To turn this back to OverDrive and other eAudiobook vendors, my biggest gripe is not necessarily that they have DRM on the files (because as you can see from above, I can see the uses in a library setting.) It's that they don't support multiple platforms.
One of the main reasons their titles are platform dependent is because they use DRM mechanisms which are platform dependent. Why are the DRM mechanisms so tied to specific platforms? One important reason is that to be effective, a DRM mechanism really have to be built into the guts of the system; by contrast, software which is neatly and elegantly designed with portability and interoperability in mind is virtually impossible to build a DRM-enabled system with, because it allows the end user too much flexibility and power.
First you asked whether it was "right" and concluded that it "was acceptable". Now you say it was "reprehensible". But nevertheless, you would still "in good conscience" make the same "reprehensible" decision, for reasons which were "actually" "reprehensible", though justified with "good excuses". I can't even fathom the moral confusion in your argument.
Regarding the value to the Americans of using the bomb on civilians (vs just demonstrating it), I think you are correct that the main benefit of using it was to show not only that they had it, but that were "morally" prepared to use it, and would not e.g. quail at the prospect of committing genocide with it. In other words, the value of the bombings lay precisely in demonstrating that America's new military strength was not trammelled by moral considerations. In other words, an act of terror, an ideological act, a demonstration not so much of the bomb itself, but of the brutality of the American state. Modern historians will say it was the opening gambit of the Cold War with the USSR, and the germ of the later MAD stalemate.
The "targeting of military infrastructure" you mentioned (by contrasting with OBL) is a misdirection. It's clear that the a-bombings were actually for other strategic ends ("terror" is what we'd call it today, if we weren't so imbued with respect for "our" great military leaders of the past), and the actual tactical value of the destruction of the 2 cities was nil. Hence the contrast with OBL's terror (which you allege was not targeted at the military - incidentally ignoring the attack on the Pentagon) is invalid.
Your statements regarding "the State" are also misdirection. What does it matter, morally, if OBL was not an elected president? Does wearing a uniform, or sitting in an oval office, make otherwise reprehensible acts praiseworthy? It seems so?
The only question remains, is it right to target military installations in the cities of your enemy during a time of war to force his surrender, knowing that tens of thousands of civilians will die.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed, actually. Does that change your opinion at all? Would you have insisted on the righteousness of "keeping American nerve" if it had required killing millions of innocents? If so, how many millions?
Seriously: WTF? Why do people still buy these tired WWII-era justification in the 21st century? Hasn't everyone realised by now that the bombings were to scare the Reds?
If the plan was just to shorten the war, wouldn't a demonstration of the bomb suffice? Why was it necessary to strike without warning? (I don't count the Potsdam ultimatum, which threatened unprecedented trouble for Japan, but in such an unspecific way as to have seemed like mere bluster). The fact is simply that the actions of the US military at that time were not, by civilised standards, morally defensible. Why do you feel the need to defend them these evil acts? Was Truman your grandpa? Why not just acknowledge the reality, that the US military has in fact, been responsible for some evil acts? Is it so hard to admit your own country's fallibility? Or would that undermine your position on Iraq?
Your argument must surely be filling some powerful psychological need considering how logically weak it is. On the one hand you correctly assert that the Japanese military had violated conventional rules of war, but on the other hand you consider that these violations are ample justification for 2 of the most horrendous war crimes in all of human history!
You assert that even though the Japanese militarists were suing for peace, these genocidal bombings were OK, because the supreme importance of exacting an "unconditional" surrender outweighs all those individual lives. Then you refute your own barbaric argument by noting that the Allies actually did accept a condition (namely the retention of Hirohito).
And as for "targetting military installations", please! Why didn't they drop it on a purely military base then? Sure, Hiroshima contained a naval base, but did that justify destroying a city packed with civilians? If you think so, can't Osama Bin Laden also justify his killing of thousands of innocent people in NY in order to take out some his enemies? Face it! It was an act of pure terror, and morally just as indefensible as those of the 9/11 terrorists. And why Nagasaki? if it was such an important target militarily, why had it not been targeted by conventional bombers? The reason for the second bombing a few days later was purely that the US military had 2 types of bomb and wanted to be sure they'd tried out both kinds.
