Dont forget that we are on the tail end of an ice age. 10K years ago glaciers that took thousands of years to for retracted from all the way in the centeral united states to the far reaches of canada.
I am sure that none of the scientist studying global warming has never thought of that! You should write an article, all their perspectivs will change in one blow!
I sure hope that Linows win and offically make Windows a generic term (which it is).
Windows is not a generic term in the Swedish language, and that is for sure offical. Businiss on a world wide scale is much more challenging than selling to the home marked.
The problem is that Windows is a generic term in English but not in Swedish. Windows and Lindows are both meningless in the Swedish and Finish languages and the potential for misleading the customers is much larger than in the US. I don't know the Swedish judges arguments, but this is something to consider in this case when the (on average stupid) US judges seemes like being more reasonable in this instance...
Finally there are a few EU countries (France) that really like the idea as well. They want to protect their innocent youngsters from "American Culture which is so pervasive on the Internet". The gentleman from ICANN wasn't a native French speaker, he definitely shouldn't be allowed to participate.
Yes, it is better to spread stereo-types and FUD instead of trying to figure out what is happening in the world. The world is much nicer when not painted in black-and-white. But then again, all french eat snails and all americans are impotent gun nuts.
The UN might be spineless, and this whole meeting will probably amount to nothing, but I don't think everyone should be rubbishing it so much. The UN isn't out to make life tough for everyone, and they do have some admirable goals.
A very good parent-post. I think it is a sign that the UN is not spineless by at least trying to meet and discuss this important question that is what role and future the internet has. And the fact is, even if ICANN keeps its monopoly (hopefully because they actually do a good job), it is perfectly valid for the UN nations to at least show that they keep an eye on how ICANN does its business and that they discuss possible future options.
Simple fact of the matter is that neither of these bodies (or any body that isn't truly democratic) should have any control over OUR internet.
Well, since the US is "not truly democratic" in the sense of representing the world, it is logical for the UN countries to at least discuss how all the world countries can have some say and influence over the internet. And remember, free speech is not something only found in the US (and it is not always found in the US), so to claim that the only way to protect free speech on the internet is to give US full control over the internet is just short-sighted.
...but to suggest that the world would be better off with Saddam running things is a rather extraodinarily presumption.
The US is doing a worse job than Saddam in running Iraq at this very moment. More people are dying each day or have already died because of this war. Many of these dead people would have been much better of today if it was not for this invation and Saddam was in power. There is nothing extraordinary in that statement.
What the future brings is hard to predict. Maybe the neo-cons are right, in one year Iraq is democratic and prosperous and an example for the world, but doing wrong now with the excuse of future utopias sounds a bit stalinistic to me. And the neo-cons other predictions have failed one after the other.
Many in Europe thought Hilter was doing a good (shudder) job running Germany
Some of the biggest admirers of Hitler of the time was in the US. The important thing is to learn from mistakes, you know like Vietnam.
Every Iraqi I ever met hated Saddam and his regime, mainly because family members had been persecuted in one way or another.
Two wrongs do not make a right. This is basic logic.
The UN was intended to be a League of Nations that worked. The League of Nations didn't act to stop WWI
The League of Nations was an experiment that failed. For one thing, how could the League of Nations stop a world war when Russia and the United States was not a part of the League and Germany pulled out in the 30's when Hitler came to power?
The UN was founded with the leassons of the failure of the LN; one big mistake of LN was that countries would be kicked out of LN if they did not do as told. This is similar to Iraq would be kicked out (or attacked) if not following to the smallest letter what all the UN resolutions said. The LN failed to respect enough the soverignity of its member nations and to see that it is more important that soverign countries meet and has to defend their action than that they have to obey some sort of world goverment. Military actions is usually just a sign of failed diplomacy, like the failed diplomacy of Chamberlain with Hitler or the failed diplomacy of Bush in respect to Iraq.
the US isn't going to let the UN not act to prevent WWIII before it is too late, even if it means acting along. (though other countries to agree with the US)
WWII was started by countries feeling they had the right to act on their own (because they had the military to do it) and disregard international law. To prevent WWIII by acting in the same way as Hitler is absurd.
