Showgirls is a film about capitalism. A brilliant expose on naked and ruthless ambition to "make it to the top" through voluntary self-prostitution. As a Dutch person, America's sarcasm detector seems collectively turned completely off. All of Paul Verhoevens films are dark comedies about the big issues of our times (as seen by Mr. Verhoeven), but it seems it takes another Dutchman to see this. The fact that some people only now see Starship Troopers as perhaps somewhat sarcastic blows my mind. How can you miss it? It's such an obvious critique of nationalism, patriotism, propaganda, the military-industrial complex and jingoism that I really cannot fathom anybody seeing it in any other context.
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses".
Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
"Three Apples for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne, In the Land of Jesus where the Clergy lie. One Apple to rule them all, One Apple to find them, One Apple to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Jesus where the Clergy lie".
Bakunin was right after all... "The Bible, which is a very interesting and here and there very profound book when considered as one of the oldest surviving manifestations of human wisdom and fancy, expresses this truth very naively in its myth of original sin. Jehovah, who of all the good gods adored by men was certainly the most jealous, the most vain, the most ferocious, the most unjust, the most bloodthirsty, the most despotic, and the most hostile to human dignity and liberty - Jehovah had just created Adam and Eve, to satisfy we know not what caprice; no doubt to while away his time, which must weigh heavy on his hands in his eternal egoistic solitude, or that he might have some new slaves. He generously placed at their disposal the whole earth, with all its fruits and animals, and set but a single limit to this complete enjoyment. He expressly forbade them from touching the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He wished, therefore, that man, destitute of all understanding of himself, should remain an eternal beast, ever on all-fours before the eternal God, his creator and his master. But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge" ; ).
"The US is using its national intelligence agencies to obtain intelligence on terrorists trying to kill people". Mostly BULLSHIT. "The intelligence agencies themselves don't have police powers". Fully BULLSHIT. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has both an intelligence function and police powers. Their primary purpose is to "secure the nation from the many threats it faces". You can be arrested and imprisoned for such things as whistle-blowing, opposing the status quo, being an unapproved immigrant, trying to enter or leave the country without permission (could get you shot on the spot), and many other possible infractions. No gap between them but the propaganda gap.
As much as my comment was a jest, pure and simple; There's no such thing as a "terrorist", the term is a confabulation, a nebulous entity somewhere between "opponent" and "boogeyman".
"Hitler's police state worked on the rule that if you said nothing, no harm, could come to you. If you had doubts about the way the country was going, you kept them to yourself - or paid the price".
"The mysteries and wonders of creation still have many secrets to reveal and lessons to instruct the attentive, as we slowly but inexorably destroy them".
"In a surprise move, it was discovered that the NSA has secretly been moonlighting by selling its collection results to third-parties, including foreign governments"? And yes, but not for cash. Tit for tat. Echelon, Gladio, Five Eyes et al, these are all joint exercises. Everybody is in on it. The only difference at the moment is the NSA got hit by a string of defectors. My analysis would be that it's almost unavoidable once your team get's too big, unless everybody is motivated by a shared powerful ideology (X will save our country, or X will kill us all). But a small team and/or strong shared ideology both have their disadvantages as well.
The problem is thus: Almost every state sells arms or has diplomatic relations with every other state. Women are abused everywhere, almost everywhere there's a cave man's idea of a criminal justice system in place, many people are deeply religious, and many support one form of violence or another. What else do we need to do before we decide to stop tolerating our shit?
Bonus: it's quite a common tactic to make a thing that many (poor) people do illegal so you can arrest most (poor) people at any time for breaking the (ridiculous) law you just wrote. Politically active, vocal, at a rally and smoking a joint? That's a (judicial) beating ; ).
As long as Russia kills 100.00 in Chechnya, the U.S. 100.000 in Iraq, and the Chinese, French and British States murder, kidnap and torture at will, no, I really don't give a fuck about fake FBI hit-man stings.
