"Does anyone honestly think that we would deliberately attack women and children"
Ofcourse not. But that does not mean the woman and children don't suffer the most when the bombs start falling. you can believe the Bush Co, who basic responsibility is to make imperial democracy as digestible to the general public as possible. Or you can listen to the people at ground zero like doctors with out borders. They will tell you the majority of casualties from secondary explosions from cluster bombs are children.
Its one level of invasion of privacy to listen in on a conversation between two individuals. But its exponentially more intrusive to use aggregated information from many interconnected individuals. These systems can build models of information about an individual far exceeding any information one volunteers about themselves.
So just be careful about characterizing the saving of your conversations as unworthily endeavor. Once these real time conversations are linked up with some deep web analysis tool such as googles search engine it could prove to be very problematic for individuals and advantages for systems of control and coercion.
Corporations could use this information to further intoxicate the mental environment. "personal advertising" is not a good thing. James I heard your having trouble with relationships its not you its your chemical imbalance you need our drug.
Governments could continue and escalate all the things they like to do to marginal sectors of the population. Ie: drug war, intellectual property war, and if the present administration keeps course the "government" could be using tools like these on text messages in protest to more efferently put people' in prison for a few days.
I'm not saying that we aren't causing climatic change. I am saying that I don't believe that anyone can make a definitive, much less a scientific, statement that we are.
That is what 'science' is. Their is no definitive in science ie: theory of relativity theory of evolution... math theory etc etc.
We have to decide how much of a regulatory burden is tolerable, when it is supported only by that conjecture.
To me we already pay the cost of a regulatory burden. For example we have many restrictions and regulations that reinforce corporate interest over that of individuals. I can't sue a corporation for my child's asthma Even if the child is on my propertie which value is being destroyed via the "unregulated" activity of my neighbor. Does that represent lack of regulation, no the regulation is simply shifted to those with less power. In that case the government/corporations have regulated our relation to air. You may counter that your free to sue them but remember freedom is in relation to capital so the justice system will naturally favor them regardless of the argument. Which materializes in the high costs of litigation for an individual and the power that they possess with their legal "team"
Corporations put out this image that regulations are bad for business and bad for the worker bad for competitiveness etc. But really corporations adopt regulation and government intervention at all levels of operation whenever it suits them. These regulations occur at the expense of large sectors of the population in order to serve the capital interest of a few.
Naturally corporations only criticize regulations that do not favor their capital interest. They do this as they simultaneously peruse favorable government regulations on hugely disproportionate scale relative to the 'benefits' they provide the people they are taking money from (though taxes and regulated monopolies on commodities). Its just basic power relations... I am confused when people are so egger to give away what little power they might have had by shifting regulations onto the general population that they are often a part of.
Michael Moore, What exactly did you expect?
I think why Michael Moore is where he is, is his willingness to engage in the same kind of language as those he criticizes. When you engage in the same language of what you're criticizing you become what you criticize. So naturally he is hypocrite and the language of taking sides on issues with preconceived agenda is going to be problematic. Moore looks for ways to construct information in support his position rather then an analysis of that information. You won't see Chomsky calling bush a liar.
This is how our current mainstream political climate functions one of attack on character with use of a language of contradiction. Moore is engaging in that language of contradictions. All his ideas are not without merit infact I find many of them briliant, but he is engaged in a language of attacks, name-calling and taking sides. This approach diminishes his capacity for contradiction-free intellectually convincing arguments, but simultaneously allows him to be become a successful information distributor making millions of dollars reaching a large audience spawning websites that criticism/attack him etc. just like his parallels on the "right".
Christopher Hitchens pice can be compared to Al Franken book where he rips apart Ann Cultures work via an array of contradictory "facts". But I wonder how productive it is to buy into this Michael Moore bashing, I did not finish Al Frankens book because of its endless attacks of character statments rather then systemic analysis, which was entertaining but not intellectually convincing. When people ask question like why does Michael Moore hate America they are not really dealing with any ideas he might have presented, rather are engaged in endless mindless attack gibberish. In that way their criticism adopts Moores language and often fails to impress. Not that Hitchens piece was not well written, its just that it points out what should be obvious. Moore is presenting a biased one-sided perspective and from the opposite side of that perspective it is going to seem like he is sadistically lying like crazy, from a perspective with some shared values, it is going to look like he is using selective information and engaged in the language of those he is criticizing.