I don't know if the Iraq decision was right or not, but what the UN did was wrong, leading everyone to belive they would do something and then doing nothing. Proves the UN is worthless.
The Iraq war has shown itself to be a big mistake while the UN has shown itself to live up to its promise; Iraq has and had no WMD because of the control that UN has imposed on Iraq in the last 12 years. And their weapons inspectors (the ones that the US ironically forced out by military action), was shown to be correct in assesing that there was no hidden WMD. Where did UN fail you again?
A second trial for someone who's been acquitted is _already_ abuse.
It is not a re-trial
No free country would allow such a thing,
Norway is a free country in most if not all of the definitions you could think of.
nor consider that the people who make up their government should for one moment be considered trustworthy to have that power: any power given to them will be abused sooner or later, as it is here.
That is why in Norway, as most other European countries, they have this crazy thing of fair and transparent elections to keep their goverments in check.
Again, that's the difference between Anglo nations and European nations: we'll take the chance of someone being acquitted improperly before we'll trust the government not to abuse their powers,
Canada has the same appeals structure as Norway, but they are maybe not Anglo enough for you. By the way, England and the rest of the UK are all very European countries.
Europeans trust their governments not to abuse their powers more than someone being acquitted improperly. Oddly enough, the worst government abuses by far in the developed world have happened in... mainland European countries where they trust the governments not to abuse their powers.
Give one example. And don't mention the abuses of Hitler as an example of people trusting their goverment. Hitler was a dictator who did a coupe d'etate in a Germany in ruins after WWI.
That you can even consider this a good thing for one second is a clear example of why Europe and the Anglo nations (all of which, I believe, ban such retrials) will never get along.
As another post pointed out, Canada also has an appeal system (taken from this page:
In most civil and criminal cases, a decision made at one level of the court system can be appealed to a higher level. Where there is no right to appeal, permission or "leave" to appeal must be sought. The higher court may deny leave to appeal, or either affirm or reverse the original decision. In some cases, it will order a new trial. Both sides in a civil case may make such an appeal, and either the prosecution or the accused in a criminal case may appeal. Sometimes, it is only the amount of damages or the severity of the sentence that is appealed. For example, the accused may ask a higher court to reduce a sentence, or the prosecution may ask to have the sentence increased.
But I guess Canada is not very Anglo. At any rate, seperating UK from Europe and siding it with the US is mixing the real relationships between these continents with the relationship of Bush and his puddle Blair. Both of them will probably be out of office soon anyway.
This is really not good for peoples civil liberties at all - it sucks! This will mean lots of people will get sued potenially.
On the bright side, if dvd-Jon wins (which he will if the judges know what they are doing), it will set an important presedence with acquittals in both the lower and higher courts of Norway. The Motion Pictures Association will have trouble after this in Norway to get their way (and Jon will get some peace), and hopefully the other European countries will take notice.
This is why Prohibition was finally ended in America: it simply became too difficult for the cops to get anyone convicted. In Europe, they would have been tried by judges, found guilty by the government, and the law would still stand.
If you want to change the law in a democracy, it is better to vote for the parties that will change the stupid law, instead of "democracy by suing" or "democracy by harrasing cops not winning cases in court". As far as I know, Prohibition never caught on in Europe, probably since it is a very totaliterian way of dealing with alcohol problems. Also, note that in Europe there are many different law systems and traditions, most owing something to the ancient Roman law system but with slightly different developments. And many European countries have juries like a "civilised country" like the US.
See, this is the difference between the civlised, "innocent until proven guilty" nations and the authoritarian "guilty until proven innocent" nations. As bad as some abuses have been in Britain and America, we've never started World Wars or slaughtered millions of our own people: there are good reasons for that, and our long-standing fear of giving people uncontrolled power is the largest one.
Are you on crack? I think you should find out a bit more about Scandinavia before claiming that people are "guilty until proven innocent" there. And seperating Britain from the rest of Europe and claiming that the two, Britain and the US, are the shining example of a trusted law system and the ideal democracy is a bit of the rocks.
Supposing (despite the technology of the time) the US had, in these two cases, had a GPS system operating, and had refused to shut it down to benefit the European belligerents. Would it be fair for the Europeans to shoot down the satellites?
