It wasn't we, wytcld. You've just admitted you didn't know anything
about it. It was the U.S. government.
Let's see: Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos. A pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan.
Libya, Panama, Grenada, Iraq. Yugoslavia.
Afghanistan: 60 missiles costing $2,000,000 each into a dry, mostly empty
valley, according to last Sunday's "60 Minutes" TV program. I'll bet that
annoyed the dung beetles. I'll bet they were saying, "Why would anyone want to
spend $120,000,000 just to move our favorite rocks around?
More.
I would support an initiative to find ways to live in the world without
bombing.
"That's largely because of... an acceptance of immigrants: it's just a
genetic fact that populations from regions with long feast-and-famine natural
histories are disposed to store fat easily."
The percentage of immigrants did not change in the last 30 years. The obesity
did.
"How have we meddled in the government of Saudi Arabia?"
The U.S. supports an anti-democratic regime there. I don't have links to
articles for you, however.
Nothing I said, or would ever say, it intended to condone violence of any
kind.
Saudi friends of mine have suggested to me that the U.S. government is far more involved in Saudi politics than is commonly known by U.S. citizens. My independent study of articles and books on Saudi Arabia causes me to agree with them.
No sensible person could be pro- bin Laden. I only think it is reasonable that a government should represent the will of its people. That is impossible with the present government in Saudi Arabia, I am told.
I agree. You should believe nothing without good evidence.
The article referenced at the bottom of this post provides official U.S.
government statistics. (Search on "prison".) An interesting link mentioned
there gives another statistic: The murder rate in Washington, D.C. is 170
times the murder rate in Brussels, Belgium.
You can do a Google search for the
prison rate in other countries. You will find that European countries have
about 1/6 as many of their citizens in prison as the U.S.
"Ever read The Gulag Archipelago?"
Yes, I read that book. During that time in the Soviet Union, there was a
far smaller percentage of people in prison than now in the U.S. Also, the Supermax prisons in
the U.S. are less humane than Gulag prisons. There is a difference, though;
the U.S. apparently has few or no political prisoners.
Check out one prisoner's story: Supermax Prison is Torture
and Death. This is not obscure data. I learned about U.S. prisons from a
PBS TV program. The two links in this and the previous paragraph are just the
2nd and 4th Google links from a search on "supermax prison".
We live in a time when a well-dressed, educated man or woman in a
leadership position will look into your face or a camera, be very clear and
logical-sounding, and speak complete nonsense. That's how things got to be
such a mess. Tonight on a TV news program a U.S. government official was
talking about the "Talley Bahn". He meant the Taliban. From years of
experience with this kind of thing, I know it is a good guess that the speaker
knows nothing of importance about Afghanistan.
We live in a time when total bullshitters are allowed attention equal to
people who know what they are doing. That's how we got the dot-com
dot-bombs.
Look at the big picture. The attacks on the core values of democracy are just
symptoms of a larger sickness.
The U.S. is undergoing a social breakdown. The U.S. has the highest divorce
rate in the world. The U.S. has the highest percentage of obese people. The
U.S. has the highest percentage of its citizens in prison of any country ever,
in the history of the world.
There is evidence that the secret agencies of the U.S. government and the
weapons manufacturers have too much control. Few Americans know how much the
U.S. government has meddled in the government of Saudi Arabia, so few realize
the extent to which Arab complaints are justified.
The U.S. government (not necessarily the U.S. people) has a history of
thinking that violence is the answer. The U.S. government killed an estimated
2,100,000 people in Vietnam and an estimated 150,000 people in Iraq. The U.S.
has bombed 14 countries in 30 years, killing a roughly estimated 3,000,000
people. None of the people who were killed in any way directly threatened
the U.S. These people had mothers and fathers, wives and families and
friends. The U.S. government has a history of valuing the lives of its
citizens much more highly than the lives of people in poor countries. Although
violence can never be condoned, it is not surprising that some people want to
make an effective protest against this.
Good point. My confusion, I think, is from the fact that the European Catholics now think of the Eastern Orthodox as part of their religion. I don't know what the Eastern Orthodox think.