"Freeing" a literary work into the public domain is less a public benefit than a transfer of wealth from the families of American writers to the executives and stockholders of various businesses who will continue to profit from, for example, "The Garden Party," while the descendants of Katherine Mansfield will not.
Has this guy heard of the internet? Where anyone can 'publish' for almost no cost.
And this one (a classic!), called "This is Coffee!", on making coffee: http://www.archive.org/details/ThisisCo1961 - from the Coffee Brewing Institute if I remember correctly. Definitely worth watching, even if just for the soundtrack, the cool retro coffee gear, and to boggle at the cigarette smoking involved (vid dates from 1961). This vid doesn't recommend any particular method, but it stresses using actual coffee (as opposed to "instant coffee" I suppose), and using fresh water, with clean equipment. All good advice, to which I would add:
Don't store a big stash of coffee for a long time - buy enough to last you a week or two at a time. Use freshly roasted beans (roasted at home, or from a local roaster). Use freshly ground beans (grind them yourself, as you need them, or at least get them ground when you buy them, don't ever buy coffee that's been pre-ground). Keep the coffee in a cool place, in an air-tight container. Storing coffee in the fridge is not ideal because when you open the container, warm moisture will get in, and when the container goes back in the fridge, the moisture will condense. This will cause your coffee to soak up moisture. Experiment with different beans and roasts, and write down your experience, so that you get to know what you prefer. Everyone is different. Avoid ultra-dark roasts... they are foul, and bad for you.
Personally I like brewed ("Turkish") coffee, but it's a bit of a health hazard if you drink it that way a lot.
My favourite is espresso, with scalded milk ("flat white"). At home I have a stove-top espresso machine. Pump-driven ones are better, in general, but to get a reasonable quality one is quite expensive. The cheap ones make rubbish coffee.
Actually there's no legal basis for the operation of a prison camp at Guantanamo bay.
The Cuban govt is in no way "bound to honor the old agreement". The continued existence of the base has a much more mundane reason - that the Cubans are (for very sensible military reasons) not willing to go to war against the US to restore their sovereignty of this bit of national territory.
As for the so-called "lease" itself:
Firstly, it's unenforceable under international law, because it was imposed on the Cuban govt under military force. There's a Vienna convention on treaties that deals with this, amongst other things. During the colonial period, the world's colonial powers imposed all kinds of "concessions" and "treaties" on their subject peoples, and these concessions have almost always been abrogated by military, rather than legal means; i.e. by the use (or the threat of use) of force against the occupiers.
Secondly, even if the "lease" itself had any legal credibility, the terms of the lease explicitly specify that the naval base is to be used purely as a naval base and coaling station, and for no other purpose. Use of the base as a prison is a clear breach of the terms of the lease.
The legal fiction of a "lease" is just a fig-leaf covering up a colonial occupation of part of the territory of Cuba, very like the long US military occupation of the Panama canal zone. I guess, though, that the "lease" story plays rather better in the US than in other parts of the world, particularly in Latin America, and especially in Cuba itself. If you ask Cubans what they think - and I have - it's that the base is illegal, and a cynical insult to their national pride and legitimate patriotic feelings. The govt has repeatedly demanded that it be closed, and the territority returned to Cuban sovereignty, but apart from that, what can Cubans do? They can't take it back by force, because that could mean a major war with the most powerful nation in history, over nothing more than a valuable bit of real estate. They can't sue for it in an international court of justice, because the US govt cares nothing for international law. So all they can do is complain, and protest.
In short, the "lease" is bullshit - the camp is just another military occupation... one of a long, long, string of such adventures in US military history. In actual fact - as opposed to legalistic theory - the base belongs to the US by brute force. They have effectively annexed it, and they will use it as they see fit, because it suits them to do so, and because they can. Don't like it? Tough!
