and where, exactly, did the iranian "monster" come from? [...] this, of course, they did and gave the people of iran 26 years of murderous dictatorship.
So, you agree, that the Iranian regime was
indeed, monstrous. Good. I skipped your history
lesson above, although it is valuable. But it even
further entrenches my view. If these "monsters"
are of US making, US is responsible for bringing
them down, is not it?
south korea was a cold-war anti-domino play. why don't you ask your government why they bombed hanoi or cambodia instead?
The same anti-domino play? Just less
successfull. US could not find the resolve to
fight the commies (in my opinion, they are worse
than nazis, but, definetly, not any better).
Otherwise, South Vietnam could now have been
as advanced as South Korea. Or even better, Hanoi would still be called Hanoi, and noone would remember who Ho Shi Min was (just as today's youth in the former USSR does not know about Lenin). But US government made the
mistake of using military draft, and the US populace made the mistake of trusting communist propaganda...
so iraq merely has to not recommit to the nnpt andeverything is fine? unlikely.
Of course not! It is too late. If you steal, bringing it back is not enough -- especially, when
you are already cought. With Iraq it is more like
a parole violation, which now leads to the full
punishment, that was delayed 12 years ago.
hey! you know what country is the biggest owner and producer of weapons of mass destruction? the united states. forget about nukes, there are over one million pounds of nerve gas in the pine bluff arsenal in arkansas right now. go and inspect it yourself.
So? Our enemies were developing it and so
did we. But unlike Iraq, we did not promise to
destroy them withing a year. Iraq escaped the
"regime change" 12 years ago by making the
promise. It clearly broke it, and
will now faces the delayed punishment. I just regret Bush senior actually
believed Saddam back then -- so many lives and so much money wasted...
The French? Oh, they just can't get over the loss of the "grand nacion" (sp?) status
so it's hubris? hm. there are some other nations that may have a little more in that department than the french...
That was a joking flaimbait (some moron-moderator actually downgraded the whole post as such). Some people oppose the
looming war with reasonable
arguments. Some just can not miss an opportunity to diss the United States because --
their wording -- it is too powerfull. France -- formerly the most powerful (at least, in its own perception) -- where
the petty houligan, who broke McDonalds' window quickly became the anti-US/capitalism/globalization hero and was
acquited of the misdemeanor, seems particularly
full of those.
I've read about the current Iranian government. It's partially democratic, with elections open to all over 15, male or female.
That's current Iranian government. A lot in Iran has changed for the better lately, but there is a long way to go. It is their attempts to acquire nuclear weapons (despite being members of NNPT),
that added them to "axis of evil" list.
if it was led by the UN without any US involvement at all.
Yea, Belgium will send 200 troops, Spain
will provide 500 and Germany will pay for the
rental of two Ukrainian transport aircraft to get
them to Iraq. 120 Danish soldiers
will setup a "safe haven" refugee camp, which
will be overrun by Iraqi military (because the Danes will only be armed with pepper spray),
that will execute all refugees as traitors. France
will not participate, because its Foreign Legion
is busy in Cote d'Ivoire (sp?). Turkey's and Iran's
offer of troops will be rejected, because of
suspected insencerety of their position... Russian
navy will be monitoring "the safety of Russian
interests in the region"... Noone, including China,
will even think of asking China to participate...
Sorry, you can not do it "without any US involvement". Seeing it lead by UN would be
much better, of course, to keep the UN's shattering prestige, among other reasons... And
that's what Bush is trying to achieve. But we
should go on without UN backing -- it is better
than drag our feet, like France is proposing. Give
him another 12 years? No...
If Saddam is showing any cooperation at all
(after 12 years, that were supposed to be 1), it is
because of the US/Brittish/Australian armada at its borders. However, keeping such an armada is
not at all cheap or easy.
Tell me something, what if the rest of the World decided that the US presented a threat. After all it is run by a fundementalist christian with access to WMD, and it has a notoriously trigger happy military.
What exactly do you want to be told? Throughout the years US managed to avoid developing such feelings in the rest of the world...
[BTW,
Saddam is not a fundamentalist or even much of a follower of any faith. He is desperately trying to
change that reputation -- to rally the Muslim world -- but he is not.]