I don't understand why people expect to get contradiction free political commentary from someone that is admittedly bias and is perusing has a stated agenda. At least he does not say he is objective like some entities seem to be capable of claiming.
I wonder what your rebuttal or sources of rebottle for something like Chomsky & Edward's propaganda model would be?
I mean it's really not that complicated.
"The dominant media is firmly imbedded in the market system. They are profit-seeking businesses, owned by very wealthy people (or other companies); and they are funded largely by advertisers who are also profit-seeking entities, and who want their ads to appear in a supportive selling environment."
I mean your assumption of a "liberal" media would state that corporations are desperately trying to fail at their only purpose for being which is making money.... Does that make any sense at all?
My only guess is that you define "liberal" as bashing Bush for driving drunk or "conservative" as sensational stories of character such as swift boat for truth or what not... but your missing the point they are showing whatever is supportive of their selling environment.
I would consider a "liberal" media as one that critiques the use of imperialism as an unjust undemocratic mechanism for social or economic change domestically and abroad.
We have hundreds of people on this board saying the media is liberal because it prefers Kerry...
I would really grow tired of people proclaiming the media is "liberal" without engaging in well founded critical work that states otherwise.
In other words... if you're going to say the media is liberal where is your rebuttal to the propaganda model?
I am not spiting on soldiers but I am not spiting on the graves of the nameless either.
if you cant recognize the difference between a system and the agents operating with good will within that system then your moral standing is equivalent with those you criticize.
I think "the fog of war" film would enlighten your discussion a great deal, I highly recommend you check it out.
You might be asking the wrong questions... rather then asking if its right for soldiers to take extra precautions to save their lives we might want to ask if means we use are irrelevant in relation to our stated goals / ends ?
you might want to research FAIR institute a bit more... they are a nonprofit.. So they are not necessarily in it for the "money" as compared to some for-profit think-tank institution. They are self-described as "progressive" so who said anything about un-biased... does that word even make sense?
I don't know if your recommendation is good idea: >
"If you really want to make up your mind on the bias of the media, then you don't need to be trying to use a source that has a very evident bias in themselves and who seek to profit by this bias."
There is no "un-biased" source for information. So chouse your bias!... an institutional analysis of corporate mainstream media will consistently show their "bias" lies in the support of capital, power and the people that run it. This has to do with their institutional construction at a very basic level and has little to do with ideology or personal bias of media players. That is to say the support of capital will show up as left or right bias depending on the situation; ideally it will show up as a liberal/left bias to further marginalize any organization that must be operating off the planet by being to the "left" of the "liberal" corporate mainstream news.
So I think a prerequisite for my preference of news bias is looking at where their fanatical support comes from. So if an organizations bias is from non corporate contributions it is at least starting on the right track.
Institutions such as FAIR and zmag at least satisfy this prerequisite by not having advertisements in their publications and being solely supported by their readers direct contributions.
This is not saying that all people operating in the corporate mainstream are lying or dishonest, they are likely really good honest people only they are operating within a specific system or institution which particular characteristics and behaviors.
Sure you can label what I read as "propaganda, lies" or whatever. But to me their analysis of what's going on is much more logical and morally consistent. For example they won't say we had to form an alliance of convince with Saddam or it was a good idea to train and support the Osama in his early days. They consistently oppose tyranny. When Cuba did it crack down and killed some of its violent dissidents, they condemned it, when we support Colombia with weapons they consistently say it's a bad idea, rather then our government leaders whose morality is extremely convenient. Why not oppose Saddam when we where selling him all those WMD in the first place? That is the kind of consistency the mainstream corporate media lacks.
But I realize that not everyone feels that way. Some want to destroy evil with no concern for the means in which we do it or the history behind it. I hope to change their minds but recognize it's not always possible.
I checked out "Bowling for truth" a while ago and check it out again it is hilarious but does little to dispute any facts rather engages in exotic twists of logic to criticize the film. Click on one of their disputes of Moors claims at random, I pull up the return the bullets to Kmart section, here are some gems:
"If some guy buys a Twinkie and shoves it in my face, I can't go to the grocery store and return it."
Right... cuz Twinkies are the same as massive amounts of bullets being sold to kids.