It's amazing how many people haven't learnt the most basic lessons of (military) history. The Turks though... "fool them once... can't fool them again".
We gave up using imperial measures for scientific work many megaseconds ago. Even my 1.89 gigasecond old engineering lecturer scolded me when I used them, and I only did that because most of my experience so far has come from working on classic cars.
Not many people know it but only 120 years ago aluminium (or aluminum for you Americans) was more precious than gold. European monarchs had dinnerware made out of it. Then in 1886 a new industrial technology collapsed the price permanently, and now it's a disposable wrapper for fast food.
So, fast forward to the "Diamond Age", and the courtship rituals which involve diamonds will just have to migrate to another hardware platform: clothes, cars, vacations, or whatever.
They're designated as "enemy combatants" because they where: 1) Captured on a battlefield 2) During a war
I don't know what makes you think this. In the Military Commissions Act the term is formally defined in this way:
H.R.6166
Military Commissions Act of 2006 (Engrossed as Agreed to or Passed by House)
`Sec. 948a. Definitions
`In this chapter:
`(1) UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANT-
(A) The term `unlawful enemy combatant' means--`(i) a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces); or
`(ii) a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense.
You'll notice that "captured on a battlefield" doesn't appear. Obviously the US military have to get their hands on you, but this doesn't necessarily imply a battlefield. In recent years people have been simply kidnapped out of the homes or off the street ("disappeared" by the CIA). This became quite a scandal in Europe, you know, because of American spooks kidnapping people in European countries. There are dozens of CIA agents wanted by the police in Italy for these kidnappings. By no stretch of the imagination is Milan a battlefield, for instance (any more than is O'Hare airport, BTW, my earlier counter-example.)
Anyway, once you are captured then the Defense Dept decide that you fall into this category (of unlawful enemy combatant) and there you are. If you are a US citizen you still have a right to challenge your detention in court, under habeas corpus. Good luck with that! If you're not a US citizen, though, then you may be detained indefinitely without trial.
BTW, the full text of the new Military Commissions law is available at the Library of Congress website.
``On the basis of secret "evidence" (oxymoronic - secrets are by definition not "evident"), Guantanamo inmates were held in pretty ugly conditions, for years. Shackled, abused, some of them literally beaten to death. Some of them despaired and committed suicide. They are denied the basic human right to justice which the US constitution supposedly guaranteed.''...to Americans. I don't think the US constitution says anything about the right of non-citizens. I could be wrong, of course.
You could indeed, and I am pretty sure you are. See there's Amendment 6 which says:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, [...] to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
See it just says "the accused", not "the accused, so long as they're American". There's also this other article "Amendment 5", which says:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person [...] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
Again, "no person" is pretty clear. That's not "no American citizen" - it's "no person". This is no accident, you know - the founders of the US were firm believers in human rights; their ideology was firmly based on the absolute equality of individuals. This constitution, as it makes clear in Amendment 9 and 10, does not purport to "grant" rights to citizens - on the contrary, people's rights are held to be innate, or at least gifts of God, not the Federal Government; indeed, rather than granting those rights, the constitution purports instead to circumscribe the ability of the State to put limits on those human rights.
The American Declaration of Independence is a beauty in this regard too. I don't know if it has any legal status in the US, but as a historical document it contains some real pearls, such as this bit:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
... but especially in its detailed denunciations of the crimes of King George, such as:
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
Can you say "designated enemy combatant"?
George's other crimes included:
...giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: [...]
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
Fair enough, though what you and the ACLU are forgetting is we are talking about people who were:
1) Captured on a battlefield 2) During a war 3) And were not abiding by the Geneva Convention
Not at all! We are talking about people who are "designated enemy combatants". They may have been captured anywhere, at any time, and may not have committed any crime at all, let alone war crimes.
Jose Padilla, for instance, was arrested in Chicago, when he got off the plane at O'Hare airport. Not on a battlefield at all.