This is the root of your disagreement -- the
anti-americanism. Even if you think, the your
anti-americanism is justified, you should realize,
that you are not really opposing the "regime change". So, consider an anti-McDonalds rally
instead:-)
Your point, that Iraq's monster is partially of
US making is correct. The monster helped to
contain another monster -- Iran --
as you point out. Saddam has also appeared to be a lot more sensible back then. He was quite secular and gave the country's women many of the rights they still don't have in other Muslim countries. However, the monster went out
of control and will now be dismantled. Pitting
different monsters against each other can be a
legitimate policy...
Your other point, about other countries with
dangerous weapons has little merit. Iraq is the only country, that was defeated in a righteous
war and spared the "regime change" on condition of verified disarmament within a
year. That period turned into 12 years, over
which 17 UN resolutions were passed
compelling it make good on its pledge.
No other country has such record, Iraq is the worst, (with North Korea being a distant second).
[Neither Pakistan, nor India, nor Israel have ever
joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaties or
otherwise promised not to develop WMDs...]
Back to pragmatism, yes there are other
evil regimes out there. Seeing the "realpolitik" circumstances finally leading to one of them
being "changed" should delight, rather than
upset a sensible person.
Oil? I wonder, why we even went to Somalia,
or why we are still in South Korea. Racism, anti-Muslim pro-Christian? It was U.S. that protected Albanians from Serbs -- after years
of UN/European impotence... None of it is sheer
generosity, but it is not "all about oil" either.
-mi
P.S. The French? Oh, they just can't get over
the loss of the "grand nacion" (sp?) status. I doubt
many distinguish anti-Iraq-war protests from smashing McDonalds' windows:-)
The reason aluminum does not regularly burn in
open air, is the tiny film of oxide, that promptly develops on any aliminum surface.
If this plastic's reaction to sun is similar,
you can consider it to be part of the manufacturing process -- the car is covered with
the stuff, and exposed to sunlight at the factory to develop the protective coating. It
does not change after that (unless you sand it)...
[...] buy a wireless hub to protect themselves from the military might of world's largest army.
That would, probably, be China's...
Re:Make software, not war!
on
Corporate KDE
·
· Score: 1
Despite the recent setbacks you mention,
Americans are still much "freeer" than Germans, who can not even say:
"Holocaust did not happen," in public. (Relax, I
wouldn't be sincerely saying that either.)
Their taxes are also quite a bit higher, and
salaries lower. And -- like it or not -- money
helps freedom.
Even the speedlimit-less highways don't compensate for that.
And it is not even "Bush and Ashcroft" -- the
whole Congress pissed in their pants on September 12, 2001 (together
with the rest of America) and adopted the stupid
law, that gave the President this power, which,
BTW, he -- so far -- seems to not be abusing.
Re:Painful? Yes. Helps long term? I don't see it.
on
Giant Sucking Noise
·
· Score: 1
[...]exploiting the workers in cheaper markets.
"Trust me," the corporations certainly do not
set out to "exploit" -- with all the negative
connotations of the word. They are looking for
cheaper labor, which is very sensible.
Corporations are certainly more interested in the bottom line, and do you really think for one minute that their motivation is actually triggered by some huminitarian spark in their hearts?
This does not counter the original point, that -- objectively -- what's happening is a
good thing.
It's happening all over again now. Tell me how that's good for my town, Waterton Man.
It is bad for your town -- the original poster submitted, that these things are painful.
May be, your town should not even exist -- if it
keeps failing like you describe and its only
advantage over a town in India or Africa is its
proximity to a fast food establishment.
Or, perhaps, it is not as bad in reality -- in addition to the fact, that
the inhabitants are still the citizens of the
most powerful nation in today's world --
something, many people of those other nations would consider a tremendous advantage.
For a really large hosts files, you'll want to keep two -- one sorted by IPs, and the other -- by hostnames. The search can then be implemented quicker, without resorting to a db-backend.
My impression is that it means nothing to the US government, since those people are not Americans.[...] I am not judging the whole nation by a few idiots. e.g. I certainly appreciate the Americans that go to Iraq to become a human shield.
Blaming U.S., UN sanctions, et al for the
most of the recent past, present, future sufferings of the Iraqis is very silly. You are
misled by the simplicity of the logic cooked up
for you:
-- Are Iraqis suffering?