Yes, the U.S. may be becoming a police state. Not only does the U.S. have
at least three agencies that police the entire world, the NSA, the FBI, and
the CIA, but the U.S. has the highest percentage of its citizens in prison of
any country ever, in the history of the world.
People in federal and state prisons... 1,312,354
People in local jails... 621,149
People on probation... 3,839,532
People on parole... 725,527
Total number of citizens... 6,498,562
The total population of
the United States, projected to September 24, 2001 at 6:34:55 PM PDT is
285,218,008. Therefore, 2.3 percent of the entire U.S. population is in prison
or involved with the criminal justice system. But remember, many of those are
babies or children. About 3.1 percent of all adult U.S. citizens are in
prison, jail, or on probation or parole.
An April 20, 2000 ABC News article, U.S. Prison
Population Rising says that the percentage of growth of the U.S.
prison population is rising.
There is other evidence of social breakdown: An August 19, 1998 BBC News
article, The United
States of murder, says that the city with the highest murder rate,
Washington, D.C., has a murder rate 170 times higher than the city with the
lowest murder rate, Brussels, Belgium. The nine U.S. cities in this study of
murder rates all were in the list of the 12 cities with highest murder rate.
There is evidence that the secret agencies of the U.S. government and the
weapons manufactureres have too much control: What should be the Response to
Violence?.
Not only did Catholics support the
Crusades, they enthusiastically supported them. That outbreak of mental
illness lasted from 1095 A.D. to 1291; it was not an isolated circumstance.
During that time Europeans traveled to Arab lands to kill them. At that time
almost all Christians were Catholic.
Many people don't understand the significance of the Crusades, which happened
a long time ago. The significance is that the moral teaching of the Christians
did not prevent them from designing and participating in a killing rampage.
The Crusades were not the only Christian killing rampage. The Spanish
Inquisition was another outbreak of craziness.
The moral teachings of the Christians have not changed significantly since the
Crusades. Arabs ask themselves, "What would prevent Christians from being part
of another killing rampage?" That's why the crusades have significance in
modern thinking. It is easy to understand that when President Bush talked
about a crusade in a speech to the entire nation of the U.S., while at the
same time declaring "war", Arabs became anxious.
It is remarkable how quickly the discussion of terrorism became off-topic.
People are blaming PGP!!! Do you have a right to speak to your wife in
private, with no interference or listening from the government? If you do
have this right, then you have a right to use PGP. Your wife may be in another
country, and PGP is a way of being sure you speak only to her. If you don't
have this right, then the government can legally force its way into anything
you say to your wife.
The primary reason for the violence seems to be corruption in secret agencies
of the U.S. government like the CIA. For example, the CIA trained Osama bin
Laden. If there is more trouble, the CIA receives more funding. So the CIA, at
least unconsciously, wants more trouble.
Israel receives an astounding $905 per year from the U.S. government
for every man, woman and child who lives there. A large part of that money is
spent on weapons bought from the United States. Senators in the U.S. who
represent the states with weapons manufacturers have lobbied to continue
giving money to Israel. The U.S. weapons manufacturers also sell weapons to
the Arabs.
The U.S. government has heavily influenced Saudi politics in favor of the house of al Saud. There are Saudis who would like a more representational government. There has been a lot of U.S. government meddling in Saudi politics that does not appear in the news.
Well then, create a better way of explaining encryption to non-technical people.
Do I have a right to speak to my woman friend or wife or children in private? If I do, then I have the right to unbreakable encryption.
There was one EXCELLENT way of fighting Osama bin Laden: Don't support the Taliban or the Saudis, as the U.S. government did for many years. Then they would fight someone else.
This encryption debate obscures the real issue: The U.S. government must stop being adversarial with the whole world.
First, there are no real "bases" for terrorists, they say. Fighters live in
ordinary villages. Air or artillery strikes against them will invariably kill
civilians.
Moreover, there are few targets other than villages, the veterans warn. There
are few bridges, no factories. Most of the country's infrastructure has been
destroyed in decades of civil war.
"Even in Iraq you had something to bomb," Lisinenko said. "But there are no
targets in Afghanistan. There's nothing there to bomb."
