"helping draft Iraq's new Copyright law, despite the fact that there's been a very servicable one since 1971?"
Like what? "Don't copy this book or I'll gas your village?" Heck, I'd be more worried about Rosen using that as a model for copyright enforcement in the US...
"Given that the US is already excluding foreign nations from lucrative rebuilding contracts in Iraq,"
Ah, the hazards of only getting your news from Slashdot. The DoD more or less backpedalled on that mere hours after that announcement (by putting the bidding on hold for "further review"), and there's been enough of a reverse on that policy that France and Germany are forgiving huge chunks of the Iraqi debt. Most of the media (including the ones who would be the last to believe the administration could be this shrewd or subtle) now seem to believe that the whole thing was a staged event to give James Baker a carrot to offer to the Paris Club, getting a promise to reduce Iraq's debt by giving them back something they never really lost to begin with.
You really should get out of the house every once in a while.
"America has not "conlonized" a country we defeated in war."
If you don't want to consider the various possessions that fell into our lap after the Spanish-American War (Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, etc.), there's still the whole "northern half of Mexico" bit.
"I'll accept you as knowlegable about (American) history if you can give me an example of American "colonial expansion", due to war. I can think of one, but it was more than a hundred years ago."
I'm sure some people living on Okinawa feel as if they were "colonized" after an American victory. There's also the interesting fact that Japan is the only country in the world to have a foreign military base in its capital (we might not "take over," but we certainly don't leave)
We took the Panama Canal Zone from Panama a few seconds after we "liberated" Panama from Colombia. Sure, that was a while ago, but we only just gave it back. There's also the coup staged in Hawaii, which we only recently apologized for (a little late, I would say...). If you're willing to count covert wars, Iran can fit into that category as well.
Of course, these can be written off as "little" issues, since most of our expansion was during the Nineteenth Century. But did we stop because we're now nice guys, or simply because we're big enough? From the beginning of the Twentieth Century to July 4, 1946, from St. Thomas to Luzon the sun did not set in the United States. And even today it's still damn close.
"When it came to chemical weapons I assumed it was all about delivery systems, not the chemicals themselves."
Then you're forgetting the anthrax attacks through the USPS in late '01. And then there were the scores killed and maimed by chlorine gas attacks decades before the V2...
The delivery system is the easy part. Heck, the delivery system is generally something you can buy on the open market ("It's for our budding space program!" if you insist on rockets). International laws and such focus on the technology of the weapon itself.
Iraq getting weapons of mass destruction (or "warheads of mass destruction" if you insist) was a major problem even if they didn't have rockets that violated sanctions (which they did). Looking at how much oil they were able to ship out outside of the Oil For Food program, why wouldn't they have been able to sell their new technological breakthroughs to the highest bidder? DPRK, for example, may or may not have The Bomb, they probably don't have any sort of chemical or biological weapons program outside of whatever data was left behind by the Japanese, but they certainly have boosters that can hit Okinawa, Guam and perhaps even Anchorage. And if DPRK knows how to export (our) nuclear technology to Iran, they can probably figure out how to import nerve agent from Iraq.
"Yes, but on the flip side, what is Blockbuster and the rest of the rental business without those MPAA movies? "You don't like our region codes? Fine--noDVDforyou.""
No, this is the MPAA we're talking about. They'll just pay Congress to outlaw Blockbuster. Declare rental DVDs to be weapons of mass destruction or some such nonsense.
"Because Iraq *has* more oil than Venezuela and you would want to import more of it?"
You're ignoring the cost of shipping oil from the Persian Gulf over to here. That's why, even with our (relatively) friendly relations with Saudi Arabia, the three countries we buy the most of our non-domestic oil from are Canada, Mexico and Venezuela.
And if we were so keen on buying oil from Iraq, we could have bought far more oil under the so-called "Oil For Food" program than we did, much like the French did.
"The sanctions has pervented Iraq from selling much oil to anyone,"
But we didn't even try buying what they were allowed to sell.
Only where "Western world" means "Western Europe." Oil is a global commodity, which means it has the same price no matter where you get it. And when one barrel of oil costs as much to produce in Iraq as it does off the shores of Louisiana, the only real difference in price comes in the price of moving said barrel of oil from point A to point B. The countries who are most interested in Arab oil are those that are only a short trip through the Suez to it.