-- Yes!
-- Why?
-- Because of sanctions?
-- Who is forcing those?
-- US, UN!
You can not blame the sanctions, nor the US'
agression any more, than you can blame a highway
separating guard-rail for hurting people in an
accident. Without it, the car would've ventured to
the other side of the highway, injuring and killing more people in a much more devastating
collision.
Analogies aside, Iraq has invaded its fairly
defenseless neighbour, and was kicked out by US -- (the neighbour's ally). Whatever the US' real
reasons for the alliance were, you would not argue, US shouldn't
have done it back in 1991, would you?
The conditions of Iraq's surrender was to
verifiably give up its worrysome weapons,
release prisoners (over 600 Kuwaitis are still
missing!), etc. The sanctions were imposed until
it all those conditions are met. It is entirely
Saddam's fault, that they are not met to this day.
It was, of course, a big mistake to trust Iraq back then, but the only entity responsible
for the sufferings of Iraqies today is their
government. More so if it brings them war. Even
more so (I'm afraid), if Saddam manages to weasel his way out again and remain in charge...
Despite the hardships of his own people, Saddam has also spent millions on payments to
Palestinian terrorists and their families -- encouraging the despicable bloodshed. "The price of life of an innocent person" is certainly not
a concern for him...
The name and the address are required fields,
for some reason. Fortunately the don't (and
can not) do any verification, so my number is
now registered and "Doofus Anonymous" lives at
0 Privacy Drive in Newton, MA...
[...]
macs have three layers of file permissions where unix has one. Macs have the usual unix permissions. Plus there is an ability to lock a file against changes or deletion, and finally there is the ability to lock a file against modification even by root. generally you wont ever need either of the latter two, but you may someday find a file you cant seem to delete!
It is called "flags" and comes, I suppose,
from BSD. See, for example, FreeBSD's
chflags(1).
The possible flags -- from chflags(2):
UF_NODUMP Do not dump the file.
UF_IMMUTABLE The file may not be changed.
UF_APPEND The file may only be appended to.
UF_NOUNLINK The file may not be renamed or deleted.
UF_OPAQUE The directory is opaque when viewed through a union stack.
SF_ARCHIVED The file may be archived.
SF_IMMUTABLE The file may not be changed.
SF_APPEND The file may only be appended to.
SF_NOUNLINK The file may not be renamed or deleted.
[...]
just in case, the normal file lock is accessed via "get info"
Or ``ls -o'':-) I wonder, why I'd go
with Mac, though, when the real FreeBSD runs on a more powerfull and cheaper hardware... The nice commercial apps? Perhaps...
At the moment in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Zambia and Malawi drought over the past two seasons has drastically hit harvests, leading to 30 million people currently in need of food aid. Other countries are also effected to a lesser extent.
Not sure about the other two, but Ethiopia
and Eritrea have just fought each other in a
stupid and useless war. Spending the lives of
their people on war, and money on weapons and
mercenaries (mostly -- ex-Soviet military pilots, AFAIK)... Hence, they have very little
sympathy this side of the display...
My post was not directed at you directly, but
rather at the whole/. audience. As you can see
from other follow-ups to my post, there is a not
so rare opinion, that spammer's don't have human
rights. Thieves, murderers, rapists do, but
spammers don't...
That was my point. How off-topic was it? Oh,
well, I definetly don't have the "posting bonus"
any more -- because of this post...:-)
Re:Per Transaction Fees Suck...
on
Add-Ons Add Up
·
· Score: 1
They don't provide a service--banks do.
Some parts of the service are provided by banks. Some -- by the CC companies. Are you
saying they don't do anything?
Visa, Mastercard, et al are effectively monopolies.
Ever heard of AmEx, Discover? The competition
is, actually, pretty fierce...
They should be standardized and treated like any other natural monopoly.
Nice jump here from "effectively a monopoly"
to "natural monopoly". They are neither. Leave
them alone...
A decade or so of government control will inject a modicum of fair use into the system.
Suure... Just like it did to telephony?
Why SHOULDN'T a merchant be able to pass on their fees to me?
