provided you follow what's listed on the Mono project as compatible, you get better cross platform compatibility as well.
That proviso you listed is a *major flaw* in Mono. Cross-platform always was important but is becoming more important as time goes one - the computing environment is becoming more heterogeneous after a decade decrease in diversity. Java has its full set of libraries that work on *every* platform, which means it is a better strategic (long term) choice than C#/Mono.
Like Java, C# will be attractive to nubblecake coders due to the ease of use,
Ah! hubris and ego. You do know that with even a little critical analysis you'd come to the conclusion that you ought to choose as simple language as possible to get a problem solved (while trying to leverage common solutions across projects - which means you want a general purpose language). Only a muppet chooses a more complex solution if a simple one is available. Java is excellent not only for its extensive cross-platform support but also because it is designed to be as simple as possible, freeing your mental faculties to work on *complex domain problems* (and believe me, some domains are complex enough without trying to add additional complexity just for bragging rights about how l337 one is by unnecessarily choosing an obscure development language or platform).
Aiming to Keep it Simple Stoopid (KISS) shows good *design* (which is a vastly more important skill than mere coding ability). Even Einstein is paraphrased as saying, "As Simple as Possible, but no Simpler". He certainly didn't look down on simple mathematical tools where the problems to be solved were hard - and perhaps neither should you. The simplicity (and cross-platform) design of Java is a very significant *feature*, and usually far more strategically useful than mere additional keyword or construct features in other languages (eg. C#).
Part of the decline seems to be due to the introduction of new languagess which mean even if the adoption of a particular language in absolute terms remains constant the relative proportion of the same language will decrease.
Java's is used widely in the enterprise space. The economic recession resulted in a slowdown in corporate activity and it appears a deferral of Java projects. Looking at the Tiobe graph there is a recent *rise* is Java activity compared to earlier in the year and steady relative to the same time last year. Given the overall increase in languages and dodgy economy it looks like Java is doing as well as could be expected for a development platform mostly targeted to the *enterprise*.
Yes, but the language is nothing. It's the libraries that matter and the Microsoft ones are proprietary and single-platform. The Mono libraries are cross-platform but are incomplete with respect to the Microsoft ones (and the Mono project indicates that some of these will never be implemented). Java kicks C#'s ass when you think about it in these terms (which are the only ones that actually matter). It is this that makes the C# *platform* proprietary. Hopefully that clears it up for you why the parent used the word "proprietary" - they had a wider perspective when they made that statement.
Prepare your tinfoil hat dudes because lots of pieces of information are starting to come together.
If we take McAfee's findings as true (which they appear to be) then Iran is preparing the capability of conducting a massive chemical attack on the United States. I will now present the threads of evidence for you to consider.
Motivation: it is well know that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a 57 country body, seeks to establish Sharia (Islamic Law) worldwide.
Legal basis: the OIC defines "terrorism" only as non-lawful attacks made by non-Muslims against Muslims. Attacks made by jihadis supporting Sharia are considered lawful. The 9/11 attack is considered lawful under this basis. A ricin WMD attack by Hezbollah through Mexico would also be considered lawful by the OIC. Here is a 75-minute video by intelligence Major Stepehen Coughlin (retired) where he covers the legal concepts the OIC use (for fans of Orwell, the OIC are masters of doublespeak): http://www.mrctv.org/videos/stephen-coughlin-oic-brief [the first 55 seconds of the video is blank, please skip past it]
Jurisdiction: The OIC claims jurisdiction over all Muslims. It also claims jurisdiction over non-Muslims engaging in "Islamophobia" (which the OIC defines as anything opposing the Sharia, eg. the US Constitution). Hence they essentially claim global jurisdiction. See the same video in the previous point for the discussion about this.
Agents: Hezbollah are Iran's agents. They don't do anything without Iran's say so.
Iran: Iran wishes to destroy the US, Israel and the Western way of life - it says so every day (it is trivial to find YouTube videos that show this). It appears Iran is preparing multiple ways to do this: a nuclear track and McAfee has uncovered a ricin WMD attack. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px2CvPySHSs (with the input of a moderate Muslim, they're not all bad).
US complicity: The State Department, White House and US military senior leadership (eg, after the Fort Hood massacre) appear to believe that intolerance of Muslims is a greater threat than the threat of jihadi terrorism. They are suppressing the information that independent researchers discover. They also vilify these researchers despite *facts* being uncovered. The State Department is currently (and probably unintentionally) advancing the cause of Islam by suppressing facts that are emerging and not standing up for the 1st Amendment (Free Speech) Rights of US citizens, instead suggesting things like Hillary Clinton's "naming and shaming" campaigns. This is a disgraceful position to suppress the lawful Free Speech rights of US citizens in their own country to appease foreign islamic powers. Conclusion: the State Department in the current administration is misguided and currently working *against the interests* of US citizens.
False narrative: there is a false narrative that the threat to the US is caused by "radical Islam". While there are moderate Muslims (good people) there is no disagreement as to what the Qur'an and hadiths say. The problem is Islam. As Turkey's Erdogan famously said recently, "There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.". It is important to understand that the
Interesting Sharia link. Thanks for posting that. That article mentions that Sharia4Belgium is being dissolved. What will happen is that it will merely change name and an organization with similar intent pop up under a different name.
That certainly is what happens in the US.eg. the Hamas-front group CAIR keeps creating all sorts of websites, shutting them down as they are exposed and creating new ones. The Holy Land Foundation case exposed around 300 groups/sites cooperating - but they all had the same agenda. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Land_Foundation_for_Relief_and_Development
Stronger than your 'strong atheism' is a term used by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins etc. This is 'anti-theism'. For them it is not enough to personally disbelieve in supernature, but it is important to also try make the case to others using rationality that supernature doesn't exist.
