Perhaps if I give everyone an example you'll see my point.
There was a study on whether power lines could be placed in the strait between Newfoundland island in Canada and Labrador on the mainland of Canada. They surveyed the bottom and found there was not a safe section that was free of iceburg scrapes.
"Small" icebergs can scrap in water that is 200 feet deep. Icebergs the size of Long Island can likely hit the bottom in very deep water. So I doubt there will be a collision that will be seen on the surface. The bottom of the iceberg will scrape the bottom and move very slowly. I suspect it is dragging bottom right now and it accounts for the wiggly motion you see in the animation.
Iceburgs float. Yes. They drift. Yes. They also drag. Satellite images do not show what happens on the bottom. There is a whole lot of blind excitement about this. You are only watching the tip of this floating object. 90% of it is underwater.
I have doubts anything spectacular would be seen on shore. Most likely, the bottom of the iceburg, which we are always told is 90% of the volume, would strike the bottom before reaching close to shore. It is probably dragging on the bottom right now.
It might also be informative to know that "Zed" is how we pronounce the last letter in the alphabet, in Canada. That is shared by British people too, but in mind of the Canadian pysche, it is one of the typical items that reminds us that we are different than Americans, dispite being bombarded by American culture in all forms of media and entertainment.
Name: Chris Gianelloni Location: USA Occupation: Gentoo Linux Developer Comment: Well, what can I say except that quite a bit of the "meat" of this "interview" was ignored. I did make mention that the full-environment LiveCD would be an "experimental" CD available for x86 and amd64 and that it will have a "limited functionality, beta version" of the installer on the CD. At no point did I represent that there would be a 100% completed installer available by February, but now it appears that everyone under the sun thinks that there will be one.
There will not.
Trust me on this one. The Gentoo Installer project is working very hard, but they are not anywhere near completion and definitely will not be so quickly after the winter holidays.
How much of the artwork is wonder lust?
on
Titan's Alien Thunder
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I took a look at some of the artist impressions of Titan and the probe coming down.
At first I wondered if daylight would be that bright on Titan. That made me study the way light is depicted.
If you study the light source in several of the artistic renderings, the light striking Saturn in the background has nothing to do with the light on the surface of Titan. One image (Probe over Titan) shows Saturn getting light from a direction low on Titan's horizon, and yet there seems to be a bright halo around a dark cloud overhead, as if the sun were behind it.
I like the fantasy aspect of this, but I'm afraid we are going to be in for a big let-down when the real images arrive. I'd say that part of the interest in Titan is not science, but pure wonder lust.
The service I used was based on Direct PC. There was only a Windows client that worked with their PCI card and it didn't offer such tuning as ECN. I did play with MTU and Window size a little, but it didn't help that problem.
Now I understand why my satellite based ISP from years ago would start off transfers at a trickle and slowly speed up. It interpreted the 700ms ping into space and back as congestion.
This could have a benefit for parts of the world where the Internet is available only by satellite. People typically think of Antarctica and mountain regions when I say that, but really, any place without phone or cable, or where you need something better than text messaging over a blackberry, fits the role of using satellite ISP.
I only need to travel a mile from my University with terrific bandwidth to be in place where there are no phone lines or cable available.
Every time hydrogen and fuel cells and such are discussed on Slashdot, it certainly doesn't look
like "news for nerds". It looks more like the
most backwards thinking and misinformed discussion
group on the planet. If you don't know what
you are talking about, then research it - don't
comment and pollute this exchange of ideas site.
"The WWW has never shown that it can consistantly produce the quotation marks we need when we need, and for this reason it needs to go back to the drawing board", said an unnamed source with the Forbes web design team.
There are dozens of ways something can go wrong, especially if you are building a kernel yourself.
If you are installing a kernel update (already compiled, binary files in update) from redhat or someone like that, this should be easy to do, as they automate the proceedure.
If you are compiling your own kernel there are two rules to follow:
1. Never overwrite the existing working kernel and/lib/module contents. Leave the existing kernel around for use in the case your new kernel won't boot the system (which can really happen if it isn't configured well). Don't over write your lilo.conf with the new entry - provide a new entry for the new kernel.
2. Always rerun lilo when there is a new kernel to install. If you are using grub that doesn't apply, but if you are still working with 2.4, you might be looking at lilo and so this pointer might matter.