I'm very happy that Slashdot is covering this. If the U.S. government starts a
huge war, it will affect our computer jobs. Not only that, if I did not read
Slashdot, I would never have seen the article.
"Reasonable" left Afghanistan several decades ago.
on
Robots Go To War
·
· Score: 2
"doesn't seem unreasonable.
If you can get the 2,500,000 million people who are threatened with starvation
to agree that this is reasonable, it's fine with me.
Also, your solution seems to assume that the Taliban are a bunch of
intelligent guys sitting around talking. In reality they are poorly educated,
highly stressed people who are sometimes half crazy, and maybe even hungry
themselves. Osama bin Laden is a Saudi and an Arab. (Afghans are not Arabs.)
Perhaps you presume more order than there really is.
"Reasonable" left Afghanistan several decades ago.
"That's like telling people to take their house key down to the police
station," Goodlatte said. "People are not going to have greater confidence in
their security by doing that."
Good analogy. These things must be made simple, because most lawmakers have no
technical education whatsoever. Did I say NONE at all? As in Duhhhh!
The U.S. is killing people without firing a shot.
on
Robots Go To War
·
· Score: 2
"The innocent will pay for our inability to reason."
Exactly.
The innocent are already paying:
According to a September 21, 2001 BBC story,
Aid agencies prepare for Afghan tragedy, Workers in the WFP, World Food
Program, have pulled out of Afghanistan because of fear for their safety. If
you look at the story, be sure to see the face of the woman in the photo at
the top. Her face tells everything. She is one of the innocent people.
The story says, 'According to latest estimates, as many as six million
Afghans are now affected by drought, war or displacement. Aid agencies are
issuing urgent pleas that the U.S.-led "war against terrorism" does not become
a war against innocent civilians. Correspondents say the WFP withdrawal alone
has left two and a half million Afghans without any visible means of
support.'
The U.S. is killing people without firing a shot.
And the craziness does not stop there. The U.S. taxpayer pays enormous
amounts for all this. The Washington Post article,
Unmanned U.S. Plane Is Lost Over Iraq, calls the downed drone aircraft a
"relatively inexpensive, $3.2 million plane".
Senator Hollings official
bio says, " Hollings uses his seniority, experience and know-how to
fight for South Carolina. The state now receives $1.16 from the federal
government for every $1 it sends to Washington."
...
Hollings embraces Inglis' charges that he's a pork-barreler: "He calls it
pork. This is government." He has spent 32 years wangling roads and airports
and sewers for South Carolina, and he doesn't mind reminding voters about it.
Inglis' spokesman derisively calls this Hollings' "I got you... I got you...
I got you... I got you... I got you..." speech.
It's true what you said. But the 63,000 action items speaks something that I find true.
In my opinion, a rich company like Microsoft could do more to assure the quality of its products.
Microsoft Word 2000, for example, is VERY quirky. Also, even after all these versions, it still doesn't allow on-screen kerning. That's not a good record for a very expensive product of which Microsoft has sold millions of copies.
The Microsoft EULA is an anti-competitive practice, however, isn't it? In some cases, it could discourage someone from saying they don't like a Microsoft product.
Slashdot Mirror
No, the obesity is a symptom of the social breakdown. People are eating when they are not hungry. This is an indication they are unhappy.
I've had trouble with getting tech support from Tyan. I've also had trouble with their manuals not being complete.
"We've bombed 14 countries?"
It wasn't we, wytcld. You've just admitted you didn't know anything about it. It was the U.S. government.
Let's see: Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos. A pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan. Libya, Panama, Grenada, Iraq. Yugoslavia.
Afghanistan: 60 missiles costing $2,000,000 each into a dry, mostly empty valley, according to last Sunday's "60 Minutes" TV program. I'll bet that annoyed the dung beetles. I'll bet they were saying, "Why would anyone want to spend $120,000,000 just to move our favorite rocks around?
More.
I would support an initiative to find ways to live in the world without bombing.
"That's largely because of
The percentage of immigrants did not change in the last 30 years. The obesity did.