Not to offend anyone (or, sorry that I WILL) basically every organized religion is wacky
True. Take a look at the Skeptics Annotated Bible, Qur'an and Book of Mormon to see the inconsistencies, inhumane oppression and barbarity highlighted in these man-made books. It is astounding that in the 21st Century that anyone follows these works of ancient superstitious crazy men - especially when our understanding of the world is so much better (in science, philosophy, human relations, national relations, marriage, psychology, economics, nutrition/diets, health and hygiene etc etc) http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/ http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/index.htm http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/BOM/index.htm
the Catholic Church has been engaged in the most depraved, genocidal, racist, sexist evil deeds that humanity has ever committed for over 1,000 years.
The Christians are no saints. However, it is Islam that takes the cake for its violence, misogyny, child abuse, pillage, rape, genocide, ethnic cleansing, terrorism, suppression of natural human rights, oppression of its adherents in the 1400 years of its existence. There is simply no contest as to the longest-lived and most evil ideology that infects our species.
Its just a EU court. Only the US empire considers the whole world its jurisdiction.
Islam considers the whole World as the jurisdiction of Allah, and will eventually be subject to Sharia. It is only us unbelievers who are resisting at the moment and must be subjugated by force (this is what jihad is) so the 'divine law' can reign. If you are really anti-imperialist then forget your fictional US Empire (the US has global economic ambitions, not imperial political ones) and look at the real empire that is trying to be restored, the 'Caliphate'. You are looking the wrong way bro.
It's another thing to harrass and prosecute people who dare to leave
In that case, why doesn't Belgium prosecute Islam? (answer: because it is scared of the violent, misogynistic death cult). If a Muslim leaves Islam it is considered 'apostasy'. The penalty for apostasy (first offense:) ) under Sharia is death. There are lots of things that are considered apostasy (eg. denouncing the barbarity of Sharia in one - that's why you never see protestors in Egypt with signs saying, "No Sharia!"), and leaving Islam is one of them.
Note that the Scientologists were horrible to people who left, but never actually killed people. In the Islamic world there are numerous killings each year of people leaving Islam - many of the so called 'honor killings' are due to this. However, Belgium will never prosecute Islam. Jihadi terrorism has cowed entire governments who should be standing up for human rights:(
3 million in Vietnam. Another million in Iraq. Any more dumb questions?
Citation please. Were you unable to read the citation I gave? It is you that has the assertion that my reference already disproved, and have not supplied anything to counter that. So at this point I think that you are being obtuse/dumb.
Note that Vietnam was over forty years ago, was entirely justified against North Vietnamese-Russian-Chinese aggression against a democratic (but yes, very imperfect) state that was conducting self defense as permitted under the relevant United Nations resolution and requested assistance from the US. But by all means try and stand up for totalitarian communism that has been thoroughly discredited, especially since the archives of many states have been opened as the situation was even worse than first thought. Nice one. Not only do you ignore cited facts with unsupported bullshit assertions you then try and pull in an irrelevant war against a totalitarian regime. Also feel free to ignore the fact that over the last several years Vietnam has invited the US military back as a counter-balance against China - but stay stuck in the past like a dunce who is unable to see where the past is relevant to the discussion at hand, and where it is not. Even a muppet could construct a better argument - provided they applied the smallest modicum of logic before posting.
Sorry for being so forceful. I'm just fed up with ignoramuses like yourself not even bothering to check the facts - which means they keep spouting total bullshit figures, and trying to misdirect with irrelevant topics. Get some citations and then we can talk, yeah?
Because you are full of shit and can't prove your assertions? The most reliable figure is the classified figure of civilian deaths is 66,081 civilians killed (leaked by Wikileaks). Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
That makes you wrong by a factor of 15 (as in, your assertion is delusional).
Now if we look at a possible figure that could work for your argument (I'm trying to make your case for you, since you could ) then we have the multi-sigma outlier value of 1.2-1.4 million estimation made by ORB (same reference). Beside the statistical implausibility, and ignoring that the death rate in the US Occupation was lower than Saddam's kill rate of his own populace, their methodology was very flawed and an examination of its methodology found it was "riddled with critical inconsistencies and methodological shortcomings" (no surprised given its anti-war agenda).
So that makes you sloppy at best, or selectively biased at worst. So it appears you are a spreader of easily-disprovable bullshit who is too lazy to cite and too lazy to cross-check your [false] assumptions/assertions.
Stealing water and wiping your ass with the 4th Geneva Convention? That's just your state running a military occupation but colonizing the territory, and it's still an occupation if you don't annex it.
More bullshit that you have *zero* backup evidence for. Look, I'm fully prepared to listen to your arguments. I'm fully prepared to revise my position, provided you can provide some objective evidence for you claims. Somehow you expect everyone to take your outlandish claims (presented in an offensive manner) at face value. Simple objective citations (eg. sourced neither from neocon nor anti-war propagandists) would go a long way to make you look less like a full-of-bs, lazy amateur. Thanks.