Finally, learn about recovery methods for Linux. It is possible to make yourself a KNOPPIX cdrom (just one popular example from many available) that can be booted and used as a fully operational linux system in order to fix any grave problems on the disk version of Linux. If you prepare yourself, you should NEVER be in a situation where you lose your system from a mere kernel upgrade.
I bought a whole TRS-80 set up when I was 16 or 17 and learning to program in BASIC. I recall the floppy drive expansion interface cost me $750. The whole set up cost me $3500 CDN in 1980.
I had no idea it would be so short lived and obsoleted in 2 years.
I thought I was making an investment in my future as a computing professional.
I couldn't afford to do it again and never bought a computer or even something similar to it until 1997 when it seemed that things were becoming more stable and upgradable with the Pentium I. And there was that Internet thing that made it more interesting! Note that even today, 7 years later, the P-I is useable today as a web browsing and email platform.
I can't imagine a logical reason for protecting an Arab involved in bombing Oklahoma (assuming such a thing was real) - and for dozens of people involved in such a cover up conspiracy to be interested in holding on it, especially in light of 9/11. It doesn't add up.
You know you are losing your debate when all you have to pull out is some lame conspiracy theory.
I'm not buying anyone's book to look into this. I've just researched it using the Internet, and it holds as much water as many other hysterical movements in the U.S.
If you look at the history of public hysteria in the U.S., you will find lots of examples of eye witnesses materializing, claiming they saw something that fits some conspiracy pattern. From needles in Pepsi cans (one bizzare and confusing accident in a family that had a diabetic, copycated across the nation), to missiles shooting down a 747 passenger airline in New York, you can find eye witnesses that will back up anything that makes the story more sinister than it first appears. Even on 9/11, people across the U.S. were trying to hurt or kill anyone with dark skin and something on their head - some of whom were Sikh's not Arabs. At that point, no one was really sure who was behind the attacks, and like Oklahoma, and the anthax in the mail events, the public was ready to say the Arabs before really knowing the facts.
I personally saw an airplane crash at an airshow, and eye witnesses on the radio said that the plane exploded before it hit the water. Others said seagulls were sucked into the engine. What really happened was that the airplane stalled during a 90 degree turn while only a few hundred feet over the water. When it hit the water, there was a gap between the sound of the plane hitting, and the sight of the plane hitting. Because this never happens in movies, people reversed the order of events and thought the sound preceded the sight, as if there was an explosion prior to the crash. In reality there was a loud clap sound after we saw the plane hit the water. As for the seagulls, several home movie videos were being shot of the airshow and none of those sent into and shown by TV stations showed any bird sucked into the engine or even nearby.
My point in bringing this up, is that people are often poor eye witnesses, and will say things that fit a pattern of expectations rather than the raw data that may not support it. In the case of Oklahoma bombing, people will prefer to believe there was an Arab incentive, and that it wasn't a purely American white boy that was behind it.
By the same logic of yours, where quantity never has a bearing (one weapon with gas found, one possible meeting between Al Qaeda and Iraqi Intelligence), if we found one ant in your house, it could be classified as an ant hill and filled with pesticides.
Or, to flip around, the United States could attack itself for harbouring dozens of terrorists within it's borders, and for Bush's friendships with the bin Laden family and members of the Taliban leadership visiting officials in Texas. The links can be drawn in many places, but the real question is intentionality. Placing a person in a location does not create any real information on what was actually discussed, or whether there was an alliance, etc. The only people in the world who believe there is a connection are a few million deluded Americans.
Saddam was toppled over a year ago. The U.S. is still there. If this was just about foiling terror plots the job was done long ago. Clinton has been gone for awhile too. If there was some problem with bad guys coming into the U.S., Bush has the ability to do something about it. The only remaining reason for the new found ability to absorb the hostile aggression and take the continuous loss of life (which wasn't present in Lebanon under Reagan, or more recently in Saudi Arabia or in Somalia) is oil gains.
Why didn't they allow Saddam to spread into Kuwait? That is a ridiculous question. Because then the U.S. would be under the thumbs of two Saudi Arabia sized oil states - one of them rogue. You use the phrase "in exchange for access to the oil" - that sums it up - the U.S. does not want to have to bargain with someone like Saddam growing power.
This is about global political and military power, and ensuring the U.S. (and the west in general) has access to oil for its military and industry.
I have a real source of information for you to see:
A recent USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll found that a majority of Iraqis want the United States to leave immediately.