"Too bad nobody at K-Mart did not accuse Moore of responsibility for Columbine. After all, he supports gun free school zones which guaranteed a safe working environment for the killers."
if only we militarized the schools and gave every teacher and student over the age of 18 a weapon those killer kids could have been stopped in their tracks.
Though some fantastic twist in logic schools would be safer if there where more guns there. WOW that not really disputing Moores claims rather is making some pretty dramatic claims of its own.
"Moore does and when he does not supply sources, dates for footage, where he got translations for speech in other languages, and the like,"
you might want to check out his website he cites sources for all the so-called inaccurate facts and what not.
That being said I fully support any factual criticism, but please cite sources rather then repeat what has already been debunked on his site by references to original documents. I have bothered to fallow up on many of the criticisms leveled against him, and often they are very hallow. People seem to be against the idea of someone making an argument by choosing pieces of information that they feel are more relevant then others.
Some critiques are well written and worth reading, it is a shame that some people don't hold the white house government and the corporate media to the same standards as Moore.
Sure its a very small percentage of people that will use the backward compatibility cuz we will all want to be playing the xbox2 version of all the games that we play today.
that being said what's the big deal of spending a few 100k on programming an emulator in the context of a 100s of millions dollar system launch?
You could have guaranteed compatibility with a few of the top xbox games at first(ie halo 2), If people are doing this sort of thing forfun I am sure you could get something done for a relatively small cost relative to the consoles launch.
come-on now. . What time frame are we talking about? I mean in a few years (20-30) we will likely have direct neural taps that replicate reality on the neurological level, sending the same electrical impulses that actual sensory perception would have sent. I don't see how that can't be considered realistic when your brain has no way of telling the difference.
I think your missing a lot of information here, for example US agro buizness unloading Goverment subsidized crops onto developing nations at a cost lower then it is fesable to produce them. The joys of plowing rice paddy is not a option for people when the market is satrurated with a product payed for by US taxes and sold for less then cost of production.
.. US. Are you willing to bet your life that N. Korea would never sell a nuke?..
correction are you willing to bet the life of a few thousand Iraqi's? I don't know it seems to me these countries are pissed off at the US because of our policie to prevent tragedy "here", often involves tragedy over "there"
All this tech looks really impressive, but don't count on real coverage affter all this is a war we are fighting to win not to pull out because of political pressure, count on some quality propaganda
I have seen more with low tech 128kbs video feed because it's from the perspective of those getting bombed rather then those dropping them.
ah. . yea.. those dirty deals.. nice of the US to clean it up with a nice clean war.
The assumption made is because Saddam is bad anything we do there will be good. That assumption is just wrong. there is no evidence to support that assumption rather there is ample evidence to the contrary just look at the crippling sanctions levied against the people of Iraq, when everyone agrees that Saddam would be unaffected by the sanctions as he smuggled oil out to maintain his "standard of living" so all the sanctions accomplish is limiting rebuilding of a devastated infrastructure which amounts to brutal biological warfare as civilians are denied basic access to clean water and medial supplies.
When the US bombs water treatment plants killing hundreds of thousands with biological toxicity is that considered high tech or low tech? "Destroy the infostructure?" with a more honest approach to language it would be called biological warfare against the Iraqi people
I don't know about that>
flash seems to work, along with dreamweaver, and photoshop 6, and more windows applications can run in linux every day.
http://appdb.codeweavers.com/
Microsoft's Windows 2000 offers a better total cost of ownership (TCO) than Linux for most traditional server workloads over a five-year time span, according to an IDC study.
It must be a really good report if windows 2000 offers a better TCO over 5 years. . pretty cool that they can see into the future like that, and know exactly what windows will cost tomorrow, cuz the cost has been constant for the last 5 years right...? and know how Linux will develop over the course of the next 5 years as Linux is pretty much the same operating system it was 5 years ago, right...? Sure is Amazing they can predict the future so accurately.
