw Sharia. If other US states and other sovereign nations do the same then the Free World will remain Free. Then we only have to convince the wannabe dhimmis in the West to actually check the facts of what is going on - and not rely on the narrative they have been fed - they are in the Matrix and resist the truth of what is happening - preferring to *factual* arguments as some kind of 'racism' [absolutely crazy; Islam is a violent and totalitarian ideology, just like Naziism and Soviet Communism, it has nothing to do with 'race'].
Wake up folks. The biggest enemy of Freedom and Liberty in the World is the ideology of Islam (and those who apologize for it, eg. Obama and the political hard-Left). The video the Innocence of Muslims was a clumsy (but factual) attempt by an Egyptian Coptic to highlight the evils of the ideology and its warlord founder. To bad so many people simply ignored the film based on the lies of Islamist apologists (as in, the narrative from the Left-biased media). If you checked the facts you'd see the video was right - Mohammed was evil and against every the Free World stands for (but not against what the political Left now stands for - destruction of the system of the Free World).
This is excellent from AMD to release source in a very timely manner. It shows commercial companies can support Free Software losing the ability to compete (which AMD will have factored in).
They are supporting us so I suggest we support them - vote with your wallets gentlemen! We win because we get drivers that will be supported for a long time, we also win because AMD GPUs generally have the best price-per-perfomance value (even if not always at the insanely expensive peak of absolute performance), and AMD will also win because it gets sales from customers that recognize the mutal win.
Hopefully NVidia will also see this move and get the hint. That would be a further win.
Spot on. For the simulation I mentioned all DIS PDUs are directed to the central (multi-threated) server where they are checked for validity and forwarded to clients. This limits the total number of clients but to a smaller extent than you would think (most checks take less than a microsecond to perform; eg. does the client have any missiles left to launch, is their updated position reasonable compared to the dead reckoned value [they're not travelling at Mach 25]; do they have any fuel left. eg. no unlimited aftrerburner). The server also has to filter EntityStatePdu updates so that no updates are given to players that could not see the object (preventing 'GOD mode' displays - which I would call 'AWACS mode' [actually 'JOINTSTARS mode' since surface objects would also be known]).
From a functional point of view the simulation client and server are both fully DIS compliant in terms of wire protocol. They are not compliant in the fact that the server controls the missiles/munitions rather than the client that launched them, and some decisions are made on the server (eg. collisions, damage) rather than the client. This extra checking goes against the DIS non-functional aspect that each client is fully responsible for itself (which is really a recommendation for scalability and not really a requirement for compatibility).
Also, DIS falls short in terms of authenticating clients. For that I use a SOAP webservice and 2048-bit RSA keypairs. Java makes that easy:) So yeah, I'm as DIS compliant as I can be while having to make alterations for the fact that the clients cannot be trusted (no Star Trek style 'Kobayashi Maru' style scenario is possible - James T Kirk is not smart enough to beat me, lol).
With regard to scalability. My solution will be (this is still a work in progress) to cluster the servers. The trusted servers will communicate with one another and 'hand off' entities to one another. The 'sharding' in the cluster will be by the simulated geography, eg the server managing aircraft launching from Israel handles a different set of aircraft to the server managing the aircraft over Iran (and the Carrier Battle Groups nearby), but the 'onwership' of the aircraft get transferred from one server to another as the simulated aircraft transits to the target area. Does this make sense? That mitigates the increased burden on the servers. One benefit is that the clients are very lightly loaded and have phenomenal performance and can be quite lightweight, eg a tablet (the clients are really only limited by their GPU performance and VRAM).
What were the circumstances of the death? were they extensively provoked? soldiers don't usually just beat people to death for no reason - unless they are drunk. It would interesting to hear the facts of this case rather than possibly just slandering two soldiers without considering mitigating factors.
\Not true. IEEE 1278.1-1998 DIS has been out for a long time (first version of the spec in 1993). It is designed to have massive numbers of interacting agents. Even on a Pentium II you could get a thousand clients connecting. How do I know this? I'm currently writing a multi-threaded cross-platform modern jet combat simulator (using Java 7+OpenGL/JOGL+OpenAL+JInput+OpenDIS, if you must know) and having a lot of clients and CGF (Computer Generated Forces) is well within the capabilities of one of the 8-core AMD CPUs you can get. The performance of OpenGL and modern multi-threaded Java is outstanding (compared to the existing single-threaded C++ jet combat simulations currently on the civilian market; the DCS series and Falcon BMS).
My understand is that many military aircraft these days (and certainly the simulators) have hardware support for IEEE 1278.1 so pilots can learn to operate cockpit in a massively networked environment. Hence, it appears your post is speculation rather - because the military have been able to have extensive simulated engagements for a long time - although a particularly royal air force was interested in the characteristics of the 80-player (40 a side) battles we were able to host in the Eagle Dynamics Flaming Cliffs 2 simulator.
