The fact that they thew a quantum computing reference
Quantum computing? Sure I guess quantum computing may take advantage of such properties, but this phenominon is part of quantum mechanics writ large, not just computing.
Yes, latif supressed kurds, and his troops used Irai uniforms because HE WAS A BATHIST! Guess what, fallujah was primarily a bathist city, this is why they were revolting, and this is why the marines orignially used latif; because as a bathist Fallujah trusted him. It was smart, it was working and he was removed because Rumsfeld is an idiot.
Look stop reading the post or la times, they just print what the pentagon feeds them.
Go read www.orbat.com or www.globalsecurity.org.
Latif was a general under Saddam, so he did some bad things. He is an Irai, so duh, he wants American troops to go home; but he is also no idiot, he was helping us because he was a professional soldier and he wanted back in to the Army. Also he realizes that the fastest way to the u.s. troops home is to pacify places like falujah.
The marines brought him out of retirement, activated an old rep. guard unit and sent them into fallujah (and pulled themselves out). No shit, the bathists in falujah stoped revolting. A. because Latif was a bathist, and they trusted him B. because they probably remember what he is capable of when pissed off.
Then rummy fliped, recalled Latif and Fallujah went nuts again. The point is the marines know how to win this fight if the civilian leadership would back off.
However, don't be silly with your "with little effort" remark.
For the marines it is little effort. Go talk to one, see what kind infects their voice when they talk about their willingness to take casualties and enthusiasm for the fight. I dont agree with their views on war, but Im impressed. It really would be little effort for them to kill everyone
When I mentioned the Bathist, I was refering to the Major General that the Marines supported and put in place. The Iraqi's under him werent deserting either. However he was removed by Rummy because of "debathification", replaced with another officer and then the troops deserted. Fallujah is very winable if Rummy would just let the marines do their job.
>Funny, last I checked, they had won control of Fallujah.
While the insurgents might retain control of some parts of Falujah, it was certainly not by military victory. The marines could have leveled the town and everyone in it. Instead the marine commander organized an Iraqi battalion around a former bathist to try and calm the fires a bit. It was working too until Rummy flipped out over the use of a former Bathist.
The marines can with little effort capture the town, its the political battle that Rummy doesnt want to fight in Fallujah.
The poster is correct though, guerrilla tactics are not designed to win military victories, only political ones.
In this case, the insurgents have one neither as Fallujah is falling under the control of american backed iraqi police.
Guerilla tactics are generally only refered to as unfair when they use civilians as shields or decoys. Many Guerilla tacticts are used reguarly and are advertised as such by U.S. special forces, and there is no negative conotations.
The problem with many guerilla armies is that they intentionally blur the line between civilian and combatant, making it hard for an army that at least tries to be ethical to avoid civilian casualties. This is unfair, because an army that doesnt want to hurt the civilians (that are often associated with the enemy force) is forced to against their will.
the discussion wasnt about supporting dictators or terrorism, it was about the use of proxies for warfare. Also Franco was put in power by the Germans, not the U.S.
You of course ommitted many other governments that the u.s. have installed/supported who would otherwise not exist as they do. S.K. Japan Taiwan W. Germany France Italy Greece The current democratic Philipines
Most notable about your list is that it is comprised of countries that were just as idiotic, undemocratic and oppressive/poor as they were before the presence of the U.S.
We didnt do a very good job, in some case we were down right evil. But at least recognize the success stories too.
Actually the Chinese government is spending a ton of money on education and the sciences. Diffusion to the rural population is slow because there is almost 2 billion of them.
Their space program is actually evidence of this. If you recall the U.S. program was actually created as part of a broader program to encourage the study of math and sciences in the U.S. (ultimatly as part of the cold war effort). Accelerated math and science programs were introduced accross the country in order to further the overall effort. China's program really fits in to a similairly large effort.
The problem in china isnt a lack of committment to education by the ruling party, but rather that politically and socially the ruling party is stifling, and they use education to further that.
To say they arent interested in educating their people is absurd. First of all, they are strongly committment to a national modernization program. Second, they realize the value of state schools in pushing social propaganda.
The problem is that if we assume Fair Use, space shiftnig or format shifting is a right, then how can we presume any specific instance of traffic on a P2P network is illegal? This is what the RIAA lawsuits do, they dont document anything other then traffic before filing a lawsuit.