Here's a video showing how the United Nations is now acting in a way contrary to its founding principles. This is because the Organization of Islamic Countries and Non-Alignment movement have created a voting bloc. This is why there are bogus resolutions in the UN where criticism of religion (eg. the iron-age barbaric death cult of Islam; read the Qur'an and hadiths, they are true hate speech!) is equivalent to hate speech. Then we have the ITU grasp of the Internet for the purposes of censorship. Here's the video explaining how the UN came to be so corrupted against Englightenment values (and countries with them): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7Mupoo1At8
Here's a video showing how sneaky resolutions against Free Speech are being worded and passed in the UN (OIC up to its tricks again): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_Zp4ulrO9c
So, Mr Anonymous Coward, your citations are pretty much irrelevant because the United Nations has been making resolutions based on the political totalitarian ideology currently passing bogus resolutions in the UN.
Here is the fundamental difference between Rwanda and Syria. The Rwandan Genocide was horrific but it was a national tragedy. It was not as if the Tutsi and Hutus were going to export their fight elsewhere. The fight in Syria has regional and global ramifications - that's a huge difference.
The fight in Syria is of interest to the West because the jihadis fighting there are working to establish a *global* Caliphate (according to their own words) that is coming to an area near you as soon as they can do it. They are against Free Thought, Free Speech, Women's Rights, Homosexual Rights, the equality of all religions and ethnicities. In short, the battle for Syria is not an isolated situation - it is part of the ongoing upheavals in the region that are going to spread elsewhere as soon as the jihadis finish their current round of fighting. Interestingly enough, they appear to be trying to follow a plan revealed in 2005 by the respected Der Spiegel - http://www.spiegel.de/international/the-future-of-terrorism-what-al-qaida-really-wants-a-369448.html and according to this timeline it appears things are proceeding to their plan (according to the plan we're between Stages 4 and 5, as far as I can see).
So my suggestion about Syria is to not listen to what poorly informed pundits in the West are saying (since they appear to be in willful denial). Instead, listen to what the jihadis are saying. They are not hiding their agenda at all. Their plan is to bring Sharia to the globe and restore the Caliphate. Don't believe what I say, just do a simple YouTube search of their speeches in Arabic (with English subtitles) - since the principle of 'taqiyya' means whatever they say in English doesn't count. Also, it appears the Russians have a greater awareness than the US does about this (although part of the problem is that the Russians supported Assad when the protests were still peaceful yet the will of the people was clearly against his regime).
It is the difference between a regional genocide and the intent of global genocide/domination that makes Syria worthwhile of more attention than Rwanda. Ideally we'd give attention to both, but if we have to prioritize then it is simple which conflict is more significant for *global* human rights and Enlightenment values than the other. Yes?
You are wrong. What is happening in Syria is this. The totalitarian but secular Baath Party has overreached and the citizens got fed up. The citizens started out with peaceful protests but eventually turned to weapons. This is the Revolution. It has evolved from this situation and the Revolution has been co-opted by a jihahist movement (incited, funded and supported by the Saudis and Qatar). They seek to turn Syria into a member of the global Caliphate.
So if you think that the news about Syria is some plot by the US to control the Middle East then you couldn't be more wrong. The situation in Syria was secular Syrians wanted more freedoms (grea!) but has now been perverted into Sunni Muslim militants taking over another country (since they've already captured Egypt).
If you want to useful and oppose imperialism then get out of your Cold War mindset where the US is always at fault. It is not in the case of Syria. The Imperialism is due to the global totalitarian aspirations of jihadis that wish to re-impose the Caliphate (and an internal struggle where the Caliphate is either Shia and led by Iran, or Sunni and led by the Saudis). It is easy to see that this is the case, just listen to the pronouncements of the Syrian rebels themselves (and stop listening to the ignorant media in the West, who are shitty journalists).
Note that the US is not intervening. This is good and bad. It is good because the US doesn't need to waste more money. It is bad because the secular Syrian forces that started the revolution are not being supported and the brutal Islamist forces are taking over. Egypt is already on the way to becoming another Saudi Arabia and Syria is now on the same path. Anyone who cares about democracy and human rights should be urging for the US to intervene and impose a secular democracy in Syria because without that we're just going to see an Islamist takeover (where you have no human rights). Do you want this to happen? I don't. So get real and stop using the outdated paradigms of the past.
Hmm, the Falcon series of flight sims featured Israel as a combat theatre. There are very many paper wargames (ya know, old style) that feature conflicts in the Middle East. So it appears you are pretty ignorant - and what appears to be your attempt at anti-Zionism has failed.
Since you are ignorant here's a capsule history in 5 minutes that explains the situation in the Middle East, from Purdue University. The situation is very simple and clear. It is the resolution that is complex. How do you defuse intrinsic hatred of Islam for all non-Mulims? solve that and you will solve all the Islam created problems in the Middle East; eg. Islam vs unbelievers like Europe; Iranian Shia Islam vs Arabian Shia Islam; Islam vs Christians in Iraq, Syria and Egypt; Islam vs animists on Sudan; Islam vs Israel; Islam vs the US; etc etc: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4
Unfortunately the United Nations can't be relied on to sort it out, for the following reason: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7Mupoo1At8
Furthermore, the UN is attempting to outlaw Free Speech by disabling our ability to cricitise the flaws in any religion (but specifically, the barbarism of Islam): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uadgk2kveRU
So, your statement is a bit of a fail. It simply shows you know nothing about gaming/wargaming (the Middle East is covered extensively) and probably have a poor grasp of the situation in the region (and it turns out, the World, since the goal of the jihadis is to conquer the World once they've crushed Israel).
The M-16A2 has three-round burst instead, IIRC because the DOD determined that "spray and pray" isn't an effective method for engaging the enemy.