The Bush regime would like you to think this: "these repressive laws apply only to dangerous criminals - if you aren't a terrorist you have nothing to fear". But until people have had a chance to defend themselves, how can you possibly know that they are criminals? Answer: you can't. Well over 200 people held as "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo have been released and allowed to return to their homes. These people turned out NOT to be enemy combatants after all, didn't they? But it took years for this to be established, not least because they were unable to offer any defence to the charges which were made against them because they did not know what the charges were! How can you offer an alibi to disprove a secret denunciation? "I wasn't there your honour!" "I didn't do it!".
On the basis of secret "evidence" (oxymoronic - secrets are by definition not "evident"), Guantanamo inmates were held in pretty ugly conditions, for years. Shackled, abused, some of them literally beaten to death. Some of them despaired and committed suicide. They are denied the basic human right to justice which the US constitution supposedly guaranteed. This is legalised now! Now, under US law, you are no longer innocent until proven guilty. The president can legally just pick up the phone and "designate" you, and you can be "disappeared". What's to prevent abuse? How you can have any confidence that these disappearances are even based on good intelligence? Going by the record, I wouldn't trust the intelligence agencies to sit the right way on a toilet seat.
To me, the tricky part of getting it here would be landing it. Sure, you can get it to the Earth fairly easily--Moon has low gravity, Earth has high gravity, etc. The problem to me is that you kind of need to arrange a soft landing for it. So you have to slow down, say, 1,000,000 pounds traveling at, say, 20,000 MPH and set it down gently on the Earth.
The more we prevent the government from fighting this outward the more we ask for a police state. that will fight it inward
On the contrary, the more power you allow your militaristic rulers to assume the more they will use it against you. Have you been living in a cave for the last 5 years? You haven't noticed that Bush has used his self-proclaimed "war powers" to encroach on the civil rights on US citizens?
Also, your "fuck the world but leave us Americans alone please" attitude is not just naive, it actually helps to give America the bad name that it has around the world, as a danger to peace and international security. Perhaps if American citizens could cut their rulers down a peg or several they might find the rest of the world didn't give them such shit anyway.
Who's point is it that we minimally impact our planet? Who made us responsible for the entire planet? Isn't it only our responsability to ensure humankind continues for as long as possible?
<sarcasm mode="reductio-ad-absurdum">Who made me responsible for the survival of the whole of humankind? Isn't my only responsibility to my own sweet self? As for the rest of you humans - I wouldn't cross the street to piss on your head if your hair was on fire.</sarcasm>
Ok. Just tell me we won't be fighting "Global Cooling" as the next big political crisis.
We won't
Happy now?
Seriously, the world is warming up very very rapidly... global cooling is at best a very distant prospect. In any case, when that time rolls around (as it will eventually, of course), there'll be no crisis - we already have a great solution all worked out: just start burning a shitload of fossil fuels! If only it were that easy to take CO2 back out of the atmosphere.
Either way...I thought at first, it was pretty interesting...till it broke down into a rant about the US wanting world domination...kinda went wacky after that.
Ever heard of the Project for a New American Century? Believe me, this project is for real. Yes, they really do aim to dominate the world.
Strange...the Bush crew is often portrayed as bumblers who can't do anything right, then they are accused of being devious co-conspirators to rule the world. Which is it guys?
It's both. They are both hegemonic and incompetent. Why is that so hard to imagine?
My point was that the GP merely asserts that Taiwan is not part of China and expects others to believe it, without any evidence. My citing of various US states annexed from Mexico was a satire on this, to illustrate the silliness of making voluntarist judgements like this, on the basis of what people would like to believe, or what they think should be the case, rather than what actually is the case. I can assert that New Mexico is part of Mexico, but that doesn't make it so, and I'd be expected to present some evidence for this, given how plainly it flies in the face of the facts.