There is no law against that. However, the
merchant's private contract
with the CC company usually forces her/him. Not
always -- seems like gas stations have (or used
to have) a different contract.
Typical
contracts, BTW, do not allow a merchant to demand
"minimum purchase" either, AFAIK.
Re:Per Transaction Fees Suck...
on
Add-Ons Add Up
·
· Score: 1
The whole darn system should be federalized, IMO.
If you meant, what I think you meant, that's like suggesting xterm be put into kernel...
Cut the fees to the bone, play fair, and kill/absorb the middlemen.
What about the competition between the service providers? Is it no longer a good thing?..
There's nothing like the prospect of being assraped by Bubba to deterr spammers.
This is at least the second time I see a celebration of the in-jail sexual abuse on Slashdot. I don't know, how wide-spread
such rapes really are in US prisons/jail, but I'm
quite confident, they are not going to disappear entirely as
long as some jerks continue to consider them a good addition to incarceration. "Cruel and unusual" your ass (pun intended) -- or is the 1st
ammendment the only one you care about?
However, Nazism promotes hate towards other human beings; communism does not.
You certainly have not tried it... Even a descendant of the rich and/or noble family was automaticly a second-class citizen,
hatred towards him, indeed, promoted, employing him -- discouraged. So was
someone having relatives abroad. Homosexualism was a criminal offence. I'm not
kidding, for example, the famous movie director Paradzhanov
went to prison for this.
Entire nations genocidedly punished -- like Ukrainians with the artificially created hunger in 1933-34 -- for less than wholehearted acceptance of the collective farming, or Chechens and Crymean Tatars after WWII -- for alleged collaboration with Germans.
While it is true, that the most evil things happened under Stalin, they certainly
started under Lenin and continued well into the most recent times.
You can cry your liberal heart out for the injustices McCarthy or Ashcroft have brought upon USA, but none of them remotely begins
to approach the horrors of communism. At least, you can still criticize them risking your job at the most horrible worst.
Criticizing Stalin, or even the "mild" Brezhnev would quickly have brought one or all of the following (list woefully incomplete, and
contains only the things I know happened
to my or my parents' friends or acquaintances):
You are arrested and promptly convicted on an "anti-Soviet" charge -- the sentence is either death or 10-25 years of Gulag (limited to 15 after Stalin's, "liberal" times);
You are forcibly taken into a psychiatric clinic, where -- with the aid of serious drugs -- you are, in fact, turned into a psycho;
You arrested and promptly convicted on a phoney charge with some athlete student testifying you tried to rape
her, or with a gun or narcotics found in your
restroom -- this and the previous "measure" reserved for people having won
some prominence abroad, to discredit them;
Your "parenthood" rights revoked -- followed by your children taken away into a
government foster home;
You are coerced into spying on your friends under the threat of one or more of the above.
While some of this may have happened in
the US, the number of victims is in thousands
at the most. Countless millions perished under Communism, but I think it was mentioned
already.
Yes, I think Communism should be treated
stricter than or no different from Fascism. I'm not sure, if they should be banned, however -- Free Speach is just too important
-- having to tolerate some scumbags may be a fair price to pay...
Besides, Soviet Russia wasn't communist anyway; it's "Stalinist".
But the 1933-1945 Germany was not fascist
either! It was "Hitlerist", of course...
Somehow I suspect you mean Israel here and
I'm willing to risk my "karma" by repeating a
good response, by "Y2KBugs Bunny", which was moderated into oblivion by your anti-Israel cohorts:
I'd like to point out that Israel's political system is a democracy, unlike the assbackwards bigoted countries surrounding it. Perhaps you should take your head out of your jew-hating ass.
You'd better watch out! The US Government is actually controlled by the 16 elders of Zion, whose base is located on Jewish Island. My Kosher tax will be donated to having evil Ninjas with MP5s remove you, then blame the killing on a harmless Hezbollah member who is having his precious privacy rights violated.
Like it or not, cameras are extremely effective criminal deterrence
Have any references to the statistics?
when that fails they're extremely effective tools in finding the culprit
Every time I see the cameras mentioned in relation to a
crime, it says, the recording was too grainy to be useful (like
not even the license plate number is recognizable). May
be, those are the only references, that make it to print, but
do you have any others? The recording is done on the same
tapes over and over, so, of course, it will be of very low quality,
unless, with luck, a fresh tape was added just recently.
