Both of them have the same strengths and weaknesses, that is both of them are willing to take positions that are unpopular (with corporations and officials) on the subjects in current affairs and history that affect our lives, but both of them are a bit lacking on the homework end.
When someone takes a popularized apprpoach to current history and issues that is as rigorousle researched as the work done by Peter Kornbluh does at the National Security Archive, then maybe I'll start following every word. Until then, I'll continue to skim the headlines (including those of messr.'s Jones and Moore) and apply my knowledge of history in order to determine how much is factual and how much is simply another garden path waiting to lead us astray.
I don't understand the reasoning behind his comparison to measles. There are some _major_ differences between cocaine addiction and measles.
Unfortunately that is entirely the point that makes this development so desirable.
1. Measles are transmitted via a virus vs. cocaine which is self inflicted.
Which is the argument that will be used to prevent any public funds (medicare, school vaccination programs, etc) from paying for this.
2. When you vaccinated a certain percantage of the population the immunisation of the potential transmitters make it almost impossible for the virus to spread. Cocaine will spread by dealers regardless of other cocaine users. You need a measle infected or virus infected person to spread measles, you don't need a cocaine user to spread cocaine. The only way to ensure removal of a cocaine market would be to enforce a very high vaccination rate. And even then you are not guarantted any effect. It will take atleast 25 years with vaccination before one will now how well it works.
I doubt that this vaccine will prevent people from using the drug, or will have any effect on the market for the drug. It will prevent drug use from becoming prevalent abong middle and upper class people, and the poor will go on living with this in thier communities.
3. A measle vaccination guarantees that something like 99.5& of those vaccinated won't get measles. How will the coacaine vaccination deal with new synthetic cocaine variants?
There probably be new variants designed to get the vaccinated folks hooked. There are new disease varients that vaccines do not affect as well.
4. Ultimatly people chooses to use cocaine (at least the first time) because of the stimulation, if one could neutralize cocaine people will find other drugs.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. People do cocaine several times before getting "hooked". Sometimes people do cocaine once in a while over years without becoming dependant on it. Of cousre people will find other drugs, and the manufacturers of the vaccines will develop more products to sell.
5. Last time I check measles causes some 800000 deaths each year (yes that is eight-hundred thousand). And that is with extensive vaccination programs in the western world and several campaigns in the third world. Cocaine is not even close.
Once cocaine is no longer an issue thaty wealthy and middle class families have to deal with, it will no longer be an issue that law enforcement pursues seriously. Then you can expect cocaine deaths to begin to approach the numbers you see with some of the infectious diseases.
The comparison with measels is apt because the vaccine will make it so. Most people here were unfamiliar with the fact that 800000 people die from measles each year because the only people who get measels are poor people. Once this vaccination is on the market, then the only people who become addicted to cocaine will be the same as those who are at risk of contracting measles.
They're about anybody that "they" desire to rid themselves of for any reason. Ridding the streets of drug dealers and prostitutes might be the majority of it, and you can expect the majority of the public to think this is great.
But there will be those who are labeled as drug dealers, prostitutes, and terrorists simply because someone decided that that particular individual or family is undesirable. It's foolish to think that doesn't already occur, and these taps are simply another means to gather "evidence" that can be used to arrest and convict whomever happens to get targeted.
The example you used in your previous post demonstrates how words can be interpreted to mean anything. If you've ever sat on a jury, you'll know that words can also be presented as if to mean whatever the prosecution might wish.
then you launch into your own flamewar about "the ONLY WAY, my way".
I'm just stating that it'd be nice to be able to pick and choose from specific apps without draging the rest of the project along with it.
Elegance and interoperability are what they where designed to give you over other software, and so far IMHO they do it very well.
Elegance is apparently a matter of opinion in this case, and while the two projects are improving their interoperability with each other, the projects both seem to expect that other non-related software will be changed to suit them, instead of designing to "play nice" with the users non-Desktop Environment choices. (Such as sound servers that hijack the soundcard away from other apps.)