They don't use Cg because many devices have ATI hardware (which gives better "bang for buck" performance than NVidia, in general). OpenGL will work on NVidia, ATI and Intel hardware - which is a big advantage.
OpenGL has been far more fragmented in terms of the numer of vendor extensions you needed to use for a long time to get access to recent functionality.
Your OpenGL knowledge is clearly out-of-date. The extension mechanism still exists, of course, but is not needed to get GLSL shaders that have advanced functionality.
All the growing platforms use OpenGL. Even Windows can use OpenGL (although it is not tyhe favored child). If you have an eye on the future, it makes far sense to develop with OpenGL. That way you can develop shaders that will work on: Android, iOS, Mac, Linux, Windows, Unix, embedded devices (eg. commercial avionics), the PS3. What you miss out on is XBox 360 and Windows Phone. Compare the combined size of the coverage of OpenGL platforms to the Direct3D-only platforms. There is simply no contest anymore in terms of units shipping and growth rate.
OpenGL is the future of hardware accelerated graphics. The nice thing is that no matter what changes in the hardware/platform space you investment in OpenGL is never lost, it comes across as you migrate.
There is a substantial risk of a bioterrorist attack on the US from the Hezbollah operations in Mexico. Whether you believe John McAfee's revelations or not: http://www.whoismcafee.com/a-clear-and-present-danger/
The truth is the scenario he presents is possible entirely plausible.
The solution is to enforce the Federal border control laws. The Feds won't do it. So the Arizona State government took matters into their own hands and created a state law that was similar to the Federal law, but Arizona would be able to enforce it. The Obama Administration took Arizona to court and the state border law cannot be enforced (not that the Obama Administration also took states to court to stop them defending Constitutional rights by enacting anti-Sharia legislation; since Sharia is opposed to all other Constitutional right). The Obama Administration's solution was instead to put up signs warning US citizens to stay away from areas where the narcos and people smugglers operate: http://thecitysquare.blogspot.com/2010/09/feds-cede-border-to-smugglers-warn.htmlhttp://thecitysquare.blogspot.com/2010/07/arizona-law-is-working-already.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_v._United_States
Enforcing *existing laws* would do more for border security that some gadgets. Just as drugs come in that border it is easy for ricin or other bioagents to come in. Hezbollah and their Iran backers would just love to have the option to sow terror in the US with a bioattack: in addition to the option they have of two dozen Shahab 3 IRBM missiles they have installed in Venezuela; and will probably upgrade to Shahab 5 missiles with nuclear warheads soon. Don't worry, your President has just appointed Hagel who thinks that talking with the Iranians is best. Yes, they Iranians have already had a decade of talks and more talks will just give them more time to finish their nukes (which they are close to having the capability of making, if they haven't made one already; US intelligence is not sure it can tell the difference).
All this means the US was wrong to oppose Arizona in making a State law that enforced Federal laws that weren't being enforced. It also means that US citizens are in a greater danger than they have ever been before - but their mainstream media is not reporting on this stuff, so the majority of people are still asleep to the threats that are arising.
Before you mod me down or counter-post, please collect your citations that refuse the existence of the signs that warn US citizens because the border has effectively been ceded to narcos; or evidence against the Iranian IRBMs in Venezuela; or evidence against Hezbollah wanting to conduct bio-attacks on US soil. I doubt you'll find objective links. These threats are real - and fortunately the US agencies have been more competent than the jihadis and narcos, so far. Although the ATF "Fast and Furious" scandal does make one wonder - what the hell was the Obama Administration thinking?
True. The Russians are contrarians. They're missing being a superpower and will do anything to take the US and Europe down a peg. Even if it is danger to themselves (Moscow is one of the first capital to be in range of Iran's nuclear missiles). That's why they prop up Syria (although the Russians also want to display a contrast between themselves as loyal and the fickle US that abandoned Mubarak and the Shah).
Thanks for the clarification. Most of the Iranians I know are smart - being ruled over by a bunch of counter-revolutionary thugs that violently enforce a 7th Century theocratic worldview really gets to them. That's why the Free World should have done everything it could to help the Green Revolution, but sadly it did nothing. If only the people of Iran were able to host real free and fair elections - much of the trouble in the world would go away (although polls show the bulk of the populace agrees with acquisition of nuclear arms).
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You really have no rebuttal do you. You have no proof, dismiss factual data and cannot rationally counter the points I made and data I linked. So you come up with the dhimmi-esque statements. You are the dhimmi but are too ignorant to see this. If you have verifiable counter points I'm all ears - but you don't, you lack any sophistry so resort to idiotic pop-psychology arguments. There is no point debating you - you simply won't consider facts presented to you - and instead come up with a bullshit deflection that projects your own jeans-creaming fantasy. Lame.