That would have been an attack on the US and the US would have responded with military action. Don't kid yourself about getting away with agression; in the long run you will catch up with you. Just like Osama bin Laden turned from being controlled by the US to its worst enemy.
I would think that a war between the US and the EU would go better then a war with radical terrorists.
An occupied European country would produce resistance fighters (or "radical terrorists" as you call them) all over the place. Just look at WWII. The new French resistance would be able to hurt the occupiers much more than they hurt the nazis simply because of the stronger fire-power available for guerilla these days. These "terrorist" would make an occupation of Iraq look like walk in the park, because contrary to Iraq, a nation like France is very unified and does not hate their previous leader or political system. And a strong army is already present in France which would make the back-bone of the resistance. (Exchange France with whatever European country that you feel like invading).
These are all very unlikely future events, but maybe good to discuss since so many young US citizens (and a few politicians) have a very strange perception of how EU should do what they are told because "we have nukes". Contrary to these naive views, it is good to look at history and realise that invading Europe is something petty dictators have done over the centuries and they have all failed in the end, just like a hypothetical attack by a guy like Bush would not lead to pax americana but just a bunch of dead people and then a defeat like Hitler got. And before you say that Hitler's military was nothing compared to the US of today, realise that Hitler had a stronger army than a country like the US or any other nation of the time when WWII started. The reason Hitler failed was by making too many enemies and the sacrifices of resistance fighters, UK, Soviet Union and the US, to mention a few of the major players. Then consider how many enemies the US of today would get by invading Europe.
EU was actually created to stop Europe from producing leaders that (wrongly) thought that military power is all you need to control other nations. Idiots that found diplomacy to be a sign of weakness. Hopefully the policies of pre-emptive war will be understood by voters to be just a version of might is right, which has been proven wrong again and again and again.
Nothing travels the oceans without the permission of the United States.
Don't mix raw fire-power with control or influence. The US army can not even stop a donky with missiles in Baghdad. Do you think US can even dream of controlling the oceans?
In the end diplomacy and allies and friends are much more powerful than nukes. Just too bad people who don't understand this are in power in the US today (and showing with their actions the truth in the lack of power in unintelligent use of military power).
The term "act of war" is pretty much obsolete in modern international law
[sarcasm] You mean obsolete like the term "POW" because of the phony use of the term "enemy combatant"? [/sarcasm]
Even if the neo-cons wants international law to disappear, international law and its definition of war is more relevant today than ever because modern technology and trade makes almost any important question and problem international, and not just national.
...but in any case providing guidance signals for munuitions being used against the US or US forces could just as easily be cited as an act of war by the US (in general anything which aids another belligerent can be called an act of war).
It would be a hard case to make for any international lawyer to say that it is an act of war by EU, when the Galileo system is made available to both belligerents and has important civial purposes (even though it can be misused in a war situation).
It is really funny how heated a debate like this becomes when talking about an issue that is about the US and EU, and the trust in the relationship between them.
I would bet that a similar story during the Clinton years would not have both sides giving knee-jerk reactions from the start with plenty of posts stating that the other party (that is the other part of NATO) could not be trusted or have some bad motives.
[flamebait] Nice going mr. Bush! From having the whole world on your side after 9/11, now nobody of you allies citizens trust you or your nation to do anything right. And the poor US contigent thinks that nuking the EU is a valuable option. [/flamebait]
Or the US could, without any warning, drop a military taskforce into the EU and kidnap the suspect.
This is a very common misunderstanding.
NO! The US could not just drop a military taskforce into the EU. That is an act of war and would not be tolerated, even by the puddle Blair, and it would mean the end of US military dominance in the world. Forget those Chuck Norris films or whatever Bush is watching, the world does not work this way. You do not invade allies and keep them as allies. And no, the US can not do without allies. The short historical twist that has given the US the strongest military in the world is doomed to be short term, whatever the neo-cons dream.
To give you another example, you can of course invade any country as long as you have superior military strength. But you can not force the people there to think of your army as liberators or make the invaded country into a democracy, or even force your allies into thinking it is a good idea.