"Non-interactive interface" is an oxymoron
You got me there. Non-captive interface is a beter choice of words. Not all program interfaces need the user to work, and if a function might be usefull without user interface, you should be able to pipe to and from it on the command line and/or in scripts.
human-readable config files
xml is a pain in the ass when used for config files, and should not be used for such.
modularity, granularity, choice
Why install several tens of megs of libraries to install a single small app? Why load numerous other apps (gnome session manager?) or open odd ports (gnome vfsd?) that you may or may not need to use that single small app that de[pended on them for no apparent reason? This is not modular, unless you want to describe Windows as modular as well. Choice it does offer. I choose not to use either of them, and I choose to use distributions that were not designed with them in mind.
There is "only one way" that makes sense, and that is the way that does not too severely limit the choices you and others that follow you will have to make later.
TkDesk as a filebrowser (I know it's old, but it works and it's what I like)
vi for text editing (programming, html, etc)
Xine for media (it runs OK on my 450MHz pIII)
Firefox
mutt (I've tried Thunderbird, nice app, but I still like mutt)
I've found that it's easy to avoid Gnome and KDE if your dist has a shitload of available apps, and Debian fills all the requirements quite nicely, I had a few problems with xine bitching about the slow processor, but that went away when I started using a preemptable kernel.
Maybe I'm a luddite when it comes to my desktop install, but I'll choose a clean appearance and simplicity over bells and whistles any day. I'm not sure that this ghost they call "intuitive" will ever be found, as I'm quite certain that you have to learn each app no matter how well designed the interface is. People migrating from other environments always seem to complain about non-intuitive interfaces whenever they encounter something that does not resemble what they've used before.
The enormous amount of buzz about Gnome (and alternatively, about KDE) most often ignores the idea that perhaps there is no one way to serve all users with a single desktop (window manager, application suite, etc) and there is an inherent (although subtle) hostility directed towards other means of acheivin g the same end.
The "desktop wars" occur in an isolated (but large) community of people who somehow have come to beleive that "there is only one way to do it" and have taken as their model of excelence the very designs that many Linux (and BSD) desktop users came to OSS operating systems in order to escape (Microsoft and Macintosh).
I use no Gnome (or KDE) software on my computer, have no Gnome (or KDE) libraries installed, and am capable of the same level of productivity as those who do. I've been unimpressed with these highly integrated desktop environments, not because I beleuive them to be somehow "bad", but because I have found that they are quite limiting.
Gnome is a noble effort (as is KDE) to enforce consistancy onto a bunch of unruly OSS users, a beacon of conformity rising from what appears to be (but is not) chaos. But the truth is that all of the Gnome (and KDE) apps are needlessly complicated under the hood, use far too many resources when running, and have rediculous dependancies (why does a spreadsheet depend on a sound library) that clutter an install and are decidely lacking in Unix-like design philosophy.
That is to say that these desktop environments are lacking those qualities that make using Linux such a dream: elegance, interoperability with other programs and environments, clean non-interactive interfaces, human-readable config files, modularity, granularity, and choice.
I'm all for people continuing their work on Gnome, its fork and it's competitor, KDE. But when Gnome begins to demand conformity from reklated projects, or seeks to embrace other apps, in such a way that it makes those apps suck (Galeon was once one of, if not the best, browser available), it is indicative of a problem that can only be solved by a rewrite (ala Firefox from Mozilla), and I don't see that as possible within the enormously interdependant and complicated collection og Gnome libraries.
Ergo Ipso Facto, it's a satire not a parody and they're in the wrong.
Satire is also protected.
Given that the spirit of the satire is very much in the spirit of Woody Guthrie's own commentary on the world, and that it accurately reflects the current attitude of the political parties to what this land is for (to house the people who give them power), I'd say that the publishing company has a difficult fight ahead of them.
BTW, the original song is an argument against property, just in case you were unaware of that fact.
They got it under GPL and they *have* to release it under GPL.