This article is dated May 9th this year. If you want a view of what is happening in Iraq from a U.S. source that actually cares what solders and civilians say in Iraq, check out the Washington Post. It has alot of detail that contradicts Bush's tall tale about a handful of thugs.
Here is another interesting story, from prior to Moore's movie coming out:
'For the first time in ABC News/Washington Post polls, more than half of Americans, 52 percent, say the Iraq war was not worth fighting. Seven in 10 call U.S. casualties there "unacceptable," a new high.'
Is this what you call the new left media or whatever your phrase was? I think it is called democracy.
Why has this changed? Because people figure there is little point going where you are not wanted, and perhaps even hated by a huge chunk of the local population. Why does this not matter to Bush, who continues to refer to a small minority of foreigners and thugs causing the problems? Because the Bush administration value oil more than the lives of a few hundred Americans who mostly come from the lower class.
If the U.S. is really interested in foiling future terrorist plots, they have done everything to achieve the opposite. As we can see in Israel today, fighting it does not extinguish it, but only cues the next generation of people to continue on with the effort. After a few generations of that, I don't know what it takes to stop it - it seems like a perpetual machine of avenging one's grandparents death or whatever.
No weapons of mass destruction have been found. You are confused with what was said before the war and what was discovered afterward. A single artillary shell turning up with some gas in it and unintentionaly blown up as a road side bomb does not constitute anything specially different than what their neighbour Iran has.
We know Saddam was a maverick leader and ruthless dictator, but there are plenty of those around. In most cases, these types of leaders are deposed by their own people in relatively bloodless coups or other change of government, given time. I notice for example that Libya has had some change of heart. Iran will also be changing, given time. Jordan has changed a great deal towards a more moderate and U.S. friendly Arab state.
The cost of the Iraqi operation is enormous. The only reason for it is that the potential monetary and secure access to oil gain out of it is also enormous. If you deny that you have your head in the neocon clouds.
The real judge of the worthiness of the U.S. in invading and occupying Iraq are the people of Iraq. While many foreigners have entered the country and made it into a religious issue, there are many moderate citizens in the street that have been interviewed and all of them want the U.S. out ASAP.
Why? Because if there was a gang in New York City killing people, the mayor would not call on the air force to bomb their hideout, nor would the army go door-to-door with crowbars busting open every home searching for them and invading the homes of peaceful citizens. Yet these are the actions the U.S. forces use in Iraq to deal with the insurgents. Ever action like this costs the U.S. the public support of Iraqis, and they have been there long enough to loose lots of it.
Face it, everyone is biased. Your "information" and views are just as biased as anyone. You don't really know. You believe.
Nothing has come up in the mainstream media to justisfy the war. In Canada, the general view is that initially we were afraid that it would piss off the U.S. and interfer with trade. A year later, none of the allegations of Bush have shown anything to be going on. We are now very glad to have stayed out.
Only a blind believer would cling to the view that you are there for promotion of democracy. There are a hell of a lot of dictators out there that could be deposed with less trouble. Why Iraq? Why stick it out and have so many U.S. solders and civilians die in the war? It isn't just for democracy. If you believe that, you are dilusional.
Name one other country that has been invaded for the purpose of forming a democracy. It is not a general policy of the U.S. It is merely the last remaining excuse for why they are still in Iraq, aside from the truth, which is to secure access to the second largest oil reserves in the world!
The fight between the western powers and the Middle Eastern zealots is an equally blind and equally stupid one. There is no way you could agree with that statement. You would need to be able to step outside of your nation, your culture, and the constant media brainwashing to realize it. It likely won't happen. Not right now. But perhaps in 10 years you will consider other ideas and mature.
But if it could happen, the first step would be to ask yourself what is the source of hate? Why are people willing to give up their lives to harm the U.S.A.? If you don't understand that, you don't understand the true cause of the beginning of the hostility on U.S. soil. It did not begin in 2001. It may be partially fueled by religion, but religion is not the spark!
Americans: please get satellite dishes and watch CBC newsworld or BBC newsworld. You need information that the internal media controls too much.
I don't call it a documentary. It is partial documentary and partial Op-Ed piece. Perhaps 10% propaganda too.
But we need it, because there is no balance in the U.S. media. No one is showing the real effects of the continuing war in Iraq (the one that was said to be completed over a year ago). As well, people's memories are short and this movie serves to remind us how many times Bush and friends lied to us about the weapons of mass destruction and other issues.