Actually, legally, the two territories of the two states (ROC and PRC) are both part of China, the country. You may be surprised to learn that this is recognised by the constitutions of BOTH those states, and incidentally, by all (I think) the other states in the world, including the US, as well as by the UN. "China" is simply a country which includes territory which is in actual fact controlled by two distinct governments. The same could be said for several other countries, such as Colombia, of course, but since Colombia isn't a large country, its size doesn't offend against the national pride of US citizens.:-)
You have a mistaken view of the formation of Taiwan (I realise you are really referring to the "Republic of China", the state, not "Taiwan" which is an island and was not of course formed by humans at all). Actually the ROC has always asserted sovereignty over all of China (and Mongolia I believe). The ROC was not formed by separatists, Taiwanese nationalists, or pro-independence forces at all. Please check your facts.
The current president of Taiwan is a supporter of Taiwan independence, but that's neither here nor there. Maybe the government in Taiwan will amend the constitution to make Taiwan an independent country distinct from the rest of China, but that's not the case at present.
No, I didn't. China is only bigger if you include Taiwan.
So you did remember that China is bigger, you just want to take the opportunity to promote the cause of Taiwan independence? In any case, the USA is only bigger if you include California, Nevada, and Utah:-)
Slashdot Mirror
One of the main reasons their titles are platform dependent is because they use DRM mechanisms which are platform dependent. Why are the DRM mechanisms so tied to specific platforms? One important reason is that to be effective, a DRM mechanism really have to be built into the guts of the system; by contrast, software which is neatly and elegantly designed with portability and interoperability in mind is virtually impossible to build a DRM-enabled system with, because it allows the end user too much flexibility and power.
Now you've changed your tune!
First you asked whether it was "right" and concluded that it "was acceptable". Now you say it was "reprehensible". But nevertheless, you would still "in good conscience" make the same "reprehensible" decision, for reasons which were "actually" "reprehensible", though justified with "good excuses". I can't even fathom the moral confusion in your argument.
Regarding the value to the Americans of using the bomb on civilians (vs just demonstrating it), I think you are correct that the main benefit of using it was to show not only that they had it, but that were "morally" prepared to use it, and would not e.g. quail at the prospect of committing genocide with it. In other words, the value of the bombings lay precisely in demonstrating that America's new military strength was not trammelled by moral considerations. In other words, an act of terror, an ideological act, a demonstration not so much of the bomb itself, but of the brutality of the American state. Modern historians will say it was the opening gambit of the Cold War with the USSR, and the germ of the later MAD stalemate.
The "targeting of military infrastructure" you mentioned (by contrasting with OBL) is a misdirection. It's clear that the a-bombings were actually for other strategic ends ("terror" is what we'd call it today, if we weren't so imbued with respect for "our" great military leaders of the past), and the actual tactical value of the destruction of the 2 cities was nil. Hence the contrast with OBL's terror (which you allege was not targeted at the military - incidentally ignoring the attack on the Pentagon) is invalid.
Your statements regarding "the State" are also misdirection. What does it matter, morally, if OBL was not an elected president? Does wearing a uniform, or sitting in an oval office, make otherwise reprehensible acts praiseworthy? It seems so?
Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed, actually. Does that change your opinion at all? Would you have insisted on the righteousness of "keeping American nerve" if it had required killing millions of innocents? If so, how many millions?
Seriously: WTF? Why do people still buy these tired WWII-era justification in the 21st century? Hasn't everyone realised by now that the bombings were to scare the Reds?
If the plan was just to shorten the war, wouldn't a demonstration of the bomb suffice? Why was it necessary to strike without warning? (I don't count the Potsdam ultimatum, which threatened unprecedented trouble for Japan, but in such an unspecific way as to have seemed like mere bluster). The fact is simply that the actions of the US military at that time were not, by civilised standards, morally defensible. Why do you feel the need to defend them these evil acts? Was Truman your grandpa? Why not just acknowledge the reality, that the US military has in fact, been responsible for some evil acts? Is it so hard to admit your own country's fallibility? Or would that undermine your position on Iraq?
Your argument must surely be filling some powerful psychological need considering how logically weak it is. On the one hand you correctly assert that the Japanese military had violated conventional rules of war, but on the other hand you consider that these violations are ample justification for 2 of the most horrendous war crimes in all of human history!