"Spray n pray" is un-aimed shots. Conscripts in Vietnam did this. I believe modern users of the M-16/M-4 are trained never to do this (and the Israelis are trained to lie, kneel or brace before shooting - according to an Israeli mate of mine; they try not to fire standing as it is less stable for aiming). You are right that this was a factor in removing full-auto from this weapon.
The second factor in creating a weapon with a three round burst is because the recoil of the first shots upset the aim sufficiently that further shots are usually wasted. Some weapons try to get the burst out quickly to reduce minimize the effect of recoil on aiming.
The third factor in removing full auto is not related to aiming. It is to reduce the wastage of ammunition and soldiers to be engaged for longer without running out of ammo (since soldiers can only carry a limited amount - it is heavy!).
but it is interesting that to my knowledge, nobody has even attempted to critique the accuracy of the video.
Excellent point. One can understand that the Muslims would not criticize the video - they are not permitted to criticize aspects of their religion (once upon a time they could, but the Caliphs in Baghdad shut it all down as the questions got too uncomfortable to their political rule - and it has been zip lip enforced on pain of death ever since).
It is interesting that Western academics haven't bothered to pull the video apart to check inaccuracies. Surely that is the job of intellectuals to understand something resulting in so much global turmoil. Or if they have then the media haven't bothered to publish any analyses - they cowed like good dhimmis, since they understand the threat of violence is real. The lack of spine is sickening (I may just have to critically watch the video and do the analysis myself!).
Define, "what is a Muslim"? there are so many problems with this. If we consider Muslims to be those that make the required statement then sure, most Muslims are awesome (despite Islam itself being bad - because we can make that distinction). However, if we narrow our definition and say that a Muslim is one who follows the teachings in the Qur'an and hadiths (ya know, the definition that a Salafi might use) then we end up with a bunch of people who most definitely advocate, implement or support violence in the name of their teachings. It is those motherfuckers that we ought to be worried about - not the huge numbers who profess to be Muslim (or Christian etc) but actually ignore the teachings when it contradicts their innate (superior) sense of morality - and apart from a few mystical mumblings would be hard to distinguish from a non-religious rationalist in their day-to-day practices.
So if your post was meant to mean, "Most Muslims are actually ok" then I agree with you. Just don't forget about the Muslims (and Christians etc etc) that are not ok because their religion commands them to do evil. To paraphrase Sam Harris, "How often do you lie awake at night worrying about the Amish?", and "The problem with Islamic Fundamentalists is the Fundamentals of Islam; if the fundamental of Islam were not violent then we wouldn't have to worry about the fundamentalists, would we?". The same goes for Christian or Jewish fundamentalists - as the fundamental of those religious are also barbaric, with a sprinkling of some nicer rainbow stuff on top. So I don't hate the playa, I hate the game. The Muslims are ok, but political Islam is not. However we can't give Islam a free pass to do its evil just because we like a large fraction of those who profess to be Muslims (but actually don't practice Islam as it is laid out in the Qur'an).
As the physicist Steven Weinberg said, "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.". So yeah, most Muslims are good people (but bad Muslims), the good Muslims are bad people (according to Enlightenment values).
Free speech has a limited right to offend, and defamation and hate speech are such limitations.
I agree, there are limits to free speech. Those limitations are not relevant to the discussion of the video at hand. I'm glad you agree that Free Speech has the right to offend. That is the right that is actually in play.
and you say "all Muslims are like this"
Did I? Could you please re-read my post and find where I said this. You won't find it. You simply have made stuff up and are projecting your hyper-sensitivity on to my post. This is typical of those desperately trying to be politically correct at the expense of simply applying impartial reasoning and seeing where that will take you. Then you have the gall to insult me as "ignorant" after you have just fabricated a quotation against me. Who is the ignoramus here?
You'll find I said no such thing. I very well understand the proportions between actively violent Muslims, passive Muslims who agree with the violence (which is a very significant proportion of the 1.6 billion Muslims on the planet, which I lump in as supporting the troublemakers - so the total is not just a small fringe as you suggest), and then the Muslims who only live in Muslim countries and don't actually practice the teachings at all (the good guys by Western standards). I didn't want to burden my initial post with this distinction, since it wasn't necessary - only the ones who inflict violence are of significance to non-Muslims, since they are the ones that affect us. So please stop projecting what appears to be an apologist agenda, thanks.
You are showing plenty of ignorance yourself.
Nope. It is you that is ignorant of my position. I've already pointed out that you have projected incorrect assumptions (and
Um, the "Innocence of Muslims" video was created by a Coptic (Egyptian Christian) to point out bad aspects of Mohammed (eg. marrying a 6 year old and ) and Islam. The video has terrible production values and is completely insensitive, but I think the core concepts actually come from the Qur'an itself.
The video was intended to show hypocracy, highlight the nastier aspects of the Qur'an, and show inflame Muslims (who are insensitive and increasingly violent to Copts). The real problem is not the video, it is: the oversensitivity of Muslims to any criticism, eg. they immediately turn to violence; and the craven cowardice of supposedly free societies who do not stand up for free speech and instead appease the violent who are clearly breaking local laws. This may sound harsh, but free speech requires the right to offend, even with a dumb and insulting (but scripturally accurate, AFAIK) video. Ignoring violent acts because of a video is not what the police should be doing - but they are currently cowed. How is this healthy in the long term?
so naturally they can't comprehend of a liberal democracy where this might not be the case.