Slashdot Mirror
If only we did not spend so much money on the highways, the alternative transportation could have a chance...
The mother of all simplifications...
My FreeBSD desktop humbly disagrees. But the term "just a PC" is to vague to seriously argue, of course.
So, you agree, that the Iranian regime was indeed, monstrous. Good. I skipped your history lesson above, although it is valuable. But it even further entrenches my view. If these "monsters" are of US making, US is responsible for bringing them down, is not it?
The same anti-domino play? Just less successfull. US could not find the resolve to fight the commies (in my opinion, they are worse than nazis, but, definetly, not any better). Otherwise, South Vietnam could now have been as advanced as South Korea. Or even better, Hanoi would still be called Hanoi, and noone would remember who Ho Shi Min was (just as today's youth in the former USSR does not know about Lenin). But US government made the mistake of using military draft, and the US populace made the mistake of trusting communist propaganda...
Of course not! It is too late. If you steal, bringing it back is not enough -- especially, when you are already cought. With Iraq it is more like a parole violation, which now leads to the full punishment, that was delayed 12 years ago.
So? Our enemies were developing it and so did we. But unlike Iraq, we did not promise to destroy them withing a year. Iraq escaped the "regime change" 12 years ago by making the promise. It clearly broke it, and will now faces the delayed punishment. I just regret Bush senior actually believed Saddam back then -- so many lives and so much money wasted...
That was a joking flaimbait (some moron-moderator actually downgraded the whole post as such). Some people oppose the looming war with reasonable arguments. Some just can not miss an opportunity to diss the United States because -- their wording -- it is too powerfull. France -- formerly the most powerful (at least, in its own perception) -- where the petty houligan, who broke McDonalds' window quickly became the anti-US/capitalism/globalization hero and was acquited of the misdemeanor, seems particularly full of those.
That's current Iranian government. A lot in Iran has changed for the better lately, but there is a long way to go. It is their attempts to acquire nuclear weapons (despite being members of NNPT), that added them to "axis of evil" list.
Yea, Belgium will send 200 troops, Spain will provide 500 and Germany will pay for the rental of two Ukrainian transport aircraft to get them to Iraq. 120 Danish soldiers will setup a "safe haven" refugee camp, which will be overrun by Iraqi military (because the Danes will only be armed with pepper spray), that will execute all refugees as traitors. France will not participate, because its Foreign Legion is busy in Cote d'Ivoire (sp?). Turkey's and Iran's offer of troops will be rejected, because of suspected insencerety of their position... Russian navy will be monitoring "the safety of Russian interests in the region"... Noone, including China, will even think of asking China to participate...
Sorry, you can not do it "without any US involvement". Seeing it lead by UN would be much better, of course, to keep the UN's shattering prestige, among other reasons... And that's what Bush is trying to achieve. But we should go on without UN backing -- it is better than drag our feet, like France is proposing. Give him another 12 years? No...
If Saddam is showing any cooperation at all (after 12 years, that were supposed to be 1), it is because of the US/Brittish/Australian armada at its borders. However, keeping such an armada is not at all cheap or easy.
What exactly do you want to be told? Throughout the years US managed to avoid developing such feelings in the rest of the world... [BTW, Saddam is not a fundamentalist or even much of a follower of any faith. He is desperately trying to change that reputation -- to rally the Muslim world -- but he is not.]
This is the root of your disagreement -- the anti-americanism. Even if you think, the your anti-americanism is justified, you should realize, that you are not really opposing the "regime change". So, consider an anti-McDonalds rally instead :-)
Your point, that Iraq's monster is partially of US making is correct. The monster helped to contain another monster -- Iran -- as you point out. Saddam has also appeared to be a lot more sensible back then. He was quite secular and gave the country's women many of the rights they still don't have in other Muslim countries. However, the monster went out of control and will now be dismantled. Pitting different monsters against each other can be a legitimate policy...
Your other point, about other countries with dangerous weapons has little merit. Iraq is the only country, that was defeated in a righteous war and spared the "regime change" on condition of verified disarmament within a year. That period turned into 12 years, over which 17 UN resolutions were passed compelling it make good on its pledge.
