The Soviets wanted to conqurer Afghanistan, the US has no intention of doing this. The US on the otherhand simply plans to destoy as many terrorist bases as possible. Once their dead, we move on.
Yeah, that's what I thought the plan was, too. Then I read on CNN.com that the plan is actually to depose the Taliban and set up an interim government under UN auspices.
Have you ever seen anyone burn a flag? Have any of your friends ever seen anyone burn a flag? Maybe I just live under a rock, but I certainly haven't.
Well, I know this doesn't count, but my understanding was always that if a flag is so tarnished (literally, not figuratively) that you cannot display it, the proper and respectful course of action was to burn it.
So I checked, and at this site I found what they claim is the text of an Executive Order, issued by some president or another (they don't specify):
The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.
I've said this before, and I'm going to keep saying it as long as there are people who don't get it yet...
Privacy does contribute to freedom of speech, and even to freedom of assembly. Sometimes you need to speak and organize against those in power. Fact is, quite often those in power can and will act against you for doing so, if they know about it-- yes, even in the United States-- and they can be considerably more creative than simply throwing you in jail on charges of having uttered some magic words.
If you trust those in power to maintain a nice solid wall between eavesdroppings they can act on and eavesdroppings they can't, well, you're either more trusting, more foolish, or just more forgetful than some of us.
Geez, you'd think people would remember McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO, and the Nixon administration's "Enemies List".
You are deluding yourselves if you think you have ANY freedom.
So, I've been thinking about that a lot lately. And what I've come up with is that I do, actually, have a fair amount of freedom. I could get up, walk out the door, and start a new life three thousand miles from here at the drop of a hat. I could, tomorrow, print several thousand copies of whatever crackpot manifesto came into my head, quit my job, and spend my time distributing them 'til I ran out. I could, if the mood struck me, declare myself the Embodiment of God on Earth, get a few people together, and build a nice compound.
I don't choose to exercise these freedoms, but it's nice to know they're there.
HA! We didn't have rocks! We had to grind our teeth down with our teeth, and mix the dust with spit to make a modeling compound!
Mostly, we made false teeth.
Re:Nothing wrong with WAP, really.
on
WAP Bashing
·
· Score: 2
There is really nothing badly wrong with WAP. The protocol itself is quite good, it just needs to "mature" a little bit.
The problem itself is in the WAP browsers (being "non-standardized"), the phones (too small displays) and the cellphone nets (just too darn slow and expensive).
Umm... wasn't the whole point of WAP to address those latter two issues?
This is probably an unpopular idea, as witnessed by the fact that I've seen it expressed nowhere yet...
But has the thought crossed anyone's mind that what we ought to do is drag bin Laden and company's asses back here and try them in a criminal court? Better yet, try them in front of a war crimes tribunal in Geneva.
I have no doubt, at this point, that they'd be found guilty. And I find it hard to imagine that they wouldn't be executed, whatever the rules in Geneva are at the moment.
But it would be considerably more satisfying for me, at least, to see those responsible hauled in chains before a court of law to have their guilt laid out before them and their sentence decreed-- in short, have them judged by the world at large (or perhaps just the United States, that ought to make the bastards feel good) before they die. Think of the humiliation, the resentment, and the anger they'd feel to die at our mercy rather than fighting us.
I'm not generally a bitter or vengeful person, but somehow I don't want to just read in the paper one day that bin Laden was shot by special forces in a midnight raid. That's just not really enough.
On the other hand, I recognize that such action might involve unnecessary risk to the soldiers who'd have to carry it out... in which case, screw it, just take him and his out.
This is off-topic as all hell... but hey, if I have to buy a fistful of videogames and CDs on Monday to Help The Economy, well... I guess a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
The United States Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and of assembly. One of the primary reasons for those two guarantees is that, combined, they allow people to freely criticize and take political action against the government.
People are less likely to engage in discussion critical of the government if they fear reprisal. If the government doesn't get to listen, that fear is nearly destroyed. Therefore, it is crucial to the notion of a democratic state that the people be allowed to communicate without government eavesdropping, because it is only in such an atmosphere that the people are truly free to make decisions that adversely affect those currently in power.
Some of us already use Linux wherever possible (because we have read the docs, and for us a free Unix clone is easier to use than Windows)... and we would like an office suite.
Also consider that not everyone who needs or uses an office suite is a C-average business major with 2.5 kids.
Furthermore, if some people want to attempt to expand the Linux user base beyond the nerd niche, who the hell are you to have a problem with that?
It seems that whenever an office suite is reviewed, most of the column space is dedicated to exactly which MS Office file formats it supports, and how well.
That makes sense if you're doing a study of the feasibility of transitioning to a given office suite from MS Office.
That said, if you're going to do a comparison, it is unreasonable to pit MS Office against another suite based on support for MS Office files! Compare feature sets, stability, speed, size, usability, etc. The assumption that any office suite has to act as an MS Office clone in order to be as good as MS Office is a faulty one.