Wrong. They understand what liberal democracy it. It is just they reject it utterly because they believe they are commanded by God to do so (according to their teachings). Similarly, parts of the political classes in the West are starting to utterly reject the notions of the political Islamists, since it seeks to eventually replace all other systems. Please don't confuse each 'side' with not comprehending each other's point of view. Both positions are pretty well understood. It is just that each side rejects the other. Note, however, that liberal democracy can tolerate aspects of the religious myths of Islam (eg. Muslim Israelis are tolerated, even in the IDF, for example). What liberal democracy rejects is the political system of Islam and the tyrrany of some parts of the religion [eg. poor treatment of women, the non-egalitarian concept of dhimmitude, the inability to question the clerics etc]).
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provided you follow what's listed on the Mono project as compatible, you get better cross platform compatibility as well.
That proviso you listed is a *major flaw* in Mono. Cross-platform always was important but is becoming more important as time goes one - the computing environment is becoming more heterogeneous after a decade decrease in diversity. Java has its full set of libraries that work on *every* platform, which means it is a better strategic (long term) choice than C#/Mono.
Like Java, C# will be attractive to nubblecake coders due to the ease of use,
Ah! hubris and ego. You do know that with even a little critical analysis you'd come to the conclusion that you ought to choose as simple language as possible to get a problem solved (while trying to leverage common solutions across projects - which means you want a general purpose language). Only a muppet chooses a more complex solution if a simple one is available. Java is excellent not only for its extensive cross-platform support but also because it is designed to be as simple as possible, freeing your mental faculties to work on *complex domain problems* (and believe me, some domains are complex enough without trying to add additional complexity just for bragging rights about how l337 one is by unnecessarily choosing an obscure development language or platform).
Aiming to Keep it Simple Stoopid (KISS) shows good *design* (which is a vastly more important skill than mere coding ability). Even Einstein is paraphrased as saying, "As Simple as Possible, but no Simpler". He certainly didn't look down on simple mathematical tools where the problems to be solved were hard - and perhaps neither should you. The simplicity (and cross-platform) design of Java is a very significant *feature*, and usually far more strategically useful than mere additional keyword or construct features in other languages (eg. C#).
Part of the decline seems to be due to the introduction of new languagess which mean even if the adoption of a particular language in absolute terms remains constant the relative proportion of the same language will decrease.
Java's is used widely in the enterprise space. The economic recession resulted in a slowdown in corporate activity and it appears a deferral of Java projects. Looking at the Tiobe graph there is a recent *rise* is Java activity compared to earlier in the year and steady relative to the same time last year. Given the overall increase in languages and dodgy economy it looks like Java is doing as well as could be expected for a development platform mostly targeted to the *enterprise*.
Yes, but the language is nothing. It's the libraries that matter and the Microsoft ones are proprietary and single-platform. The Mono libraries are cross-platform but are incomplete with respect to the Microsoft ones (and the Mono project indicates that some of these will never be implemented). Java kicks C#'s ass when you think about it in these terms (which are the only ones that actually matter). It is this that makes the C# *platform* proprietary. Hopefully that clears it up for you why the parent used the word "proprietary" - they had a wider perspective when they made that statement.
Prepare your tinfoil hat dudes because lots of pieces of information are starting to come together.
If we take McAfee's findings as true (which they appear to be) then Iran is preparing the capability of conducting a massive chemical attack on the United States. I will now present the threads of evidence for you to consider.
Interesting Sharia link. Thanks for posting that. That article mentions that Sharia4Belgium is being dissolved. What will happen is that it will merely change name and an organization with similar intent pop up under a different name.
That certainly is what happens in the US .eg. the Hamas-front group CAIR keeps creating all sorts of websites, shutting them down as they are exposed and creating new ones. The Holy Land Foundation case exposed around 300 groups/sites cooperating - but they all had the same agenda. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Land_Foundation_for_Relief_and_Development
Stronger than your 'strong atheism' is a term used by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins etc. This is 'anti-theism'. For them it is not enough to personally disbelieve in supernature, but it is important to also try make the case to others using rationality that supernature doesn't exist.
Not to offend anyone (or, sorry that I WILL) basically every organized religion is wacky
True. Take a look at the Skeptics Annotated Bible, Qur'an and Book of Mormon to see the inconsistencies, inhumane oppression and barbarity highlighted in these man-made books. It is astounding that in the 21st Century that anyone follows these works of ancient superstitious crazy men - especially when our understanding of the world is so much better (in science, philosophy, human relations, national relations, marriage, psychology, economics, nutrition/diets, health and hygiene etc etc)
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/index.htm
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/BOM/index.htm
the Catholic Church has been engaged in the most depraved, genocidal, racist, sexist evil deeds that humanity has ever committed for over 1,000 years.
The Christians are no saints. However, it is Islam that takes the cake for its violence, misogyny, child abuse, pillage, rape, genocide, ethnic cleansing, terrorism, suppression of natural human rights, oppression of its adherents in the 1400 years of its existence. There is simply no contest as to the longest-lived and most evil ideology that infects our species.
Its just a EU court. Only the US empire considers the whole world its jurisdiction.
Islam considers the whole World as the jurisdiction of Allah, and will eventually be subject to Sharia. It is only us unbelievers who are resisting at the moment and must be subjugated by force (this is what jihad is) so the 'divine law' can reign. If you are really anti-imperialist then forget your fictional US Empire (the US has global economic ambitions, not imperial political ones) and look at the real empire that is trying to be restored, the 'Caliphate'. You are looking the wrong way bro.