In the real world, something does not become true just because it is cool or because one really wants it to be that way. The real world can seem more booring than a terminator film, but it also has a lot more depth if one start looking.
Let's hope that Galileo supports the maximum accuracy for everyday civilian use. If it doean't there's very little point.
Promised by ESA:
Galileo will deliver real-time positioning accuracy down to the metre range, which is unprecedented for a publicly available system. It will guarantee availability of the service under all but the most extreme circumstances and will inform users within seconds of a failure of any satellite. This will make it suitable for applications where safety is crucial, such as running trains, guiding cars and landing aircraft.
The high Euro has also significantly hurt European exports and all of this in the midst of increasing European deficits contrary to EU constitution by Germany and France recently.
If this is turning into a pissing contest, how is the US deficit doing at the moment?
If they put the system in orbit and the only way to deny its use to an enemy were to shoot it out of the skies, then that would be what would happen.
Not even Bush would be crazy enough to start a war against the EU. Shooting down EU satellites would be a declaration of war. Looking how much problems the mighty US army has with a 3rd world country like Iraq they should hessiate before making war with strong NATO allies. Of course, one could always nuke the EU, but both France and UK have nuclear weapons of their own.
This is a compromise like all compromises, it probably serves some purpose for both parties. The US military like to believe that they can do what they want and the EU don't like the thought that rouge states can take advantage of their technology.
On the other hand, it is not for sure that this is a final deal, since there are strong forces in the EU who do not want rogue elements in Pentagon or unpredictable presidents to control the safty of air traffic to mention one reason to have a trusted Galileo.
This years physics prize was given for the theory of superconducting materials. Was the development of the superconducting magnets in MRIs directly affected by this theory? If so, how?
Your right that I was a bit sloppy in my formulation. But MRI is not possible without extremly strong magnets, magnets that it is not possible to create without superconducting materials. Onnes saw that some materials became superconductive at low temperature in his experiments. It is clear from the electromagnetic theory that this also give these materials special magnetic properties. One can then start arguing if theoretical or experimental physicists played the most important role in developing the potentials of Onnes discoveries into the MRI magnets, but it is anyway artificial to seperate theoretical understanding and experimental understanding of superconductors since they are so intimately connected.
Slashdot Mirror
I am sure that none of the scientist studying global warming has never thought of that! You should write an article, all their perspectivs will change in one blow!
Windows is not a generic term in the Swedish language, and that is for sure offical. Businiss on a world wide scale is much more challenging than selling to the home marked.
The problem is that Windows is a generic term in English but not in Swedish. Windows and Lindows are both meningless in the Swedish and Finish languages and the potential for misleading the customers is much larger than in the US. I don't know the Swedish judges arguments, but this is something to consider in this case when the (on average stupid) US judges seemes like being more reasonable in this instance...
Yes, it is better to spread stereo-types and FUD instead of trying to figure out what is happening in the world. The world is much nicer when not painted in black-and-white. But then again, all french eat snails and all americans are impotent gun nuts.
No one controls the internet.
The UN does not exist because the US allows them to exist.
There are much stronger forces in the world than pure military fire power.
Use the internet to open your mind. A mind is such a beautiful thing to waste.
A very good parent-post. I think it is a sign that the UN is not spineless by at least trying to meet and discuss this important question that is what role and future the internet has. And the fact is, even if ICANN keeps its monopoly (hopefully because they actually do a good job), it is perfectly valid for the UN nations to at least show that they keep an eye on how ICANN does its business and that they discuss possible future options.
Well, since the US is "not truly democratic" in the sense of representing the world, it is logical for the UN countries to at least discuss how all the world countries can have some say and influence over the internet. And remember, free speech is not something only found in the US (and it is not always found in the US), so to claim that the only way to protect free speech on the internet is to give US full control over the internet is just short-sighted.
The US is doing a worse job than Saddam in running Iraq at this very moment. More people are dying each day or have already died because of this war. Many of these dead people would have been much better of today if it was not for this invation and Saddam was in power. There is nothing extraordinary in that statement.
What the future brings is hard to predict. Maybe the neo-cons are right, in one year Iraq is democratic and prosperous and an example for the world, but doing wrong now with the excuse of future utopias sounds a bit stalinistic to me. And the neo-cons other predictions have failed one after the other.