They have released it under the GPL, and you are free to treat what you receive from SveaSoft as the GPLed software that it is. Although charging fifty bucks for source might piss some people off, it is making the source available, which is what the GPL requires.
The subscriber agreement is a seperate contract (not a license) that affects only your status as a Sveasoft subscriber, but does not affect or diminish your rights to use, distribute, or alter the software.
Sveasoft seems to be complying with the GPL, the FSF seems to agree withthat opinion.
The difference between the patent's claim is that the patent describes a system where the client machine provides the server with a list of the products that are already installed, but usenet (nntp) does nothing of the sort, but instead the client requests a list of the articles that are available. Having a menu on the client machine does not seem to be what is covered, but having the server generate the menu does.
As much as I dislike patents on software, I think this one should stand. It is clearly an "unobvious innovation" in that only a copmplete dumbsh*t would design an update system that depended on the client sending the server a list of what's already installed.
localhost:~$ whois slashdot.org NOTICE: Access to.ORG WHOIS information is provided to assist persons in determining the contents of a domain name registration record in the PIR registry database. The data in this record is provided by Public Interest Registry for informational purposes only, and PIR does not guarantee its accuracy.
This service is intended only for query-based access. You agree that you will us
(snip)
I don't know about this being intended to court the geeks, as any actual geeks would be rather unlikely to use a web interface to do a whois query.
This is not a flaw in Mozilla, nor is it a flaw in IE, Outlook, Word, or any other part of Microsoft Office.
This flaw is a flaw in Windows, and is typical of flaws in Windows in that the OS is expecting it's applications to handle security, will run any peice of crap handed to it by any app, and we can expect to see more flaws that are similar in nature due to the heavily integrated design of the Windows operating system.
The Baathist party was a created and supported the US and British intelligence services during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Saddam began his relationship with the US intelligence services (State Department and CIA) in 1957 when he was in exile for attempting to assasinate the president of Iraq.
And they also criticize the US for putting him into power and giving him weapons of mass destruction in the first place.
Actually, there's no inconsistancy there.
Saddam was put in power to benifit a group of companies (Dick Cheyney, Frank Carlucci, George Wackenhut, etc), intelligence agency leaders (Dick Cheyney, Frank Carlucci, etc), and a conservative administration (Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheyney, Frank Carlucci, etc) that was hungry for money and power. The war to remove him was instigated to benifit a group of companies (Dick Cheyney, George Wackenhut, Frank Carlucci, George Wackenhut, etc), the intelligence agencies (George Tenet) and their contracted intelligence support (Dick Cheyney, Frank Carlucci, George Wackenhut, etc) and a conservative administration (George W Bush, Dick Cheyney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, etc).
The fact that these guys are criticized once for placing and supporting Saddam Hussein and then criticized for removing him is in every way consistant with the reality that every action they undertake and every peice of legislation they support is motivated entirely for personal profit at the expense of the American people, in violation of basic rights as are enumerated in the constitution and in disregard for the rest of the world.
The fact that they have a habit of leaving bodies strewn about wherever they go doesn't help their case either.
Options are an expense, and Microsoft has fought counting them as such for years because it makes the company look less profitable to investors.
The investors have every right to know how much stock Microsoft has put on the market through stock options because it (potentially) devalues the stock that they purchased on the market.
The price is great, they guarantee their work, and I've never had a repair take more than a day.
They may not be a "manufacturer licensed" shop, and sometimes it's hard to find a clerk that'll speak English (I'm in the US), but they're more honest, faster, and more reliable than most corporations.
It's nice to know the people doing the work, and it's even nicer to be spending money in the neighborhood.
If we send all of our business away (across the state, across the country, across the sea) then the money (lifeblood of your local economy) will follow and your neighborhood will be shit.
What, and you think that those "controlling interests" wouldn't love to be the ground-breakers in a massive changeover to alternative fuels and have a (temporary) monopoly?