"And to have an arabian state outside of OPEC would be a boon to the western world and especially the US."
If the US wants to deal with a country with massive oil reserves and no OPEC membership, we can deal with Russia. Russia potentially has more oil than even Iraq and mere mention of this potential has OPEC very concerned about their behavior in the global oil market. And Russia is far closer to the US geographically than even Venezuela.
"Gee, he must be using some sort of weird reverse psychology too complicated for my simple little brain then. I don't quite see how giving $100M to the dictator of Uzbekistan (again, like Saddam, he uses torture, rape, and murder to keep power) will somehow magically get him out of power."
And what are you suggesting? That this was done because Bush is happy with the way things are in Uzbekistan, or any other reason than "It shares a common border with Afghanistan?" You're forgetting the litmus test of what the American public will swallow, and Congress (the people in charge of spending) know that most voters don't care about what happens to Uzbekis so long as there are fewer people shooting at American soldiers in Afghanistan.
"He's personal friends with the dictator of Saudi Arabia,"
A relationship he is seriously straining by "asking" the Saudis to democratize, not to mention the disagreement on the whole Iraq thing...
"And naturally the millions being sent to the dictator of Colombia will get him out of office."
For being a dictator, President Uribe must be doing a horrible job since he only got 53% of the vote in '02. Maybe he should have paid more attention to Hussein's last election.
"Of course, the support for the military regime of Indonesia is a good idea,"
Let's see, do we reward Indonesia for their steps towards democracy and cooling off about the whole East Timor thing, or do we chide them for not doing things faster and be accused of using a double standard on the world's most populous Muslim nation (inciting more Muslim extremist unrest in the process)?
"The Bush government has no interest in supporting democracy worldwide"
Since you have everything figured out so well, what was he interested in (if not something so obviously tied to the most important issue on next year's election)? If you say "oil," please explain why we ousted Hussein instead of Hugo Chavez, since we import far more oil from Venezuela than from a country literally on the other side of the world.
"On a broader note, I object to the "we're doing it for the poor downtroden people" chest-thumping coming from the Bush government because it is a horrible lie. The same Bush government that is now telling us the war was about human rights, not oil or WMD, has steadfastly ignored the abuses of other dictators,"
Hussein is (was) the only dictator Bush has a legal leg to stand on to go after. The one and only rule in the UN is "thou shalt not kill thy neighbor's people." If a tin-plated despot lines up his people and has them each use a sledge hammer to crush the skull of the person in front of them, the UN will not condemn and many times quietly condone that behavior. Kim Jong Il is letting his people starve to death, but so long as they're still North Koreans dying and not any other nationality, any attack by an outside power to oust him will be seen as aggression by the international community. There are only two reasons we see Milosevic before the Hague today, with the first being that he signed a piece of paper in Dayton that said "I agree to be put before the Hauge if I do bad stuff" and the second because the ethnic Muslims he butchered were considered to be living in another country.
And if you've been paying any attention, you'd see that Bush is trying to get other such despots out of power (there's a reason why the word "Wilsonian" has been used here and there describing his foreigh policy to date), but can only go so far as Congress and the UN (yes, I said "UN") will let him. Unfortunately, with the international community so unwilling to get involved in "domestic disputes" and the historical tendancy of the US towards isolationism, all he can do is give stern talking-tos to Egypt and the Saudis to move towards real democratic reform.
The phrase "WMD" was used to the American public in order to overcome our disdain for helping out peoples whose skin colors are darker than ours ("Oh, their 'culture' just doesn't allow democracy...") and to the UN to cause at least enough dischord in the body to keep other nations from coming to Iraq's aid. And while it would have been more honest to say something along the liens of "It's despotic governments like this that is the birthplace of the zealotry that breeds terrorism, and it should be our duty as human beings to do all we can to elimiate them wherever they appear" the philosophical argument wouldn't have gone anywhere either at home or abroad.
Do the ends justify the means? That's a different matter.
"With Saddam Hussain being put on display in a humiliative fashion - him playing the role of a broken man whose two sons have been killed by the very forces that now have control of his life - this might anger those who lead these assaults even more."
While I believe this will have no effect on those who are more anti-American than pro-Sadam, I can't see how this won't weaken the pro-Sadam folks. You're being a little too Western in your thinking here.