You assert that even though the Japanese militarists were suing for peace, these genocidal bombings were OK, because the supreme importance of exacting an "unconditional" surrender outweighs all those individual lives. Then you refute your own barbaric argument by noting that the Allies actually did accept a condition (namely the retention of Hirohito).
And as for "targetting military installations", please! Why didn't they drop it on a purely military base then? Sure, Hiroshima contained a naval base, but did that justify destroying a city packed with civilians? If you think so, can't Osama Bin Laden also justify his killing of thousands of innocent people in NY in order to take out some his enemies? Face it! It was an act of pure terror, and morally just as indefensible as those of the 9/11 terrorists. And why Nagasaki? if it was such an important target militarily, why had it not been targeted by conventional bombers? The reason for the second bombing a few days later was purely that the US military had 2 types of bomb and wanted to be sure they'd tried out both kinds.
If you do, you might want to consider adding a Facade to hide all that complexity. It could e.g. have a single
method which would contain all the implementation details.Calling all executives and stockholders!
Please rock up and transfer the intellectual wealth from this transcription of Mansfield's aforementioned literary work into your own heads.
(Transcription paid for and given away by the library of Victoria University of Wellington)
The internet archive includes a couple of useful videos:
... they are foul, and bad for you.
This one on roasting coffee: http://www.archive.org/details/RoastingCoffee
And this one (a classic!), called "This is Coffee!", on making coffee: http://www.archive.org/details/ThisisCo1961 - from the Coffee Brewing Institute if I remember correctly. Definitely worth watching, even if just for the soundtrack, the cool retro coffee gear, and to boggle at the cigarette smoking involved (vid dates from 1961). This vid doesn't recommend any particular method, but it stresses using actual coffee (as opposed to "instant coffee" I suppose), and using fresh water, with clean equipment. All good advice, to which I would add:
Don't store a big stash of coffee for a long time - buy enough to last you a week or two at a time.
Use freshly roasted beans (roasted at home, or from a local roaster).
Use freshly ground beans (grind them yourself, as you need them, or at least get them ground when you buy them, don't ever buy coffee that's been pre-ground).
Keep the coffee in a cool place, in an air-tight container.
Storing coffee in the fridge is not ideal because when you open the container, warm moisture will get in, and when the container goes back in the fridge, the moisture will condense. This will cause your coffee to soak up moisture.
Experiment with different beans and roasts, and write down your experience, so that you get to know what you prefer. Everyone is different.
Avoid ultra-dark roasts
Personally I like brewed ("Turkish") coffee, but it's a bit of a health hazard if you drink it that way a lot.
My favourite is espresso, with scalded milk ("flat white"). At home I have a stove-top espresso machine. Pump-driven ones are better, in general, but to get a reasonable quality one is quite expensive. The cheap ones make rubbish coffee.
I have visited the United States before, and I had a similar experience. The 2 flavours I found, though, were "disgusting" and "pathetic".
Seriously, considering how much coffee Americans drink, why is it so bloody hard to get a decent cup anywhere?
What?! Has the man no shame?!!
Caramba! uh I mean ... gosh!
Actually there's no legal basis for the operation of a prison camp at Guantanamo bay.
... one of a long, long, string of such adventures in US military history. In actual fact - as opposed to legalistic theory - the base belongs to the US by brute force. They have effectively annexed it, and they will use it as they see fit, because it suits them to do so, and because they can. Don't like it? Tough!
The Cuban govt is in no way "bound to honor the old agreement". The continued existence of the base has a much more mundane reason - that the Cubans are (for very sensible military reasons) not willing to go to war against the US to restore their sovereignty of this bit of national territory.
As for the so-called "lease" itself:
Firstly, it's unenforceable under international law, because it was imposed on the Cuban govt under military force. There's a Vienna convention on treaties that deals with this, amongst other things. During the colonial period, the world's colonial powers imposed all kinds of "concessions" and "treaties" on their subject peoples, and these concessions have almost always been abrogated by military, rather than legal means; i.e. by the use (or the threat of use) of force against the occupiers.