No other country has such record, Iraq is the worst, (with North Korea being a distant second). [Neither Pakistan, nor India, nor Israel have ever joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaties or otherwise promised not to develop WMDs...]
Back to pragmatism, yes there are other evil regimes out there. Seeing the "realpolitik" circumstances finally leading to one of them being "changed" should delight, rather than upset a sensible person.
Oil? I wonder, why we even went to Somalia, or why we are still in South Korea. Racism, anti-Muslim pro-Christian? It was U.S. that protected Albanians from Serbs -- after years of UN/European impotence... None of it is sheer generosity, but it is not "all about oil" either.
P.S. The French? Oh, they just can't get over the loss of the "grand nacion" (sp?) status. I doubt many distinguish anti-Iraq-war protests from smashing McDonalds' windows :-)
From the article:
I imagine weekend trips to see the old "spaceship still crawling towards Aldebaran" being available in a few hundred years to our (grand-)children...
The reason aluminum does not regularly burn in open air, is the tiny film of oxide, that promptly develops on any aliminum surface.
If this plastic's reaction to sun is similar, you can consider it to be part of the manufacturing process -- the car is covered with the stuff, and exposed to sunlight at the factory to develop the protective coating. It does not change after that (unless you sand it)...
That would, probably, be China's...
Despite the recent setbacks you mention, Americans are still much "freeer" than Germans, who can not even say: "Holocaust did not happen," in public. (Relax, I wouldn't be sincerely saying that either.)
Their taxes are also quite a bit higher, and salaries lower. And -- like it or not -- money helps freedom.
Even the speedlimit-less highways don't compensate for that.
And it is not even "Bush and Ashcroft" -- the whole Congress pissed in their pants on September 12, 2001 (together with the rest of America) and adopted the stupid law, that gave the President this power, which, BTW, he -- so far -- seems to not be abusing.
"Trust me," the corporations certainly do not set out to "exploit" -- with all the negative connotations of the word. They are looking for cheaper labor, which is very sensible.
This does not counter the original point, that -- objectively -- what's happening is a good thing.
It is bad for your town -- the original poster submitted, that these things are painful. May be, your town should not even exist -- if it keeps failing like you describe and its only advantage over a town in India or Africa is its proximity to a fast food establishment.
Or, perhaps, it is not as bad in reality -- in addition to the fact, that the inhabitants are still the citizens of the most powerful nation in today's world -- something, many people of those other nations would consider a tremendous advantage.
For a really large hosts files, you'll want to
keep two -- one sorted by IPs, and the other --
by hostnames. The search can then be implemented
quicker, without resorting to a db-backend.
Blaming U.S., UN sanctions, et al for the most of the recent past, present, future sufferings of the Iraqis is very silly. You are misled by the simplicity of the logic cooked up for you:
-- Are Iraqis suffering?
-- Yes!
-- Why?
-- Because of sanctions?
-- Who is forcing those?
-- US, UN!
You can not blame the sanctions, nor the US' agression any more, than you can blame a highway separating guard-rail for hurting people in an accident. Without it, the car would've ventured to the other side of the highway, injuring and killing more people in a much more devastating collision.
Analogies aside, Iraq has invaded its fairly defenseless neighbour, and was kicked out by US -- (the neighbour's ally). Whatever the US' real reasons for the alliance were, you would not argue, US shouldn't have done it back in 1991, would you?
The conditions of Iraq's surrender was to verifiably give up its worrysome weapons, release prisoners (over 600 Kuwaitis are still missing!), etc. The sanctions were imposed until it all those conditions are met. It is entirely Saddam's fault, that they are not met to this day.
It was, of course, a big mistake to trust Iraq back then, but the only entity responsible for the sufferings of Iraqies today is their government. More so if it brings them war. Even more so (I'm afraid), if Saddam manages to weasel his way out again and remain in charge...
Despite the hardships of his own people, Saddam has also spent millions on payments to Palestinian terrorists and their families -- encouraging the despicable bloodshed. "The price of life of an innocent person" is certainly not a concern for him...
The name and the address are required fields, for some reason. Fortunately the don't (and can not) do any verification, so my number is now registered and "Doofus Anonymous" lives at 0 Privacy Drive in Newton, MA...