The problem with your theory is that the newer technologies in renewable energy tend to work rather efficiently on a micro producer scale, and thus would serve to reduce the amount of control that any one company or small group of companies can have over the energy market.
The truth is that petrochemical and energy corps are interested in maintaining the status quo, and will shun any technological advances that threaten to decentralize the energy markets. OTOH, the same corporations are showing considerable interest in implementing large scale renewable energy projects that allow market control to remain in their hands, such as large scale wind farms and hydrocarbon fuels produced from poultry processing wastes. The problem is that many people think that these companies are somehow attached to the idea of fossil fuels, when the truth is that they do not care where the money and power come from, as long as it remains in thier own hands.
(btw, the "hydrogen energy economy" is a red herring. It takes more energy to seperate the hydrogen from water than can be gained by burning or through fuel cells. The companies know this, and stand to profit from subsidies for building hydrogen plants, and from producing the electricity that will be used to seperate the hydrogen from water.)
you still need to be able to "test" your devices before, during, and after you build them.
How many non-working fusion devices were built? I'd be surprized if the number is zero, but I cannot find any reference to trial and error during the development of the H-bomb. All of the docs I come across describe tests for determining the destructive power of the bombs, but none about any of them being "duds".
How many of the countries that wish to build them are concerned with the scientific knowledge that could be gained. In the case of India, it appeared that their tests were more targeted at impressing and frightening their (current and potential) enemies than they were about learning to build more powerful or more efficient weapon designs.
I have a feeling that the fears of proliferation come from how unfortunately easy it might be to build nuclear weapons once the theory is understood.
It seems odd that the excuse being used is that these machines will help countries to develop nuclear weapons.
The computing power available to the US when we developed the hydrogen bomb was considerably less than what was available on a desktop even twenty years ago, so to consider fast or advanced processors to be nuclear weapons development technology seems a trifle absurd.
This article may demonstrate that these congressmen's fears may be justified, but it also demonstrates just how absurd the notion of controlling proliferation through limiting technology is. There's no need for a Pentium-IV (or even a computer) to develop nuclear weapons, and attempting to control the spread of computer technology through this kind of lawmaking is misguided and likely doomed to failure.
Atlantic Monthly They regularly link to past stories in order to give better historical reference to current news items. I think the earliest story they have that mentions Saddam Hussein is from the late 1950's.
Harpers Yet another independantly owned journal that's not afraid to piss off thier advertisers.
The New Yorker Not independant, but has a long tradition of actually checking their facts. Great comics (understated, yet twisted, humor).
I also read my hometown newspaper every day, plus the New York Times on Sundays, and I scan BBC News, Google News, and The Guardian world news online daily. Plastic is good for getting an idea of what (somewhat educated) people think of the goings on in the world, and B3TA is a somewhat effective cure fore too much awareness of world events.
Apparently, the only reason that the specific search in the linked case was questionable was the fact that the UPS employee opening the packages would sometimes allow DEA agents to assist her if they were on site and the package was difficult to open.
Of course, a "Toshiba repair shop" would likely be free to do the same, as they are also a private entity. (Only government entities are "required" to abide by the Bill of Rights.)
Slashdot Mirror
If Bush wanted another terrorist attack, I'm sure that he knows people who could arrange it.
Of course, whether or not they'll do it depends on how much they stand to make from the aftermath.
Both of them have the same strengths and weaknesses, that is both of them are willing to take positions that are unpopular (with corporations and officials) on the subjects in current affairs and history that affect our lives, but both of them are a bit lacking on the homework end.
When someone takes a popularized apprpoach to current history and issues that is as rigorousle researched as the work done by Peter Kornbluh does at the National Security Archive, then maybe I'll start following every word. Until then, I'll continue to skim the headlines (including those of messr.'s Jones and Moore) and apply my knowledge of history in order to determine how much is factual and how much is simply another garden path waiting to lead us astray.
I don't understand the reasoning behind his comparison to measles. There are some _major_ differences between cocaine addiction and measles.