Well again, it would be easier to disregard that argument if so many of the people who are anti-Islam weren't racists.
That is completely false. Most of the opponents of the *ideology* of Islam are not racist in any way. The are proponents of liberty for all men. The problem is that Islamists slander these liberty defenders as racist (which is completely counter-factual), the mainstream media repeat this slander, and unfortunately moral people (which probably includes yourself) believe the slander rather than independently checking what the counter-jihadis have to say. Counter-jihadis like Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are routinely slandered as racist yet nothing could be further than the truth. They repeatedly say they have no problem with Muslims, they do have a problem with the evil ideology called Islam. If only people like yourself would listen to what the jihadis were saying (that the Qur'an is the motivation for their terrorism), what the counter-jihadis were saying (liberty for all, and Islam is diametrically opposed to Enlightenment/secular humanist values).
Political correctness only requires that you be explicit about which elements of Islam you're talking about.
False again. Political correctness requires you be "nice" and "not offend anyone". You cannot speak *Truth* in case some hyper-sensitive Islamist gets offended by such truth (note: Islamic Law defines slander as something a Muslim does not want to hear - even if completely true). Political correctness is all about not speaking the plain truth, and there is no right to offend. In this way Political Correctness is the antithesis of Free Speech. One cannot support Political Correctness and Free Speech - they are in opposition. I choose to support liberty for all men and Free Speech, Equality for Women, Freedom of conscience, Equality of all races, Homosexual rights, animal rights, protection of minors, etc. That's why I try and make a case against Islam, Political Correctness, and the swathes of the Political Left and Right that support these and oppose Liberty. So don't call us proponents of liberty racists, it just shows you don't understand what we are talking about and what we fighting against. :)
You are living in the bubble of dhimmi-wannabees.
The way you use that word shows you don't really understand it at all.
The problem with that list is that it is basically any attack that a muslim has any sort of involvement in. You could make a similar list of attacks by christians around the world, doesn't mean they are doing it because they are christian.
Could you? you really think that? what a load of bullshit. Plus, there is a fundamental difference. Islam specifically comments all able bodied men to wage jihad on unbelievers. Of course, since you have read the Qur'an you will realise verses like Sura 9:5 abrogate all the peaceful verses and command this. This is *mainstream* Muslim doctrine. Perhaps you haven't ever read the Qur'an and hadiths and don't realise just how evil they are. Rather than acknowledge you are ignorant about the subject you spew insults that opponents of the *ideology* of Islam are 'loons'. Rather than be a dick perhaps you should actually read the Qur'an for yourself. No sane non-dhimmi would ever defend it. Either you are complicit or you are an idiot to defend the indefensible evil. You then proceed to dismiss facts (eg. the massive attack statistics where the jihadis say they are motivated by Qur'anic teachings, but your apply your racist judgement and give them a pass instead of accepting the reasons they *say themselves*) . How about you get a clue and stop excusing evil. You are being a dhimmi and it is undignified and shameful. Stand up for liberty of all people - oppose the evil ideology that is Islam (instead of making excuses for it). Oh yeah, and please do some objective research.
I understand your point of view but it is two decades out of date. The Left is not for individual liberties or Free Speech. Look at how the Left demonize anyone with any dissenting view. Example: If you believe in global warming (undeniable) but are still skeptical/researching its cause (whether the most significant cause is anthropomorphic or not) then you will shot down in flames. If you criticize Islam (an ideology) you are shot down as a racist (its a non-sequiteur, that that doesn't matter to the Left). Yes, the Right are bad, as you say. I agree. It turns out that the Libertarians are the ones promoting individual liberties. Yes, they are not perfect, and their economic programme may be too lassiez faire - but it is all moot if the Left and Right don't act to stop the creeping Sharia and its enabler, Political Correctness, that is eroding Free Society.
Actually (and surprisingly) no. The only true Religion of Peace is Jainism. Here is an excellent (short) video by Sam Harris explaining this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDMOxjHIt0U "Sam Harris: The Problem with Islamic Fundamentalism are the Fundamentals of Islam"
Ah, one of the great dhimmi-wannabe sites.
Actually quite the opposite. What I pointed to is a daily list of fatal attacks. These are *facts*. It must be nice for you to live in a cocoon where you don't to examine *facts* and statistics and instead throw around perjoratives like 'loon' with no basis in fact. You sir, are the enemy for Freedom. Look at the facts/statistics goddamit !
"Muslims want self-determination, but not an American-imposed and defined democracy. They don't want secularism or theocracy," said the professor of Islamic Studies at Georgetown University in Washington.