If I have the right to space shift or format shift, then you better have proof that I dont have right to a given piece of traffic before you file suite. Otherwise the RIAA is just being allowed to abuse its money and legal stables.
Why should the RIAA be allowed the presumption that I am a criminal, in the face of clearly enumerated rights that make it possible, even likely that I am not?
Wait, just came up with a good Asian example for this. The Chinese have historically used Pakistan as a proxy and counter balance to India, even fanning the flames to cause wars like I think they did in 73. Arming them, etc. I guess they also sort of did the same thing against us for a while with North Korea.
OH WAIT!!!! ANOTHER AWESOME EXAMPLE! hehe. Syria, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia with the Palestinians against Israel. These guys constantly encourage non palestinians to encourage hostilities with Israel. I mean Hamas is just an offshoot of Islamic Jihad which was started by the Egyptians.
Oh of course, I forgot. The Saudis and Iranians (Iran especially) do it with terrorists against U.S. civilians. They have been doing it since the Iranian revolution in the 80s.
So yeah, proxy war aint exactly an american thing or even a european thing. Im pretty sure even the Iroquis Nation had a couple of smaller tribes they used for proxy war against other tribes.
I will just add a couple of examples. Lets start with the British East India company in India. They touinely hired Various Indian Princes to attack and eliminate rival princes, again and again. Each time pilfering the target, then attacking the attacker with another proxy and plundering him.
All the major european countries issued letters of mark to independent vessels, licensing them to pirate other nations, while keeping their hands clean.
Lets see, to keep things fair a good non-european example would probably be... shit. Ah got it. Shit, you know the Chinese and Japanese did this sort of shit all the time. Just cant think of any good non-european examples.
Actually I think the monopoly held by RIAA members has very little to do with the production or distribution of music. Any of us could put together a descent production suite using off the shelf components these days for under $1500. We could also burn cds in mass quantity or distribute online using any model we want.
The monopoly is a funtion of the RIAA, in conjunction with Radio, Magazines, MTV and VH1 in promoting music. The promotion of music is what makes the production of music a viable business and allows a label to compete. None of us could promote the music that we could easily produce, because the barriers to entry are so high.
Try getting featured in a magazine or a video on mtv, you cant; and if you cant do that then no store will carry your music and no one will pay to download it because they never heard of it.
All a major label needs to do is call a magazine and tell them to feature it or fedex a video to viacom and will air on MTV. This means that they can just ship anything they want to Sam Goodies, and they will put it on the shelves.
There is a level of collusion going on that is far wider then simply production and distribution, and lets face it, its the promotion that creates the artificial demand for a particular artist.
My interpertation matters in so far as my assigning the value of "evil" to a given set of actions. Hence certain lawsuits good, others evil.
Anyway, I am the one making a copy when I download a piece of music. It is sitting on a file server, static until I actively copy it to my computer.
Also its questionable that making it available for download is simply illegal.
Ever notice how MIT is never prosecuted for distributing pgp source even though it violates encryption export controls? They just have a little click through asking the user if they are in the U.S..
If they can do that, why cant I make any song I want available for download, with the required provisio being that the user states they are legally entitled to do so?
Kazaa certainly has such stipulations in their EULA.
My understanding of fair use is that if I own a piece of music on CD, then I am entitled to make a copy of it for personal use.
I do not consider it an overly liberal interpertation of this to say that if I own a piece of music medium A, then I am entitled to make a copy of it by downloading it from a third party.
I think that as the RIAA is sueing users on P2P who are non commercial, the presumption should be that those users have a fair use right unless the RIAA has positive proof otherwise.
Of course many of the music downloaders could be argued to have a legitimate fair use right, whereas SCO was clearly taking something they had no right too.
Furthermore, SCO distributing the book commercially, whereas 12year old music downloaders sure as hell arent.
Oh, then there is the whole problem where the RIAA has bought politicians and abused a monopoly such that legitimate activities are criminal, whereas SCO violated the most basic and pure aspects of copyright law there are.
Your argument is sort of like comparing apples and hand grenades.
"And the US is a fascist dictatorship" Uhm no. It is an often flawed democracy, but still definitively democratic.
"that has a history of invading whoever the fsck it wants around the world"
Yeah, but keep in mind that we first got started on the whole invading latin american colonies bit because of the French. The French were talking about building a canal accross s. america in the mid 1800s, rather then let the french dominate such a route, we sent a couple thousand marines into I think what is now nicaraugua.