As I see it, there are two kinds of Sadam supporters:
Sunis who miss being in power These people aren't quite so commited to the man as they are to themselves, and for them Sadam represented their last big hope for coming back to power again if they can just wait out the occupation until the coalition gives up and goes home. Now, short of another big Suni name coming to prominence, there's not much hope for them, and at this time the coalition forces may be their best friends considering how the Sunis are in a minority in a country full of people that hated the Baathist regime...
Sadam fanatics You would think that these people would be the ones to fly to the aid of a poor, disheveled old Sadam, but I think you're missing why they're fanatics to begin with. They weren't followers of Sadam the man, but more Sadam the image. They followed the commands of the fearless, invincible leader who had shown he was able to stand up to the evil Americans, defiantly laughing in the face of danger. In other words, these are people who believed that what our favorite Minister of Information was saying to be true. The fact that Sadam was captured without a fight is going to be a serious bit of disillusionment for themse fanatics. Unless they are able to convince themselves that this isn't the real Sadam, in their eyes it would have been better if he had gone down with guns blazing like his sons.
Yes, there is still the problem of foreign terrorists coming from outside the country to do their thing, but even these people will be hampered because they still relied on the underground infrastructure set up by the two groups of domestic insurgents. It will be harder to find a friendly populace to help them (especially if terrorist attacks in Iraq continue to kill more Iraqis than colition forces) and they will then be more likely to stand out.
"The only case this will affect positively is that of someone who already has a criminal record which includes biometric data, has the resources to acquire a fake passport, but does not have the resources to fool a biometric sensor."
Not even. I don't know about other countries, but I know my US passport is good for ten years. So even if the US required biometrics tomorrow, we'd still have to wait until the end of 2013 for the change to have any real effect.
What would be more productive (and probably cheaper) than requiring biometrics would be better ways of verifying the passport itself. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is doing all sorts of things to make US paper currency more secure, but even paper currency from the 1980s is more difficult for counterfeiters to reproduce than your typical passport. Heck, driver's licenses and state ID cards are harder to forge. And let's not forget birth certificates while we're at it.
The only thing requiring biometric information on passports accomplishes is it allows the US government to collect and store the biometric information, from citizens as well as foreign nationals.
"One of the reasons we are doing this with passports first is because the U.S. government has said it will require biometric passports for people wishing to enter the United States,"
That's rather interesting, considering how much money it would cost to set up such an infrastructure in a country. Looks like if you're not from a first world country, we don't want you here. Mexico who?
"Huh? Isn't "Blood, guns and boobs" the premise of 99% of the movies made in hollywood today?"
But video games are inherently more evil. Just ask Senator Lieberman, while Senators Hatch and Hollings will be able to tell you all about the importance of artistic freedoms in our movie industry.
Although I'm willing to bet there wouldn't be as much hue and cry in Congress about video games if they were made by an American industry (ie. were allowed to contribute to election campaigns)...
"To the list of complaints above I would also add that it seems unlikely that people capable of building faster-than-light spacecraft wouldn't know how to make radios that transmitted a clear signal. The amount of break-up and interference in those radio transmissions was ridiculous."
Three letters: ECM. Why would the Cylons let the humans communicate with each other and coordinate their actions in the clear?
"And it didn't seem to make it difficult for the characters to understand each other, it just made it tougher for the viewer to hear what they were saying."
Ever tried to listen to aircraft transmissions? It can be pretty tough to pick out what they're saying unless you're used to it.
Slashdot Mirror
"helping draft Iraq's new Copyright law, despite the fact that there's been a very servicable one since 1971?"
Like what? "Don't copy this book or I'll gas your village?" Heck, I'd be more worried about Rosen using that as a model for copyright enforcement in the US...
"Given that the US is already excluding foreign nations from lucrative rebuilding contracts in Iraq,"
Ah, the hazards of only getting your news from Slashdot. The DoD more or less backpedalled on that mere hours after that announcement (by putting the bidding on hold for "further review"), and there's been enough of a reverse on that policy that France and Germany are forgiving huge chunks of the Iraqi debt. Most of the media (including the ones who would be the last to believe the administration could be this shrewd or subtle) now seem to believe that the whole thing was a staged event to give James Baker a carrot to offer to the Paris Club, getting a promise to reduce Iraq's debt by giving them back something they never really lost to begin with.