"How have we meddled in the government of Saudi Arabia?"
The U.S. supports an anti-democratic regime there. I don't have links to articles for you, however.
Nothing I said, or would ever say, it intended to condone violence of any kind.
In some ways the U.S. is the best, also: What should be the Response to Violence? .
Saudi friends of mine have suggested to me that the U.S. government is far more involved in Saudi politics than is commonly known by U.S. citizens. My independent study of articles and books on Saudi Arabia causes me to agree with them.
No sensible person could be pro- bin Laden. I only think it is reasonable that a government should represent the will of its people. That is impossible with the present government in Saudi Arabia, I am told.
I agree. You should believe nothing without good evidence.
The article referenced at the bottom of this post provides official U.S. government statistics. (Search on "prison".) An interesting link mentioned there gives another statistic: The murder rate in Washington, D.C. is 170 times the murder rate in Brussels, Belgium.
You can do a Google search for the prison rate in other countries. You will find that European countries have about 1/6 as many of their citizens in prison as the U.S.
"Ever read The Gulag Archipelago?"
Yes, I read that book. During that time in the Soviet Union, there was a far smaller percentage of people in prison than now in the U.S. Also, the Supermax prisons in the U.S. are less humane than Gulag prisons. There is a difference, though; the U.S. apparently has few or no political prisoners.
Check out one prisoner's story: Supermax Prison is Torture and Death. This is not obscure data. I learned about U.S. prisons from a PBS TV program. The two links in this and the previous paragraph are just the 2nd and 4th Google links from a search on "supermax prison".
We live in a time when a well-dressed, educated man or woman in a leadership position will look into your face or a camera, be very clear and logical-sounding, and speak complete nonsense. That's how things got to be such a mess. Tonight on a TV news program a U.S. government official was talking about the "Talley Bahn". He meant the Taliban. From years of experience with this kind of thing, I know it is a good guess that the speaker knows nothing of importance about Afghanistan.
We live in a time when total bullshitters are allowed attention equal to people who know what they are doing. That's how we got the dot-com dot-bombs.More about the social breakdown: What should be the Response to Violence? .
Look at the big picture. The attacks on the core values of democracy are just symptoms of a larger sickness.
The U.S. is undergoing a social breakdown. The U.S. has the highest divorce rate in the world. The U.S. has the highest percentage of obese people. The U.S. has the highest percentage of its citizens in prison of any country ever, in the history of the world.
There is evidence that the secret agencies of the U.S. government and the weapons manufacturers have too much control. Few Americans know how much the U.S. government has meddled in the government of Saudi Arabia, so few realize the extent to which Arab complaints are justified.
The U.S. government (not necessarily the U.S. people) has a history of thinking that violence is the answer. The U.S. government killed an estimated 2,100,000 people in Vietnam and an estimated 150,000 people in Iraq. The U.S. has bombed 14 countries in 30 years, killing a roughly estimated 3,000,000 people. None of the people who were killed in any way directly threatened the U.S. These people had mothers and fathers, wives and families and friends. The U.S. government has a history of valuing the lives of its citizens much more highly than the lives of people in poor countries. Although violence can never be condoned, it is not surprising that some people want to make an effective protest against this.
Some of this is discussed in the article: What should be the Response to Violence?Big,
Thanks for the thanks.
Good point. My confusion, I think, is from the fact that the European Catholics now think of the Eastern Orthodox as part of their religion. I don't know what the Eastern Orthodox think.
Yes, the U.S. may be becoming a police state. Not only does the U.S. have at least three agencies that police the entire world, the NSA, the FBI, and the CIA, but the U.S. has the highest percentage of its citizens in prison of any country ever, in the history of the world.
Here are the official December 31, 2000 prison statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice. Sorry about the formatting. The lameness filter is lame. It won't let me post enough leading dots.
People in federal and state prisons... 1,312,354People in local jails... 621,149
People on probation... 3,839,532
People on parole... 725,527
Total number of citizens... 6,498,562
The total population of the United States, projected to September 24, 2001 at 6:34:55 PM PDT is 285,218,008. Therefore, 2.3 percent of the entire U.S. population is in prison or involved with the criminal justice system. But remember, many of those are babies or children. About 3.1 percent of all adult U.S. citizens are in prison, jail, or on probation or parole.