The next major U.S. intervention happened because of a legitimate desire to help the cuban under spanish rule. Sure this was horribly perverted over time, but it began with altruism and was also REQUESTED by the cuban revolutionaries fighting spain at the time. Same thing in the philipines really.
BTW, considering that castro was just a very popular dictator, can anyone claim the moral high ground on the bay of pigs? And as far as 1981 in nicarauga goes, the war had been going on for 8 years and the guerillas we were opposing were just as brutal as the people we supported.
1989 Panama... please tell me you prefer Noriega to the current democraticly elected government.
Then there is just the inherent problem that I have with anyone who chooses to be a cop these days. I view them sort of like lawyers, yes we need them, but I question the integrity of anyone that wants to be one.
The notion of wanting to in a profession that is responsible for detering/punishing consentual crimes is disgusting. The lust for power and authority that is so common amongst police officers really makes me think that most of these people should be the last granted any sort of power.
Yes, online banking. I hate microsoft passport, however Microsoft Money is quite good. My banks use passport to automate ms money's connection to them. The accounting, portfolio and transaction management is massively simplified thanks to passport. Granted my paranoia led me to encrypt the whole drive the MS Money files were stored on, but it is still very usefull. A level of integration was achieved here that I have not seen anywere else. It is quite excellent, and I wish there was an alternate provider.
I just keep a text file updated with whatever information I need on my pc, then synch over blue tooth when I am at the office or home. Its readonly once its in the phone, but really convenient for lists and such.
Freedom of speach has become a right that is very much open to "reasonable" limitations by the government. On the other hand the first amendment has protections in it for more then just speach, and the one protecting religion has never really been abridged.
I have never really been a big fan of organized Religion, but maybe if we made P2P traffic consist of a noticeable amount of traffic regarding religion, then the courts would have more difficulty allowing government oversight.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that they thew a quantum computing reference
Quantum computing? Sure I guess quantum computing may take advantage of such properties, but this phenominon is part of quantum mechanics writ large, not just computing.
Yes, latif supressed kurds, and his troops used Irai uniforms because HE WAS A BATHIST! Guess what, fallujah was primarily a bathist city, this is why they were revolting, and this is why the marines orignially used latif; because as a bathist Fallujah trusted him. It was smart, it was working and he was removed because Rumsfeld is an idiot.
.
Look stop reading the post or la times, they just print what the pentagon feeds them.
Go read www.orbat.com or www.globalsecurity.org
Latif was a general under Saddam, so he did some bad things. He is an Irai, so duh, he wants American troops to go home; but he is also no idiot, he was helping us because he was a professional soldier and he wanted back in to the Army. Also he realizes that the fastest way to the u.s. troops home is to pacify places like falujah.
The marines brought him out of retirement, activated an old rep. guard unit and sent them into fallujah (and pulled themselves out). No shit, the bathists in falujah stoped revolting. A. because Latif was a bathist, and they trusted him B. because they probably remember what he is capable of when pissed off.
Then rummy fliped, recalled Latif and Fallujah went nuts again. The point is the marines know how to win this fight if the civilian leadership would back off.
However, don't be silly with your "with little effort" remark.
For the marines it is little effort. Go talk to one, see what kind infects their voice when they talk about their willingness to take casualties and enthusiasm for the fight. I dont agree with their views on war, but Im impressed. It really would be little effort for them to kill everyone
When I mentioned the Bathist, I was refering to the Major General that the Marines supported and put in place. The Iraqi's under him werent deserting either. However he was removed by Rummy because of "debathification", replaced with another officer and then the troops deserted. Fallujah is very winable if Rummy would just let the marines do their job.
>Funny, last I checked, they had won control of Fallujah.
While the insurgents might retain control of some parts of Falujah, it was certainly not by military victory. The marines could have leveled the town and everyone in it. Instead the marine commander organized an Iraqi battalion around a former bathist to try and calm the fires a bit. It was working too until Rummy flipped out over the use of a former Bathist.
The marines can with little effort capture the town, its the political battle that Rummy doesnt want to fight in Fallujah.
The poster is correct though, guerrilla tactics are not designed to win military victories, only political ones.
In this case, the insurgents have one neither as Fallujah is falling under the control of american backed iraqi police.
Guerilla tactics are generally only refered to as unfair when they use civilians as shields or decoys. Many Guerilla tacticts are used reguarly and are advertised as such by U.S. special forces, and there is no negative conotations.