You really should get out of the house every once in a while.
"America has not "conlonized" a country we defeated in war."
If you don't want to consider the various possessions that fell into our lap after the Spanish-American War (Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, etc.), there's still the whole "northern half of Mexico" bit.
"I'll accept you as knowlegable about (American) history if you can give me an example of American "colonial expansion", due to war. I can think of one, but it was more than a hundred years ago."
I'm sure some people living on Okinawa feel as if they were "colonized" after an American victory. There's also the interesting fact that Japan is the only country in the world to have a foreign military base in its capital (we might not "take over," but we certainly don't leave)
We took the Panama Canal Zone from Panama a few seconds after we "liberated" Panama from Colombia. Sure, that was a while ago, but we only just gave it back. There's also the coup staged in Hawaii, which we only recently apologized for (a little late, I would say...). If you're willing to count covert wars, Iran can fit into that category as well.
Of course, these can be written off as "little" issues, since most of our expansion was during the Nineteenth Century. But did we stop because we're now nice guys, or simply because we're big enough? From the beginning of the Twentieth Century to July 4, 1946, from St. Thomas to Luzon the sun did not set in the United States. And even today it's still damn close.
"I doubt that trying to bring Open Source tools into a developing technology infrastructure would sap the effort to create a stable government."
Sounds like somebody hasn't had their daily dose of SCO/MSFT FUD yet today...
"When it came to chemical weapons I assumed it was all about delivery systems, not the chemicals themselves."
Then you're forgetting the anthrax attacks through the USPS in late '01. And then there were the scores killed and maimed by chlorine gas attacks decades before the V2...
The delivery system is the easy part. Heck, the delivery system is generally something you can buy on the open market ("It's for our budding space program!" if you insist on rockets). International laws and such focus on the technology of the weapon itself.
Iraq getting weapons of mass destruction (or "warheads of mass destruction" if you insist) was a major problem even if they didn't have rockets that violated sanctions (which they did). Looking at how much oil they were able to ship out outside of the Oil For Food program, why wouldn't they have been able to sell their new technological breakthroughs to the highest bidder? DPRK, for example, may or may not have The Bomb, they probably don't have any sort of chemical or biological weapons program outside of whatever data was left behind by the Japanese, but they certainly have boosters that can hit Okinawa, Guam and perhaps even Anchorage. And if DPRK knows how to export (our) nuclear technology to Iran, they can probably figure out how to import nerve agent from Iraq.
"Apparantly there are claims that the flight of the Wright Brothers was really just ballistic,"
So was Yuri Gagarin. What's your point?
"Yes, but on the flip side, what is Blockbuster and the rest of the rental business without those MPAA movies? "You don't like our region codes? Fine--noDVDforyou.""
No, this is the MPAA we're talking about. They'll just pay Congress to outlaw Blockbuster. Declare rental DVDs to be weapons of mass destruction or some such nonsense.
"why EverQuest and its sequels may always be the most popular MMORPG series."
Because nobody thinks that Phantasy Star Online counts! Of course soon we'll also need a hand-waving arguments against Final Fantasy XI as well...
"what did you think I meant?"
Marajuana. The only way some of us can get through Christmas without going on a bloody rampage.
"(the conga controller features a nifty sound detection device.)"
A microphone! What will they think of next?
"Because Iraq *has* more oil than Venezuela and you would want to import more of it?"
You're ignoring the cost of shipping oil from the Persian Gulf over to here. That's why, even with our (relatively) friendly relations with Saudi Arabia, the three countries we buy the most of our non-domestic oil from are Canada, Mexico and Venezuela.
And if we were so keen on buying oil from Iraq, we could have bought far more oil under the so-called "Oil For Food" program than we did, much like the French did.
"The sanctions has pervented Iraq from selling much oil to anyone,"
But we didn't even try buying what they were allowed to sell.
Only where "Western world" means "Western Europe." Oil is a global commodity, which means it has the same price no matter where you get it. And when one barrel of oil costs as much to produce in Iraq as it does off the shores of Louisiana, the only real difference in price comes in the price of moving said barrel of oil from point A to point B. The countries who are most interested in Arab oil are those that are only a short trip through the Suez to it.