Consider this review, in particular... if I'm not currently locked into MS Office file formats, this review tells me almost nothing about the advantages and disadvantages of KOffice and MS Office.
Well, first, it's worth noting that this technology is being used (at least at the moment) to find people-- or sadly, more likely bodies-- lost in a huge pile of rubble. I haven't seen any discussion of the possible use of cell phone location technology to prevent terrorist attacks... one wonders how it would help, actually.
Second, it's not anonymity that Americans hold dear so much as the freedom to communicate without fear of repercussion. Freedom of speech and of assembly are guaranteed by our Constitution, and most of us believe those guarantees to have been well-considered. Those two freedoms are critical to the notion of a democratic society.
Finally, your comments (though I think you perhaps misunderstood the application of the technology, in this instance) do not seem ridiculous too all Americans, especially right now. I had a long, sad debate with a friend of mine on the very subject last night.
This is the single most pathetic display of ignorance and illiteracy I've ever seen. Most people just go for one or the other, but the combination presented here is an astounding work of overwhelming stupidity and I think we should all take a few moments to recognize the achievement.
Ladies and gentlemen, we may very well have before us the product of the most absolutely useless human being on the face of the planet.
PRELIMINARY STUPIDITY METRICS:
word count: 155
misspellings: 15 (10.33%)
sentences and sentence fragments: 19
grammatical errors: 42 ( 2.21 per sentence/fragment)
You mean, "the chickens are coming home to roost"? I hope not, because that expression doesn't really fit... it's more of a "reaping what you sow" sort of thing.
(DOS sucks,of course, but not because of its command line interface).
IMHO, DOS sucks at least in part because of its horrible command line interface. When I discovered UNIX shells, I was astounded at how much easier it was to Get Things Done on the commandline.
There's a reason why they're boycotting that though. As you may have heard, this convention denounces Israel as a racist state (I don't remember the specifics, but that's the main part of it). The US representatives do not agree with this, and they feel strongly enough about the issue that they are willing to boycott the convention.
That's not entirely true. This conference recognizes a problem of racism in Israel, and would like to work toward a solution. The language has become increasingly mild and conciliatory toward Israel as the preparations and the conference itself have gone on. In point of fact, the United States walked out before Israel did!
There is also a very large contingent at the conference (including an African bloc and many US NGOs) who believe that the U.S. is using the Israel/Palestine issue as a smokescreen because it doesn't want to discuss the possibility of declaring the trans-Atlantic slave trade to have been a crime against humanity, and is avoiding the issue of reparations for said crime altogether.
Europe and Africa seem to have been squaring off on that issue, but none of those countries boycotted the WCAR.
Note that you immediately assumed that the raid was probably conducted because of the target's "[p0rn || warez || etc.]" and not because of their "[race || religion || etc.]".
You also immediately drew a connection between the people involved here and some you've apparently heard about elsewhere who "cry racism" unjustly and on a regular basis.
My point is that you've hardly shown yourself to be above the sort of instant-conclusion reaction that you attribute to the people involved here.
Also, considering the United States government is (right now) boycotting the UN's World Conference Against Racism, it's not an entirely unreasonable charge to level against said government at the moment.
I suspect a bit more research is in order before anyone draws any further conclusions here.
Slashdot Mirror
That was war. It was just very selectively televised.
Yeah, that's what I thought the plan was, too. Then I read on CNN.com that the plan is actually to depose the Taliban and set up an interim government under UN auspices.
In other words, conquer and occupy.
... and we like opium!
(joke)
someone mod this up, please. voices of reason are handy, and should be kept around.
Well, I know this doesn't count, but my understanding was always that if a flag is so tarnished (literally, not figuratively) that you cannot display it, the proper and respectful course of action was to burn it.
So I checked, and at this site I found what they claim is the text of an Executive Order, issued by some president or another (they don't specify):
Privacy does contribute to freedom of speech, and even to freedom of assembly. Sometimes you need to speak and organize against those in power. Fact is, quite often those in power can and will act against you for doing so, if they know about it-- yes, even in the United States-- and they can be considerably more creative than simply throwing you in jail on charges of having uttered some magic words.
If you trust those in power to maintain a nice solid wall between eavesdroppings they can act on and eavesdroppings they can't, well, you're either more trusting, more foolish, or just more forgetful than some of us.
Geez, you'd think people would remember McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO, and the Nixon administration's "Enemies List".
So, I've been thinking about that a lot lately. And what I've come up with is that I do, actually, have a fair amount of freedom. I could get up, walk out the door, and start a new life three thousand miles from here at the drop of a hat. I could, tomorrow, print several thousand copies of whatever crackpot manifesto came into my head, quit my job, and spend my time distributing them 'til I ran out. I could, if the mood struck me, declare myself the Embodiment of God on Earth, get a few people together, and build a nice compound.