The problem with many guerilla armies is that they intentionally blur the line between civilian and combatant, making it hard for an army that at least tries to be ethical to avoid civilian casualties. This is unfair, because an army that doesnt want to hurt the civilians (that are often associated with the enemy force) is forced to against their will.
the discussion wasnt about supporting dictators or terrorism, it was about the use of proxies for warfare. Also Franco was put in power by the Germans, not the U.S.
You of course ommitted many other governments that the u.s. have installed/supported who would otherwise not exist as they do.
S.K.
Japan
Taiwan
W. Germany
France
Italy
Greece
The current democratic Philipines
Most notable about your list is that it is comprised of countries that were just as idiotic, undemocratic and oppressive/poor as they were before the presence of the U.S.
We didnt do a very good job, in some case we were down right evil. But at least recognize the success stories too.
Actually the Chinese government is spending a ton of money on education and the sciences. Diffusion to the rural population is slow because there is almost 2 billion of them.
Their space program is actually evidence of this. If you recall the U.S. program was actually created as part of a broader program to encourage the study of math and sciences in the U.S. (ultimatly as part of the cold war effort). Accelerated math and science programs were introduced accross the country in order to further the overall effort. China's program really fits in to a similairly large effort.
The problem in china isnt a lack of committment to education by the ruling party, but rather that politically and socially the ruling party is stifling, and they use education to further that.
To say they arent interested in educating their people is absurd. First of all, they are strongly committment to a national modernization program. Second, they realize the value of state schools in pushing social propaganda.
This is one of the most absurd websites I have ever scene. My god, its... perfect.
The problem is that if we assume Fair Use, space shiftnig or format shifting is a right, then how can we presume any specific instance of traffic on a P2P network is illegal? This is what the RIAA lawsuits do, they dont document anything other then traffic before filing a lawsuit.
If I have the right to space shift or format shift, then you better have proof that I dont have right to a given piece of traffic before you file suite. Otherwise the RIAA is just being allowed to abuse its money and legal stables.
Why should the RIAA be allowed the presumption that I am a criminal, in the face of clearly enumerated rights that make it possible, even likely that I am not?
Wait, just came up with a good Asian example for this. The Chinese have historically used Pakistan as a proxy and counter balance to India, even fanning the flames to cause wars like I think they did in 73. Arming them, etc. I guess they also sort of did the same thing against us for a while with North Korea.
OH WAIT!!!! ANOTHER AWESOME EXAMPLE! hehe. Syria, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia with the Palestinians against Israel. These guys constantly encourage non palestinians to encourage hostilities with Israel. I mean Hamas is just an offshoot of Islamic Jihad which was started by the Egyptians.
Oh of course, I forgot. The Saudis and Iranians (Iran especially) do it with terrorists against U.S. civilians. They have been doing it since the Iranian revolution in the 80s.
So yeah, proxy war aint exactly an american thing or even a european thing. Im pretty sure even the Iroquis Nation had a couple of smaller tribes they used for proxy war against other tribes.
I will just add a couple of examples. Lets start with the British East India company in India. They touinely hired Various Indian Princes to attack and eliminate rival princes, again and again. Each time pilfering the target, then attacking the attacker with another proxy and plundering him.
All the major european countries issued letters of mark to independent vessels, licensing them to pirate other nations, while keeping their hands clean.
Lets see, to keep things fair a good non-european example would probably be... shit. Ah got it. Shit, you know the Chinese and Japanese did this sort of shit all the time. Just cant think of any good non-european examples.
DAMN YOU EURO CENTRIC HISTORY EDUCATION!
Actually I think the monopoly held by RIAA members has very little to do with the production or distribution of music. Any of us could put together a descent production suite using off the shelf components these days for under $1500. We could also burn cds in mass quantity or distribute online using any model we want.
The monopoly is a funtion of the RIAA, in conjunction with Radio, Magazines, MTV and VH1 in promoting music. The promotion of music is what makes the production of music a viable business and allows a label to compete. None of us could promote the music that we could easily produce, because the barriers to entry are so high.
Try getting featured in a magazine or a video on mtv, you cant; and if you cant do that then no store will carry your music and no one will pay to download it because they never heard of it.
All a major label needs to do is call a magazine and tell them to feature it or fedex a video to viacom and will air on MTV. This means that they can just ship anything they want to Sam Goodies, and they will put it on the shelves.