There are several books publishing the facts that Moore uses, but only a small number of Americans will read them. TV or movie is the only way to reach the masses, and for this reason, a counter view to everything NBC/CNN/ABC/FOX has said in repeating Bush's propaganda is much needed.
We've already heard 2 years and 730 hours of Bush propaganda, so at this point, I don't care how much fun Moore wants to poke at him in 2 hours.
BTW, you Americans gotta lighten up. We have a TV show in Canada that does this with all of our political leaders, and it runs every week! It is produced by Salter Street studios - the same company producing Bowling for Columbine and also mentioned in credits for F 911.
Regardless of all of the itty-bitty details, I don't think anyone can deny 3 basic ideas covered by the movie:
1. Bush and friends earn more in their Saudi business connections than they do in working at their government jobs. 2. The world was lied too about the weapons of mass destruction, in order to create a false sense of urgency to act in Iraq. 3. The only remaining reason for the U.S. interest in Iraq is oil. Invading a country to access its resources is not justified.
I end with this thought: Imagine if all of the billions spent on Iraq had been spent on a huge research project on alternative energy technologies. I'd think that by now, a Mahattan Project scale of effort would have produced some very interesting results and a way to get us off oil dependance, which when you slap yourself in the face and wake up - we need to get off anyway.
I would also add that a notebook is not a good fit for donating to a third world country. As it ages, replacing parts such as the keyboard or screen will be unaffordable. When a notebook is current these parts are expensive, and when a notebook is out of date, the replacement costs sore through the roof. When the first part breaks, this donation becomes 100% garbage. This would not be true of a desktop system.
A better bet would have been to sell your notebook to someone in the first world (eBay?), and use the cash to send a used or perhaps even new desktop to the third world.
Multi-weight engine oil (e.g. 5W30) is made
that way by the addition of polymers that
cause the oil to act like the lower weight (5W)
when cold and like the higher oil weight (30W)
when hot, to provide the best protection at
both operating temperature extremes. Over time,
contamination and heat break down those modifiers
so that the oil is more like the lower weight.
That is why frequent oil changes are useful.
With Synthetics, the same is not true, however,
all oils end up getting contaminated with
by-products of combustion, and the additives
become depleted, making it time for fresh oil.
Slashdot Mirror
whitebox has quit. They have a plan to migrate
users to Cent OS and the main developer of whitebox is now working on Cent OS.
Windows Media Player permits the installation of
s p/
spyware. Ever use that?
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1749993,00.a
Perhaps if I give everyone an example you'll see my point.
There was a study on whether power lines could be
placed in the strait between Newfoundland island
in Canada and Labrador on the mainland of Canada.
They surveyed the bottom and found there was not
a safe section that was free of iceburg scrapes.
"Small" icebergs can scrap in water that is
200 feet deep. Icebergs the size of Long
Island can likely hit the bottom in very
deep water. So I doubt there will be
a collision that will be seen on the surface.
The bottom of the iceberg will scrape the bottom
and move very slowly. I suspect it is dragging
bottom right now and it accounts for the
wiggly motion you see in the animation.
Iceburgs float. Yes. They drift. Yes.
They also drag. Satellite images do not show
what happens on the bottom. There is a whole
lot of blind excitement about this. You are
only watching the tip of this floating object.
90% of it is underwater.
I have doubts anything spectacular would be seen on shore. Most likely, the bottom of the iceburg, which we are always told is 90% of the volume, would strike the bottom before reaching close to shore. It is probably dragging on the bottom right now.
Not much of a story. Yawn.
It might also be informative to know that
"Zed" is how we pronounce the last letter
in the alphabet, in Canada. That is shared
by British people too, but in mind of
the Canadian pysche, it is one of the
typical items that reminds us that we are
different than Americans, dispite being bombarded
by American culture in all forms of media and
entertainment.
See: this follow up posting under the original article
I took a look at some of the artist impressions of Titan and the probe coming down.
o rk/index.cfm
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/artw
At first I wondered if daylight would be that bright on Titan. That made me study the way light is depicted.
If you study the light source in several of the artistic renderings, the light striking Saturn in the background has nothing to do with the light on the surface of Titan. One image (Probe over Titan) shows Saturn getting light from a direction low on Titan's horizon, and yet there seems to be a bright halo around a dark cloud overhead, as if the sun were behind it.
I like the fantasy aspect of this, but I'm afraid we are going to be in for a big let-down when the real images arrive. I'd say that part of the interest in Titan is not science, but pure wonder lust.