Secondly, even if the "lease" itself had any legal credibility, the terms of the lease explicitly specify that the naval base is to be used purely as a naval base and coaling station, and for no other purpose. Use of the base as a prison is a clear breach of the terms of the lease.
The legal fiction of a "lease" is just a fig-leaf covering up a colonial occupation of part of the territory of Cuba, very like the long US military occupation of the Panama canal zone. I guess, though, that the "lease" story plays rather better in the US than in other parts of the world, particularly in Latin America, and especially in Cuba itself. If you ask Cubans what they think - and I have - it's that the base is illegal, and a cynical insult to their national pride and legitimate patriotic feelings. The govt has repeatedly demanded that it be closed, and the territority returned to Cuban sovereignty, but apart from that, what can Cubans do? They can't take it back by force, because that could mean a major war with the most powerful nation in history, over nothing more than a valuable bit of real estate. They can't sue for it in an international court of justice, because the US govt cares nothing for international law. So all they can do is complain, and protest.
In short, the "lease" is bullshit - the camp is just another military occupation
That's because there have never been any dupes. Ever.
Please move along folks, there's nothing to see here.
It's amazing how many people haven't learnt the most basic lessons of (military) history. The Turks though ... "fool them once ... can't fool them again".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChBKqcRpmDs&eurl
possessive
Not many people know it but only 120 years ago aluminium (or aluminum for you Americans) was more precious than gold. European monarchs had dinnerware made out of it. Then in 1886 a new industrial technology collapsed the price permanently, and now it's a disposable wrapper for fast food.
So, fast forward to the "Diamond Age", and the courtship rituals which involve diamonds will just have to migrate to another hardware platform: clothes, cars, vacations, or whatever.
I don't know what makes you think this. In the Military Commissions Act the term is formally defined in this way:
You'll notice that "captured on a battlefield" doesn't appear. Obviously the US military have to get their hands on you, but this doesn't necessarily imply a battlefield. In recent years people have been simply kidnapped out of the homes or off the street ("disappeared" by the CIA). This became quite a scandal in Europe, you know, because of American spooks kidnapping people in European countries. There are dozens of CIA agents wanted by the police in Italy for these kidnappings. By no stretch of the imagination is Milan a battlefield, for instance (any more than is O'Hare airport, BTW, my earlier counter-example.)
Anyway, once you are captured then the Defense Dept decide that you fall into this category (of unlawful enemy combatant) and there you are. If you are a US citizen you still have a right to challenge your detention in court, under habeas corpus. Good luck with that! If you're not a US citizen, though, then you may be detained indefinitely without trial.BTW, the full text of the new Military Commissions law is available at the Library of Congress website.
You could indeed, and I am pretty sure you are. See there's Amendment 6 which says:
See it just says "the accused", not "the accused, so long as they're American". There's also this other article "Amendment 5", which says:
Again, "no person" is pretty clear. That's not "no American citizen" - it's "no person". This is no accident, you know - the founders of the US were firm believers in human rights; their ideology was firmly based on the absolute equality of individuals. This constitution, as it makes clear in Amendment 9 and 10, does not purport to "grant" rights to citizens - on the contrary, people's rights are held to be innate, or at least gifts of God, not the Federal Government; indeed, rather than granting those rights, the constitution purports instead to circumscribe the ability of the State to put limits on those human rights.
The American Declaration of Independence is a beauty in this regard too. I don't know if it has any legal status in the US, but as a historical document it contains some real pearls, such as this bit:
... but especially in its detailed denunciations of the crimes of King George, such as:
Can you say "designated enemy combatant"?
George's other crimes included:
Would that be Guantanamo?
Not at all! We are talking about people who are "designated enemy combatants". They may have been captured anywhere, at any time, and may not have committed any crime at all, let alone war crimes.
Jose Padilla, for instance, was arrested in Chicago, when he got off the plane at O'Hare airport. Not on a battlefield at all.