There is a level of collusion going on that is far wider then simply production and distribution, and lets face it, its the promotion that creates the artificial demand for a particular artist.
My interpertation matters in so far as my assigning the value of "evil" to a given set of actions. Hence certain lawsuits good, others evil.
Anyway, I am the one making a copy when I download a piece of music. It is sitting on a file server, static until I actively copy it to my computer.
Also its questionable that making it available for download is simply illegal.
Ever notice how MIT is never prosecuted for distributing pgp source even though it violates encryption export controls? They just have a little click through asking the user if they are in the U.S..
If they can do that, why cant I make any song I want available for download, with the required provisio being that the user states they are legally entitled to do so?
Kazaa certainly has such stipulations in their EULA.
My understanding of fair use is that if I own a piece of music on CD, then I am entitled to make a copy of it for personal use.
I do not consider it an overly liberal interpertation of this to say that if I own a piece of music medium A, then I am entitled to make a copy of it by downloading it from a third party.
I think that as the RIAA is sueing users on P2P who are non commercial, the presumption should be that those users have a fair use right unless the RIAA has positive proof otherwise.
Of course many of the music downloaders could be argued to have a legitimate fair use right, whereas SCO was clearly taking something they had no right too.
Furthermore, SCO distributing the book commercially, whereas 12year old music downloaders sure as hell arent.
Oh, then there is the whole problem where the RIAA has bought politicians and abused a monopoly such that legitimate activities are criminal, whereas SCO violated the most basic and pure aspects of copyright law there are.
Your argument is sort of like comparing apples and hand grenades.
Odd, I though my iPod did just that. Hold down menu, turn on back light. Tap menu, navigate directory.
Who cares, dozens of hardware manufacturers will aligh at t his in court.
"And the US is a fascist dictatorship"
Uhm no. It is an often flawed democracy, but still definitively democratic.
"that has a history of invading whoever the fsck it wants around the world"
Yeah, but keep in mind that we first got started on the whole invading latin american colonies bit because of the French. The French were talking about building a canal accross s. america in the mid 1800s, rather then let the french dominate such a route, we sent a couple thousand marines into I think what is now nicaraugua.
The next major U.S. intervention happened because of a legitimate desire to help the cuban under spanish rule. Sure this was horribly perverted over time, but it began with altruism and was also REQUESTED by the cuban revolutionaries fighting spain at the time. Same thing in the philipines really.
BTW, considering that castro was just a very popular dictator, can anyone claim the moral high ground on the bay of pigs? And as far as 1981 in nicarauga goes, the war had been going on for 8 years and the guerillas we were opposing were just as brutal as the people we supported.
1989 Panama... please tell me you prefer Noriega to the current democraticly elected government.
its a bit late to mention this now, but the drive I was refering to is a secondary drive for my laptop.
Then there is just the inherent problem that I have with anyone who chooses to be a cop these days. I view them sort of like lawyers, yes we need them, but I question the integrity of anyone that wants to be one.
The notion of wanting to in a profession that is responsible for detering/punishing consentual crimes is disgusting. The lust for power and authority that is so common amongst police officers really makes me think that most of these people should be the last granted any sort of power.
Yes, online banking. I hate microsoft passport, however Microsoft Money is quite good. My banks use passport to automate ms money's connection to them. The accounting, portfolio and transaction management is massively simplified thanks to passport. Granted my paranoia led me to encrypt the whole drive the MS Money files were stored on, but it is still very usefull. A level of integration was achieved here that I have not seen anywere else. It is quite excellent, and I wish there was an alternate provider.
Winamp is a pretty good alt media player on windows. Handles avi, mpg, wmf, etc just fine.
I use my cellphone and a java text reader.
I just keep a text file updated with whatever information I need on my pc, then synch over blue tooth when I am at the office or home. Its readonly once its in the phone, but really convenient for lists and such.
Let us not forget the Magic wrought by BIT BROTHERS!
Freedom of speach has become a right that is very much open to "reasonable" limitations by the government. On the other hand the first amendment has protections in it for more then just speach, and the one protecting religion has never really been abridged.
I have never really been a big fan of organized Religion, but maybe if we made P2P traffic consist of a noticeable amount of traffic regarding religion, then the courts would have more difficulty allowing government oversight.
Just a thought.
I nominate George W Bush to be first in line. :)
And what if there is intelligent life on Mars? Do we really want The Monkey to be the first representative of mankind to et?