An April 20, 2000 ABC News article, U.S. Prison Population Rising says that the percentage of growth of the U.S. prison population is rising.
There is other evidence of social breakdown: An August 19, 1998 BBC News article, The United States of murder, says that the city with the highest murder rate, Washington, D.C., has a murder rate 170 times higher than the city with the lowest murder rate, Brussels, Belgium. The nine U.S. cities in this study of murder rates all were in the list of the 12 cities with highest murder rate.
There is evidence that the secret agencies of the U.S. government and the weapons manufactureres have too much control: What should be the Response to Violence? .
Not only did Catholics support the Crusades, they enthusiastically supported them. That outbreak of mental illness lasted from 1095 A.D. to 1291; it was not an isolated circumstance. During that time Europeans traveled to Arab lands to kill them. At that time almost all Christians were Catholic.
Many people don't understand the significance of the Crusades, which happened a long time ago. The significance is that the moral teaching of the Christians did not prevent them from designing and participating in a killing rampage.
The Crusades were not the only Christian killing rampage. The Spanish Inquisition was another outbreak of craziness.
The moral teachings of the Christians have not changed significantly since the Crusades. Arabs ask themselves, "What would prevent Christians from being part of another killing rampage?" That's why the crusades have significance in modern thinking. It is easy to understand that when President Bush talked about a crusade in a speech to the entire nation of the U.S., while at the same time declaring "war", Arabs became anxious.
It is remarkable how quickly the discussion of terrorism became off-topic. People are blaming PGP!!! Do you have a right to speak to your wife in private, with no interference or listening from the government? If you do have this right, then you have a right to use PGP. Your wife may be in another country, and PGP is a way of being sure you speak only to her. If you don't have this right, then the government can legally force its way into anything you say to your wife.
The primary reason for the violence seems to be corruption in secret agencies of the U.S. government like the CIA. For example, the CIA trained Osama bin Laden. If there is more trouble, the CIA receives more funding. So the CIA, at least unconsciously, wants more trouble.
Israel receives an astounding $905 per year from the U.S. government for every man, woman and child who lives there. A large part of that money is spent on weapons bought from the United States. Senators in the U.S. who represent the states with weapons manufacturers have lobbied to continue giving money to Israel. The U.S. weapons manufacturers also sell weapons to the Arabs.
I've tried to pull together information about these issues: What should be the Response to Violence? .
The U.S. has bombed 14 countries in the last 30 years, killing about 3,000,000 people. Yet Phil Zimmermann gets hassled for causing problems!!! Duh!
The U.S. government has heavily influenced Saudi politics in favor of the house of al Saud. There are Saudis who would like a more representational government. There has been a lot of U.S. government meddling in Saudi politics that does not appear in the news.
The CIA trained Osama bin Laden: What Should be the Response to Violence?
Well then, create a better way of explaining encryption to non-technical people.
Do I have a right to speak to my woman friend or wife or children in private? If I do, then I have the right to unbreakable encryption.
There was one EXCELLENT way of fighting Osama bin Laden: Don't support the Taliban or the Saudis, as the U.S. government did for many years. Then they would fight someone else.
This encryption debate obscures the real issue: The U.S. government must stop being adversarial with the whole world.
"I have no problem destroying villages..."
Perhaps the war is easier for you because you are thinking of watching it on television while you drink a beer.
From the referenced story, Afghanistan Is Like Nothing You've Ever Seen, Soviet Vets Say:
First, there are no real "bases" for terrorists, they say. Fighters live in ordinary villages. Air or artillery strikes against them will invariably kill civilians.
Moreover, there are few targets other than villages, the veterans warn. There are few bridges, no factories. Most of the country's infrastructure has been destroyed in decades of civil war.
"Even in Iraq you had something to bomb," Lisinenko said. "But there are no targets in Afghanistan. There's nothing there to bomb."