The service I used was based on Direct PC.
There was only a Windows client that worked
with their PCI card and it didn't offer such
tuning as ECN. I did play with MTU and Window
size a little, but it didn't help that problem.
Now I understand why my satellite based ISP from years ago would start off transfers at a trickle and slowly speed up. It interpreted the 700ms ping into space and back as congestion.
This could have a benefit for parts of the world where the Internet is available only by satellite.
People typically think of Antarctica and mountain regions when I say that, but really, any place without phone or cable, or where you need something better than text messaging over a blackberry, fits the role of using satellite ISP.
I only need to travel a mile from my University with terrific bandwidth to be in place where there are no phone lines or cable available.
My contribution is an answer to how you can change electricity to hydrogen, store it, and reuse it:l
http://www.stuartenergy.com/main_our_products.htm
The technology exists. Read about it. Think. Then post!
"No support for quote marks", says Forbes
"The WWW has never shown that it can consistantly produce the quotation marks we need
when we need, and for this reason it needs to go back to the drawing board", said an unnamed source with the Forbes web design team.
I'm with you brother. They are getting politics
very very confused.
Soon democracy will soon be a mere installment of
the fear factor or the world's greatest race or
whatever they call it.
There are dozens of ways something can go wrong, especially if you are building a kernel yourself.
/lib/module contents. Leave the existing kernel around for use in the case your new kernel won't boot the system (which can really happen if it isn't configured well). Don't over write your lilo.conf with the new entry - provide a new entry for the new kernel.
If you are installing a kernel update (already compiled, binary files in update) from redhat or someone like that, this should be easy to do, as they automate the proceedure.
If you are compiling your own kernel there are two rules to follow:
1. Never overwrite the existing working kernel and
2. Always rerun lilo when there is a new kernel to install. If you are using grub that doesn't apply, but if you are still working with 2.4, you might be looking at lilo and so this pointer might matter.
Finally, learn about recovery methods for Linux. It is possible to make yourself a KNOPPIX cdrom (just one popular example from many available) that can be booted and used as a fully operational linux system in order to fix any grave problems on the disk version of Linux. If you prepare yourself, you should NEVER be in a situation where you lose your system from a mere kernel upgrade.
I bought a whole TRS-80 set up when I was 16 or 17 and learning to program in BASIC. I recall the floppy drive expansion interface cost me $750. The whole set up cost me $3500 CDN in 1980.
I had no idea it would be so short lived and obsoleted in 2 years.
I thought I was making an investment in my future as a computing professional.
I couldn't afford to do it again and never bought a computer or even something similar to it until 1997 when it seemed that things were becoming more stable and upgradable with the Pentium I. And there was that Internet thing that made it more interesting! Note that even today, 7 years later, the P-I is useable today as a web browsing and email platform.
I can't imagine a logical reason for protecting an Arab involved in bombing Oklahoma (assuming such a thing was real) - and for dozens of people involved in such a cover up conspiracy to be interested in holding on it, especially in light of 9/11. It doesn't add up.
You know you are losing your debate when all you have to pull out is some lame conspiracy theory.
I'm not buying anyone's book to look into this. I've just researched it using the Internet, and it holds as much water as many other hysterical movements in the U.S.
If you look at the history of public hysteria in the U.S., you will find lots of examples of eye witnesses materializing, claiming they saw something that fits some conspiracy pattern. From needles in Pepsi cans (one bizzare and confusing accident in a family that had a diabetic, copycated across the nation), to missiles shooting down a 747 passenger airline in New York, you can find eye witnesses that will back up anything that makes the story more sinister than it first appears. Even on 9/11, people across the U.S. were trying to hurt or kill anyone with dark skin and something on their head - some of whom were Sikh's not Arabs. At that point, no one was really sure who was behind the attacks, and like Oklahoma, and the anthax in the mail events, the public was ready to say the Arabs before really knowing the facts.
I personally saw an airplane crash at an airshow, and eye witnesses on the radio said that the plane exploded before it hit the water. Others said seagulls were sucked into the engine. What really happened was that the airplane stalled during a 90 degree turn while only a few hundred feet over the water. When it hit the water, there was a gap between the sound of the plane hitting, and the sight of the plane hitting. Because this never happens in movies, people reversed the order of events and thought the sound preceded the sight, as if there was an explosion prior to the crash. In reality there was a loud clap sound after we saw the plane hit the water. As for the seagulls, several home movie videos were being shot of the airshow and none of those sent into and shown by TV stations showed any bird sucked into the engine or even nearby.