The Bush regime would like you to think this: "these repressive laws apply only to dangerous criminals - if you aren't a terrorist you have nothing to fear". But until people have had a chance to defend themselves, how can you possibly know that they are criminals? Answer: you can't. Well over 200 people held as "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo have been released and allowed to return to their homes. These people turned out NOT to be enemy combatants after all, didn't they? But it took years for this to be established, not least because they were unable to offer any defence to the charges which were made against them because they did not know what the charges were! How can you offer an alibi to disprove a secret denunciation? "I wasn't there your honour!" "I didn't do it!".
On the basis of secret "evidence" (oxymoronic - secrets are by definition not "evident"), Guantanamo inmates were held in pretty ugly conditions, for years. Shackled, abused, some of them literally beaten to death. Some of them despaired and committed suicide. They are denied the basic human right to justice which the US constitution supposedly guaranteed. This is legalised now! Now, under US law, you are no longer innocent until proven guilty. The president can legally just pick up the phone and "designate" you, and you can be "disappeared". What's to prevent abuse? How you can have any confidence that these disappearances are even based on good intelligence? Going by the record, I wouldn't trust the intelligence agencies to sit the right way on a toilet seat.
Yes, that'd take about 36 TJ, or, for the metrically challenged, about 34 billion British Thermal Units.
On the contrary, the more power you allow your militaristic rulers to assume the more they will use it against you. Have you been living in a cave for the last 5 years? You haven't noticed that Bush has used his self-proclaimed "war powers" to encroach on the civil rights on US citizens?
Also, your "fuck the world but leave us Americans alone please" attitude is not just naive, it actually helps to give America the bad name that it has around the world, as a danger to peace and international security. Perhaps if American citizens could cut their rulers down a peg or several they might find the rest of the world didn't give them such shit anyway.
PS nice troll
I think the phrase you are looking for is "I never used to make mistakes".
<sarcasm mode="reductio-ad-absurdum">Who made me responsible for the survival of the whole of humankind? Isn't my only responsibility to my own sweet self? As for the rest of you humans - I wouldn't cross the street to piss on your head if your hair was on fire.</sarcasm>
We won't
Happy now?
Seriously, the world is warming up very very rapidly ... global cooling is at best a very distant prospect. In any case, when that time rolls around (as it will eventually, of course), there'll be no crisis - we already have a great solution all worked out: just start burning a shitload of fossil fuels! If only it were that easy to take CO2 back out of the atmosphere.
Ever heard of the Project for a New American Century? Believe me, this project is for real. Yes, they really do aim to dominate the world.
It's both. They are both hegemonic and incompetent. Why is that so hard to imagine?
My point was that the GP merely asserts that Taiwan is not part of China and expects others to believe it, without any evidence. My citing of various US states annexed from Mexico was a satire on this, to illustrate the silliness of making voluntarist judgements like this, on the basis of what people would like to believe, or what they think should be the case, rather than what actually is the case. I can assert that New Mexico is part of Mexico, but that doesn't make it so, and I'd be expected to present some evidence for this, given how plainly it flies in the face of the facts.
:-)
Actually, legally, the two territories of the two states (ROC and PRC) are both part of China, the country. You may be surprised to learn that this is recognised by the constitutions of BOTH those states, and incidentally, by all (I think) the other states in the world, including the US, as well as by the UN. "China" is simply a country which includes territory which is in actual fact controlled by two distinct governments. The same could be said for several other countries, such as Colombia, of course, but since Colombia isn't a large country, its size doesn't offend against the national pride of US citizens.
You have a mistaken view of the formation of Taiwan (I realise you are really referring to the "Republic of China", the state, not "Taiwan" which is an island and was not of course formed by humans at all). Actually the ROC has always asserted sovereignty over all of China (and Mongolia I believe). The ROC was not formed by separatists, Taiwanese nationalists, or pro-independence forces at all. Please check your facts.
The current president of Taiwan is a supporter of Taiwan independence, but that's neither here nor there. Maybe the government in Taiwan will amend the constitution to make Taiwan an independent country distinct from the rest of China, but that's not the case at present.