> Sure you can kill Godzilla. Godzilla vs Destroyer/a
Before he died, Godzilla Senior passed the last of Radon's (Rodan's) life force to his son, which healed his son. After Godzilla Senior died, his son absorbed the radiation of his father's death, saving Tokyo, and transforming himself. The last shot of the movie is of an adult Godzilla at the center of the radioactive cloud, roaring his grief to the heavens.
> and the original, of course.
At the end of the Japanese version of the 1954 movie "Gojira", Dr. Yamane notes that if we don't quit polluting the world with nukes, another Godzilla would be along shortly. Six months later, the second Godzilla movie came out in Japan, introducing the Godzilla that would reign until the 1970's.
The original 1954 Godzilla has returned in the last two movies (with Godzilla's 50th birthday due next year, Toho is making every movie a party). In the 2001 "Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidora: Giant Monster All-Out Attack" (set in 2004), the World War II dead (Japanese, American, and Asian) resurrect Godzilla and sick him on a Japan that has had (monster free) peace for fifty years. WWII has been forgotten, and only a few now believe in Godzilla. Japan's ancient guardian deities, Mothra, King Ghidora, and Baragon, killed in battle long ago, now return to help a survivor of Godzilla's 1954 attack to kill Godzilla. At the very end of the movie, the camera zooms in to Godzilla's heart resting on the sea bottom. The fish scatter as it starts beating again.
In 2002's "Godzilla X MechaGodzilla", MechaGodzilla's (now nicknamed "Kiiryu", meaning "mechanical dragon") computer is made from the DNA of the 1954 Godzilla (right down to where Kiiryu has a flashback, decides he is the 1954 Godzilla, and goes on a rampage in Tokyo until his batteries run down). In the next movie, possibly in 2004, Godzilla and MechaGodzilla/Kiiryu will be joined by Mothra (who thankfully talked Toho into getting some continuity back).
> Honest to god, there's a shrine in Tokyo where he finally > fell.
That doesn't surprise me. There is usually a shrine to Godzilla at the entrance to department store exhibits of Toho's monster props.
And that is the difference between Toho's monsters and other monsters or attempts at rendering Godzilla: Godzilla is not only worshipped as a god in his movies, he IS a Shinto deity in a rubber suit, as is Mothra, as is King Ghidora. The god of fire whose birth destroyed his mother; the sun goddess who hides in a cave and to whom the Japanese pray for peace and happiness; the quick-tempered storm god who gives his big sister fits, destroys temples, and yet saves Japan in a rare good mood: do these not sound familiar? They are if you have read Japanese mythology. They are if you have watched Godzilla's movies and paid attention.
And that is why Godzilla and co. are immortal. As long as humans play with the fire of the atom, Godzilla will be there to burn us. As long as lightning flashes, and chunks of rock fall from the heavens on Chicago, King Ghidora will be destroying things. And as long as the monsters walk the earth, Mothra will be there, to teach us the arts of civilization and peace, and to smack her brothers if they misbehave (which they do a lot, hence all the movies;).
BeanieMothra says Godzilla does wish his grandpa (Kong's creator was the mentor of the Beast's creator, and the Beast partly inspired Godzillla) well. However, he wishes the big ape would stay at 40 feet. Anything more is cheating.
"Compassionate Sun, ah! Sun Goddess, Great Mothra! Great Mothra! Mothra! Oh!" Japanese language "Mothra's Song", "Ebirah, Horror of the Deep"
- Blizzard in the middle of February that arrived after the peace protesters went home. Buried much of the northeast US, and stuck the president behind a snowplow for 2.5 hours.
- Those weren't mere sandstorms in Iraq. One system dropped a foot of snow on Israel (doing the best attempt yet at imposing peace - while it lasted), grounded the army in Kuwait, and broke the years long drought in Afghanistan. Another, just this past week, had 50 mile an hour winds, was the worst in decades, and blew sand all the way from Iraq to Japan.
- Hours after the Japanese Prime Minister declared support for the war in Iraq, Japan's Sun Goddess gutted her kitchen with fire at her Ise shrine (the sun itself belted out two X class solar flares the day the war started). One of Kannon's temples was later smacked with a tree. Mt. Fuji had a cap cloud over it recently.
- Most of the major world wide peace protests were followed by an earthquake in Ibaraki Prefecture in Japan. This was the site of Japan's greatest nuclear plant accident in 1999. Yep, even Godzilla hates this war (depleted uranium + kids = unhappy King of Monsters, at least when he is in one of his kid loving incarnations).
George Bush may not have a real coalition behind him (except for a few bribed cheerleaders), but it looks like he has quite a coalition of deities against him, including his own. Pity he isn't listening.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
> Yes, and Bush is the only one who has ever helped these > governments in the Middle East retain their power.
I'm not talking about helping them retain their power. I'm talking about doing things we know are strongly against the will of their people. How can we even talk about spreading democracy in the Middle East if we don't respect their people's will anymore than their own oppressive governments do? The US is strutting around being the dictator of dictators.
> If you want democracy in the Middle East, why not start > with Iraq?
Because Iraq is a sovereign nation, and a republic with a constitution (a broken republic with a broken constitution, but that is up to the Iraqi people to fix). I'd rather see us fix our own problems with broken elections and a head of the Department of Justice who is out to axe murder the Bill of Rights.
Besides, this proposed war with Iraq is not about democracy, or oil, and it is sure not about any threat a defeated Iraq might possibly pose to the world's greatest superpower. It is about domination of the Middle East, and the neo-conservatives' new crusades to save Israel. Go do some research into the background of Bush's appointees.
> What international laws and treaties is Bush breaking?
So far: Withdrew from the ABM Treaty, and the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty.
Coming soon to a war in Iraq: The UN Charter (if the UNSC resolution does not pass or is vetoed), the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, the Geneva Convention, and all the same international laws Hitler broke invading Poland (the same preemptive strike excuse was used in the trials of his Nazi war criminals).
And that's just off the top of my head.
> What liberties, specifically, have been taken away > from us?
Go read the USA Patriot Act. The Fourth Amendment is particularly in tatters.
> How did Bush single-handedly destroy the U.S. economy?
The economic problems started with the fiasco over his election. He has done nothing to help, except propose tax cuts for the wealthy (which makes the wealthy more wealthy, and puts the burden on those barely getting by). Every time he talks war, the market plunges. Every time Blix gives a positive report, the market recovers.
> What has he done to destroy the environment?
Seriously weakened the Clean Air and Water Acts. Opening as much public land to clear cutting in the interest of preventing forest fires. Opening most remaining wildlife sanctuaries with a drop of oil on them to oil companies, while refusing to significantly increase fuel economy. Withdrew from the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty.
Approved the Yucca Mountain project, a massive nuclear waste dump inside a pile of volcanic ash, in a zone with over forty earthquake faults, within a hundred miles of a major city (Las Vegas), on top of the aquifer that provides water to California and Nevada. In short, a nuclear disaster of epic proportions that has found a really bad place to happen. Yep, that's gonna stay perfectly stable for the next 200,000 years.:b
Those are the biggies I remember off hand. The list of environmental negatives from any six month period of the Bush administration is a long, sad record.
BTW, Bush Jr. is not a mainline republican, but rather is a neoconservative (unaffectionately known as a "chickenhawk") that has even life long republicans recoiling in disgust (my best friend is one of them).
"All our tomorrows, Great Sun, by the Light, are very forgotten.
The Light dies. We pray and it sleeps." "Oh Peace Oh Light Return" from "Godzilla", 1954
> So to defeat the terrorists, you just change foreign policy > to their suiting! Now I get it. Then we win!
At this point about all Bin Laden wants of us is to suffer, die, hide under our beds or run around in a color-coded panic, and make the occasional blunder like Bush is making with Iraq to get him lots of angry recruits. I'm not talking about giving him any of that.
What I am talking about is going to the source of terrorism and rooting it out to finally end the stupid thing once and for all. That source is their hatred and anger in reaction to our foreign policy and our forcing our troops on other countries.
Look at the current situation. Bush is getting what he wants out of Middle East countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Pakistan. But the reason he is getting his way is that he bribes or threatens their leaders, and since they are not democracies, they have jack booted security forces to quell their people's massive dissent.
That creates an enormous amount of pressure, and sooner or later, as individuals or whole peoples, that is going to cause an explosion of hatred and terrorism. The various Palestinian groups and Al Qaeda formed because of mistakes from the Gulf War all the way back to the formation of Israel as a nation after WWII. The terrorists of tomorrow are being made by today's mistakes. That is why we have to change our ways, before their dissent becomes anger, then hatred, then terror and then people die.
This is not giving in to terrorists. It is embracing and truly living democracy. How can any nation claim to be democratic if they try to force their way on the leaders of other sovereign nations, against the manifest will of the people of that nation?
> This is so brilliant, I wonder why our President hasn't > though of it yet.
Sorry, but our President is busy trying to get the World Record on making as many terrorists, breaking as many international laws and treaties, and alienating as many allies as he can, while destroying the liberties, economy and environment of the good ol' US of A.
You know, I think my dictionary is broken. It has the definitions switched for "president" and "enemy". Gee, I wonder if Webster's has a service center where I can get it fixed...
"Lola, kindness is not enough, look for the reason of hatred and anger.
When you find and understand that, love becomes the strongest power..." Belabera, "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"
> Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wasn't part of the Taliban, he > was part of Al-Qaeda. They're 2 seperate entities, like > Southern Baptists, and the Amish...
The Taliban are more like Islamic Puritans (and just as big on "fun is evil"). The Christian Puritans fled England to escape religious persecution. When the Catholics came to the same colony for the same reason, the Puritans turned around and subjected them to the same persecution the Puritans had come here to escape. The Taliban, like the Puritans, were most dangerous to their own people and possibly immediate neighbors. The Taliban were terrorists only in that they ruled their own people through terror while they were in power. The clubs were for punishing infractions against their strict interpretation of Islamic law and general bullying, not for terrorist attacks against other countries.
The Al Qaeda are a world-wide extreme fundamentalist cult on the fringe of Islam, with a paramilitary/terrorist arm that does actual attacks, and a network of local preacher types that raise money and get recruits.
Bin Laden started out recruiting Muslim guerrillas to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan (which is why he got such a warm welcome from the Taliban - he was a hero to them). When an Iraqi army supposedly showed up on Saudi borders after they invaded Kuwait (there is some debate that the US satellite photos in question might have been forged), Bin Laden went to his king and offered the service of his men to defend Saudi Arabia from Iraq. The king told him that it wasn't necessary, the US were coming to protect them.
When the US "invaded" Saudi Arabia, and when they didn't leave, that is when Bin Laden's anger and hatred caused him to become a terrorist, and that is when his little band of freedom fighters became the Al Qaeda we know today.
That is why the "war on terror" is so ridiculous. Taking away the rights of Americans is not going to stop a single terrorist. Changing US foreign policy might not change Bin Laden's mind at this late date, but it would slow down his recruitment and keep other Al Qaedas from being formed. But nope, we are going back to Iraq to repeat the same mistakes all over again.
Material on the history of Bin Laden based on a World Book Encyclopedia article. Opinion is, as always, my own.
"Lola, kindness is not enough, look for the reason of hatred and anger.
When you find and understand that, love becomes the strongest power..." Belabera, "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"
> Correction: > As for preemptive invasion, the last one to pull that was > Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait.
Saddam Hussein was afraid Kuwait was going to attack him?
Note the word "preemptive". That is when you attack because you fear an attack. I don't think Saddam bothered using that as an excuse, but I do know Hitler's Nazis mentioned it at their trials as an excuse. That is also the pretense Bush is using to attack Iraq.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
> The government needs to monitor the people to make > sure they are obeying the law to prevent terrorism.