I think the ICRC should try to spend their limited resources making real war crimes a point of discussion instead of virtual ones. "Influencing the psychology of players" is a hypocritical attitude considering the ICRC could start a well-founded legal case against all members of the security council for actual war-crimes. Nothing would "influence the psychology" of everybody like a couple of so-called "World Leaders" in court in my opinion. "The ICRC has started working with video game developers, so that video game players face the same dilemmas as real soldiers"; there are no real dilemma's for many soldiers. Whatever they do they will get away with it. Total impunity. Video games are just a soft target, and not a valid one at that. It's like asking Robert Capa not to document so much violence in the hope that this will lessen the horrors of war.
"The ICRC believes there is a place for international humanitarian law (the law of armed conflict) in video games". Because it's just too hard to apply these rules in reality. Unless you're the disarmed loser of a conflict. When is the last time any member-state of the permanent security council was tried for war-crimes? So in the game Russian, Chinese, American, British and French players should get a free pass, but all others will get their asses kicked in a court of law. That is if they manage to survive the kidnapping, torture and assassination.
Sounds very familiar, this exact same link-spam has been hitting./ for a couple of years now. Usually several postings from one user, somewhat individualized posts. I just moderate all posts by that user -1 troll and they disappear from sight/site. Whack-a-mole for sure, but at least the spamming becomes less visible/effective.
Slashdot Mirror
Showgirls is a film about capitalism. A brilliant expose on naked and ruthless ambition to "make it to the top" through voluntary self-prostitution. As a Dutch person, America's sarcasm detector seems collectively turned completely off. All of Paul Verhoevens films are dark comedies about the big issues of our times (as seen by Mr. Verhoeven), but it seems it takes another Dutchman to see this. The fact that some people only now see Starship Troopers as perhaps somewhat sarcastic blows my mind. How can you miss it?
It's such an obvious critique of nationalism, patriotism, propaganda, the military-industrial complex and jingoism that I really cannot fathom anybody seeing it in any other context.
The Govt can't design and implement a billion+ dollar data storage center. It can hire people to do it for them. Badly.
http://storageservers.wordpress.com/2013/10/08/nsa-prism-data-center-stops-working-due-to-electrical-problems/
Cash In Advance.
Secure, anonymous, and hard to trace - including a protocol called "trustless mixing" that combines users' coins together.
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses".
Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
"Three Apples for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,
In the Land of Jesus where the Clergy lie.
One Apple to rule them all, One Apple to find them,
One Apple to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Jesus where the Clergy lie".
Mysteries 20:13-14
Bakunin was right after all...
"The Bible, which is a very interesting and here and there very profound book when considered as one of the oldest surviving manifestations of human wisdom and fancy, expresses this truth very naively in its myth of original sin. Jehovah, who of all the good gods adored by men was certainly the most jealous, the most vain, the most ferocious, the most unjust, the most bloodthirsty, the most despotic, and the most hostile to human dignity and liberty - Jehovah had just created Adam and Eve, to satisfy we know not what caprice; no doubt to while away his time, which must weigh heavy on his hands in his eternal egoistic solitude, or that he might have some new slaves. He generously placed at their disposal the whole earth, with all its fruits and animals, and set but a single limit to this complete enjoyment. He expressly forbade them from touching the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He wished, therefore, that man, destitute of all understanding of himself, should remain an eternal beast, ever on all-fours before the eternal God, his creator and his master. But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge" ; ).
"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." - C.S. Lewis
http://www.booksatoz.com/witsend/tea/orwell.htm
"The US is using its national intelligence agencies to obtain intelligence on terrorists trying to kill people".
Mostly BULLSHIT.
"The intelligence agencies themselves don't have police powers".