Unfortunately that is entirely the point that makes this development so desirable.
1. Measles are transmitted via a virus vs. cocaine which is self inflicted.
Which is the argument that will be used to prevent any public funds (medicare, school vaccination programs, etc) from paying for this.
2. When you vaccinated a certain percantage of the population the immunisation of the potential transmitters make it almost impossible for the virus to spread. Cocaine will spread by dealers regardless of other cocaine users. You need a measle infected or virus infected person to spread measles, you don't need a cocaine user to spread cocaine. The only way to ensure removal of a cocaine market would be to enforce a very high vaccination rate. And even then you are not guarantted any effect. It will take atleast 25 years with vaccination before one will now how well it works.
I doubt that this vaccine will prevent people from using the drug, or will have any effect on the market for the drug. It will prevent drug use from becoming prevalent abong middle and upper class people, and the poor will go on living with this in thier communities.
3. A measle vaccination guarantees that something like 99.5& of those vaccinated won't get measles. How will the coacaine vaccination deal with new synthetic cocaine variants?
There probably be new variants designed to get the vaccinated folks hooked. There are new disease varients that vaccines do not affect as well.
4. Ultimatly people chooses to use cocaine (at least the first time) because of the stimulation, if one could neutralize cocaine people will find other drugs.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. People do cocaine several times before getting "hooked". Sometimes people do cocaine once in a while over years without becoming dependant on it. Of cousre people will find other drugs, and the manufacturers of the vaccines will develop more products to sell.
5. Last time I check measles causes some 800000 deaths each year (yes that is eight-hundred thousand). And that is with extensive vaccination programs in the western world and several campaigns in the third world. Cocaine is not even close.
Once cocaine is no longer an issue thaty wealthy and middle class families have to deal with, it will no longer be an issue that law enforcement pursues seriously. Then you can expect cocaine deaths to begin to approach the numbers you see with some of the infectious diseases.
The comparison with measels is apt because the vaccine will make it so. Most people here were unfamiliar with the fact that 800000 people die from measles each year because the only people who get measels are poor people. Once this vaccination is on the market, then the only people who become addicted to cocaine will be the same as those who are at risk of contracting measles.
Wonderful world we're creating, isn't it.
They're about pot dealers and prostitutes.
They're about anybody that "they" desire to rid themselves of for any reason. Ridding the streets of drug dealers and prostitutes might be the majority of it, and you can expect the majority of the public to think this is great.
But there will be those who are labeled as drug dealers, prostitutes, and terrorists simply because someone decided that that particular individual or family is undesirable. It's foolish to think that doesn't already occur, and these taps are simply another means to gather "evidence" that can be used to arrest and convict whomever happens to get targeted.
The example you used in your previous post demonstrates how words can be interpreted to mean anything. If you've ever sat on a jury, you'll know that words can also be presented as if to mean whatever the prosecution might wish.
then you launch into your own flamewar about "the ONLY WAY, my way".
I'm just stating that it'd be nice to be able to pick and choose from specific apps without draging the rest of the project along with it.
Elegance and interoperability are what they where designed to give you over other software, and so far IMHO they do it very well.
Elegance is apparently a matter of opinion in this case, and while the two projects are improving their interoperability with each other, the projects both seem to expect that other non-related software will be changed to suit them, instead of designing to "play nice" with the users non-Desktop Environment choices. (Such as sound servers that hijack the soundcard away from other apps.)
"Non-interactive interface" is an oxymoron
You got me there. Non-captive interface is a beter choice of words. Not all program interfaces need the user to work, and if a function might be usefull without user interface, you should be able to pipe to and from it on the command line and/or in scripts.
human-readable config files
xml is a pain in the ass when used for config files, and should not be used for such.
modularity, granularity, choice
Why install several tens of megs of libraries to install a single small app? Why load numerous other apps (gnome session manager?) or open odd ports (gnome vfsd?) that you may or may not need to use that single small app that de[pended on them for no apparent reason? This is not modular, unless you want to describe Windows as modular as well. Choice it does offer. I choose not to use either of them, and I choose to use distributions that were not designed with them in mind.