1) Monitoring an ordinary citizen's breaches of the law (downloading copyrighted media without permission/paying, speeding, and more serious crimes) is not going to prevent any terrorism, because most US citizens are not terrorists, but are rather the people you want to protect from terrorism.
2) Monitoring known terrorists (while meeting the requirements of the Fourth Amendment for those few who are US citizens) would help prevent terrorism. Pity the government, if it followed your advice, would not have the manpower to watch the terrorists if they were busy watching the citizens.
3) Most importantly, monitoring US citizens without warrants and such is against the Fourth Amendment, and therefore a crime. You don't want all those Revolutionary War heroes to have died in vain, do you?
> Of course this is all silly when they don't do the most > common sense thing and ban the private ownership of > guns.
Yeah, that would really help. Not only are guns not usually used in terrorism (they like bombs which private citizens do not own), but an armed citizen might be able to stop a terrorist before more people are hurt.
> The people have no legitimate need for guns but the > various police agencies should be very well armed.
The people, not the police, are generally the ones present during a terrorist attack. All the arms of the police (who are very well armed, some in Florida with military hardware they have no training in how to use) are no good, if they are not present to stop an attack.
Anyway, the important thing is that the Second Amendment says that people have the right to bear arms.
You might want to read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights again. The USA you purpose bears no resemblance to the the one defined by those documents.
Databases (government or things like the Liberty Alliance), monitoring, disarming and stripping away the rights of US citizens are not going to solve the problem of terrorism. To stop terrorism for good, you have to look for its source: hatred and anger toward US foreign policy.
It's pretty simple. Pull the troops out of Saudi Arabia (and any other place in the Middle East where they are not wanted), and quit showing favoritism toward Israel (be chummy with Israel, but be just as chummy with everyone else), and you will have taken away Al Qaeda's main recruitment issues. Invade Iraq, and stir up a hornets' nest of angry terrorists.
Heck, being fair, impartial, and not sticking our troops where they aren't welcome would do wonders for our image worldwide. As for preemptive invasion, the last one to pull that was Hitler invading Poland. Boy did his foreign policy land him in a mess of trouble!
"Lola, kindness is not enough, look for the reason of hatred and anger.
When you find and understand that, love becomes the strongest power..." Belabera, "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"
> Israel has violated UN declarations as well, you never see > us huff and puff about them. Probably because there is > no significant amount of oil, if any, in Isreal.
Israel has great religious significance to the religious right, a strong faction of the republican party, and the part of it currently in the White House. Not only do we not huff and puff, we send them aid and sell them many weapons. But then we helped Iraq obtain the very biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons we now accuse them of still having.
> North Korea readily admits to developing a nuclear > program and defying the US, and we don't care too much > about them either (no oil).
North Korea was a major blunder on Bush's part. North and South Korea are in the process of reuniting into one Korea, which Bush didn't approve of. Bush made a bunch of warlike rhetoric, talking about taking on Iraq, "axis of evil", blah, blah, blah. N. Korea got scared, and started making nuclear noises. It isn't clear that they actually have any working nukes, but fear that they exist has thus far deterred the US from attacking. The US had their fuel oil supplies cut off, leaving them only nuclear plants to heat their homes, which they started up. Unfortunately, we did not keep our 1994 promise to build nice peaceful light water reactors, so the only ones they have to heat their homes with also make the material for nuclear weapons. And up and up it escalates. Bush has been told repeatedly by N. Korea's neighbors to sit down and talk to them, but I guess that would ruin his plans for Korean War II.
> China launches takes and uses its army to kill its own > people, including children, it is broadcast live to our > livingrooms, and they just get scoled by Bush Sr. "Bad > china! Don't do that again!" (No oil).
China produces oil, about the same amount as the US itself. China is too big to swallow whole, making diplomacy the route that the US has chosen to deal with this situation. Of course, diplomacy could solve most of the stuff Bush wants to go to war over, even Iraq. In diplomacy, you have give and take. In war, you have conquer and rule. The latter is more fun, but only if you are the president of the conquering nation.
> Now when we are in a very depressing economic > situation isn't it convenient that the Bush Administration > is pulling Iraq out of their hat again. Nothing like > bringing up Iraq changes the subject so well eh?
You think this is depressing, just wait. The new budget has a $300 billion deficit (mostly Homeland Security, as a lot of other stuff got cut), not counting Iraq costs. The war could be $50 to $200 billion (depending on who you talk to) without reconstruction costs. State and local governments are in deep financial trouble, with no help coming from the federal government.
What does this mean to you and me? Well, not only is the US not going to the Moon anytime soon, but between insane gas prices and badly maintained roads, we are going to have a heck of a time getting to work. Assuming we have jobs...
> Well at least Bushinomics are bringing tax cuts for the > rich.
So the rich get richer, and the rest of us have billions more government debt, no decent government services, and all of our own problems to boot. Great system for a feudal kingdom constantly running off to the Crusades (if you don't mind an occasional Robin Hood), but very bad for a 21st century USA.
> Of course the masses are too busy being destracted by > Bush and all of his war mongering.
Public opinion worldwide, including the US, is against this war. In every member state of the coalition of the "willing", the leaders are joining in defiance of their people's wishes, and at risk to their careers. The peace movement is huge, organized, and extremely active: whether it's getting 10+ million people to protest on the same day in 60 countries and 600 locations, or organizing a call/fax/email your US senator and president day for 400,000 people (with, oops, over 1 million actually participating)! The unions in the US have come out against the war, so I would expect a lot more people to get undistracted quite quickly.
And, yes, those against the war know what it is doing to our economy. That is one of many, many reasons to oppose the war.
"All our tomorrows, Great Sun, by the Light, are very forgotten.
The Light dies. We pray and it sleeps." "Oh Peace Oh Light Return" (national song of mourning) from "Gojira" (Godzilla) 1954
> The United States of America is a sovereign nation and is > not bound by the terms of any international body.
The USA acted as a sovereign nation when it wrote much of the UN Charter and when Congress approved it. Now it is the law of the land, and we are bound by the Constitution to abide by it:
"... all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;..." US Constitution, Article VI, Clause 2
> All contracts are negotiable & the USA reserves the right > to change its mind anytime it pleases.
This is not a contract, this is the "supreme Law of the Land", and we are obliged to abide by it. To break a treaty for the US is to break a law and violate the Constitution. Any president which breaks a treaty has therefore broken his oath to uphold the Constitution, the oath that makes him president. I know presidents past and present who have broken treaties, that does not make it right or legal for them to have broken them.
> Now, the US may lose credibility with other nations in the > future if it regularly breaks treaties and reverses > decisions,
Credibility? More like loose our honor as a nation, assuming we have any left.
> but I think reversing a decision made nearly 40 years > ago wouldn't be out of the ordinary for any nation.
The United States of America is not some tin plated dictatorship! Whatever happened to the nation "with liberty and justice for all"? If we cannot even try to uphold our ideals, if we dishonorably break faith with other nations, then our "liberty" and "justice" are just empty hypocrisy and our word as a sovereign nation means nothing.
> I wouldn't be surprised if the US decided in the next 100 > years to divide the moon up among the nations, giving > itself the largest chunk & putting a McDonalds and a > Disneyland on it.
Assuming, of course, that in the next 100 years the US succeeds in Bush's dreams of world domination, and wins another world war or three, putting it in the position to dole out the moon. As it is now, the US only has 50 states and a few islands to dole out, and they are all taken.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
Al Qaeda's attack succeeded only on the first three planes, and only because the people on them didn't know it wasn't an ordinary hijacking.
On the fourth plane, Flight 93, the passengers had cell phones and found out what was really going on, but too late to save the pilot. They sacrificed themselves to stop the terrorists. Had the pilot lived, they might have been able to bring the plane down safely.
On the Shoe-bomber's flight, the passengers knew the score, stopped the Shoe-bomber quickly, and landed safely.
Even in the World Trade Center itself, a complex which could hold up to 50,000 people, less than 3,000 died. The rest, tens of thousands of them, because of wise managers ordering evacuations, and many acts of heroism and compassion, helped each other out.
Why hasn't Al Qaeda attacked America again in this way? Because the people are on to them. These attacks have simply stopped working, because the passengers stopped them. Cowardly thugs that they are, the terrorists are now resorting to taking potshots with rocket launchers well away from any airport, and in places like Kenya rather than the US.
So what good is all your great security? It doesn't stop terrorists, because they are already stopped. It doesn't give Americans any security, in fact it violates the one right that guarantees that Americans will be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects", the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.
CAPPS II violates the privacy and security of Americans. There is no warrant issued, and any probable cause is supposedly provided by the result of the CAPPS II search to justify more searching of their persons, blacklisting, and possible arrest. Combined with Patriot II (if and when it is passed) CAPPS II could turn an innocent vacation into a one way trip to Gitmo for the now former citizen, all because of a computer glitch or an error in one of the databases. And unlike your credit report, there is no law to allow you to view or correct the data that CAPPS II uses.
I have no interest in sacrificing my rights as a native US citizen just for some imagined safety. Even if CAPPS II was somehow able to prevent terrorist acts, it doesn't do a thing for accidents which killed 88,000 more Americans in 2001 than Al Qaeda killed.
Oh, and those 19 terrorists in 2001, they passed CAPPS I with flying colors.
"There is something important to do, no matter how hard or painful." Mothra (via Moll) "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"
> Obviously, you have no claim as to what your software > can and cannot be used for if you release it out into the > world.
You have plenty of claim, it is your software, and you hold the copyright. Ever heard of EULA's, GPL, etc.?
It is an incredibly common practice for consumer software EULA's to have a provision in them forbidding the use of the software in hospital life-support and nuclear reactors. This is to reduce liability claims, as the software is usually not tested to the stringent standards that such applications would require. If your word processor croaks, the user looses part or all of a letter. If life support or a nuclear reactor's control systems fail, people die. Most people and software companies just aren't prepared to deal with that level of liability.
> Whether or not you believe the upcoming war > with Iraq is justified or not,
It doesn't have to have anything to do with Iraq. Some people of conscience do not want to spend their time and hard work writing software to benefit their fellow humans, only to have the military or some repressive government grab it and use it to kill people, torture people, or take people's rights away. Remember, if it is open source with no restrictions, there is nothing to stop (or at least nominally protest against) the likes of Iraq or North Korea (or your idea of "villainous country of the month") from downloading and using it against their people or anyone else.
> it doesn't stop the software they use from being used.
No, it doesn't. But then again, the military and evil nations aren't too likely to honor the GPL, let alone any other restrictions imposed on the software. Even writing innocuous software, like a word processor, isn't necessarily going to keep your code from being used to kill people (a word processor can be used to compose an order of execution). Restrictions are more likely to help the conscience of the person writing the software than actually stop evil uses.
> This is a completely moot issue, but it is good for > discussion I suppose.
It is moot only if every developer doesn't care how their software is used. For those of us that do care, it is an important issue, especially as the market for software is becoming increasingly global.
> The thing that should not be seen is exclusion clauses > from the GPL and other open source licenses.
Such licenses already have exclusion clauses prohibiting the re-closing of the software. Such is the foundation of the free software and open source movements. Why is it okay for the GPL to impose the philosophy, ethics, and world view of the Free Software Foundation and its founder, and not those of other people or organizations?
I'm not giving answers here, just questions that the development community in general, and the free software and open source communities in particular, need to ponder.
> Would you rather have the military and government using > open source software or Microsoft?
I would rather see the civilian sector of my government (US) using open source. The voting machines in particular almost have to be open source, as the exit polls have shown the closed source ones to be unreliable.
As for the military, why don't they write their own software? They take in all these people based on advertising that they will learn about computers or electronics, then their mothers are shocked to find out that their little boy is being airlifted to Iraq, sans education. They should either use these young people to write their own software, or else change their advertising to "Be a mindless drone dying of heat prostration in your anti-chemical attack suit in Iraq."