Fully BULLSHIT.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has both an intelligence function and police powers. Their primary purpose is to "secure the nation from the many threats it faces". You can be arrested and imprisoned for such things as whistle-blowing, opposing the status quo, being an unapproved immigrant, trying to enter or leave the country without permission (could get you shot on the spot), and many other possible infractions. No gap between them but the propaganda gap.
Not just an address anymore.
As much as my comment was a jest, pure and simple;
There's no such thing as a "terrorist", the term is a confabulation, a nebulous entity somewhere between "opponent" and "boogeyman".
Step one: Don't post on forums.
Perhaps people are generally more motivated to write about books they (really) like?
"Hitler's police state worked on the rule that if you said nothing, no harm, could come to you. If you had doubts about the way the country was going, you kept them to yourself - or paid the price".
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi_police_state.htm
"The mysteries and wonders of creation still have many secrets to reveal and lessons to instruct the attentive, as we slowly but inexorably destroy them".
Doppler Sonar, hurray! Best weaponize it asap.
http://suite101.com/a/ocean-pollution-a326713
"In a surprise move, it was discovered that the NSA has secretly been moonlighting by selling its collection results to third-parties, including foreign governments"?
And yes, but not for cash. Tit for tat. Echelon, Gladio, Five Eyes et al, these are all joint exercises. Everybody is in on it. The only difference at the moment is the NSA got hit by a string of defectors. My analysis would be that it's almost unavoidable once your team get's too big, unless everybody is motivated by a shared powerful ideology (X will save our country, or X will kill us all). But a small team and/or strong shared ideology both have their disadvantages as well.
Others have reported that the software was simply a copy of other software, which already had back-doors.
The problem is thus:
Almost every state sells arms or has diplomatic relations with every other state. Women are abused everywhere, almost everywhere there's a cave man's idea of a criminal justice system in place, many people are deeply religious, and many support one form of violence or another. What else do we need to do before we decide to stop tolerating our shit?
Cessna 127 doesn't have autopilot AFAIK, a Garmin (display upgrade) at best /pedantic nerd mode.
Yes.
Bonus: it's quite a common tactic to make a thing that many (poor) people do illegal so you can arrest most (poor) people at any time for breaking the (ridiculous) law you just wrote. Politically active, vocal, at a rally and smoking a joint? That's a (judicial) beating ; ).
As long as Russia kills 100.00 in Chechnya, the U.S. 100.000 in Iraq, and the Chinese, French and British States murder, kidnap and torture at will, no, I really don't give a fuck about fake FBI hit-man stings.
Let's focus on recreational drugs!
It's as if we don't want peoples attention on the real criminals.
Sociopath plutocrats and their dogs.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats
I think the ICRC should try to spend their limited resources making real war crimes a point of discussion instead of virtual ones. "Influencing the psychology of players" is a hypocritical attitude considering the ICRC could start a well-founded legal case against all members of the security council for actual war-crimes. Nothing would "influence the psychology" of everybody like a couple of so-called "World Leaders" in court in my opinion.
"The ICRC has started working with video game developers, so that video game players face the same dilemmas as real soldiers"; there are no real dilemma's for many soldiers. Whatever they do they will get away with it. Total impunity. Video games are just a soft target, and not a valid one at that. It's like asking Robert Capa not to document so much violence in the hope that this will lessen the horrors of war.
"The ICRC believes there is a place for international humanitarian law (the law of armed conflict) in video games". Because it's just too hard to apply these rules in reality. Unless you're the disarmed loser of a conflict.
When is the last time any member-state of the permanent security council was tried for war-crimes? So in the game Russian, Chinese, American, British and French players should get a free pass, but all others will get their asses kicked in a court of law.
That is if they manage to survive the kidnapping, torture and assassination.
Sounds very familiar, this exact same link-spam has been hitting ./ for a couple of years now. Usually several postings from one user, somewhat individualized posts. I just moderate all posts by that user -1 troll and they disappear from sight/site. Whack-a-mole for sure, but at least the spamming becomes less visible/effective.
http://www.nasa.gov/