There is "only one way" that makes sense, and that is the way that does not too severely limit the choices you and others that follow you will have to make later.
Blackbox windowmanager
Lyx for creating formatted documents
OpenOffice for Microsoft Office compatible stuff
TkDesk as a filebrowser (I know it's old, but it works and it's what I like)
vi for text editing (programming, html, etc)
Xine for media (it runs OK on my 450MHz pIII)
Firefox
mutt (I've tried Thunderbird, nice app, but I still like mutt)
I've found that it's easy to avoid Gnome and KDE if your dist has a shitload of available apps, and Debian fills all the requirements quite nicely, I had a few problems with xine bitching about the slow processor, but that went away when I started using a preemptable kernel.
Maybe I'm a luddite when it comes to my desktop install, but I'll choose a clean appearance and simplicity over bells and whistles any day. I'm not sure that this ghost they call "intuitive" will ever be found, as I'm quite certain that you have to learn each app no matter how well designed the interface is. People migrating from other environments always seem to complain about non-intuitive interfaces whenever they encounter something that does not resemble what they've used before.
The enormous amount of buzz about Gnome (and alternatively, about KDE) most often ignores the idea that perhaps there is no one way to serve all users with a single desktop (window manager, application suite, etc) and there is an inherent (although subtle) hostility directed towards other means of acheivin g the same end.
The "desktop wars" occur in an isolated (but large) community of people who somehow have come to beleive that "there is only one way to do it" and have taken as their model of excelence the very designs that many Linux (and BSD) desktop users came to OSS operating systems in order to escape (Microsoft and Macintosh).
I use no Gnome (or KDE) software on my computer, have no Gnome (or KDE) libraries installed, and am capable of the same level of productivity as those who do. I've been unimpressed with these highly integrated desktop environments, not because I beleuive them to be somehow "bad", but because I have found that they are quite limiting.
Gnome is a noble effort (as is KDE) to enforce consistancy onto a bunch of unruly OSS users, a beacon of conformity rising from what appears to be (but is not) chaos. But the truth is that all of the Gnome (and KDE) apps are needlessly complicated under the hood, use far too many resources when running, and have rediculous dependancies (why does a spreadsheet depend on a sound library) that clutter an install and are decidely lacking in Unix-like design philosophy.
That is to say that these desktop environments are lacking those qualities that make using Linux such a dream: elegance, interoperability with other programs and environments, clean non-interactive interfaces, human-readable config files, modularity, granularity, and choice.
I'm all for people continuing their work on Gnome, its fork and it's competitor, KDE. But when Gnome begins to demand conformity from reklated projects, or seeks to embrace other apps, in such a way that it makes those apps suck (Galeon was once one of, if not the best, browser available), it is indicative of a problem that can only be solved by a rewrite (ala Firefox from Mozilla), and I don't see that as possible within the enormously interdependant and complicated collection og Gnome libraries.
Ergo Ipso Facto, it's a satire not a parody and they're in the wrong.
Satire is also protected.
Given that the spirit of the satire is very much in the spirit of Woody Guthrie's own commentary on the world, and that it accurately reflects the current attitude of the political parties to what this land is for (to house the people who give them power), I'd say that the publishing company has a difficult fight ahead of them.
BTW, the original song is an argument against property, just in case you were unaware of that fact.
They got it under GPL and they *have* to release it under GPL.
They have released it under the GPL, and you are free to treat what you receive from SveaSoft as the GPLed software that it is. Although charging fifty bucks for source might piss some people off, it is making the source available, which is what the GPL requires.
The subscriber agreement is a seperate contract (not a license) that affects only your status as a Sveasoft subscriber, but does not affect or diminish your rights to use, distribute, or alter the software.
Sveasoft seems to be complying with the GPL, the FSF seems to agree withthat opinion.