> Code audits are important when using software for > military purposes, to ensure that everything is accurate. > Whether it's personnel tracking, mission tracking, or > simulation software, accuracy is important.
All the more reason for the military to develop their own software, rather than using off the shelf commercial stuff, or open source.
> Maybe my view is just tainted because I'm finding myself > leaning more toward the pro-War campaign...
I won't argue the point with you, not when there are sites like antiwar.com with enough news articles and facts to blow a hole in Bush's "evidence" big enough to fit Godzilla through.
I will say this. If Iraq is a monster, it is one of our creation. The US and Britain, together with companies like HP and Kodak, gave Iraq those weapons of mass destruction. Al Qaeda would not be what it is today, if it were not for US lies and mistakes during the Gulf War. Today's US administration is still lying, and still making mistakes.
Iraq is also a mirror of what we are in danger of becoming. Iraq was a republic back in the late 50's and early 60's. Now Iraq is a broken republic, with a broken constitution, favoring one party over all others, with one man as perpetual president, and human rights out the window. Iraq invaded both Iran and Kuwait. The US has yet to rewrite her constitution. But the president has made no secret of his desire for a Republican dominated Congress, the sweeping away of inconvenient rights (Patriot, son of Patriot, etc.), and a planned series of invasions.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
It's kind of a hard quote to find a standard news reference for, as Google gave me over 15,000 hits. Would you consider the
BBC
to be reliable? They actually date it back to December 19th (or possibly a day or two before) of 2000, and set the quote as addressed to the leadership of both houses of Congress, referring to the "arm twisting" Bush was going to have to do to get his legislation through.
I've also seen different settings and dates for the quote (the one I gave originally was from an article at commondreams.org). I get the feeling it is just something he says a lot, especially when he isn't getting his way. That would be even more damning than a one time statement.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
Seriously, you can't paint all of Slashdot with one brush. Nope, it takes several brushes, multiple coats, and you still miss a few highly mobile spots. After all, you've got youngsters still in school, college students, and old hands with a decade or two or more of experience from the US, Canada, and other parts of the world. Some are going to be a bit naive, but not all of us.
As for the rider idea, sorry, it's been tried already. A version of this bill was first attempted as a rider to the USA PATRIOT Act. Congress had enough wisdom to detach it before the act was passed. A great pity for the cause of liberty that the whole act was not tossed in the round file.
It flopped as both a rider and a bill. I doubt it has a ghost of a chance of passing now without intervention from on high. Disney would have to do some serious shrub worship, both in financial contributions and a movie about a heroic planting on fire with a courageous crusade to topple evildoers worldwide.;)
"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." George W. Bush, December 18, 2002
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
> coroporate sponsorship of media is the norm if you take > a historical view. Indeed for all known history the arts > have been almost exlusively supported by patrons not > the masses
Yep, if you ignore most of the entire history of music from the first flutes 10,000 years ago (how much support from royalty does it take to poke a few holes in a bone one winter's day when one is back from hunting and bored?). Sure the royals hired a few musicians to live in the lap of luxury (as long as their heads were allowed to remain intact). But the rest of the world's music is folk music: music of the people.
From the songs of the hunt in the distant past, to religious hymns, to the songs in taverns and inns all over the world; songs of the sea, songs in the fields, songs in the evening when the work is done (and TV yet uninvented). Songs on May Day (which the kings and especially the priests hated), songs at war, songs of slaves in southern fields longing to be free. From almost every time, nation, and creed (save those believing music to be of the devil), from slaves, serfs, peasants, and commoners, music is the near universal expression of the human heart.
Far from requiring royal patronage, even slaves could make music, with or without their master's consent. How do you think Spirituals came about? No royal patronage or lap of luxury there, only cruel inhumanity that should have never been allowed in the first place.
> To the extent that artistis are conduits of expression and > the exchange of ideas, is this good or bad? its not clear.
Well, if you are trying for a repressive government or a commercial monopoly, those things might be considered bad. But normally expression and exchange of ideas are good. That's why the US has a First Amendment.
> there are commmercial forces to tow the political norm > on all artists whether they have patrons or must please > the masses.
There are commercial forces only where art is commercialized. Otherwise, I can sing as I please.
> Indeed one might claim that given the financial > independence offerec by a patron is what frees the artist > to challenge popular norms.
Good King So and So is mighty particular with his music, and will take your head off if you do not please him. Pepsi will fire, and perhaps sue, you if your "act" does not conform to corporate image. I'm not feeling the freedom here.
> You would not see many commercial artist these days > advocating ########ing small boys, but certainly many > poets in greece spoke well of the idea.
You are not going to see most sane, intelligent people, in public, advocating the commission of a crime (sexual abuse) against children.
> I know thats a bit gross,
A bit?!?
> but I say it to make the point that stong ideas can come > about when you dont have to please everyone.
A) "Strong ideas" are like Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech. What you mentioned was a disgusting and reprehensible idea, which I can do without.
B) I can sing anything I please. A recording artist with a major label, or a Chinese artist representing a corporation had better please their label/sponsor, or the money will stop.
"They bind our hearts: 'Let's sell them again and again!'
Our plan understands the sea; we can wait for her coming." From the song "Infanto no Musume" in the Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961).
> Timeline's point (which will surely be argued in court) is > that Microsoft isn't qualified to make that promise in the > first place, so the users can't get off the hook by saying > "but Microsoft said...".
One of Timeline's statements in a press release said that, yes. The court argument over it took three and a half years and is now over.
Timeline also noted how Microsoft mislead its users, and they basically laid out the beginnings of a case users could put together (with a bit of research and a lawyer) and go after Microsoft to recoup the money they had to pay Timeline. That's kind of nice (to the users) of Timeline to do that, especially after Microsoft's deception kept them from getting paid for three and a half years.
> Probably the best part of that strategy for Timeline is that > they can go after the various users, rather than try to > gouge money out of Microsoft itself.
The users are the ones owing money, not Microsoft, thanks to Microsoft, their cheapskate ways and their lying. Timeline tried to offer Microsoft a package that would cover the users, but Microsoft would rather pay less, lie about the agreement, and pull a legal delay. Now its customers owe millions, and Microsoft walks away with some court charges (and a perjury offense to go with all those anti-trust offenses they are not having to be punished for).
> Microsoft could easily tie the case up in court for a > decade or more, and make it apparent to Timeline that > they'll never be able to make it worth the effort.
Microsoft didn't have to tie it up for more than three and a half years. Microsoft isn't the ones that owe the money, their users are. Read the article.
Oh, and everyone keep in mind, SQL Server is soon to be the file system called Yukon, and join Palladium and its amazing friends in Microsoft's next operating system. Does this mean anyone who writes software for that OS that accesses files will be liable for these royalties?
"Your way of thinking is completely different from mine!" Mac user Shinoda to PC user Katagiri, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version) (From the world's biggest switch commercial, starring Apple's biggest fan: Godzilla!)
IANAL, but as far as I can tell, the Fourth Amendment seems to imply it:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I don't think it is too big of a stretch to apply "papers" to modern electronic records of purchases, medical records, email, etc. If my reasoning is correct, then the Fourth Amendment would not only forbid the CIA from searching our purchase records without a warrant, etc., but it would also forbid something like the Total Information Awareness database.
I think the Fourth Amendment is kind of a sibling to the Fifth Amendment. Whereas the Fifth protects us from having to testify against ourselves, the Fourth protects us from having our bodies, homes, things, and records (including electronic?) testify against us, at least without some kind of due process.
The people who wrote the Constitution had suffered under British rule. They had soldiers forced upon them, living in their homes, going through their things. If the soldiers saw anything suspicious, they would just report it, and that person could be sent to England for trial. (Think about the TIPS program, replace the soldiers with the cable guy, and you have the exact same situation.) These people knew what privacy violation felt like, they had had no privacy, not even in their own homes.
That this right to privacy, to "be secure in our persons, houses, papers and effects", was one of the first to be violated by the Attorney General is reprehensible. That it was violated (and continues to be violated) in the name of "security" is ridiculous. But then, we are living in the times where CNN ("the most trusted name in news" -- what a laugh) has declared that Congress does not believe in the First Amendment. Heck, I'm surprised they let the company execs of Enron, et al, take the Fifth!
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
> its not my problem when the US takes > away your basic rights under the guise of 'protecting > freedom'
It becomes your problem should Bush and his posse decide that one of your fellow Australians is a terrorist. But then your prime minister Howard thought Australia should have the same privilege to go after terrorists in another country after the Bali bombing (my sympathies, by the way).
> HOWEVER.. it is my problem when your arrogant > government and big business industries (read RIAA/ > MPAA) try to force your legislation on my country. if the > US wants to try and get its copyright and DMCA law > mirrored over here in aus, then at least let me vote in > your elections ffs
Voting in our elections would do you no good, you wouldn't have any more control over the passing of bad laws like the DMCA than we do. The only people here who seem to have the power to get the laws they want are the president and those big business industries. Dare to protest, and you get what they got in New York City: put into pens, trampled by police horses, hit with night sticks and sprayed with pepper spray.
If you don't want the DMCA style laws in your country, your best bet would be to tell Hollywood and the big five record labels where to take their business. Band together with your like-minded (at least on IP issues) neighbors, and make your own music and movie industries with local talent, and your own laws about them. The big studios and labels no longer have a monopoly on movie and music making technology. Take advantage of new technologies and go where you want to go with them.
Who knows, you might just wind up with popular singers that can sing on key. Boy, is that ever a revolutionary concept!;)
> Im sick of 'America - Land of the Free'... its a misnomer... > its BS.
It is supposed to be "land of the free". If it were still "home of the brave" it would be "land of the free" because we would fire the idiots trying to make it not free. After all, their official job description includes "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" (US Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Clause 8) which is the document that lays out our freedoms.
Unfortunately, it is mostly "land of the chicken" at the moment. Well, "chicken" and "chicken-hawk".
> I turned down a well paid job in the US a month back... > because as an IT admin, it would be frankly dangerous to > work over there.
I've worked in the industry in the US for fifteen years. Chief danger I have encountered: layoffs. Followed by traffic accidents. I have been a victim of both.
> Im sure the US will try to stop dealing with countries > without a DMCA equivalent.
Well our government might, considering how childish they are being over France and Germany disagreeing over Iraq. But there is also a good chance we might be able to get the DMCA repealed (in part or whole) in Congress, and the companies behind it aren't all that healthy these days.
> Eventually the US will be economically affected by these > restrictions, and its citizens will start to ask questions.
Hello, we already have had the DMCA in effect in this country since 1996. We have noticed it, did the question phase, and are in the "fighting tooth and nail to get rid of it" phase. It is a bad, bad law, we want it off the books, and we don't want to share it with you.
> Unfortunately... as of course 'American Values' are good > enough for all... we are likely to see 'peaceful non- > agression military' solution to their problems.
Not as long as your Mr. Howard keeps trying to be mini-Bush. One would hope Bush wouldn't attack one of the "willing".
Let's hope come 2004 that the US gets a president willing to return to America's traditional values of liberty and justice, and after Mr. Howard retires, Australia gets a good prime minister that lets Australia be Australia and not a carbon copy of the US. It sounds to me like that would make us both happy.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
> why is it that so many people believe that we need to be > any more careful now than we needed to be a year and a > half ago? i most certainly say that we do not!
There is nothing wrong with ordinary people being reasonably careful and observant. If everyone drove like that, it would save a lot of lives. The problem is being fearful. People who build a plastic bubble around their homes out of plastic sheeting and duct tape are being fearful, not careful.
Being fearful only helps a terrorist control you. Please note that "terrorist" has nothing to do with blowing up things, but rather using terror to control people (either blowing things up, or telling people some evil "terrorist" might blow them up). Oppressive governments almost always rule by fear.
> it was great to see the way the nation reacted by coming > together and helping each other out in the days following > the attack,
America is great not because of its bombs or military, but because of the compassion and courage of its people. On September 11, 2001, terrorists killed thousands, but compassion and courage saved tens of thousands.