More Leftists bollocks. Remember, the BBC has fallen greatly and is no longer an impartial source. How about you cross-check multiple independent sources as a proper researched would do. Then you would encounter survey results like these:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1510866/Poll-reveals-40pc-of-Muslims-want-sharia-law-in-UK.html
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Muslim_Statistics_(Shari'ah)
Well, they already have that with 87 Sharia courts already operating in the UK. It is quite possible that these courts will be extended to non-Muslims in the future when they have disputes with Muslims. This has already happened in numerous states in the US, where the Constitution has already given way to Sharia in several court cases. Google is your friend if you want to find the truth.
So stop being lazy and use the Scientific Method - cross-check the *facts*.
Your counter facts, please. Otherwise you could look at some of the references I supplied and get a clue at what I was trying to say :) That link, http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html#Attacks ought to clue you in to the reality of Islam a fair bit. The Obama Administration is deluded by the Leftist "narrative" of cultural equivalence and that "moderate" Islamists can be supported and "extremists" sidelined.
The *facts* are that the mainstream of Islam approves and supports jihad and global Sharia (Google for the surveys). Negotiation and appeasement won't work. This is a fight to the death between the supporters of Enlightenment values and the Islamists.
I suggest you do the research yourself. Look at the agenda of the OIC (Stephen Coughlin's videos on YouTube are simply the best explanation). Read the Qur'an and hadiths - they would be condemned as an ideology of utter hate speech if they weren't cloaked in a fig leaf of plagiarized superstitious mumbo-jumbo. Check the *facts* rather than just going by what you think you know. That's all I ask.
What facts do you have to oppose this? What is known about Benghazi is that Ambassador Stevens was closely working with groups against (monstrous) Gaddafi who had given up his WMD programme, was still a brute, but was fighting Al Qaeda in the Maghreb. The US organized for weapons to go to the rebels in Libya. Note that Benghazi as a city has supplied Al Qaeda with more homicide bombers than any other city in the World. The Benghazi embassy was organizing to ship ex-Libyan weapons to the Syrian Sunni rebels through Turkey. The attack on the embassy was watched by US drones in real time and the President and Secretary of State did nothing. What they did do is deflect their undercover activities with a bogus story about the Innocence of Muslims video (and even though factual and under the First Amendment rights of the producer they worked to suppress it). The Obama Administration is petrified that the truth about Benghazi gun running comes out. They believe they can arm Muslim "moderates" but the thing is Muslims may be moderate but the ideology of Islam is never moderate (so said Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister).
So, your facts and references please. Yes, it sounds incredible that a US Administration would do this - but that is what they did. Unfortunately some Al Qaeda militias went and ruined their plan. The Obama Administration's foreign policy is coming apart at the seams (although the complicit mainstream media tries to deflect it as much as they can). The reason it is coming apart is because reality is catching up with them. Obama thought the US was bad and the cause of the troubles of the Middle East and by promoting "moderates" he could suppress the dangerous Salafis. This was completely delusional - but the Left has always acted on ideology and theory rather than look at actual reality and facts.
There is a great deal more to tell. I won't bother starting with it unless you are actually interested and have an open mind (in which case I'd be happy to point you in the correct direction). Some people do have an open mind and can see the *facts* I'm trying to relay - that's why they kindly gave me +5.
So, your counter evidence, pretty please :)
You give the solution in the post. The Free World needs to enact laws that essentially state the following:
These conditions prohibit the application of Sharia in the West. This is the most substantial part of what needs to be done. The last thing to do is to enforce the existing local laws. That means you don't let Muslim rapists off "because they didn't know" (as happened very recently in Britain), or let Muslims terrorize the media and populace when those people exercise Free Speech rights that are critical of Islam (just as they are free to be critical of every ideology and religion).
Hey fella, you know the Soviet Union died back in 1990 right? The Cold War's over. We've been drinking the authoritarian right kool-aid for quite some time now.
The Soviet Union did spread its ideology to the West (eg. funded many Leftist groups, particularly in academia). While the Soviet Union did collapse much of its points of view are now very fashionable amongst the political elites and academic institutions. The Left is all about equality. That sounds good in theory but in practice it is totally against individual initiative, entrepreneurship, individualism and unorthodox thinking. Equality trumps everything else. The left believe that "discrimination" in any form is a problem - but discrimination is required for discernment. Without discernment everything is equivalent, there is no good and evil, everything is relative. There is no superiority of the Free World over barbaric and inhumane practices because cultural relativity says they are equivalent. Hence, there is no reason to oppose evil in the World because one man's evil is another man's good. This is complete bullshit and is this is why strong and aggressive Islamists (eg barbarians) are able to agitate and bend the West to their will. The Leftist agenda lacks the moral clarity to analyze and oppose the Islamist agenda. In fact, the Left is so determined not to pass discernment/discrimination that they actively aid and abet the Islamists. The Left choose to ignore what the Islamists have been saying for 1400 years - that the Islamist goal is not mutual tolerance but the goal of Islam is to dominate the entire World, sooner or later.