Some of the biggest admirers of Hitler of the time was in the US. The important thing is to learn from mistakes, you know like Vietnam.
Two wrongs do not make a right. This is basic logic.
The League of Nations was an experiment that failed. For one thing, how could the League of Nations stop a world war when Russia and the United States was not a part of the League and Germany pulled out in the 30's when Hitler came to power?
The UN was founded with the leassons of the failure of the LN; one big mistake of LN was that countries would be kicked out of LN if they did not do as told. This is similar to Iraq would be kicked out (or attacked) if not following to the smallest letter what all the UN resolutions said. The LN failed to respect enough the soverignity of its member nations and to see that it is more important that soverign countries meet and has to defend their action than that they have to obey some sort of world goverment. Military actions is usually just a sign of failed diplomacy, like the failed diplomacy of Chamberlain with Hitler or the failed diplomacy of Bush in respect to Iraq.
WWII was started by countries feeling they had the right to act on their own (because they had the military to do it) and disregard international law. To prevent WWIII by acting in the same way as Hitler is absurd.
The Iraq war has shown itself to be a big mistake while the UN has shown itself to live up to its promise; Iraq has and had no WMD because of the control that UN has imposed on Iraq in the last 12 years. And their weapons inspectors (the ones that the US ironically forced out by military action), was shown to be correct in assesing that there was no hidden WMD. Where did UN fail you again?
It is not a re-trial
Norway is a free country in most if not all of the definitions you could think of.
That is why in Norway, as most other European countries, they have this crazy thing of fair and transparent elections to keep their goverments in check.
Canada has the same appeals structure as Norway, but they are maybe not Anglo enough for you. By the way, England and the rest of the UK are all very European countries.
Give one example. And don't mention the abuses of Hitler as an example of people trusting their goverment. Hitler was a dictator who did a coupe d'etate in a Germany in ruins after WWI.
As another post pointed out, Canada also has an appeal system (taken from this page:
But I guess Canada is not very Anglo. At any rate, seperating UK from Europe and siding it with the US is mixing the real relationships between these continents with the relationship of Bush and his puddle Blair. Both of them will probably be out of office soon anyway.
On the bright side, if dvd-Jon wins (which he will if the judges know what they are doing), it will set an important presedence with acquittals in both the lower and higher courts of Norway. The Motion Pictures Association will have trouble after this in Norway to get their way (and Jon will get some peace), and hopefully the other European countries will take notice.
If you want to change the law in a democracy, it is better to vote for the parties that will change the stupid law, instead of "democracy by suing" or "democracy by harrasing cops not winning cases in court". As far as I know, Prohibition never caught on in Europe, probably since it is a very totaliterian way of dealing with alcohol problems. Also, note that in Europe there are many different law systems and traditions, most owing something to the ancient Roman law system but with slightly different developments. And many European countries have juries like a "civilised country" like the US.
Are you on crack? I think you should find out a bit more about Scandinavia before claiming that people are "guilty until proven innocent" there. And seperating Britain from the rest of Europe and claiming that the two, Britain and the US, are the shining example of a trusted law system and the ideal democracy is a bit of the rocks.
That would have been an attack on the US and the US would have responded with military action. Don't kid yourself about getting away with agression; in the long run you will catch up with you. Just like Osama bin Laden turned from being controlled by the US to its worst enemy.
You mean like the US did so succesfully in Iran. Don't kid yourself, most European powers would now what to do with some yankee commandoes.
An occupied European country would produce resistance fighters (or "radical terrorists" as you call them) all over the place. Just look at WWII. The new French resistance would be able to hurt the occupiers much more than they hurt the nazis simply because of the stronger fire-power available for guerilla these days. These "terrorist" would make an occupation of Iraq look like walk in the park, because contrary to Iraq, a nation like France is very unified and does not hate their previous leader or political system. And a strong army is already present in France which would make the back-bone of the resistance. (Exchange France with whatever European country that you feel like invading).