It is called "flags" and comes, I suppose, from BSD. See, for example, FreeBSD's chflags(1). The possible flags -- from chflags(2):
Or ``ls -o'' :-) I wonder, why I'd go
with Mac, though, when the real FreeBSD runs on a more powerfull and cheaper hardware... The nice commercial apps? Perhaps...
If we are discussing paper, how about the perforated kind -- used to store most data less than 20 years ago.
All in all, however, this is just about:
I'm afraid, the first point would for a long time be required "for comfort"...
Not sure about the other two, but Ethiopia and Eritrea have just fought each other in a stupid and useless war. Spending the lives of their people on war, and money on weapons and mercenaries (mostly -- ex-Soviet military pilots, AFAIK)... Hence, they have very little sympathy this side of the display...
My post was not directed at you directly, but rather at the whole /. audience. As you can see
from other follow-ups to my post, there is a not
so rare opinion, that spammer's don't have human
rights. Thieves, murderers, rapists do, but
spammers don't...
That was my point. How off-topic was it? Oh, well, I definetly don't have the "posting bonus" any more -- because of this post... :-)
Some parts of the service are provided by banks. Some -- by the CC companies. Are you saying they don't do anything?
Ever heard of AmEx, Discover? The competition is, actually, pretty fierce...
Nice jump here from "effectively a monopoly" to "natural monopoly". They are neither. Leave them alone...
Suure... Just like it did to telephony?
There is no law against that. However, the merchant's private contract with the CC company usually forces her/him. Not always -- seems like gas stations have (or used to have) a different contract.
Typical contracts, BTW, do not allow a merchant to demand "minimum purchase" either, AFAIK.
If you meant, what I think you meant, that's like suggesting xterm be put into kernel...
What about the competition between the service providers? Is it no longer a good thing?..
This is at least the second time I see a celebration of the in-jail sexual abuse on Slashdot. I don't know, how wide-spread such rapes really are in US prisons/jail, but I'm quite confident, they are not going to disappear entirely as long as some jerks continue to consider them a good addition to incarceration. "Cruel and unusual" your ass (pun intended) -- or is the 1st ammendment the only one you care about?
You certainly have not tried it... Even a descendant of the rich and/or noble family was automaticly a second-class citizen, hatred towards him, indeed, promoted, employing him -- discouraged. So was someone having relatives abroad. Homosexualism was a criminal offence. I'm not kidding, for example, the famous movie director Paradzhanov went to prison for this.
Entire nations genocidedly punished -- like Ukrainians with the artificially created hunger in 1933-34 -- for less than wholehearted acceptance of the collective farming, or Chechens and Crymean Tatars after WWII -- for alleged collaboration with Germans.
While it is true, that the most evil things happened under Stalin, they certainly started under Lenin and continued well into the most recent times.
You can cry your liberal heart out for the injustices McCarthy or Ashcroft have brought upon USA, but none of them remotely begins to approach the horrors of communism. At least, you can still criticize them risking your job at the most horrible worst.
Criticizing Stalin, or even the "mild" Brezhnev would quickly have brought one or all of the following (list woefully incomplete, and contains only the things I know happened to my or my parents' friends or acquaintances):
While some of this may have happened in the US, the number of victims is in thousands at the most. Countless millions perished under Communism, but I think it was mentioned already.
Yes, I think Communism should be treated stricter than or no different from Fascism. I'm not sure, if they should be banned, however -- Free Speach is just too important -- having to tolerate some scumbags may be a fair price to pay...
But the 1933-1945 Germany was not fascist either! It was "Hitlerist", of course...
(It was not Soviet Russia, but Soviet Union.)
And I'll bite it...
Somehow I suspect you mean Israel here and I'm willing to risk my "karma" by repeating a good response, by "Y2KBugs Bunny", which was moderated into oblivion by your anti-Israel cohorts:
Have any references to the statistics?
Every time I see the cameras mentioned in relation to a crime, it says, the recording was too grainy to be useful (like not even the license plate number is recognizable). May be, those are the only references, that make it to print, but do you have any others? The recording is done on the same tapes over and over, so, of course, it will be of very low quality, unless, with luck, a fresh tape was added just recently.