Even worse than the lack of discernment by the Left is their rapid suppression of any dissenting views. They also are completely for conformity to their views and shut down any opposing views, even it factual, through personal attacks (eg. slandering Geert Wilders and the EDL as if they were decendants of Nazis and the KKK, when their agenda is defending individual liberties exactly as the original Left did). The new Left supports the collective over individual rights. The funniest thing is that the new Left basically have the same goals and tactics as the old political Right. It is the new Right (eg. libertarians) who believe in dissenting views, morality over equality and individual rights and the new Left opposes it. Black has become white and white has become black in our crazy world. We also get what used to be the bastion of liberty (the US) no longer promoting liberty but installing and defending opponents of liberty (Islamists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood). The political Left are also much more ideologues (who ignore facts and realpolitik) than the libertarians.
So, with regard to the Islamists the actions of the political Left can be described best by a quote from Winston Churchill
"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
Appeasement is the policy of the Leftist political elite in the West and of the academics supporting them (and the academic and educational institutions that are inculcating our young with a Left-friendly and Islamist-friendly politically correct agenda). The whole culture of the West is being steeped in appeasement rather than standing up for liberty
Islamic democracy functions like this: One man, one vote . . . once.
Exactly! Alan Dershowitz made the same statement with regard to Hamas. If anyone is under the illusion that the Islamist agenda and secular democracy are compatible you know have two case studies for this point of view. When the "torch is passed" from wimpy suicidal democracies to Islam each man will get one vote, one time.
Does any Free Man want this? hell no! and we shouldn't accept it for our fellow global citizens in other countries. Support anyone who believes in an supports *individual liberties* and opposes the tyranny that inevitably arises from the non-individualist *collective*.
If you are in the US that means take a look at the facts of the Obama Administration. Do they support individual liberty? (no) are they supporting the (evil Islamist) Muslim Brotherhood? (yes). That Administration believes it knows better than its citizens what is good for them. It promotes the (heartless) collective at the expense of the individual. Don't believe me? Then please look at the track record of decisions. Obama certainly has pizzazz and glamor, but his policies are against the Constitutional Rights of US citizens. Yes, Obama is not alone in this, both Democrats and Republicans want Big Government at the expense of civil liberties (although the citizens are heavily taxed to pay for the Big Government and its entitlement promises). Again, support anyone who is for individual liberties - that is the only way you will revive your Republic (which has largely been scuppered, if you look at the evidence; just think of the things you cannot say in public anymore; or what border agents can do to you; or how Obama's NDAA can kill US citizens on US soil without any judicial oversight whatsoever). ps. I'm not a Republican nor a US citizen. I just see that at the time the World needed strong US leadership to promote liberty and freedom around the globe there is instead a neo-Marxist ideologue that is aiding and abetting inviting the enemies of the Free World (eg. the Muslim Brotherhood) into decision making in the White House. Unbelievable! What would be great is a strong leader in the US that would stand up and promote liberty and freedom for all global citizens around the World. Sadly, Obama is not that man. The "change" he promised appears to be a Big State that progressively strips the liberties of US citizens, and stands idly by while oppressed masses yearning for true democracy in Iran and Egypt call for at least a few words of encouragement from a US President.
Ah, a clueless apologist - we knew you'd drop by.
If by "Egypt" you mean the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist dominated government has every right to deny what 80 million Egyptians see then you'd be right.
If by "Egypt" you mean that the 80 million people ought to have a right to make their own minds up as to what is good and what is bad, they you most decidedly are *wrong*.
No one is arguing about Egypt's sovereign right to do this. The problem being discussed is that a small group of people are dictating what a great mass of people can and can't see. Egyptian society is going backwards and the liberties of its people are being eroded. Egypt is not headed for Enlightened democracy, it is on a path to become a hellhole of the magnitude of Saudi Arabia (or Iran). Nice one Obama! (you fskn clueless ideologue!!!111)
You cannot be for Free Speech and think that a government is doing good by censoring *all of YouTube*. So please don't be clueless. Those in the Free World are doing good by making noise about the freedoms denied to our fellow citizens. It's not because we see ourselves as superior (although our culture is superior to Islamism) but because we want the Egyptians to experience the same freedoms we have. Our lives and governments are not perfect, but they're a damn sight better than where Egypt is now, or where it is headed.