I don't choose to exercise these freedoms, but it's nice to know they're there.
That's cool, we're not hurting anybody who doesn't read the thread.
Mostly, we made false teeth.
Umm... wasn't the whole point of WAP to address those latter two issues?
But has the thought crossed anyone's mind that what we ought to do is drag bin Laden and company's asses back here and try them in a criminal court? Better yet, try them in front of a war crimes tribunal in Geneva.
I have no doubt, at this point, that they'd be found guilty. And I find it hard to imagine that they wouldn't be executed, whatever the rules in Geneva are at the moment.
But it would be considerably more satisfying for me, at least, to see those responsible hauled in chains before a court of law to have their guilt laid out before them and their sentence decreed-- in short, have them judged by the world at large (or perhaps just the United States, that ought to make the bastards feel good) before they die. Think of the humiliation, the resentment, and the anger they'd feel to die at our mercy rather than fighting us.
I'm not generally a bitter or vengeful person, but somehow I don't want to just read in the paper one day that bin Laden was shot by special forces in a midnight raid. That's just not really enough.
On the other hand, I recognize that such action might involve unnecessary risk to the soldiers who'd have to carry it out... in which case, screw it, just take him and his out.
This is off-topic as all hell... but hey, if I have to buy a fistful of videogames and CDs on Monday to Help The Economy, well... I guess a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
People are less likely to engage in discussion critical of the government if they fear reprisal. If the government doesn't get to listen, that fear is nearly destroyed. Therefore, it is crucial to the notion of a democratic state that the people be allowed to communicate without government eavesdropping, because it is only in such an atmosphere that the people are truly free to make decisions that adversely affect those currently in power.
Also consider that not everyone who needs or uses an office suite is a C-average business major with 2.5 kids.
Furthermore, if some people want to attempt to expand the Linux user base beyond the nerd niche, who the hell are you to have a problem with that?
That makes sense if you're doing a study of the feasibility of transitioning to a given office suite from MS Office.
That said, if you're going to do a comparison, it is unreasonable to pit MS Office against another suite based on support for MS Office files! Compare feature sets, stability, speed, size, usability, etc. The assumption that any office suite has to act as an MS Office clone in order to be as good as MS Office is a faulty one.
Consider this review, in particular... if I'm not currently locked into MS Office file formats, this review tells me almost nothing about the advantages and disadvantages of KOffice and MS Office.
Second, it's not anonymity that Americans hold dear so much as the freedom to communicate without fear of repercussion. Freedom of speech and of assembly are guaranteed by our Constitution, and most of us believe those guarantees to have been well-considered. Those two freedoms are critical to the notion of a democratic society.
Finally, your comments (though I think you perhaps misunderstood the application of the technology, in this instance) do not seem ridiculous too all Americans, especially right now. I had a long, sad debate with a friend of mine on the very subject last night.
Ladies and gentlemen, we may very well have before us the product of the most absolutely useless human being on the face of the planet.
PRELIMINARY STUPIDITY METRICS:
word count: 155
misspellings: 15 (10.33%)
sentences and sentence fragments: 19
grammatical errors: 42 ( 2.21 per sentence/fragment)
It's one thing to use a game's engine and expand upon it and make something reasonably different... but this might as well be a skin set.
If everyone was apolitical, there wouldn't be any "secular" war, either.
What fool modded this as "insightful"?
The roster? Are you quite sure? ;)
You mean, "the chickens are coming home to roost"? I hope not, because that expression doesn't really fit... it's more of a "reaping what you sow" sort of thing.
But it has nothing to do with the billionth-second issue that this article is about.
'Informative', perhaps, but also 'Offtopic'.
IMHO, DOS sucks at least in part because of its horrible command line interface. When I discovered UNIX shells, I was astounded at how much easier it was to Get Things Done on the commandline.
That's not entirely true. This conference recognizes a problem of racism in Israel, and would like to work toward a solution. The language has become increasingly mild and conciliatory toward Israel as the preparations and the conference itself have gone on. In point of fact, the United States walked out before Israel did!
There is also a very large contingent at the conference (including an African bloc and many US NGOs) who believe that the U.S. is using the Israel/Palestine issue as a smokescreen because it doesn't want to discuss the possibility of declaring the trans-Atlantic slave trade to have been a crime against humanity, and is avoiding the issue of reparations for said crime altogether.
Europe and Africa seem to have been squaring off on that issue, but none of those countries boycotted the WCAR.
You also immediately drew a connection between the people involved here and some you've apparently heard about elsewhere who "cry racism" unjustly and on a regular basis.
My point is that you've hardly shown yourself to be above the sort of instant-conclusion reaction that you attribute to the people involved here.
Also, considering the United States government is (right now) boycotting the UN's World Conference Against Racism, it's not an entirely unreasonable charge to level against said government at the moment.
I suspect a bit more research is in order before anyone draws any further conclusions here.