> we have been dishonoring the memories of those who > lost their lives for no good reason
And the lives lost for the best of reasons, to save others. Don't forget Flight 93. Or the firefighters.
> by slowly whittling away the freedoms that made the usa > something we could be proud of, and by breeding fears > of another attack.
There *was* another terror attack, just this weekend, in Chicago. Only no Al Qaeda members were involved. Yes, the moronic security guard that sprayed the crowd with pepper spray is responsible, as is the owner of the club that violated every fire code in the book. But the government and the media are also responsible for the fear they have been breeding with their stupid terror alerts (based on lies to begin with). Terror and panic killed those poor people, and turned that club into the same horror that the World Trade Center became. Department of Homeland Insecurity: this is the fruit of your color-coded crying of "Wolf!".
> the plain simple truth is: terrorism most likely will not > affect you!
As long as you define "terrorism" as a real Al Qaeda attack (blowing up stuff, hijacking planes, assassinations, etc.) you are quite right. The average American is far more likely to die from auto accidents or medical malpractice.
Al Qaeda are at heart bullies and thugs. Bullies don't bother those who stand up to them, and ever since Flight 93 and the capture of the shoe-bomber, Al Qaeda has seemed reluctant, even too chicken, to bother with airborne attacks in the US itself. Airplane hijacking has ceased to work with Flight 93, so Al Qaeda appears (from my personal observations of the news) to have moved on to other kinds of attacks outside the US.
The fear of terrorist attacks is a concern for the average American. If fear is getting to you (you feel an irrational desire to buy lots of duct tape and/or have nightmares about attacks), you need to do something about it. Start by turning off CNN (or whatever sensationalist news source you watch) and get your news from places that are less sensationalist, and more balanced. Combat your fear with facts. And if you still have problems, you might want to get some professional help. Living in constant fear is not good for you, even if it never gets to the point of giving you a heart attack.
> remember that most of the threats we're supposed to be > cowering in fear over aren't really that bad, don't affect a > very large area, and are very unlikely to affect you > directly. > > thank you.
No, thank you for doing your part to calm people.:)
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
> The console market is dominated by Sony, not Microsoft. > Microsoft has monopoly in personal computers market.
True. But Microsoft is not just loosing a little money on XBox, they are bleeding rivers of it. The only reason they can afford to do so is that their Windows and Office monopolies give them huge profit margins on those products (85%) enough to fund everything else they do, and every other market they enter.
> Of course MS has 100% market share of XBox consoles:), > but the real market is entertainment consoles,
Actually, the real market was supposed to be.Net home terminal, entertainment terminal, and home PC replacement. But game console was all Microsoft could get developers for.
> P.S. Note also that monopoly itself can't be illegal. It is > abuse of the monopoly which is illegal.
Abuse of which Microsoft has been found guilty of on several counts. Trial or no trial, Microsoft does not appear to be changing its ways.
It is going to be interesting to see if Microsoft actually signs Linux for the XBox. While I don't personally have much use for Linux on XBox, this is a very good test to see just how open to third parties (and open source) the technology formerly called Palladium is really going to be.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it." Miyasaka, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
> It saddens me that some US people are spending all this > time and energy protesting a war that hasn?t happened > yet and could give a crap about things happening in their > own country in regards to their freedom. And it?s not just > this story, it?s all the freedoms that are being taken away > thinks to the events of 2001.
You think the people protesting don't care about the civil rights? Do you have any clue how much of a legal fight it was to exercise their First Amendment rights in New York Saturday? I'm sorry, but as important as fair use rights are, they pale in comparison to the rights specifically described in the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is under terrible attack in this country (yes, since 2001). Every voice raised in protest, every footstep in every march in America this weekend was a celebration of the First Amendment and a victory for it and everything Liberty stands for.
As for the war, might I remind you that 60 to 80 percent of the people in this country are against it. The President has said he is going to war even if 0 percent of the American people are with him. If that isn't an attack on our rights, I don't know what is. You don't drag democracies to war against their will, especially to an unbelievably unjust war that is against everything this country stands for. You don't drop thousands of bombs, small nuclear bunker busters, and non-lethal gases (in violation of Geneva and Chemical Warfare Conventions) on the innocent people of a sovereign state because you claim its dictator is hiding some old canisters of biochemical agents (that America gave him).
If you want to see what's wrong with this war, and why it has to stop before it starts, go to antiwar.com. At the moment, one of the links on the home page (it changes all the time as new stories come out) is about the CIA and FBI merging anti-terror efforts, and the effects on civil liberties and privacy concerns. Those anti-terror efforts form the excuse for both the war against Iraq, and the erosion of liberty. There is one cause here, not two.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
The flaws in the electoral system are irrelevant when you have problems in the voting system itself. Exit polls are used to verify the integrity of foreign elections. For the past few years, exit polls have been failing to predict accurately the outcome of elections in America. And no, the problem isn't in the poll system, which works well enough to verify elections outside the US.
The problem: exit polls have failed in inverse proportion to electronic voting systems being adopted. These systems are closed source, frequently unaudited, and are more and more not giving any sort of paper receipt that the voter can check and verify that that was their vote.
Enter Microsoft. Yep, that's right, that voting machine software and the database behind it might be a Microsoft product. Why pay three times more than Enron (2000 elections) when Microsoft's proprietary voting system can just elect whoever Microsoft likes once Microsoft has enough market share in the voting system market? Audit? Why you can't audit Microsoft! That would endanger their precious IP! [Insert grumbling about "terrorist scum" here.]
You know, we ought to do something about this, before we get Bill Gates elected president by an electronic landslide. All in favor of accountable voting systems, raise your hands.
"Ridiculous, you have no claim. I'll sue you for interfering with private enterprise." Kumoyama, Happy Enterprises, "Mothra vs. Godzilla", 1964
> I would expect that when Senator Disney...er Hollings > seems to be introducing sane legislation, it's just a > candy-coating for the riders his handlers...er lobbyists > have insisted upon.
Actually, when Disney is not yanking on his chain, Hollings is an average Congress-critter with the occasional good idea. It's just when Disney yanks his chain that he is evil, and then with increasing reluctance.
For the bad stuff he introduces, Disney and a system that allows corporations to leash Congress-critters is as much to blame as the man himself.
None of that makes CBDTPA less evil or less of a threat to the future of the computer and consumer electronics industries, or less of a threat to citizen's fair use rights.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
> Do we limit access to information that might be useful to > terorists in the name of security, or do we make it freely > available in the name of intellectual freedom.
You can do anything you like "in the name of security": lock up information, lock up people without trial or lawyers, lock out dissent (why else do you think the terror level was on high this weekend with hundreds of thousands of peace protesters in New York?), cry "wolf" in various hues, hermetically seal your house with plastic and duct tape to protect your family from that noxious gas oxygen, etc. It's all great for terrorizing the American people, does wonders for the "name" of security, and might even qualify you for the Phoenix awards.
However, none of the above will make you more secure. At best, it is barn door closing when the horses are long gone (For example, the WTC bombing was planned using Bin Laden's knowledge of construction, which he obtained before he became a terrorist). At worst, some of the measures above are at least as great a threat to Bush's supposedly beloved "democracy", liberty, and even your own life as terrorism ever was or could be.
Anyway, mature people understand that life just is not secure. Eliminate all terrorists, and you could still die of car accidents, killer asteroids, or Yucca Mountain going boom. Security implies absolute control, and that is just not possible, even in a dictatorship. Living in terror, and Americans are doing just that, is not living at all.
> There are extremists on both sides of this topic. > Extremists suck though. > > The answer lies in the middle, but nobody wants to > discuss that. They just want to criticize the other > extremists.
Yes, there is a spectrum with extremes, but it is not what you think. On the one end of the spectrum are the terrorists who want chaos, a stampede of fear, and massive destruction. On the other end are those who want to impose total "security", at the price of liberty, and they are using terror of the terrorists to control people.
But it is the democracy and liberty defined by the US Constitution that is the point in the middle. The Constitution provides the framework and civilization that keeps chaos and anarchy at bay while preserving liberty. It also provides the checks and balances that keep wanna be dictators from taking over. Unfortunately, those checks and balances are being eliminated. The result is not going to increase your personal safety.
I still have faith in the kindness and courage of the American people. We got through the Civil War and the Cold War (complete with McCarthy madness), we can get through this.
Get out from under your beds where you've been hiding (literally or figuratively) since 911. Cast aside your terror, it only serves to entertain bin Laden, and to aid those who would control you. Go rescue Liberty and Justice. Justice is hidden away somewhere at the Department of Justice (Ashcroft didn't like her immodest clothing). Liberty was last seen being hauled away for "fraternizing with immigrants" (INS also lost her change of address card a century or so ago).
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
> MS will match any employee donation to, afaik, any > charity, as well it has it's own philanthropic arm backed > with it's own many billions in the bank.
Yes, and I'm sure Al Qaeda was very grateful for their generous $20,000 (USD) donation. (Those with matching donations should be more careful about making sure the charity is legit. Compaq got bit on this too.)
> Now given all this is it in anyway """"""""OK"""""""" then > that they may be pulling more money than they should > be out of people who can afford it when a lot of people > are benifiting that would not if MS was not there?
No, it is not okay. If Bill G. was genuinely charitable, he would have made all that money without breaking the law, extorting it via terror marketing (BSA threats) and draconian licenses, and without destroying so many other businesses. I mean, he and his company have gone after poor public schools and children's charities with the BSA on the one hand, and have donated to schools on the other hand. And the donations weren't out of any kindness of his heart, but to extend his monopoly into school systems where Apple had a large share.
So why does an individual give so many ill gotten gains to charity? Two phrases: "tax deduction" and "public relations". Possibly a third: "guilt".
If Bill G. and Microsoft want to be seen as sincerely charitable, they better loose their much abused monopoly positions of dominance over their markets and seriously change their ways.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it." Miyasaka, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
Insert standard joke about lawyers being evil here.
> Send cease&desist letters at the drop of a jellybean,
Okay, how would you handle things better? Would you let everyone get by with breaking contracts with you (which are legally binding), no matter how much it hurt you? Would you let those that break NDAs (that they signed on their honor and by their free will) blab all your hard work to the world so Microsoft comes out with your products before you do?
How about that very valuable brand that is one of the most recognized in the industry? Would you just toss that away so idiot kiddies with nothing better to do can create Apple themes? Keep in mind that if you don't defend that trademark, you loose it!
It is difficult to have a legal department that does a good job of defending your contracts, NDAs and trademarks, and not come off as a bad guy. Perhaps a standard of legal goodness/evilness would be whether the legal department just does their job of defending the company, or whether they are offensive and attack other companies (patent lawsuits for fun and profit, C&D letters for things the recipient is legally entitled to do, etc.).
> and threaten the DMCA.
Prove it. I want to see a photocopy of the communication Apple supposedly sent Other World Computing. The word of OWC's president is not good enough, especially when it contradicts the story he gave three weeks prior to the DMCA claim, in which he said Apple asked NICELY, and he complied to keep good relations with Apple.
Until such a time as I see proof, I am going to continue to presume Apple's innocence. I refuse to be used to blacken Apple's good name. And an accusation of DMCA use, without proof and constantly brought up by Slashdotters, blackens Apple's good name.
Otherwise, I mostly agree with your very good posting.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
Slashdot Mirror
AndroidCat wrote:
;).
> Sure you can kill Godzilla. Godzilla vs Destroyer/a
Before he died, Godzilla Senior passed the last of Radon's (Rodan's) life force to his son, which healed his son. After Godzilla Senior died, his son absorbed the radiation of his father's death, saving Tokyo, and transforming himself. The last shot of the movie is of an adult Godzilla at the center of the radioactive cloud, roaring his grief to the heavens.