The rights of the 80 million people (well, whatever proportion have YouTube access, which is still more than most non-Egyptians think) are more important than the theocratic ideology of the Egyptian Government. No Free Man should support the blanket censorship of YouTube by a Government unless it is actually hate speech (which this video certainly wasn't; it was merely *true facts* that exposed the tyrannical warlord Mohammed for the monster he was).
So stop giving your consent to evil! Free Men must research and oppose the evil ideology called Islam.
Here's a recent article talking about how the US Mainstream Media (MSM) are ignoring facts (Britain's media is also particularly bad in this regard, the once impartial BBC has a horrific anti-Israel pro-Islamist bias these days, no wonder, its journalists are all graduates of Lefty-dominated Liberal Arts universities): http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/020713-643641-islamists-gagging-americans-through-religious-speech-code.htm?p=full
Political Correctness is the *enemy* of Free Speech and Liberty. Don't be fooled by the MSM ! Escape The Matrix and do your own research - the media is lying to you by omitting critical facts that don't fit their "narrative". Islam and its enabler 'political correctness' are the enemies of every free person and every Enlightenment liberty.
Good on your for not resisting :)
I agree with you - I just didn't want to get side-tracked on the fact that none of the claims of religions are scientifically verified. Unfortunately some of the people resisting True Evil (tm) also known as "The Ideology called Islam" just happen to be hard-core Christians and Hindus. They are right about Islam, even if it is what an atheistic might consider the wrong reasons (atheists/humanists see Islam as a dire and increasing threat to liberty; other religious just claim Islam is wrong). At this stage of the game I'll accept them into my camp.
Once we defeat "The Religion of Peace" (ha, what a joke - this is such a lie as shown by the facts: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/) then we can have reasoned debate with those with religious delusions (eg. show them the massive amount of contradictions documented in the Skeptics Annotated Bible: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/)
At the moment most of the Free World are not aware of the 57-country Organization of Islamic Cooperation's (OIC) control of the UN (they are the largest single voting bloc, and dominate outfits like the UN Human Rights Council). The OIC claims jurisdiction over any country that has Muslims (that's right, their claim includes where you live). Since they dominate the UN HRC they are slowly but steadily making progress in implementing Islam-friendly laws. Then we have the muppets in the Free World going along with this to be 'nice' (eg. Hiliary Clinton's abject sell-out of the US First Amendment when she co-sponsored the Sharia-compliant UN HRC Resolution 16/18; disgusting behaviour for a US leader). The Muslim Brotherhood has just taken the chair of the OIC. Their plans are proceeding quite nicely and the West mostly remains asleep. A few do notice but are mostly stiffled by those with an ideological Left bent (part of the Red-Green Alliance; where the political Left support the Islamist goal of bringing down the existing international order that has maintained some semblance of international stability).
So yeah, I agree with your anti-Religious 'rant'. However, I think it is prudent to use all the Allies we can muster to defeat the rising tide of Islamism. If we stay balkanized in factions (atheists vs Christians, Catholics vs Protestants, Democrats/Progressives vs Republicans/Libertarians) then we remain divided and weak against the single biggest and focussed ideological threat to all of us: devout Islam.
It is important to note that while Christianity may be wrong, it is definitely a mistake to assert it is equally wrong as Islam. Islam is much more wrong because it is totalitarian and covers all aspects of life (especially political). Islam claim full dominion over non-adherents (that means *you*, Slashdotters) whereas Christianity does not make this claim (not these days at least).
Analyses of the Innocence of Muslims video has shown it to be mostly factually correct
http://www.pi-news.org/2012/09/fact-check-the-innocence-of-the-muslims/
Now it might be a crummy video, but don't mistake poor production values for being factually incorrect. The video is based on statements in the Qur'an and hadiths - please go and check these things for yourself: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/index.htm [Skeptics Annotated Qur'an].
It gets worse though. Both Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama were opposed to the video to cover up their arming of Al Qaeda elements in Libya through the embassy in Benghazi - and this backfired because the Obama Admistration are in total denial about jihad as a motivation of Islamism (as *mandated* by the Qur'an). The foreign policy of the US Administration is unbelievably misguided - because the political Left (which this State Department and Administration is) will not let the facts on the ground get in the way of their narrative. They are denying reality but the reality is rapidly catching up - and the securitry of the Free World is being traded for appeasement (in the hope that Islamists will be "moderate" - which is a ridiculous idea if you have ever read the Qur'an, hadiths and have an understanding of Islamic history for the last 1400 years).
Appeasement will not work with Islamists. Selling Israel out will not work (the jihadis have been in business for 14 centuries before Israel was established - you can't blame the joos for the actions of the jihadis). Making concessions to Muslims will not work (since the Islamists do not believe in quid-pro-quo; they believe they are right, the Free World is wrong, and its their way *only*). The Obama Administration abandoning the rest of the globe comes at exactly the wrong time - but perhaps this is no surprise given the number of Muslim Brotherhood members in the Administration influencing policy (which is why they are so afraid of Michelle Bachmann calling for an investigation - such an investigation would reveal that the Administration is so thoroughly penetrated it can barely be trusted to lead the Free World).