"And to have an arabian state outside of OPEC would be a boon to the western world and especially the US."
If the US wants to deal with a country with massive oil reserves and no OPEC membership, we can deal with Russia. Russia potentially has more oil than even Iraq and mere mention of this potential has OPEC very concerned about their behavior in the global oil market. And Russia is far closer to the US geographically than even Venezuela.
"Gee, he must be using some sort of weird reverse psychology too complicated for my simple little brain then. I don't quite see how giving $100M to the dictator of Uzbekistan (again, like Saddam, he uses torture, rape, and murder to keep power) will somehow magically get him out of power."
And what are you suggesting? That this was done because Bush is happy with the way things are in Uzbekistan, or any other reason than "It shares a common border with Afghanistan?" You're forgetting the litmus test of what the American public will swallow, and Congress (the people in charge of spending) know that most voters don't care about what happens to Uzbekis so long as there are fewer people shooting at American soldiers in Afghanistan.
"He's personal friends with the dictator of Saudi Arabia,"
A relationship he is seriously straining by "asking" the Saudis to democratize, not to mention the disagreement on the whole Iraq thing...
"And naturally the millions being sent to the dictator of Colombia will get him out of office."
For being a dictator, President Uribe must be doing a horrible job since he only got 53% of the vote in '02. Maybe he should have paid more attention to Hussein's last election.
"Of course, the support for the military regime of Indonesia is a good idea,"
Let's see, do we reward Indonesia for their steps towards democracy and cooling off about the whole East Timor thing, or do we chide them for not doing things faster and be accused of using a double standard on the world's most populous Muslim nation (inciting more Muslim extremist unrest in the process)?
"The Bush government has no interest in supporting democracy worldwide"
Since you have everything figured out so well, what was he interested in (if not something so obviously tied to the most important issue on next year's election)? If you say "oil," please explain why we ousted Hussein instead of Hugo Chavez, since we import far more oil from Venezuela than from a country literally on the other side of the world.
"On a broader note, I object to the "we're doing it for the poor downtroden people" chest-thumping coming from the Bush government because it is a horrible lie. The same Bush government that is now telling us the war was about human rights, not oil or WMD, has steadfastly ignored the abuses of other dictators,"
Hussein is (was) the only dictator Bush has a legal leg to stand on to go after. The one and only rule in the UN is "thou shalt not kill thy neighbor's people." If a tin-plated despot lines up his people and has them each use a sledge hammer to crush the skull of the person in front of them, the UN will not condemn and many times quietly condone that behavior. Kim Jong Il is letting his people starve to death, but so long as they're still North Koreans dying and not any other nationality, any attack by an outside power to oust him will be seen as aggression by the international community. There are only two reasons we see Milosevic before the Hague today, with the first being that he signed a piece of paper in Dayton that said "I agree to be put before the Hauge if I do bad stuff" and the second because the ethnic Muslims he butchered were considered to be living in another country.
And if you've been paying any attention, you'd see that Bush is trying to get other such despots out of power (there's a reason why the word "Wilsonian" has been used here and there describing his foreigh policy to date), but can only go so far as Congress and the UN (yes, I said "UN") will let him. Unfortunately, with the international community so unwilling to get involved in "domestic disputes" and the historical tendancy of the US towards isolationism, all he can do is give stern talking-tos to Egypt and the Saudis to move towards real democratic reform.
The phrase "WMD" was used to the American public in order to overcome our disdain for helping out peoples whose skin colors are darker than ours ("Oh, their 'culture' just doesn't allow democracy...") and to the UN to cause at least enough dischord in the body to keep other nations from coming to Iraq's aid. And while it would have been more honest to say something along the liens of "It's despotic governments like this that is the birthplace of the zealotry that breeds terrorism, and it should be our duty as human beings to do all we can to elimiate them wherever they appear" the philosophical argument wouldn't have gone anywhere either at home or abroad.
Do the ends justify the means? That's a different matter.
"I suggest that's precisely the kind of mental handicap ("disconnect" if you want to be nicer) that's required."
GNU/Linux zealots, on the other hand...
... that the UN and/or France call for Sadam to be turned over to the Hague before Friday.
While I believe this will have no effect on those who are more anti-American than pro-Sadam, I can't see how this won't weaken the pro-Sadam folks. You're being a little too Western in your thinking here.