> and the original, of course.
At the end of the Japanese version of the 1954 movie "Gojira", Dr. Yamane notes that if we don't quit polluting the world with nukes, another Godzilla would be along shortly. Six months later, the second Godzilla movie came out in Japan, introducing the Godzilla that would reign until the 1970's.
The original 1954 Godzilla has returned in the last two movies (with Godzilla's 50th birthday due next year, Toho is making every movie a party). In the 2001 "Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidora: Giant Monster All-Out Attack" (set in 2004), the World War II dead (Japanese, American, and Asian) resurrect Godzilla and sick him on a Japan that has had (monster free) peace for fifty years. WWII has been forgotten, and only a few now believe in Godzilla. Japan's ancient guardian deities, Mothra, King Ghidora, and Baragon, killed in battle long ago, now return to help a survivor of Godzilla's 1954 attack to kill Godzilla. At the very end of the movie, the camera zooms in to Godzilla's heart resting on the sea bottom. The fish scatter as it starts beating again.
In 2002's "Godzilla X MechaGodzilla", MechaGodzilla's (now nicknamed "Kiiryu", meaning "mechanical dragon") computer is made from the DNA of the 1954 Godzilla (right down to where Kiiryu has a flashback, decides he is the 1954 Godzilla, and goes on a rampage in Tokyo until his batteries run down). In the next movie, possibly in 2004, Godzilla and MechaGodzilla/Kiiryu will be joined by Mothra (who thankfully talked Toho into getting some continuity back).
> Honest to god, there's a shrine in Tokyo where he finally
> fell.
That doesn't surprise me. There is usually a shrine to Godzilla at the entrance to department store exhibits of Toho's monster props.
And that is the difference between Toho's monsters and other monsters or attempts at rendering Godzilla: Godzilla is not only worshipped as a god in his movies, he IS a Shinto deity in a rubber suit, as is Mothra, as is King Ghidora. The god of fire whose birth destroyed his mother; the sun goddess who hides in a cave and to whom the Japanese pray for peace and happiness; the quick-tempered storm god who gives his big sister fits, destroys temples, and yet saves Japan in a rare good mood: do these not sound familiar? They are if you have read Japanese mythology. They are if you have watched Godzilla's movies and paid attention.
And that is why Godzilla and co. are immortal. As long as humans play with the fire of the atom, Godzilla will be there to burn us. As long as lightning flashes, and chunks of rock fall from the heavens on Chicago, King Ghidora will be destroying things. And as long as the monsters walk the earth, Mothra will be there, to teach us the arts of civilization and peace, and to smack her brothers if they misbehave (which they do a lot, hence all the movies
BeanieMothra says Godzilla does wish his grandpa (Kong's creator was the mentor of the Beast's creator, and the Beast partly inspired Godzillla) well. However, he wishes the big ape would stay at 40 feet. Anything more is cheating.
"Compassionate Sun, ah! Sun Goddess, Great Mothra! Great Mothra! Mothra! Oh!"
Japanese language "Mothra's Song", "Ebirah, Horror of the Deep"
You are forgetting:
- Blizzard in the middle of February that arrived after the peace protesters went home. Buried much of the northeast US, and stuck the president behind a snowplow for 2.5 hours.
- Those weren't mere sandstorms in Iraq. One system dropped a foot of snow on Israel (doing the best attempt yet at imposing peace - while it lasted), grounded the army in Kuwait, and broke the years long drought in Afghanistan. Another, just this past week, had 50 mile an hour winds, was the worst in decades, and blew sand all the way from Iraq to Japan.
- Hours after the Japanese Prime Minister declared support for the war in Iraq, Japan's Sun Goddess gutted her kitchen with fire at her Ise shrine (the sun itself belted out two X class solar flares the day the war started). One of Kannon's temples was later smacked with a tree. Mt. Fuji had a cap cloud over it recently.
- Most of the major world wide peace protests were followed by an earthquake in Ibaraki Prefecture in Japan. This was the site of Japan's greatest nuclear plant accident in 1999. Yep, even Godzilla hates this war (depleted uranium + kids = unhappy King of Monsters, at least when he is in one of his kid loving incarnations).
George Bush may not have a real coalition behind him (except for a few bribed cheerleaders), but it looks like he has quite a coalition of deities against him, including his own. Pity he isn't listening.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
M.C. Hampster wrote:
:b
> Yes, and Bush is the only one who has ever helped these
> governments in the Middle East retain their power.
I'm not talking about helping them retain their power. I'm talking about doing things we know are strongly against the will of their people. How can we even talk about spreading democracy in the Middle East if we don't respect their people's will anymore than their own oppressive governments do? The US is strutting around being the dictator of dictators.
> If you want democracy in the Middle East, why not start
> with Iraq?
Because Iraq is a sovereign nation, and a republic with a constitution (a broken republic with a broken constitution, but that is up to the Iraqi people to fix). I'd rather see us fix our own problems with broken elections and a head of the Department of Justice who is out to axe murder the Bill of Rights.
Besides, this proposed war with Iraq is not about democracy, or oil, and it is sure not about any threat a defeated Iraq might possibly pose to the world's greatest superpower. It is about domination of the Middle East, and the neo-conservatives' new crusades to save Israel. Go do some research into the background of Bush's appointees.
> What international laws and treaties is Bush breaking?
So far:
Withdrew from the ABM Treaty, and the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty.
Coming soon to a war in Iraq:
The UN Charter (if the UNSC resolution does not pass or is vetoed), the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, the Geneva Convention, and all the same international laws Hitler broke invading Poland (the same preemptive strike excuse was used in the trials of his Nazi war criminals).
And that's just off the top of my head.
> What liberties, specifically, have been taken away
> from us?
Go read the USA Patriot Act. The Fourth Amendment is particularly in tatters.
> How did Bush single-handedly destroy the U.S. economy?
The economic problems started with the fiasco over his election. He has done nothing to help, except propose tax cuts for the wealthy (which makes the wealthy more wealthy, and puts the burden on those barely getting by). Every time he talks war, the market plunges. Every time Blix gives a positive report, the market recovers.
> What has he done to destroy the environment?
Seriously weakened the Clean Air and Water Acts. Opening as much public land to clear cutting in the interest of preventing forest fires. Opening most remaining wildlife sanctuaries with a drop of oil on them to oil companies, while refusing to significantly increase fuel economy. Withdrew from the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty.
Approved the Yucca Mountain project, a massive nuclear waste dump inside a pile of volcanic ash, in a zone with over forty earthquake faults, within a hundred miles of a major city (Las Vegas), on top of the aquifer that provides water to California and Nevada. In short, a nuclear disaster of epic proportions that has found a really bad place to happen. Yep, that's gonna stay perfectly stable for the next 200,000 years.
Those are the biggies I remember off hand. The list of environmental negatives from any six month period of the Bush administration is a long, sad record.
BTW, Bush Jr. is not a mainline republican, but rather is a neoconservative (unaffectionately known as a "chickenhawk") that has even life long republicans recoiling in disgust (my best friend is one of them).
"All our tomorrows, Great Sun, by the Light, are very forgotten.
The Light dies. We pray and it sleeps."
"Oh Peace Oh Light Return" from "Godzilla", 1954
M.C. Hampster wrote:
> So to defeat the terrorists, you just change foreign policy
> to their suiting! Now I get it. Then we win!
At this point about all Bin Laden wants of us is to suffer, die, hide under our beds or run around in a color-coded panic, and make the occasional blunder like Bush is making with Iraq to get him lots of angry recruits. I'm not talking about giving him any of that.
What I am talking about is going to the source of terrorism and rooting it out to finally end the stupid thing once and for all. That source is their hatred and anger in reaction to our foreign policy and our forcing our troops on other countries.
Look at the current situation. Bush is getting what he wants out of Middle East countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Pakistan. But the reason he is getting his way is that he bribes or threatens their leaders, and since they are not democracies, they have jack booted security forces to quell their people's massive dissent.
That creates an enormous amount of pressure, and sooner or later, as individuals or whole peoples, that is going to cause an explosion of hatred and terrorism. The various Palestinian groups and Al Qaeda formed because of mistakes from the Gulf War all the way back to the formation of Israel as a nation after WWII. The terrorists of tomorrow are being made by today's mistakes. That is why we have to change our ways, before their dissent becomes anger, then hatred, then terror and then people die.
This is not giving in to terrorists. It is embracing and truly living democracy. How can any nation claim to be democratic if they try to force their way on the leaders of other sovereign nations, against the manifest will of the people of that nation?
> This is so brilliant, I wonder why our President hasn't
> though of it yet.
Sorry, but our President is busy trying to get the World Record on making as many terrorists, breaking as many international laws and treaties, and alienating as many allies as he can, while destroying the liberties, economy and environment of the good ol' US of A.
You know, I think my dictionary is broken. It has the definitions switched for "president" and "enemy". Gee, I wonder if Webster's has a service center where I can get it fixed...
"Lola, kindness is not enough, look for the reason of hatred and anger.
When you find and understand that, love becomes the strongest power..."
Belabera, "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"
0rx wrote:
> Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wasn't part of the Taliban, he
> was part of Al-Qaeda. They're 2 seperate entities, like
> Southern Baptists, and the Amish...
The Taliban are more like Islamic Puritans (and just as big on "fun is evil"). The Christian Puritans fled England to escape religious persecution. When the Catholics came to the same colony for the same reason, the Puritans turned around and subjected them to the same persecution the Puritans had come here to escape. The Taliban, like the Puritans, were most dangerous to their own people and possibly immediate neighbors. The Taliban were terrorists only in that they ruled their own people through terror while they were in power. The clubs were for punishing infractions against their strict interpretation of Islamic law and general bullying, not for terrorist attacks against other countries.
The Al Qaeda are a world-wide extreme fundamentalist cult on the fringe of Islam, with a paramilitary/terrorist arm that does actual attacks, and a network of local preacher types that raise money and get recruits.
Bin Laden started out recruiting Muslim guerrillas to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan (which is why he got such a warm welcome from the Taliban - he was a hero to them). When an Iraqi army supposedly showed up on Saudi borders after they invaded Kuwait (there is some debate that the US satellite photos in question might have been forged), Bin Laden went to his king and offered the service of his men to defend Saudi Arabia from Iraq. The king told him that it wasn't necessary, the US were coming to protect them.
When the US "invaded" Saudi Arabia, and when they didn't leave, that is when Bin Laden's anger and hatred caused him to become a terrorist, and that is when his little band of freedom fighters became the Al Qaeda we know today.
That is why the "war on terror" is so ridiculous. Taking away the rights of Americans is not going to stop a single terrorist. Changing US foreign policy might not change Bin Laden's mind at this late date, but it would slow down his recruitment and keep other Al Qaedas from being formed. But nope, we are going back to Iraq to repeat the same mistakes all over again.
Material on the history of Bin Laden based on a World Book Encyclopedia article. Opinion is, as always, my own.
"Lola, kindness is not enough, look for the reason of hatred and anger.
When you find and understand that, love becomes the strongest power..."
Belabera, "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"
Zloopy wrote:
> Correction:
> As for preemptive invasion, the last one to pull that was
> Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait.
Saddam Hussein was afraid Kuwait was going to attack him?
Note the word "preemptive". That is when you attack because you fear an attack. I don't think Saddam bothered using that as an excuse, but I do know Hitler's Nazis mentioned it at their trials as an excuse. That is also the pretense Bush is using to attack Iraq.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
An AC wrote:
..."
> The government needs to monitor the people to make
> sure they are obeying the law to prevent terrorism.
1) Monitoring an ordinary citizen's breaches of the law (downloading copyrighted media without permission/paying, speeding, and more serious crimes) is not going to prevent any terrorism, because most US citizens are not terrorists, but are rather the people you want to protect from terrorism.