I'm very happy that Slashdot is covering this. If the U.S. government starts a huge war, it will affect our computer jobs. Not only that, if I did not read Slashdot, I would never have seen the article.
The U.S. has bombed 14 countries in 30 years, killing a roughly estimated 3,000,000 people: What Should be the Response to Violence?
"doesn't seem unreasonable.
If you can get the 2,500,000 million people who are threatened with starvation to agree that this is reasonable, it's fine with me.
Also, your solution seems to assume that the Taliban are a bunch of intelligent guys sitting around talking. In reality they are poorly educated, highly stressed people who are sometimes half crazy, and maybe even hungry themselves. Osama bin Laden is a Saudi and an Arab. (Afghans are not Arabs.) Perhaps you presume more order than there really is.
"Reasonable" left Afghanistan several decades ago.
The secret U.S. government agencies control U.S. violence: What Should be the Response to Violence?
From the story referenced above:
"That's like telling people to take their house key down to the police station," Goodlatte said. "People are not going to have greater confidence in their security by doing that."
Good analogy. These things must be made simple, because most lawmakers have no technical education whatsoever. Did I say NONE at all? As in Duhhhh!
Secret U.S. government agencies control U.S. violence: What Should be the Response to Violence?
"The innocent will pay for our inability to reason."
Exactly.
The innocent are already paying:
According to a September 21, 2001 BBC story, Aid agencies prepare for Afghan tragedy, Workers in the WFP, World Food Program, have pulled out of Afghanistan because of fear for their safety. If you look at the story, be sure to see the face of the woman in the photo at the top. Her face tells everything. She is one of the innocent people.
The story says, 'According to latest estimates, as many as six million Afghans are now affected by drought, war or displacement. Aid agencies are issuing urgent pleas that the U.S.-led "war against terrorism" does not become a war against innocent civilians. Correspondents say the WFP withdrawal alone has left two and a half million Afghans without any visible means of support.'
The U.S. is killing people without firing a shot.And the craziness does not stop there. The U.S. taxpayer pays enormous amounts for all this. The Washington Post article, Unmanned U.S. Plane Is Lost Over Iraq, calls the downed drone aircraft a "relatively inexpensive, $3.2 million plane".
The CIA trained Osama bin Laden: What Should be the Response to Violence?
"... or have they all suffered from the Economic Darwinism of the early 21st century?"
It wasn't "Economic Darwinism" that killed the dot-coms. It was utter foolishness.
Violence is not Religion. Religion is not violence: What Should be the Response to Violence?
Senator Hollings official bio says, " Hollings uses his seniority, experience and know-how to fight for South Carolina. The state now receives $1.16 from the federal government for every $1 it sends to Washington."
Hollings introduced a bill to tax the Internet: 1999: New 5 percent Web sales tax proposed.
The CIA trained Osama bin Laden: What Should be the Response to Violence?
This FrontPage EULA is just a trial of the concept. If there are not a lot of complaints, expect other Microsoft EULAs:
Microsoft Photo Editor: Users are forbidden to draw horns on photos of Bill Gates.
Microsoft Turd^H^H^H^H Word: Users are forbidden to write anything bad about Microsoft.
Microsoft Internet Explorer: Explore only Microsoft approved sites.
The CIA trained Osama bin Laden: What Should be the Response to Violence?
It's true what you said. But the 63,000 action items speaks something that I find true.
In my opinion, a rich company like Microsoft could do more to assure the quality of its products.
Microsoft Word 2000, for example, is VERY quirky. Also, even after all these versions, it still doesn't allow on-screen kerning. That's not a good record for a very expensive product of which Microsoft has sold millions of copies.
Good point.
So, this is the law: We have the right of free speech, unless there is a compelling reason to take it away.
Is the desire for Microsoft to make more money a compelling reason?
I haven't been expressing myself well, but I sense that there is something wrong about this.
Interesting.
The Microsoft EULA is an anti-competitive practice, however, isn't it? In some cases, it could discourage someone from saying they don't like a Microsoft product.
Doesn't change anything. Microsoft is saying they are above the law of the land.
True. But it shows a particular attitude, doesn't it? Ship on schedule, not when the product is finished.