These are all very unlikely future events, but maybe good to discuss since so many young US citizens (and a few politicians) have a very strange perception of how EU should do what they are told because "we have nukes". Contrary to these naive views, it is good to look at history and realise that invading Europe is something petty dictators have done over the centuries and they have all failed in the end, just like a hypothetical attack by a guy like Bush would not lead to pax americana but just a bunch of dead people and then a defeat like Hitler got. And before you say that Hitler's military was nothing compared to the US of today, realise that Hitler had a stronger army than a country like the US or any other nation of the time when WWII started. The reason Hitler failed was by making too many enemies and the sacrifices of resistance fighters, UK, Soviet Union and the US, to mention a few of the major players. Then consider how many enemies the US of today would get by invading Europe.
EU was actually created to stop Europe from producing leaders that (wrongly) thought that military power is all you need to control other nations. Idiots that found diplomacy to be a sign of weakness. Hopefully the policies of pre-emptive war will be understood by voters to be just a version of might is right, which has been proven wrong again and again and again.
Don't mix raw fire-power with control or influence. The US army can not even stop a donky with missiles in Baghdad. Do you think US can even dream of controlling the oceans?
In the end diplomacy and allies and friends are much more powerful than nukes. Just too bad people who don't understand this are in power in the US today (and showing with their actions the truth in the lack of power in unintelligent use of military power).
[sarcasm] You mean obsolete like the term "POW" because of the phony use of the term "enemy combatant"? [/sarcasm]
Even if the neo-cons wants international law to disappear, international law and its definition of war is more relevant today than ever because modern technology and trade makes almost any important question and problem international, and not just national.
It would be a hard case to make for any international lawyer to say that it is an act of war by EU, when the Galileo system is made available to both belligerents and has important civial purposes (even though it can be misused in a war situation).
I would bet that a similar story during the Clinton years would not have both sides giving knee-jerk reactions from the start with plenty of posts stating that the other party (that is the other part of NATO) could not be trusted or have some bad motives.
[flamebait] Nice going mr. Bush! From having the whole world on your side after 9/11, now nobody of you allies citizens trust you or your nation to do anything right. And the poor US contigent thinks that nuking the EU is a valuable option. [/flamebait]
This is a very common misunderstanding.
NO! The US could not just drop a military taskforce into the EU. That is an act of war and would not be tolerated, even by the puddle Blair, and it would mean the end of US military dominance in the world. Forget those Chuck Norris films or whatever Bush is watching, the world does not work this way. You do not invade allies and keep them as allies. And no, the US can not do without allies. The short historical twist that has given the US the strongest military in the world is doomed to be short term, whatever the neo-cons dream.
To give you another example, you can of course invade any country as long as you have superior military strength. But you can not force the people there to think of your army as liberators or make the invaded country into a democracy, or even force your allies into thinking it is a good idea.
In the real world, something does not become true just because it is cool or because one really wants it to be that way. The real world can seem more booring than a terminator film, but it also has a lot more depth if one start looking.
If this is turning into a pissing contest, how is the US deficit doing at the moment?
Not even Bush would be crazy enough to start a war against the EU. Shooting down EU satellites would be a declaration of war. Looking how much problems the mighty US army has with a 3rd world country like Iraq they should hessiate before making war with strong NATO allies. Of course, one could always nuke the EU, but both France and UK have nuclear weapons of their own.
This is a compromise like all compromises, it probably serves some purpose for both parties. The US military like to believe that they can do what they want and the EU don't like the thought that rouge states can take advantage of their technology.
On the other hand, it is not for sure that this is a final deal, since there are strong forces in the EU who do not want rogue elements in Pentagon or unpredictable presidents to control the safty of air traffic to mention one reason to have a trusted Galileo.
The world does not center around us in the west, something it is important to remember.
Your right that I was a bit sloppy in my formulation. But MRI is not possible without extremly strong magnets, magnets that it is not possible to create without superconducting materials. Onnes saw that some materials became superconductive at low temperature in his experiments. It is clear from the electromagnetic theory that this also give these materials special magnetic properties. One can then start arguing if theoretical or experimental physicists played the most important role in developing the potentials of Onnes discoveries into the MRI magnets, but it is anyway artificial to seperate theoretical understanding and experimental understanding of superconductors since they are so intimately connected.