It's another thing to harrass and prosecute people who dare to leave
In that case, why doesn't Belgium prosecute Islam? (answer: because it is scared of the violent, misogynistic death cult). If a Muslim leaves Islam it is considered 'apostasy'. The penalty for apostasy (first offense:) ) under Sharia is death. There are lots of things that are considered apostasy (eg. denouncing the barbarity of Sharia in one - that's why you never see protestors in Egypt with signs saying, "No Sharia!"), and leaving Islam is one of them.
Note that the Scientologists were horrible to people who left, but never actually killed people. In the Islamic world there are numerous killings each year of people leaving Islam - many of the so called 'honor killings' are due to this. However, Belgium will never prosecute Islam. Jihadi terrorism has cowed entire governments who should be standing up for human rights :(
3 million in Vietnam. Another million in Iraq. Any more dumb questions?
Citation please. Were you unable to read the citation I gave? It is you that has the assertion that my reference already disproved, and have not supplied anything to counter that. So at this point I think that you are being obtuse/dumb.
Note that Vietnam was over forty years ago, was entirely justified against North Vietnamese-Russian-Chinese aggression against a democratic (but yes, very imperfect) state that was conducting self defense as permitted under the relevant United Nations resolution and requested assistance from the US. But by all means try and stand up for totalitarian communism that has been thoroughly discredited, especially since the archives of many states have been opened as the situation was even worse than first thought. Nice one. Not only do you ignore cited facts with unsupported bullshit assertions you then try and pull in an irrelevant war against a totalitarian regime. Also feel free to ignore the fact that over the last several years Vietnam has invited the US military back as a counter-balance against China - but stay stuck in the past like a dunce who is unable to see where the past is relevant to the discussion at hand, and where it is not. Even a muppet could construct a better argument - provided they applied the smallest modicum of logic before posting.
Sorry for being so forceful. I'm just fed up with ignoramuses like yourself not even bothering to check the facts - which means they keep spouting total bullshit figures, and trying to misdirect with irrelevant topics. Get some citations and then we can talk, yeah?
Why should I bother?
Because you are full of shit and can't prove your assertions? The most reliable figure is the classified figure of civilian deaths is 66,081 civilians killed (leaked by Wikileaks). Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
That makes you wrong by a factor of 15 (as in, your assertion is delusional).
Now if we look at a possible figure that could work for your argument (I'm trying to make your case for you, since you could ) then we have the multi-sigma outlier value of 1.2-1.4 million estimation made by ORB (same reference). Beside the statistical implausibility, and ignoring that the death rate in the US Occupation was lower than Saddam's kill rate of his own populace, their methodology was very flawed and an examination of its methodology found it was "riddled with critical inconsistencies and methodological shortcomings" (no surprised given its anti-war agenda).
So that makes you sloppy at best, or selectively biased at worst. So it appears you are a spreader of easily-disprovable bullshit who is too lazy to cite and too lazy to cross-check your [false] assumptions/assertions.
Stealing water and wiping your ass with the 4th Geneva Convention? That's just your state running a military occupation but colonizing the territory, and it's still an occupation if you don't annex it.
More bullshit that you have *zero* backup evidence for. Look, I'm fully prepared to listen to your arguments. I'm fully prepared to revise my position, provided you can provide some objective evidence for you claims. Somehow you expect everyone to take your outlandish claims (presented in an offensive manner) at face value. Simple objective citations (eg. sourced neither from neocon nor anti-war propagandists) would go a long way to make you look less like a full-of-bs, lazy amateur. Thanks.
missing from your bar graph : millions of dead caused by the US.
I call bullshit. Citation required for "millions" dead caused directly by the US.
stealing water and wiping our ass with the 4th Geneva Convention,
I call bullshit. Citation required for stealing water. What do you mean by "wiping our ass"?
Here's a video showing how the United Nations is now acting in a way contrary to its founding principles. This is because the Organization of Islamic Countries and Non-Alignment movement have created a voting bloc. This is why there are bogus resolutions in the UN where criticism of religion (eg. the iron-age barbaric death cult of Islam; read the Qur'an and hadiths, they are true hate speech!) is equivalent to hate speech. Then we have the ITU grasp of the Internet for the purposes of censorship. Here's the video explaining how the UN came to be so corrupted against Englightenment values (and countries with them):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7Mupoo1At8
Here's a video showing how sneaky resolutions against Free Speech are being worded and passed in the UN (OIC up to its tricks again):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_Zp4ulrO9c
While we're at it, here is are a couple of videos explaining the situation in the Middle East from a historical perspective:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7ByJb7QQ9U
So, Mr Anonymous Coward, your citations are pretty much irrelevant because the United Nations has been making resolutions based on the political totalitarian ideology currently passing bogus resolutions in the UN.
Here is the fundamental difference between Rwanda and Syria. The Rwandan Genocide was horrific but it was a national tragedy. It was not as if the Tutsi and Hutus were going to export their fight elsewhere. The fight in Syria has regional and global ramifications - that's a huge difference.
The fight in Syria is of interest to the West because the jihadis fighting there are working to establish a *global* Caliphate (according to their own words) that is coming to an area near you as soon as they can do it. They are against Free Thought, Free Speech, Women's Rights, Homosexual Rights, the equality of all religions and ethnicities. In short, the battle for Syria is not an isolated situation - it is part of the ongoing upheavals in the region that are going to spread elsewhere as soon as the jihadis finish their current round of fighting. Interestingly enough, they appear to be trying to follow a plan revealed in 2005 by the respected Der Spiegel - http://www.spiegel.de/international/the-future-of-terrorism-what-al-qaida-really-wants-a-369448.html and according to this timeline it appears things are proceeding to their plan (according to the plan we're between Stages 4 and 5, as far as I can see).