As I see it, there are two kinds of Sadam supporters:
- Sunis who miss being in power These people aren't quite so commited to the man as they are to themselves, and for them Sadam represented their last big hope for coming back to power again if they can just wait out the occupation until the coalition gives up and goes home. Now, short of another big Suni name coming to prominence, there's not much hope for them, and at this time the coalition forces may be their best friends considering how the Sunis are in a minority in a country full of people that hated the Baathist regime...
- Sadam fanatics You would think that these people would be the ones to fly to the aid of a poor, disheveled old Sadam, but I think you're missing why they're fanatics to begin with. They weren't followers of Sadam the man, but more Sadam the image. They followed the commands of the fearless, invincible leader who had shown he was able to stand up to the evil Americans, defiantly laughing in the face of danger. In other words, these are people who believed that what our favorite Minister of Information was saying to be true. The fact that Sadam was captured without a fight is going to be a serious bit of disillusionment for themse fanatics. Unless they are able to convince themselves that this isn't the real Sadam, in their eyes it would have been better if he had gone down with guns blazing like his sons.
Yes, there is still the problem of foreign terrorists coming from outside the country to do their thing, but even these people will be hampered because they still relied on the underground infrastructure set up by the two groups of domestic insurgents. It will be harder to find a friendly populace to help them (especially if terrorist attacks in Iraq continue to kill more Iraqis than colition forces) and they will then be more likely to stand out."The vast majority of Moslems have no truck with terrorism."
I thought the DOD called those things "technicals."
"The only case this will affect positively is that of someone who already has a criminal record which includes biometric data, has the resources to acquire a fake passport, but does not have the resources to fool a biometric sensor."
Not even. I don't know about other countries, but I know my US passport is good for ten years. So even if the US required biometrics tomorrow, we'd still have to wait until the end of 2013 for the change to have any real effect.
What would be more productive (and probably cheaper) than requiring biometrics would be better ways of verifying the passport itself. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is doing all sorts of things to make US paper currency more secure, but even paper currency from the 1980s is more difficult for counterfeiters to reproduce than your typical passport. Heck, driver's licenses and state ID cards are harder to forge. And let's not forget birth certificates while we're at it.
The only thing requiring biometric information on passports accomplishes is it allows the US government to collect and store the biometric information, from citizens as well as foreign nationals.
"One of the reasons we are doing this with passports first is because the U.S. government has said it will require biometric passports for people wishing to enter the United States,"
That's rather interesting, considering how much money it would cost to set up such an infrastructure in a country. Looks like if you're not from a first world country, we don't want you here. Mexico who?
"Huh? Isn't "Blood, guns and boobs" the premise of 99% of the movies made in hollywood today?"
But video games are inherently more evil. Just ask Senator Lieberman, while Senators Hatch and Hollings will be able to tell you all about the importance of artistic freedoms in our movie industry.
Although I'm willing to bet there wouldn't be as much hue and cry in Congress about video games if they were made by an American industry (ie. were allowed to contribute to election campaigns)...
I would have thought adding a "Banned in New Zealand!" sticker to a game's case is a marketing tactic more up Acclaim's alley.
Perhaps you should try
to clean it on occasion;
I don't have that problem
"Give your EZ pass to your buddy(or clone it and attach it someone's car) and send them on their way."
And as soon as they detect more than one copy of your EZ Pass, the DMCA police come knocking on (down) your door.
"You can sometimes count every orange on a tree but never all the trees in a single orange."
Like hell I can't. I can tell you exactly how many orange trees are in my navel orange.
"To the list of complaints above I would also add that it seems unlikely that people capable of building faster-than-light spacecraft wouldn't know how to make radios that transmitted a clear signal. The amount of break-up and interference in those radio transmissions was ridiculous."
Three letters: ECM. Why would the Cylons let the humans communicate with each other and coordinate their actions in the clear?
"And it didn't seem to make it difficult for the characters to understand each other, it just made it tougher for the viewer to hear what they were saying."
Ever tried to listen to aircraft transmissions? It can be pretty tough to pick out what they're saying unless you're used to it.
"Also, at least a couple times it's hinted at by the Cylons that their motivation might be, somehow... religious, as weird as that seems."
And this is why we're commanded not to make a machine in the image of Man's mind.