2) Monitoring known terrorists (while meeting the requirements of the Fourth Amendment for those few who are US citizens) would help prevent terrorism. Pity the government, if it followed your advice, would not have the manpower to watch the terrorists if they were busy watching the citizens.
3) Most importantly, monitoring US citizens without warrants and such is against the Fourth Amendment, and therefore a crime. You don't want all those Revolutionary War heroes to have died in vain, do you?
> Of course this is all silly when they don't do the most
> common sense thing and ban the private ownership of
> guns.
Yeah, that would really help. Not only are guns not usually used in terrorism (they like bombs which private citizens do not own), but an armed citizen might be able to stop a terrorist before more people are hurt.
> The people have no legitimate need for guns but the
> various police agencies should be very well armed.
The people, not the police, are generally the ones present during a terrorist attack. All the arms of the police (who are very well armed, some in Florida with military hardware they have no training in how to use) are no good, if they are not present to stop an attack.
Anyway, the important thing is that the Second Amendment says that people have the right to bear arms.
You might want to read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights again. The USA you purpose bears no resemblance to the the one defined by those documents.
Databases (government or things like the Liberty Alliance), monitoring, disarming and stripping away the rights of US citizens are not going to solve the problem of terrorism. To stop terrorism for good, you have to look for its source: hatred and anger toward US foreign policy.
It's pretty simple. Pull the troops out of Saudi Arabia (and any other place in the Middle East where they are not wanted), and quit showing favoritism toward Israel (be chummy with Israel, but be just as chummy with everyone else), and you will have taken away Al Qaeda's main recruitment issues. Invade Iraq, and stir up a hornets' nest of angry terrorists.
Heck, being fair, impartial, and not sticking our troops where they aren't welcome would do wonders for our image worldwide. As for preemptive invasion, the last one to pull that was Hitler invading Poland. Boy did his foreign policy land him in a mess of trouble!
"Lola, kindness is not enough, look for the reason of hatred and anger.
When you find and understand that, love becomes the strongest power
Belabera, "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"
dpete4552 wrote:
> Israel has violated UN declarations as well, you never see
> us huff and puff about them. Probably because there is
> no significant amount of oil, if any, in Isreal.
Israel has great religious significance to the religious right, a strong faction of the republican party, and the part of it currently in the White House. Not only do we not huff and puff, we send them aid and sell them many weapons. But then we helped Iraq obtain the very biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons we now accuse them of still having.
> North Korea readily admits to developing a nuclear
> program and defying the US, and we don't care too much
> about them either (no oil).
North Korea was a major blunder on Bush's part. North and South Korea are in the process of reuniting into one Korea, which Bush didn't approve of. Bush made a bunch of warlike rhetoric, talking about taking on Iraq, "axis of evil", blah, blah, blah. N. Korea got scared, and started making nuclear noises. It isn't clear that they actually have any working nukes, but fear that they exist has thus far deterred the US from attacking. The US had their fuel oil supplies cut off, leaving them only nuclear plants to heat their homes, which they started up. Unfortunately, we did not keep our 1994 promise to build nice peaceful light water reactors, so the only ones they have to heat their homes with also make the material for nuclear weapons. And up and up it escalates. Bush has been told repeatedly by N. Korea's neighbors to sit down and talk to them, but I guess that would ruin his plans for Korean War II.
> China launches takes and uses its army to kill its own
> people, including children, it is broadcast live to our
> livingrooms, and they just get scoled by Bush Sr. "Bad
> china! Don't do that again!" (No oil).
China produces oil, about the same amount as the US itself. China is too big to swallow whole, making diplomacy the route that the US has chosen to deal with this situation. Of course, diplomacy could solve most of the stuff Bush wants to go to war over, even Iraq. In diplomacy, you have give and take. In war, you have conquer and rule. The latter is more fun, but only if you are the president of the conquering nation.
> Now when we are in a very depressing economic
> situation isn't it convenient that the Bush Administration
> is pulling Iraq out of their hat again. Nothing like
> bringing up Iraq changes the subject so well eh?
You think this is depressing, just wait. The new budget has a $300 billion deficit (mostly Homeland Security, as a lot of other stuff got cut), not counting Iraq costs. The war could be $50 to $200 billion (depending on who you talk to) without reconstruction costs. State and local governments are in deep financial trouble, with no help coming from the federal government.
What does this mean to you and me? Well, not only is the US not going to the Moon anytime soon, but between insane gas prices and badly maintained roads, we are going to have a heck of a time getting to work. Assuming we have jobs...
> Well at least Bushinomics are bringing tax cuts for the
> rich.
So the rich get richer, and the rest of us have billions more government debt, no decent government services, and all of our own problems to boot. Great system for a feudal kingdom constantly running off to the Crusades (if you don't mind an occasional Robin Hood), but very bad for a 21st century USA.
> Of course the masses are too busy being destracted by
> Bush and all of his war mongering.
Public opinion worldwide, including the US, is against this war. In every member state of the coalition of the "willing", the leaders are joining in defiance of their people's wishes, and at risk to their careers. The peace movement is huge, organized, and extremely active: whether it's getting 10+ million people to protest on the same day in 60 countries and 600 locations, or organizing a call/fax/email your US senator and president day for 400,000 people (with, oops, over 1 million actually participating)! The unions in the US have come out against the war, so I would expect a lot more people to get undistracted quite quickly.
And, yes, those against the war know what it is doing to our economy. That is one of many, many reasons to oppose the war.
"All our tomorrows, Great Sun, by the Light, are very forgotten.
The Light dies. We pray and it sleeps."
"Oh Peace Oh Light Return" (national song of mourning) from "Gojira" (Godzilla) 1954
Ramze wrote:
..."
> The United States of America is a sovereign nation and is
> not bound by the terms of any international body.
The USA acted as a sovereign nation when it wrote much of the UN Charter and when Congress approved it. Now it is the law of the land, and we are bound by the Constitution to abide by it:
"... all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;
US Constitution, Article VI, Clause 2
> All contracts are negotiable & the USA reserves the right
> to change its mind anytime it pleases.
This is not a contract, this is the "supreme Law of the Land", and we are obliged to abide by it. To break a treaty for the US is to break a law and violate the Constitution. Any president which breaks a treaty has therefore broken his oath to uphold the Constitution, the oath that makes him president. I know presidents past and present who have broken treaties, that does not make it right or legal for them to have broken them.
> Now, the US may lose credibility with other nations in the
> future if it regularly breaks treaties and reverses
> decisions,
Credibility? More like loose our honor as a nation, assuming we have any left.
> but I think reversing a decision made nearly 40 years
> ago wouldn't be out of the ordinary for any nation.
The United States of America is not some tin plated dictatorship! Whatever happened to the nation "with liberty and justice for all"? If we cannot even try to uphold our ideals, if we dishonorably break faith with other nations, then our "liberty" and "justice" are just empty hypocrisy and our word as a sovereign nation means nothing.
> I wouldn't be surprised if the US decided in the next 100
> years to divide the moon up among the nations, giving
> itself the largest chunk & putting a McDonalds and a
> Disneyland on it.
Assuming, of course, that in the next 100 years the US succeeds in Bush's dreams of world domination, and wins another world war or three, putting it in the position to dole out the moon. As it is now, the US only has 50 states and a few islands to dole out, and they are all taken.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
Al Qaeda's attack succeeded only on the first three planes, and only because the people on them didn't know it wasn't an ordinary hijacking.
On the fourth plane, Flight 93, the passengers had cell phones and found out what was really going on, but too late to save the pilot. They sacrificed themselves to stop the terrorists. Had the pilot lived, they might have been able to bring the plane down safely.
On the Shoe-bomber's flight, the passengers knew the score, stopped the Shoe-bomber quickly, and landed safely.
Even in the World Trade Center itself, a complex which could hold up to 50,000 people, less than 3,000 died. The rest, tens of thousands of them, because of wise managers ordering evacuations, and many acts of heroism and compassion, helped each other out.
Why hasn't Al Qaeda attacked America again in this way? Because the people are on to them. These attacks have simply stopped working, because the passengers stopped them. Cowardly thugs that they are, the terrorists are now resorting to taking potshots with rocket launchers well away from any airport, and in places like Kenya rather than the US.
So what good is all your great security? It doesn't stop terrorists, because they are already stopped. It doesn't give Americans any security, in fact it violates the one right that guarantees that Americans will be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects", the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.
CAPPS II violates the privacy and security of Americans. There is no warrant issued, and any probable cause is supposedly provided by the result of the CAPPS II search to justify more searching of their persons, blacklisting, and possible arrest. Combined with Patriot II (if and when it is passed) CAPPS II could turn an innocent vacation into a one way trip to Gitmo for the now former citizen, all because of a computer glitch or an error in one of the databases. And unlike your credit report, there is no law to allow you to view or correct the data that CAPPS II uses.
I have no interest in sacrificing my rights as a native US citizen just for some imagined safety. Even if CAPPS II was somehow able to prevent terrorist acts, it doesn't do a thing for accidents which killed 88,000 more Americans in 2001 than Al Qaeda killed.
Oh, and those 19 terrorists in 2001, they passed CAPPS I with flying colors.
"There is something important to do, no matter how hard or painful."
Mothra (via Moll) "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"
Xerithane wrote:
> Obviously, you have no claim as to what your software
> can and cannot be used for if you release it out into the
> world.
You have plenty of claim, it is your software, and you hold the copyright. Ever heard of EULA's, GPL, etc.?
It is an incredibly common practice for consumer software EULA's to have a provision in them forbidding the use of the software in hospital life-support and nuclear reactors. This is to reduce liability claims, as the software is usually not tested to the stringent standards that such applications would require. If your word processor croaks, the user looses part or all of a letter. If life support or a nuclear reactor's control systems fail, people die. Most people and software companies just aren't prepared to deal with that level of liability.
> Whether or not you believe the upcoming war
> with Iraq is justified or not,
It doesn't have to have anything to do with Iraq. Some people of conscience do not want to spend their time and hard work writing software to benefit their fellow humans, only to have the military or some repressive government grab it and use it to kill people, torture people, or take people's rights away. Remember, if it is open source with no restrictions, there is nothing to stop (or at least nominally protest against) the likes of Iraq or North Korea (or your idea of "villainous country of the month") from downloading and using it against their people or anyone else.
> it doesn't stop the software they use from being used.
No, it doesn't. But then again, the military and evil nations aren't too likely to honor the GPL, let alone any other restrictions imposed on the software. Even writing innocuous software, like a word processor, isn't necessarily going to keep your code from being used to kill people (a word processor can be used to compose an order of execution). Restrictions are more likely to help the conscience of the person writing the software than actually stop evil uses.
> This is a completely moot issue, but it is good for
> discussion I suppose.
It is moot only if every developer doesn't care how their software is used. For those of us that do care, it is an important issue, especially as the market for software is becoming increasingly global.
> The thing that should not be seen is exclusion clauses
> from the GPL and other open source licenses.
Such licenses already have exclusion clauses prohibiting the re-closing of the software. Such is the foundation of the free software and open source movements. Why is it okay for the GPL to impose the philosophy, ethics, and world view of the Free Software Foundation and its founder, and not those of other people or organizations?
I'm not giving answers here, just questions that the development community in general, and the free software and open source communities in particular, need to ponder.
> Would you rather have the military and government using
> open source software or Microsoft?
I would rather see the civilian sector of my government (US) using open source. The voting machines in particular almost have to be open source, as the exit polls have shown the closed source ones to be unreliable.
As for the military, why don't they write their own software? They take in all these people based on advertising that they will learn about computers or electronics, then their mothers are shocked to find out that their little boy is being airlifted to Iraq, sans education. They should either use these young people to write their own software, or else change their advertising to "Be a mindless drone dying of heat prostration in your anti-chemical attack suit in Iraq."
> Code audits are important when using software for
> military purposes, to ensure that everything is accurate.