My point in bringing this up, is that people are often poor eye witnesses, and will say things that fit a pattern of expectations rather than the raw data that may not support it. In the case of Oklahoma bombing, people will prefer to believe there was an Arab incentive, and that it wasn't a purely American white boy that was behind it.
By the same logic of yours, where quantity never has a bearing (one weapon with gas found, one possible meeting between Al Qaeda and Iraqi Intelligence), if we found one ant in your house, it could be classified as an ant hill and filled with pesticides.
Or, to flip around, the United States could attack itself for harbouring dozens of terrorists within it's borders, and for Bush's friendships with the bin Laden family and members of the Taliban leadership visiting officials in Texas. The links can be drawn in many places, but the real question is intentionality. Placing a person in a location does not create any real information on what was actually discussed, or whether there was an alliance, etc. The only people in the world who believe there is a connection are a few million deluded Americans.
Why don't you argue with your own Senate: Iraq war based on faulty intelligence: U.S. Senate
Saddam was toppled over a year ago. The U.S. is still there. If this was just about foiling terror plots the job was done long ago. Clinton has been gone for awhile too. If there was some problem with bad guys coming into the U.S., Bush has the ability to do something about it. The only remaining reason for the new found ability to absorb the hostile aggression and take the continuous loss of life (which wasn't present in Lebanon under Reagan, or more recently in Saudi Arabia or in Somalia) is oil gains.
- 20 04May8?language=printer
q _e lection_040621.html
Why didn't they allow Saddam to spread into Kuwait? That is a ridiculous question. Because then the U.S. would be under the thumbs of two Saudi Arabia sized oil states - one of them rogue. You use the phrase "in exchange for access to the oil" - that sums it up - the U.S. does not want to have to bargain with someone like Saddam growing power.
This is about global political and military power, and ensuring the U.S. (and the west in general) has access to oil for its military and industry.
I have a real source of information for you to see:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11227
In there you can see this statement:
A recent USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll found that a majority of Iraqis want the United States to leave immediately.
This article is dated May 9th this year. If you want a view of what is happening in Iraq from a U.S. source that actually cares what solders and civilians say in Iraq, check out the Washington Post. It has alot of detail that contradicts Bush's tall tale about a handful of thugs.
Here is another interesting story, from prior to Moore's movie coming out:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/Polls/ira
'For the first time in ABC News/Washington Post polls, more than half of Americans, 52 percent, say the Iraq war was not worth fighting. Seven in 10 call U.S. casualties there "unacceptable," a new high.'
Is this what you call the new left media or whatever your phrase was? I think it is called democracy.
Why has this changed? Because people figure there is little point going where you are not wanted, and perhaps even hated by a huge chunk of the local population. Why does this not matter to Bush, who continues to refer to a small minority of foreigners and thugs causing the problems? Because the Bush administration value oil more than the lives of a few hundred Americans who mostly come from the lower class.
If the U.S. is really interested in foiling future terrorist plots, they have done everything to achieve the opposite. As we can see in Israel today, fighting it does not extinguish it, but only cues the next generation of people to continue on with the effort. After a few generations of that, I don't know what it takes to stop it - it seems like a perpetual machine of avenging one's grandparents death or whatever.
Hate does not come out of thin air.
No weapons of mass destruction have been found. You are confused with what was said before the war and what was discovered afterward. A single artillary shell turning up with some gas in it and unintentionaly blown up as a road side bomb does not constitute anything specially different than what their neighbour Iran has.
We know Saddam was a maverick leader and ruthless dictator, but there are plenty of those around. In most cases, these types of leaders are deposed by their own people in relatively bloodless coups or other change of government, given time. I notice for example that Libya has had some change of heart. Iran will also be changing, given time. Jordan has changed a great deal towards a more moderate and U.S. friendly Arab state.
The cost of the Iraqi operation is enormous. The only reason for it is that the potential monetary and secure access to oil gain out of it is also enormous. If you deny that you have your head in the neocon clouds.
The real judge of the worthiness of the U.S. in invading and occupying Iraq are the people of Iraq. While many foreigners have entered the country and made it into a religious issue, there are many moderate citizens in the street that have been interviewed and all of them want the U.S. out ASAP.