So my suggestion about Syria is to not listen to what poorly informed pundits in the West are saying (since they appear to be in willful denial). Instead, listen to what the jihadis are saying. They are not hiding their agenda at all. Their plan is to bring Sharia to the globe and restore the Caliphate. Don't believe what I say, just do a simple YouTube search of their speeches in Arabic (with English subtitles) - since the principle of 'taqiyya' means whatever they say in English doesn't count. Also, it appears the Russians have a greater awareness than the US does about this (although part of the problem is that the Russians supported Assad when the protests were still peaceful yet the will of the people was clearly against his regime).
It is the difference between a regional genocide and the intent of global genocide/domination that makes Syria worthwhile of more attention than Rwanda. Ideally we'd give attention to both, but if we have to prioritize then it is simple which conflict is more significant for *global* human rights and Enlightenment values than the other. Yes?
You are wrong. What is happening in Syria is this. The totalitarian but secular Baath Party has overreached and the citizens got fed up. The citizens started out with peaceful protests but eventually turned to weapons. This is the Revolution. It has evolved from this situation and the Revolution has been co-opted by a jihahist movement (incited, funded and supported by the Saudis and Qatar). They seek to turn Syria into a member of the global Caliphate.
So if you think that the news about Syria is some plot by the US to control the Middle East then you couldn't be more wrong. The situation in Syria was secular Syrians wanted more freedoms (grea!) but has now been perverted into Sunni Muslim militants taking over another country (since they've already captured Egypt).
If you want to useful and oppose imperialism then get out of your Cold War mindset where the US is always at fault. It is not in the case of Syria. The Imperialism is due to the global totalitarian aspirations of jihadis that wish to re-impose the Caliphate (and an internal struggle where the Caliphate is either Shia and led by Iran, or Sunni and led by the Saudis). It is easy to see that this is the case, just listen to the pronouncements of the Syrian rebels themselves (and stop listening to the ignorant media in the West, who are shitty journalists).
Note that the US is not intervening. This is good and bad. It is good because the US doesn't need to waste more money. It is bad because the secular Syrian forces that started the revolution are not being supported and the brutal Islamist forces are taking over. Egypt is already on the way to becoming another Saudi Arabia and Syria is now on the same path. Anyone who cares about democracy and human rights should be urging for the US to intervene and impose a secular democracy in Syria because without that we're just going to see an Islamist takeover (where you have no human rights). Do you want this to happen? I don't. So get real and stop using the outdated paradigms of the past.
Hmm, the Falcon series of flight sims featured Israel as a combat theatre. There are very many paper wargames (ya know, old style) that feature conflicts in the Middle East. So it appears you are pretty ignorant - and what appears to be your attempt at anti-Zionism has failed.
Since you are ignorant here's a capsule history in 5 minutes that explains the situation in the Middle East, from Purdue University. The situation is very simple and clear. It is the resolution that is complex. How do you defuse intrinsic hatred of Islam for all non-Mulims? solve that and you will solve all the Islam created problems in the Middle East; eg. Islam vs unbelievers like Europe; Iranian Shia Islam vs Arabian Shia Islam; Islam vs Christians in Iraq, Syria and Egypt; Islam vs animists on Sudan; Islam vs Israel; Islam vs the US; etc etc:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4
Unfortunately the United Nations can't be relied on to sort it out, for the following reason:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7Mupoo1At8
Furthermore, the UN is attempting to outlaw Free Speech by disabling our ability to cricitise the flaws in any religion (but specifically, the barbarism of Islam):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uadgk2kveRU
The political Left are usually helpful watchdogs, but they are no help either (they are so anti-American as a vestige of Cold War reasoning, that they excuse the totalitarian imperialism of the Islamists who seek to impose a new global Caliphate):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA3OzSCdCUk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqSY285BqQg
So, your statement is a bit of a fail. It simply shows you know nothing about gaming/wargaming (the Middle East is covered extensively) and probably have a poor grasp of the situation in the region (and it turns out, the World, since the goal of the jihadis is to conquer the World once they've crushed Israel).
The M-16A2 has three-round burst instead, IIRC because the DOD determined that "spray and pray" isn't an effective method for engaging the enemy.
"Spray n pray" is un-aimed shots. Conscripts in Vietnam did this. I believe modern users of the M-16/M-4 are trained never to do this (and the Israelis are trained to lie, kneel or brace before shooting - according to an Israeli mate of mine; they try not to fire standing as it is less stable for aiming). You are right that this was a factor in removing full-auto from this weapon.
The second factor in creating a weapon with a three round burst is because the recoil of the first shots upset the aim sufficiently that further shots are usually wasted. Some weapons try to get the burst out quickly to reduce minimize the effect of recoil on aiming.
The third factor in removing full auto is not related to aiming. It is to reduce the wastage of ammunition and soldiers to be engaged for longer without running out of ammo (since soldiers can only carry a limited amount - it is heavy!).
Thanks. Of course, there is always the fallback excuse that unless I read it in Arabic then I'll never understand it properly (yeah, right!).
There are excellent interpretations (humerous and very irreverent, u might get a great deal of amusement as well as insight) from an ex-Muslim at:
http://kafirgirl.wordpress.com/archive/
http://kafirgirl.wordpress.com/2008/07/18/chapter4part3/
http://kafirgirl.wordpress.com/2008/08/03/wives-part-1/
http://kafirgirl.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/wives-part-2/
Pax.
but it is interesting that to my knowledge, nobody has even attempted to critique the accuracy of the video.