> Whether it's personnel tracking, mission tracking, or
> simulation software, accuracy is important.
All the more reason for the military to develop their own software, rather than using off the shelf commercial stuff, or open source.
> Maybe my view is just tainted because I'm finding myself
> leaning more toward the pro-War campaign...
I won't argue the point with you, not when there are sites like antiwar.com with enough news articles and facts to blow a hole in Bush's "evidence" big enough to fit Godzilla through.
I will say this. If Iraq is a monster, it is one of our creation. The US and Britain, together with companies like HP and Kodak, gave Iraq those weapons of mass destruction. Al Qaeda would not be what it is today, if it were not for US lies and mistakes during the Gulf War. Today's US administration is still lying, and still making mistakes.
Iraq is also a mirror of what we are in danger of becoming. Iraq was a republic back in the late 50's and early 60's. Now Iraq is a broken republic, with a broken constitution, favoring one party over all others, with one man as perpetual president, and human rights out the window. Iraq invaded both Iran and Kuwait. The US has yet to rewrite her constitution. But the president has made no secret of his desire for a Republican dominated Congress, the sweeping away of inconvenient rights (Patriot, son of Patriot, etc.), and a planned series of invasions.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
It's kind of a hard quote to find a standard news reference for, as Google gave me over 15,000 hits. Would you consider the BBC to be reliable? They actually date it back to December 19th (or possibly a day or two before) of 2000, and set the quote as addressed to the leadership of both houses of Congress, referring to the "arm twisting" Bush was going to have to do to get his legislation through.
I've also seen different settings and dates for the quote (the one I gave originally was from an article at commondreams.org). I get the feeling it is just something he says a lot, especially when he isn't getting his way. That would be even more damning than a one time statement.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
Naive? Us? ;)
;)
Seriously, you can't paint all of Slashdot with one brush. Nope, it takes several brushes, multiple coats, and you still miss a few highly mobile spots. After all, you've got youngsters still in school, college students, and old hands with a decade or two or more of experience from the US, Canada, and other parts of the world. Some are going to be a bit naive, but not all of us.
As for the rider idea, sorry, it's been tried already. A version of this bill was first attempted as a rider to the USA PATRIOT Act. Congress had enough wisdom to detach it before the act was passed. A great pity for the cause of liberty that the whole act was not tossed in the round file.
It flopped as both a rider and a bill. I doubt it has a ghost of a chance of passing now without intervention from on high. Disney would have to do some serious shrub worship, both in financial contributions and a movie about a heroic planting on fire with a courageous crusade to topple evildoers worldwide.
"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
George W. Bush, December 18, 2002
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
goombah99 wrote:
> coroporate sponsorship of media is the norm if you take
> a historical view. Indeed for all known history the arts
> have been almost exlusively supported by patrons not
> the masses
Yep, if you ignore most of the entire history of music from the first flutes 10,000 years ago (how much support from royalty does it take to poke a few holes in a bone one winter's day when one is back from hunting and bored?). Sure the royals hired a few musicians to live in the lap of luxury (as long as their heads were allowed to remain intact). But the rest of the world's music is folk music: music of the people.
From the songs of the hunt in the distant past, to religious hymns, to the songs in taverns and inns all over the world; songs of the sea, songs in the fields, songs in the evening when the work is done (and TV yet uninvented). Songs on May Day (which the kings and especially the priests hated), songs at war, songs of slaves in southern fields longing to be free. From almost every time, nation, and creed (save those believing music to be of the devil), from slaves, serfs, peasants, and commoners, music is the near universal expression of the human heart.
Far from requiring royal patronage, even slaves could make music, with or without their master's consent. How do you think Spirituals came about? No royal patronage or lap of luxury there, only cruel inhumanity that should have never been allowed in the first place.
> To the extent that artistis are conduits of expression and
> the exchange of ideas, is this good or bad? its not clear.
Well, if you are trying for a repressive government or a commercial monopoly, those things might be considered bad. But normally expression and exchange of ideas are good. That's why the US has a First Amendment.
> there are commmercial forces to tow the political norm
> on all artists whether they have patrons or must please
> the masses.
There are commercial forces only where art is commercialized. Otherwise, I can sing as I please.
> Indeed one might claim that given the financial
> independence offerec by a patron is what frees the artist
> to challenge popular norms.
Good King So and So is mighty particular with his music, and will take your head off if you do not please him. Pepsi will fire, and perhaps sue, you if your "act" does not conform to corporate image. I'm not feeling the freedom here.
> You would not see many commercial artist these days
> advocating ########ing small boys, but certainly many
> poets in greece spoke well of the idea.
You are not going to see most sane, intelligent people, in public, advocating the commission of a crime (sexual abuse) against children.
> I know thats a bit gross,
A bit?!?
> but I say it to make the point that stong ideas can come
> about when you dont have to please everyone.
A) "Strong ideas" are like Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech. What you mentioned was a disgusting and reprehensible idea, which I can do without.
B) I can sing anything I please. A recording artist with a major label, or a Chinese artist representing a corporation had better please their label/sponsor, or the money will stop.
"They bind our hearts: 'Let's sell them again and again!'
Our plan understands the sea; we can wait for her coming."
From the song "Infanto no Musume" in the Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961).
TopShelf wrote:
> Timeline's point (which will surely be argued in court) is
> that Microsoft isn't qualified to make that promise in the
> first place, so the users can't get off the hook by saying
> "but Microsoft said...".
One of Timeline's statements in a press release said that, yes. The court argument over it took three and a half years and is now over.
Timeline also noted how Microsoft mislead its users, and they basically laid out the beginnings of a case users could put together (with a bit of research and a lawyer) and go after Microsoft to recoup the money they had to pay Timeline. That's kind of nice (to the users) of Timeline to do that, especially after Microsoft's deception kept them from getting paid for three and a half years.
> Probably the best part of that strategy for Timeline is that
> they can go after the various users, rather than try to
> gouge money out of Microsoft itself.
The users are the ones owing money, not Microsoft, thanks to Microsoft, their cheapskate ways and their lying. Timeline tried to offer Microsoft a package that would cover the users, but Microsoft would rather pay less, lie about the agreement, and pull a legal delay. Now its customers owe millions, and Microsoft walks away with some court charges (and a perjury offense to go with all those anti-trust offenses they are not having to be punished for).
> Microsoft could easily tie the case up in court for a
> decade or more, and make it apparent to Timeline that
> they'll never be able to make it worth the effort.
Microsoft didn't have to tie it up for more than three and a half years. Microsoft isn't the ones that owe the money, their users are. Read the article.
Oh, and everyone keep in mind, SQL Server is soon to be the file system called Yukon, and join Palladium and its amazing friends in Microsoft's next operating system. Does this mean anyone who writes software for that OS that accesses files will be liable for these royalties?
"Your way of thinking is completely different from mine!"
Mac user Shinoda to PC user Katagiri, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
(From the world's biggest switch commercial, starring Apple's biggest fan: Godzilla!)
IANAL, but as far as I can tell, the Fourth Amendment seems to imply it:
I don't think it is too big of a stretch to apply "papers" to modern electronic records of purchases, medical records, email, etc. If my reasoning is correct, then the Fourth Amendment would not only forbid the CIA from searching our purchase records without a warrant, etc., but it would also forbid something like the Total Information Awareness database.
I think the Fourth Amendment is kind of a sibling to the Fifth Amendment. Whereas the Fifth protects us from having to testify against ourselves, the Fourth protects us from having our bodies, homes, things, and records (including electronic?) testify against us, at least without some kind of due process.
The people who wrote the Constitution had suffered under British rule. They had soldiers forced upon them, living in their homes, going through their things. If the soldiers saw anything suspicious, they would just report it, and that person could be sent to England for trial. (Think about the TIPS program, replace the soldiers with the cable guy, and you have the exact same situation.) These people knew what privacy violation felt like, they had had no privacy, not even in their own homes.
That this right to privacy, to "be secure in our persons, houses, papers and effects", was one of the first to be violated by the Attorney General is reprehensible. That it was violated (and continues to be violated) in the name of "security" is ridiculous. But then, we are living in the times where CNN ("the most trusted name in news" -- what a laugh) has declared that Congress does not believe in the First Amendment. Heck, I'm surprised they let the company execs of Enron, et al, take the Fifth!
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
Mark (ph'x) wrote:
;)
> Im Australian...
I'm a US citizen.
> its not my problem when the US takes
> away your basic rights under the guise of 'protecting
> freedom'
It becomes your problem should Bush and his posse decide that one of your fellow Australians is a terrorist. But then your prime minister Howard thought Australia should have the same privilege to go after terrorists in another country after the Bali bombing (my sympathies, by the way).
> HOWEVER.. it is my problem when your arrogant
> government and big business industries (read RIAA/
> MPAA) try to force your legislation on my country. if the
> US wants to try and get its copyright and DMCA law
> mirrored over here in aus, then at least let me vote in
> your elections ffs
Voting in our elections would do you no good, you wouldn't have any more control over the passing of bad laws like the DMCA than we do. The only people here who seem to have the power to get the laws they want are the president and those big business industries. Dare to protest, and you get what they got in New York City: put into pens, trampled by police horses, hit with night sticks and sprayed with pepper spray.
If you don't want the DMCA style laws in your country, your best bet would be to tell Hollywood and the big five record labels where to take their business. Band together with your like-minded (at least on IP issues) neighbors, and make your own music and movie industries with local talent, and your own laws about them. The big studios and labels no longer have a monopoly on movie and music making technology. Take advantage of new technologies and go where you want to go with them.
Who knows, you might just wind up with popular singers that can sing on key. Boy, is that ever a revolutionary concept!
> Im sick of 'America - Land of the Free'... its a misnomer...
> its BS.
It is supposed to be "land of the free". If it were still "home of the brave" it would be "land of the free" because we would fire the idiots trying to make it not free. After all, their official job description includes "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" (US Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Clause 8) which is the document that lays out our freedoms.
Unfortunately, it is mostly "land of the chicken" at the moment. Well, "chicken" and "chicken-hawk".
> I turned down a well paid job in the US a month back...
> because as an IT admin, it would be frankly dangerous to
> work over there.
I've worked in the industry in the US for fifteen years. Chief danger I have encountered: layoffs. Followed by traffic accidents. I have been a victim of both.
> Im sure the US will try to stop dealing with countries
> without a DMCA equivalent.
Well our government might, considering how childish they are being over France and Germany disagreeing over Iraq. But there is also a good chance we might be able to get the DMCA repealed (in part or whole) in Congress, and the companies behind it aren't all that healthy these days.
> Eventually the US will be economically affected by these
> restrictions, and its citizens will start to ask questions.
Hello, we already have had the DMCA in effect in this country since 1996. We have noticed it, did the question phase, and are in the "fighting tooth and nail to get rid of it" phase. It is a bad, bad law, we want it off the books, and we don't want to share it with you.
> Unfortunately... as of course 'American Values' are good
> enough for all... we are likely to see 'peaceful non-
> agression military' solution to their problems.
Not as long as your Mr. Howard keeps trying to be mini-Bush. One would hope Bush wouldn't attack one of the "willing".
Let's hope come 2004 that the US gets a president willing to return to America's traditional values of liberty and justice, and after Mr. Howard retires, Australia gets a good prime minister that lets Australia be Australia and not a carbon copy of the US. It sounds to me like that would make us both happy.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
misterhaan wrote:
:)
> why is it that so many people believe that we need to be
> any more careful now than we needed to be a year and a
> half ago? i most certainly say that we do not!
There is nothing wrong with ordinary people being reasonably careful and observant. If everyone drove like that, it would save a lot of lives. The problem is being fearful. People who build a plastic bubble around their homes out of plastic sheeting and duct tape are being fearful, not careful.
Being fearful only helps a terrorist control you. Please note that "terrorist" has nothing to do with blowing up things, but rather using terror to control people (either blowing things up, or telling people some evil "terrorist" might blow them up). Oppressive governments almost always rule by fear.