Why? Because if there was a gang in New York City killing people, the mayor would not call on the air force to bomb their hideout, nor would the army go door-to-door with crowbars busting open every home searching for them and invading the homes of peaceful citizens. Yet these are the actions the U.S. forces use in Iraq to deal with the insurgents. Ever action like this costs the U.S. the public support of Iraqis, and they have been there long enough to loose lots of it.
Face it, everyone is biased. Your "information" and views are just as biased as anyone. You don't really know. You believe.
Nothing has come up in the mainstream media to justisfy the war. In Canada, the general view is that initially we were afraid that it would piss off the U.S. and interfer with trade. A year later, none of the allegations of Bush have shown anything to be going on. We are now very glad to have stayed out.
Only a blind believer would cling to the view that you are there for promotion of democracy. There are a hell of a lot of dictators out there that could be deposed with less trouble. Why Iraq? Why stick it out and have so many U.S. solders and civilians die in the war? It isn't just for democracy. If you believe that, you are dilusional.
Name one other country that has been invaded for the purpose of forming a democracy. It is not a general policy of the U.S. It is merely the last remaining excuse for why they are still in Iraq, aside from the truth, which is to secure access to the second largest oil reserves in the world!
The fight between the western powers and the Middle Eastern zealots is an equally blind and equally stupid one. There is no way you could agree with that statement. You would need to be able to step outside of your nation, your culture, and the constant media brainwashing to realize it. It likely won't happen. Not right now. But perhaps in 10 years you will consider other ideas and mature.
But if it could happen, the first step would be to ask yourself what is the source of hate? Why are people willing to give up their lives to harm the U.S.A.? If you don't understand that, you don't understand the true cause of the beginning of the hostility on U.S. soil. It did not begin in 2001. It may be partially fueled by religion, but religion is not the spark!
Americans: please get satellite dishes and watch CBC newsworld or BBC newsworld. You need information that the internal media controls too much.
I don't call it a documentary. It is partial documentary and partial Op-Ed piece. Perhaps 10% propaganda too.
But we need it, because there is no balance in the U.S. media. No one is showing the real effects of the continuing war in Iraq (the one that was said to be completed over a year ago). As well, people's memories are short and this movie serves to remind us how many times Bush and friends lied to us about the weapons of mass destruction and other issues.
There are several books publishing the facts that Moore uses, but only a small number of Americans will read them. TV or movie is the only way to reach the masses, and for this reason, a counter view to everything NBC/CNN/ABC/FOX has said in repeating Bush's propaganda is much needed.
We've already heard 2 years and 730 hours of Bush propaganda, so at this point, I don't care how much fun Moore wants to poke at him in 2 hours.
BTW, you Americans gotta lighten up. We have a TV show in Canada that does this with all of our political leaders, and it runs every week! It is produced by Salter Street studios - the same company producing Bowling for Columbine and also mentioned in credits for F 911.
Regardless of all of the itty-bitty details, I don't think anyone can deny 3 basic ideas covered by the movie:
1. Bush and friends earn more in their Saudi business connections than they do in working at their government jobs.
2. The world was lied too about the weapons of mass destruction, in order to create a false sense of urgency to act in Iraq.
3. The only remaining reason for the U.S. interest in Iraq is oil. Invading a country to access its resources is not justified.
I end with this thought:
Imagine if all of the billions spent on Iraq had been spent on a huge research project on alternative energy technologies. I'd think that by now, a Mahattan Project scale of effort would have produced some very interesting results and a way to get us off oil dependance, which when you slap yourself in the face and wake up - we need to get off anyway.
I would also add that a notebook is not a good fit for donating to a third world country. As it ages, replacing parts such as the keyboard or screen will be unaffordable. When a notebook is current these parts are expensive, and when a notebook is out of date, the replacement costs sore through the roof. When the first part breaks, this donation becomes 100% garbage. This would not be true of a desktop system.
A better bet would have been to sell your notebook to someone in the first world (eBay?), and use the cash to send a used or perhaps even new desktop to the third world.
Multi-weight engine oil (e.g. 5W30) is made that way by the addition of polymers that cause the oil to act like the lower weight (5W) when cold and like the higher oil weight (30W) when hot, to provide the best protection at both operating temperature extremes. Over time, contamination and heat break down those modifiers so that the oil is more like the lower weight. That is why frequent oil changes are useful.
With Synthetics, the same is not true, however, all oils end up getting contaminated with by-products of combustion, and the additives become depleted, making it time for fresh oil.