The difference between the patent's claim is that the patent describes a system where the client machine provides the server with a list of the products that are already installed, but usenet (nntp) does nothing of the sort, but instead the client requests a list of the articles that are available. Having a menu on the client machine does not seem to be what is covered, but having the server generate the menu does.
As much as I dislike patents on software, I think this one should stand. It is clearly an "unobvious innovation" in that only a copmplete dumbsh*t would design an update system that depended on the client sending the server a list of what's already installed.
the reason has a lot to do with a little-known DNS behavior called credibility.
Wow, it sounds like he's talking about a well-known DNS attribute called "AUTHORITY".
Stll looks the same to me:
.ORG WHOIS information is provided to assist persons in determining the contents of a domain name registration record in the PIR registry database. The data in this record is provided by Public Interest Registry for informational purposes only, and PIR does not guarantee its accuracy.
localhost:~$ whois slashdot.org
NOTICE: Access to
This service is intended only for query-based access. You agree that you will us
(snip)
I don't know about this being intended to court the geeks, as any actual geeks would be rather unlikely to use a web interface to do a whois query.
I'm going to agree with you.
This is not a flaw in Mozilla, nor is it a flaw in IE, Outlook, Word, or any other part of Microsoft Office.
This flaw is a flaw in Windows, and is typical of flaws in Windows in that the OS is expecting it's applications to handle security, will run any peice of crap handed to it by any app, and we can expect to see more flaws that are similar in nature due to the heavily integrated design of the Windows operating system.
New books are for assholes who like people to see what's on their shelves.
The Baathist party was a created and supported the US and British intelligence services during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Saddam began his relationship with the US intelligence services (State Department and CIA) in 1957 when he was in exile for attempting to assasinate the president of Iraq.
And they also criticize the US for putting him into power and giving him weapons of mass destruction in the first place.
Actually, there's no inconsistancy there.
Saddam was put in power to benifit a group of companies (Dick Cheyney, Frank Carlucci, George Wackenhut, etc), intelligence agency leaders (Dick Cheyney, Frank Carlucci, etc), and a conservative administration (Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheyney, Frank Carlucci, etc) that was hungry for money and power. The war to remove him was instigated to benifit a group of companies (Dick Cheyney, George Wackenhut, Frank Carlucci, George Wackenhut, etc), the intelligence agencies (George Tenet) and their contracted intelligence support (Dick Cheyney, Frank Carlucci, George Wackenhut, etc) and a conservative administration (George W Bush, Dick Cheyney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, etc).
The fact that these guys are criticized once for placing and supporting Saddam Hussein and then criticized for removing him is in every way consistant with the reality that every action they undertake and every peice of legislation they support is motivated entirely for personal profit at the expense of the American people, in violation of basic rights as are enumerated in the constitution and in disregard for the rest of the world.
The fact that they have a habit of leaving bodies strewn about wherever they go doesn't help their case either.
Options are an expense, and Microsoft has fought counting them as such for years because it makes the company look less profitable to investors.
The investors have every right to know how much stock Microsoft has put on the market through stock options because it (potentially) devalues the stock that they purchased on the market.
90% of everything is crap.
and that remaining ten percent, 90% of that is crap too.
for recognizing Concordet Voting.
It's nice to see that even an AC can recognize the comitment go effective and efficient Democracy that is embodied in the Debian Project.
Not the corner shop down the street.
The price is great, they guarantee their work, and I've never had a repair take more than a day.
They may not be a "manufacturer licensed" shop, and sometimes it's hard to find a clerk that'll speak English (I'm in the US), but they're more honest, faster, and more reliable than most corporations.
It's nice to know the people doing the work, and it's even nicer to be spending money in the neighborhood.
If we send all of our business away (across the state, across the country, across the sea) then the money (lifeblood of your local economy) will follow and your neighborhood will be shit.
What, and you think that those "controlling interests" wouldn't love to be the ground-breakers in a massive changeover to alternative fuels and have a (temporary) monopoly?