> it was great to see the way the nation reacted by coming
> together and helping each other out in the days following
> the attack,
America is great not because of its bombs or military, but because of the compassion and courage of its people. On September 11, 2001, terrorists killed thousands, but compassion and courage saved tens of thousands.
> we have been dishonoring the memories of those who
> lost their lives for no good reason
And the lives lost for the best of reasons, to save others. Don't forget Flight 93. Or the firefighters.
> by slowly whittling away the freedoms that made the usa
> something we could be proud of, and by breeding fears
> of another attack.
There *was* another terror attack, just this weekend, in Chicago. Only no Al Qaeda members were involved. Yes, the moronic security guard that sprayed the crowd with pepper spray is responsible, as is the owner of the club that violated every fire code in the book. But the government and the media are also responsible for the fear they have been breeding with their stupid terror alerts (based on lies to begin with). Terror and panic killed those poor people, and turned that club into the same horror that the World Trade Center became. Department of Homeland Insecurity: this is the fruit of your color-coded crying of "Wolf!".
> the plain simple truth is: terrorism most likely will not
> affect you!
As long as you define "terrorism" as a real Al Qaeda attack (blowing up stuff, hijacking planes, assassinations, etc.) you are quite right. The average American is far more likely to die from auto accidents or medical malpractice.
Al Qaeda are at heart bullies and thugs. Bullies don't bother those who stand up to them, and ever since Flight 93 and the capture of the shoe-bomber, Al Qaeda has seemed reluctant, even too chicken, to bother with airborne attacks in the US itself. Airplane hijacking has ceased to work with Flight 93, so Al Qaeda appears (from my personal observations of the news) to have moved on to other kinds of attacks outside the US.
The fear of terrorist attacks is a concern for the average American. If fear is getting to you (you feel an irrational desire to buy lots of duct tape and/or have nightmares about attacks), you need to do something about it. Start by turning off CNN (or whatever sensationalist news source you watch) and get your news from places that are less sensationalist, and more balanced. Combat your fear with facts. And if you still have problems, you might want to get some professional help. Living in constant fear is not good for you, even if it never gets to the point of giving you a heart attack.
> remember that most of the threats we're supposed to be
> cowering in fear over aren't really that bad, don't affect a
> very large area, and are very unlikely to affect you
> directly.
>
> thank you.
No, thank you for doing your part to calm people.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
mentin wrote:
:),
.Net home terminal, entertainment terminal, and home PC replacement. But game console was all Microsoft could get developers for.
> The console market is dominated by Sony, not Microsoft.
> Microsoft has monopoly in personal computers market.
True. But Microsoft is not just loosing a little money on XBox, they are bleeding rivers of it. The only reason they can afford to do so is that their Windows and Office monopolies give them huge profit margins on those products (85%) enough to fund everything else they do, and every other market they enter.
> Of course MS has 100% market share of XBox consoles
> but the real market is entertainment consoles,
Actually, the real market was supposed to be
> P.S. Note also that monopoly itself can't be illegal. It is
> abuse of the monopoly which is illegal.
Abuse of which Microsoft has been found guilty of on several counts. Trial or no trial, Microsoft does not appear to be changing its ways.
It is going to be interesting to see if Microsoft actually signs Linux for the XBox. While I don't personally have much use for Linux on XBox, this is a very good test to see just how open to third parties (and open source) the technology formerly called Palladium is really going to be.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
Vodak wrote:
> It saddens me that some US people are spending all this
> time and energy protesting a war that hasn?t happened
> yet and could give a crap about things happening in their
> own country in regards to their freedom. And it?s not just
> this story, it?s all the freedoms that are being taken away
> thinks to the events of 2001.
You think the people protesting don't care about the civil rights? Do you have any clue how much of a legal fight it was to exercise their First Amendment rights in New York Saturday? I'm sorry, but as important as fair use rights are, they pale in comparison to the rights specifically described in the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is under terrible attack in this country (yes, since 2001). Every voice raised in protest, every footstep in every march in America this weekend was a celebration of the First Amendment and a victory for it and everything Liberty stands for.
As for the war, might I remind you that 60 to 80 percent of the people in this country are against it. The President has said he is going to war even if 0 percent of the American people are with him. If that isn't an attack on our rights, I don't know what is. You don't drag democracies to war against their will, especially to an unbelievably unjust war that is against everything this country stands for. You don't drop thousands of bombs, small nuclear bunker busters, and non-lethal gases (in violation of Geneva and Chemical Warfare Conventions) on the innocent people of a sovereign state because you claim its dictator is hiding some old canisters of biochemical agents (that America gave him).
If you want to see what's wrong with this war, and why it has to stop before it starts, go to antiwar.com. At the moment, one of the links on the home page (it changes all the time as new stories come out) is about the CIA and FBI merging anti-terror efforts, and the effects on civil liberties and privacy concerns. Those anti-terror efforts form the excuse for both the war against Iraq, and the erosion of liberty. There is one cause here, not two.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
The flaws in the electoral system are irrelevant when you have problems in the voting system itself. Exit polls are used to verify the integrity of foreign elections. For the past few years, exit polls have been failing to predict accurately the outcome of elections in America. And no, the problem isn't in the poll system, which works well enough to verify elections outside the US.
The problem: exit polls have failed in inverse proportion to electronic voting systems being adopted. These systems are closed source, frequently unaudited, and are more and more not giving any sort of paper receipt that the voter can check and verify that that was their vote.
Enter Microsoft. Yep, that's right, that voting machine software and the database behind it might be a Microsoft product. Why pay three times more than Enron (2000 elections) when Microsoft's proprietary voting system can just elect whoever Microsoft likes once Microsoft has enough market share in the voting system market? Audit? Why you can't audit Microsoft! That would endanger their precious IP! [Insert grumbling about "terrorist scum" here.]
You know, we ought to do something about this, before we get Bill Gates elected president by an electronic landslide. All in favor of accountable voting systems, raise your hands.
"Ridiculous, you have no claim. I'll sue you for interfering with private enterprise."
Kumoyama, Happy Enterprises, "Mothra vs. Godzilla", 1964
mikeophile wrote:
> I would expect that when Senator Disney...er Hollings
> seems to be introducing sane legislation, it's just a
> candy-coating for the riders his handlers...er lobbyists
> have insisted upon.
Actually, when Disney is not yanking on his chain, Hollings is an average Congress-critter with the occasional good idea. It's just when Disney yanks his chain that he is evil, and then with increasing reluctance.
For the bad stuff he introduces, Disney and a system that allows corporations to leash Congress-critters is as much to blame as the man himself.
None of that makes CBDTPA less evil or less of a threat to the future of the computer and consumer electronics industries, or less of a threat to citizen's fair use rights.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
rtphokie wrote:
> Do we limit access to information that might be useful to
> terorists in the name of security, or do we make it freely
> available in the name of intellectual freedom.
You can do anything you like "in the name of security": lock up information, lock up people without trial or lawyers, lock out dissent (why else do you think the terror level was on high this weekend with hundreds of thousands of peace protesters in New York?), cry "wolf" in various hues, hermetically seal your house with plastic and duct tape to protect your family from that noxious gas oxygen, etc. It's all great for terrorizing the American people, does wonders for the "name" of security, and might even qualify you for the Phoenix awards.
However, none of the above will make you more secure. At best, it is barn door closing when the horses are long gone (For example, the WTC bombing was planned using Bin Laden's knowledge of construction, which he obtained before he became a terrorist). At worst, some of the measures above are at least as great a threat to Bush's supposedly beloved "democracy", liberty, and even your own life as terrorism ever was or could be.
Anyway, mature people understand that life just is not secure. Eliminate all terrorists, and you could still die of car accidents, killer asteroids, or Yucca Mountain going boom. Security implies absolute control, and that is just not possible, even in a dictatorship. Living in terror, and Americans are doing just that, is not living at all.
> There are extremists on both sides of this topic.
> Extremists suck though.
>
> The answer lies in the middle, but nobody wants to
> discuss that. They just want to criticize the other
> extremists.
Yes, there is a spectrum with extremes, but it is not what you think. On the one end of the spectrum are the terrorists who want chaos, a stampede of fear, and massive destruction. On the other end are those who want to impose total "security", at the price of liberty, and they are using terror of the terrorists to control people.
But it is the democracy and liberty defined by the US Constitution that is the point in the middle. The Constitution provides the framework and civilization that keeps chaos and anarchy at bay while preserving liberty. It also provides the checks and balances that keep wanna be dictators from taking over. Unfortunately, those checks and balances are being eliminated. The result is not going to increase your personal safety.
I still have faith in the kindness and courage of the American people. We got through the Civil War and the Cold War (complete with McCarthy madness), we can get through this.
Get out from under your beds where you've been hiding (literally or figuratively) since 911. Cast aside your terror, it only serves to entertain bin Laden, and to aid those who would control you. Go rescue Liberty and Justice. Justice is hidden away somewhere at the Department of Justice (Ashcroft didn't like her immodest clothing). Liberty was last seen being hauled away for "fraternizing with immigrants" (INS also lost her change of address card a century or so ago).
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
Flamesplash wrote:
> MS will match any employee donation to, afaik, any
> charity, as well it has it's own philanthropic arm backed
> with it's own many billions in the bank.
Yes, and I'm sure Al Qaeda was very grateful for their generous $20,000 (USD) donation. (Those with matching donations should be more careful about making sure the charity is legit. Compaq got bit on this too.)
> Now given all this is it in anyway """"""""OK"""""""" then
> that they may be pulling more money than they should
> be out of people who can afford it when a lot of people
> are benifiting that would not if MS was not there?
No, it is not okay. If Bill G. was genuinely charitable, he would have made all that money without breaking the law, extorting it via terror marketing (BSA threats) and draconian licenses, and without destroying so many other businesses. I mean, he and his company have gone after poor public schools and children's charities with the BSA on the one hand, and have donated to schools on the other hand. And the donations weren't out of any kindness of his heart, but to extend his monopoly into school systems where Apple had a large share.
So why does an individual give so many ill gotten gains to charity? Two phrases: "tax deduction" and "public relations". Possibly a third: "guilt".
If Bill G. and Microsoft want to be seen as sincerely charitable, they better loose their much abused monopoly positions of dominance over their markets and seriously change their ways.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
frankie wrote:
> Legal: Very Evil.
Insert standard joke about lawyers being evil here.
> Send cease&desist letters at the drop of a jellybean,
Okay, how would you handle things better? Would you let everyone get by with breaking contracts with you (which are legally binding), no matter how much it hurt you? Would you let those that break NDAs (that they signed on their honor and by their free will) blab all your hard work to the world so Microsoft comes out with your products before you do?
How about that very valuable brand that is one of the most recognized in the industry? Would you just toss that away so idiot kiddies with nothing better to do can create Apple themes? Keep in mind that if you don't defend that trademark, you loose it!
It is difficult to have a legal department that does a good job of defending your contracts, NDAs and trademarks, and not come off as a bad guy. Perhaps a standard of legal goodness/evilness would be whether the legal department just does their job of defending the company, or whether they are offensive and attack other companies (patent lawsuits for fun and profit, C&D letters for things the recipient is legally entitled to do, etc.).
> and threaten the DMCA.
Prove it. I want to see a photocopy of the communication Apple supposedly sent Other World Computing. The word of OWC's president is not good enough, especially when it contradicts the story he gave three weeks prior to the DMCA claim, in which he said Apple asked NICELY, and he complied to keep good relations with Apple.
Until such a time as I see proof, I am going to continue to presume Apple's innocence. I refuse to be used to blacken Apple's good name. And an accusation of DMCA use, without proof and constantly brought up by Slashdotters, blackens Apple's good name.
Otherwise, I mostly agree with your very good posting.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)