Fortunately there are signs of hope. Florida just passed a bill to outlaw Sharia. If other US states and other sovereign nations do the same then the Free World will remain Free. Then we only have to convince the wannabe dhimmis in the West to actually check the facts of what is going on - and not rely on the narrative they have been fed - they are in the Matrix and resist the truth of what is happening - preferring to *factual* arguments as some kind of 'racism' [absolutely crazy; Islam is a violent and totalitarian ideology, just like Naziism and Soviet Communism, it has nothing to do with 'race'].
Wake up folks. The biggest enemy of Freedom and Liberty in the World is the ideology of Islam (and those who apologize for it, eg. Obama and the political hard-Left). The video the Innocence of Muslims was a clumsy (but factual) attempt by an Egyptian Coptic to highlight the evils of the ideology and its warlord founder. To bad so many people simply ignored the film based on the lies of Islamist apologists (as in, the narrative from the Left-biased media). If you checked the facts you'd see the video was right - Mohammed was evil and against every the Free World stands for (but not against what the political Left now stands for - destruction of the system of the Free World).
Good on ya mate!
This is excellent from AMD to release source in a very timely manner. It shows commercial companies can support Free Software losing the ability to compete (which AMD will have factored in).
They are supporting us so I suggest we support them - vote with your wallets gentlemen! We win because we get drivers that will be supported for a long time, we also win because AMD GPUs generally have the best price-per-perfomance value (even if not always at the insanely expensive peak of absolute performance), and AMD will also win because it gets sales from customers that recognize the mutal win.
Hopefully NVidia will also see this move and get the hint. That would be a further win.
Spot on. For the simulation I mentioned all DIS PDUs are directed to the central (multi-threated) server where they are checked for validity and forwarded to clients. This limits the total number of clients but to a smaller extent than you would think (most checks take less than a microsecond to perform; eg. does the client have any missiles left to launch, is their updated position reasonable compared to the dead reckoned value [they're not travelling at Mach 25]; do they have any fuel left. eg. no unlimited aftrerburner). The server also has to filter EntityStatePdu updates so that no updates are given to players that could not see the object (preventing 'GOD mode' displays - which I would call 'AWACS mode' [actually 'JOINTSTARS mode' since surface objects would also be known]).
From a functional point of view the simulation client and server are both fully DIS compliant in terms of wire protocol. They are not compliant in the fact that the server controls the missiles/munitions rather than the client that launched them, and some decisions are made on the server (eg. collisions, damage) rather than the client. This extra checking goes against the DIS non-functional aspect that each client is fully responsible for itself (which is really a recommendation for scalability and not really a requirement for compatibility).
Also, DIS falls short in terms of authenticating clients. For that I use a SOAP webservice and 2048-bit RSA keypairs. Java makes that easy :) So yeah, I'm as DIS compliant as I can be while having to make alterations for the fact that the clients cannot be trusted (no Star Trek style 'Kobayashi Maru' style scenario is possible - James T Kirk is not smart enough to beat me, lol).
With regard to scalability. My solution will be (this is still a work in progress) to cluster the servers. The trusted servers will communicate with one another and 'hand off' entities to one another. The 'sharding' in the cluster will be by the simulated geography, eg the server managing aircraft launching from Israel handles a different set of aircraft to the server managing the aircraft over Iran (and the Carrier Battle Groups nearby), but the 'onwership' of the aircraft get transferred from one server to another as the simulated aircraft transits to the target area. Does this make sense? That mitigates the increased burden on the servers. One benefit is that the clients are very lightly loaded and have phenomenal performance and can be quite lightweight, eg a tablet (the clients are really only limited by their GPU performance and VRAM).
What were the circumstances of the death? were they extensively provoked? soldiers don't usually just beat people to death for no reason - unless they are drunk. It would interesting to hear the facts of this case rather than possibly just slandering two soldiers without considering mitigating factors.
\Not true. IEEE 1278.1-1998 DIS has been out for a long time (first version of the spec in 1993). It is designed to have massive numbers of interacting agents. Even on a Pentium II you could get a thousand clients connecting. How do I know this? I'm currently writing a multi-threaded cross-platform modern jet combat simulator (using Java 7+OpenGL/JOGL+OpenAL+JInput+OpenDIS, if you must know) and having a lot of clients and CGF (Computer Generated Forces) is well within the capabilities of one of the 8-core AMD CPUs you can get. The performance of OpenGL and modern multi-threaded Java is outstanding (compared to the existing single-threaded C++ jet combat simulations currently on the civilian market; the DCS series and Falcon BMS).