The problem with your theory is that the newer technologies in renewable energy tend to work rather efficiently on a micro producer scale, and thus would serve to reduce the amount of control that any one company or small group of companies can have over the energy market.
Electricity from solar energy can be that are on the market today.
Biodiesel takes very little equipment to produce in your garage from waste vegatable oil (big plastic drum, litmus paper and/or phenolthalene solution, hydrometer, measuring devices, etc) for pennies. No new technology need be implemented for the use of biodiesel
Natural gas can be efficiently produced on farms and by municipalities using biological processes.
Wind can be harnessed for electric production by windmills ranging in size from small ones that will power the lights in your garage (can be home-made without too much difficulty) to giant towers that can power several city blocks.
The truth is that petrochemical and energy corps are interested in maintaining the status quo, and will shun any technological advances that threaten to decentralize the energy markets. OTOH, the same corporations are showing considerable interest in implementing large scale renewable energy projects that allow market control to remain in their hands, such as large scale wind farms and hydrocarbon fuels produced from poultry processing wastes. The problem is that many people think that these companies are somehow attached to the idea of fossil fuels, when the truth is that they do not care where the money and power come from, as long as it remains in thier own hands.
(btw, the "hydrogen energy economy" is a red herring. It takes more energy to seperate the hydrogen from water than can be gained by burning or through fuel cells. The companies know this, and stand to profit from subsidies for building hydrogen plants, and from producing the electricity that will be used to seperate the hydrogen from water.)
you still need to be able to "test" your devices before, during, and after you build them.
How many non-working fusion devices were built? I'd be surprized if the number is zero, but I cannot find any reference to trial and error during the development of the H-bomb. All of the docs I come across describe tests for determining the destructive power of the bombs, but none about any of them being "duds".
How many of the countries that wish to build them are concerned with the scientific knowledge that could be gained. In the case of India, it appeared that their tests were more targeted at impressing and frightening their (current and potential) enemies than they were about learning to build more powerful or more efficient weapon designs.
I have a feeling that the fears of proliferation come from how unfortunately easy it might be to build nuclear weapons once the theory is understood.
It seems odd that the excuse being used is that these machines will help countries to develop nuclear weapons.
The computing power available to the US when we developed the hydrogen bomb was considerably less than what was available on a desktop even twenty years ago, so to consider fast or advanced processors to be nuclear weapons development technology seems a trifle absurd.
This article may demonstrate that these congressmen's fears may be justified, but it also demonstrates just how absurd the notion of controlling proliferation through limiting technology is. There's no need for a Pentium-IV (or even a computer) to develop nuclear weapons, and attempting to control the spread of computer technology through this kind of lawmaking is misguided and likely doomed to failure.
Atlantic Monthly They regularly link to past stories in order to give better historical reference to current news items. I think the earliest story they have that mentions Saddam Hussein is from the late 1950's.
/..
Harpers Yet another independantly owned journal that's not afraid to piss off thier advertisers.
The New Yorker Not independant, but has a long tradition of actually checking their facts. Great comics (understated, yet twisted, humor).
I also read my hometown newspaper every day, plus the New York Times on Sundays, and I scan BBC News, Google News, and The Guardian world news online daily. Plastic is good for getting an idea of what (somewhat educated) people think of the goings on in the world, and B3TA is a somewhat effective cure fore too much awareness of world events.
I also get The National Security Archive newsletter in my email about once a week or so.
For tech, I mostly read Linux Journal, SysAdmin, and occasionally Doctor Dobbs Journal.
Of course I always read The Debian Weekly News and
Now UPS can read your hard drive as well as open your packages.
Apparently, the only reason that the specific search in the linked case was questionable was the fact that the UPS employee opening the packages would sometimes allow DEA agents to assist her if they were on site and the package was difficult to open.
Of course, a "Toshiba repair shop" would likely be free to do the same, as they are also a private entity. (Only government entities are "required" to abide by the Bill of Rights.)