Excellent point. One can understand that the Muslims would not criticize the video - they are not permitted to criticize aspects of their religion (once upon a time they could, but the Caliphs in Baghdad shut it all down as the questions got too uncomfortable to their political rule - and it has been zip lip enforced on pain of death ever since).
It is interesting that Western academics haven't bothered to pull the video apart to check inaccuracies. Surely that is the job of intellectuals to understand something resulting in so much global turmoil. Or if they have then the media haven't bothered to publish any analyses - they cowed like good dhimmis, since they understand the threat of violence is real. The lack of spine is sickening (I may just have to critically watch the video and do the analysis myself!).
Define, "what is a Muslim"? there are so many problems with this. If we consider Muslims to be those that make the required statement then sure, most Muslims are awesome (despite Islam itself being bad - because we can make that distinction). However, if we narrow our definition and say that a Muslim is one who follows the teachings in the Qur'an and hadiths (ya know, the definition that a Salafi might use) then we end up with a bunch of people who most definitely advocate, implement or support violence in the name of their teachings. It is those motherfuckers that we ought to be worried about - not the huge numbers who profess to be Muslim (or Christian etc) but actually ignore the teachings when it contradicts their innate (superior) sense of morality - and apart from a few mystical mumblings would be hard to distinguish from a non-religious rationalist in their day-to-day practices.
So if your post was meant to mean, "Most Muslims are actually ok" then I agree with you. Just don't forget about the Muslims (and Christians etc etc) that are not ok because their religion commands them to do evil. To paraphrase Sam Harris, "How often do you lie awake at night worrying about the Amish?", and "The problem with Islamic Fundamentalists is the Fundamentals of Islam; if the fundamental of Islam were not violent then we wouldn't have to worry about the fundamentalists, would we?". The same goes for Christian or Jewish fundamentalists - as the fundamental of those religious are also barbaric, with a sprinkling of some nicer rainbow stuff on top. So I don't hate the playa, I hate the game. The Muslims are ok, but political Islam is not. However we can't give Islam a free pass to do its evil just because we like a large fraction of those who profess to be Muslims (but actually don't practice Islam as it is laid out in the Qur'an).
As the physicist Steven Weinberg said, "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.". So yeah, most Muslims are good people (but bad Muslims), the good Muslims are bad people (according to Enlightenment values).
Free speech has a limited right to offend, and defamation and hate speech are such limitations.
I agree, there are limits to free speech. Those limitations are not relevant to the discussion of the video at hand. I'm glad you agree that Free Speech has the right to offend. That is the right that is actually in play.
and you say "all Muslims are like this"
Did I? Could you please re-read my post and find where I said this. You won't find it. You simply have made stuff up and are projecting your hyper-sensitivity on to my post. This is typical of those desperately trying to be politically correct at the expense of simply applying impartial reasoning and seeing where that will take you. Then you have the gall to insult me as "ignorant" after you have just fabricated a quotation against me. Who is the ignoramus here?
You'll find I said no such thing. I very well understand the proportions between actively violent Muslims, passive Muslims who agree with the violence (which is a very significant proportion of the 1.6 billion Muslims on the planet, which I lump in as supporting the troublemakers - so the total is not just a small fringe as you suggest), and then the Muslims who only live in Muslim countries and don't actually practice the teachings at all (the good guys by Western standards). I didn't want to burden my initial post with this distinction, since it wasn't necessary - only the ones who inflict violence are of significance to non-Muslims, since they are the ones that affect us. So please stop projecting what appears to be an apologist agenda, thanks.
You are showing plenty of ignorance yourself.
Nope. It is you that is ignorant of my position. I've already pointed out that you have projected incorrect assumptions (and
"thoughlover", lol. How ironic. Perhaps apply Occam's Razor next time before you support a possible but very improbably scenario.
and here I was thinking it was all those WASP dudes in the country clubs. I've got the wrong racist meme going.
Um, the "Innocence of Muslims" video was created by a Coptic (Egyptian Christian) to point out bad aspects of Mohammed (eg. marrying a 6 year old and ) and Islam. The video has terrible production values and is completely insensitive, but I think the core concepts actually come from the Qur'an itself.
The video was intended to show hypocracy, highlight the nastier aspects of the Qur'an, and show inflame Muslims (who are insensitive and increasingly violent to Copts). The real problem is not the video, it is: the oversensitivity of Muslims to any criticism, eg. they immediately turn to violence; and the craven cowardice of supposedly free societies who do not stand up for free speech and instead appease the violent who are clearly breaking local laws. This may sound harsh, but free speech requires the right to offend, even with a dumb and insulting (but scripturally accurate, AFAIK) video. Ignoring violent acts because of a video is not what the police should be doing - but they are currently cowed. How is this healthy in the long term?
so naturally they can't comprehend of a liberal democracy where this might not be the case.
Wrong. They understand what liberal democracy it. It is just they reject it utterly because they believe they are commanded by God to do so (according to their teachings). Similarly, parts of the political classes in the West are starting to utterly reject the notions of the political Islamists, since it seeks to eventually replace all other systems. Please don't confuse each 'side' with not comprehending each other's point of view. Both positions are pretty well understood. It is just that each side rejects the other. Note, however, that liberal democracy can tolerate aspects of the religious myths of Islam (eg. Muslim Israelis are tolerated, even in the IDF, for example). What liberal democracy rejects is the political system of Islam and the tyrrany of some parts of the religion [eg. poor treatment of women, the non-egalitarian concept of dhimmitude, the inability to question the clerics etc]).