My understand is that many military aircraft these days (and certainly the simulators) have hardware support for IEEE 1278.1 so pilots can learn to operate cockpit in a massively networked environment. Hence, it appears your post is speculation rather - because the military have been able to have extensive simulated engagements for a long time - although a particularly royal air force was interested in the characteristics of the 80-player (40 a side) battles we were able to host in the Eagle Dynamics Flaming Cliffs 2 simulator.
They don't use Cg because many devices have ATI hardware (which gives better "bang for buck" performance than NVidia, in general). OpenGL will work on NVidia, ATI and Intel hardware - which is a big advantage.
OpenGL has been far more fragmented in terms of the numer of vendor extensions you needed to use for a long time to get access to recent functionality.
Your OpenGL knowledge is clearly out-of-date. The extension mechanism still exists, of course, but is not needed to get GLSL shaders that have advanced functionality.
All the growing platforms use OpenGL. Even Windows can use OpenGL (although it is not tyhe favored child). If you have an eye on the future, it makes far sense to develop with OpenGL. That way you can develop shaders that will work on: Android, iOS, Mac, Linux, Windows, Unix, embedded devices (eg. commercial avionics), the PS3. What you miss out on is XBox 360 and Windows Phone. Compare the combined size of the coverage of OpenGL platforms to the Direct3D-only platforms. There is simply no contest anymore in terms of units shipping and growth rate.
OpenGL is the future of hardware accelerated graphics. The nice thing is that no matter what changes in the hardware/platform space you investment in OpenGL is never lost, it comes across as you migrate.
There is a substantial risk of a bioterrorist attack on the US from the Hezbollah operations in Mexico. Whether you believe John McAfee's revelations or not:
http://www.whoismcafee.com/a-clear-and-present-danger/
The truth is the scenario he presents is possible entirely plausible.
The solution is to enforce the Federal border control laws. The Feds won't do it. So the Arizona State government took matters into their own hands and created a state law that was similar to the Federal law, but Arizona would be able to enforce it. The Obama Administration took Arizona to court and the state border law cannot be enforced (not that the Obama Administration also took states to court to stop them defending Constitutional rights by enacting anti-Sharia legislation; since Sharia is opposed to all other Constitutional right). The Obama Administration's solution was instead to put up signs warning US citizens to stay away from areas where the narcos and people smugglers operate:
http://thecitysquare.blogspot.com/2010/09/feds-cede-border-to-smugglers-warn.html http://thecitysquare.blogspot.com/2010/07/arizona-law-is-working-already.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_v._United_States
Enforcing *existing laws* would do more for border security that some gadgets. Just as drugs come in that border it is easy for ricin or other bioagents to come in. Hezbollah and their Iran backers would just love to have the option to sow terror in the US with a bioattack: in addition to the option they have of two dozen Shahab 3 IRBM missiles they have installed in Venezuela; and will probably upgrade to Shahab 5 missiles with nuclear warheads soon. Don't worry, your President has just appointed Hagel who thinks that talking with the Iranians is best. Yes, they Iranians have already had a decade of talks and more talks will just give them more time to finish their nukes (which they are close to having the capability of making, if they haven't made one already; US intelligence is not sure it can tell the difference).
All this means the US was wrong to oppose Arizona in making a State law that enforced Federal laws that weren't being enforced. It also means that US citizens are in a greater danger than they have ever been before - but their mainstream media is not reporting on this stuff, so the majority of people are still asleep to the threats that are arising.
Before you mod me down or counter-post, please collect your citations that refuse the existence of the signs that warn US citizens because the border has effectively been ceded to narcos; or evidence against the Iranian IRBMs in Venezuela; or evidence against Hezbollah wanting to conduct bio-attacks on US soil. I doubt you'll find objective links. These threats are real - and fortunately the US agencies have been more competent than the jihadis and narcos, so far. Although the ATF "Fast and Furious" scandal does make one wonder - what the hell was the Obama Administration thinking?
True. The Russians are contrarians. They're missing being a superpower and will do anything to take the US and Europe down a peg. Even if it is danger to themselves (Moscow is one of the first capital to be in range of Iran's nuclear missiles). That's why they prop up Syria (although the Russians also want to display a contrast between themselves as loyal and the fickle US that abandoned Mubarak and the Shah).
Thanks for the clarification. Most of the Iranians I know are smart - being ruled over by a bunch of counter-revolutionary thugs that violently enforce a 7th Century theocratic worldview really gets to them. That's why the Free World should have done everything it could to help the Green Revolution, but sadly it did nothing. If only the people of Iran were able to host real free and fair elections - much of the trouble in the world would go away (although polls show the bulk of the populace agrees with acquisition of nuclear arms).