I am probably not the only one who does not see the big deal with this, "so what" dragons layer is in 3d now, not exactly as revolutionary as it was when it first came out. . considering most games that come out for console now a days are 3d action/adventure.. its just using an old license but which has little relevance to the arcade laser disk game
Slashdot Mirror
"Does anyone honestly think that we would deliberately attack women and children" Ofcourse not. But that does not mean the woman and children don't suffer the most when the bombs start falling.
you can believe the Bush Co, who basic responsibility is to make imperial democracy as digestible to the general public as possible. Or you can listen to the people at ground zero like doctors with out borders. They will tell you the majority of casualties from secondary explosions from cluster bombs are children.
So just be careful about characterizing the saving of your conversations as unworthily endeavor. Once these real time conversations are linked up with some deep web analysis tool such as googles search engine it could prove to be very problematic for individuals and advantages for systems of control and coercion.
Corporations could use this information to further intoxicate the mental environment. "personal advertising" is not a good thing. James I heard your having trouble with relationships its not you its your chemical imbalance you need our drug.
Governments could continue and escalate all the things they like to do to marginal sectors of the population. Ie: drug war, intellectual property war, and if the present administration keeps course the "government" could be using tools like these on text messages in protest to more efferently put people' in prison for a few days.
That is what 'science' is. Their is no definitive in science ie: theory of relativity theory of evolution... math theory etc etc.
To me we already pay the cost of a regulatory burden. For example we have many restrictions and regulations that reinforce corporate interest over that of individuals. I can't sue a corporation for my child's asthma Even if the child is on my propertie which value is being destroyed via the "unregulated" activity of my neighbor. Does that represent lack of regulation, no the regulation is simply shifted to those with less power. In that case the government/corporations have regulated our relation to air.
You may counter that your free to sue them but remember freedom is in relation to capital so the justice system will naturally favor them regardless of the argument. Which materializes in the high costs of litigation for an individual and the power that they possess with their legal "team"
Corporations put out this image that regulations are bad for business and bad for the worker bad for competitiveness etc. But really corporations adopt regulation and government intervention at all levels of operation whenever it suits them. These regulations occur at the expense of large sectors of the population in order to serve the capital interest of a few.
Naturally corporations only criticize regulations that do not favor their capital interest. They do this as they simultaneously peruse favorable government regulations on hugely disproportionate scale relative to the 'benefits' they provide the people they are taking money from (though taxes and regulated monopolies on commodities).
Its just basic power relations... I am confused when people are so egger to give away what little power they might have had by shifting regulations onto the general population that they are often a part of.
-mike
=
"Moore speaks to the average American."
I think we are mostly on the same page... no points missed that I can see.
This is how our current mainstream political climate functions one of attack on character with use of a language of contradiction. Moore is engaging in that language of contradictions. All his ideas are not without merit infact I find many of them briliant, but he is engaged in a language of attacks, name-calling and taking sides. This approach diminishes his capacity for contradiction-free intellectually convincing arguments, but simultaneously allows him to be become a successful information distributor making millions of dollars reaching a large audience spawning websites that criticism/attack him etc. just like his parallels on the "right".
Christopher Hitchens pice can be compared to Al Franken book where he rips apart Ann Cultures work via an array of contradictory "facts". But I wonder how productive it is to buy into this Michael Moore bashing, I did not finish Al Frankens book because of its endless attacks of character statments rather then systemic analysis, which was entertaining but not intellectually convincing. When people ask question like why does Michael Moore hate America they are not really dealing with any ideas he might have presented, rather are engaged in endless mindless attack gibberish. In that way their criticism adopts Moores language and often fails to impress. Not that Hitchens piece was not well written, its just that it points out what should be obvious. Moore is presenting a biased one-sided perspective and from the opposite side of that perspective it is going to seem like he is sadistically lying like crazy, from a perspective with some shared values, it is going to look like he is using selective information and engaged in the language of those he is criticizing.
I don't understand why people expect to get contradiction free political commentary from someone that is admittedly bias and is perusing has a stated agenda. At least he does not say he is objective like some entities seem to be capable of claiming.
Oreilly vs Moore can help illustrates this:)
I mean it's really not that complicated.
"The dominant media is firmly imbedded in the market system. They are profit-seeking businesses, owned by very wealthy people (or other companies); and they are funded largely by advertisers who are also profit-seeking entities, and who want their ads to appear in a supportive selling environment."
I mean your assumption of a "liberal" media would state that corporations are desperately trying to fail at their only purpose for being which is making money.... Does that make any sense at all?
My only guess is that you define "liberal" as bashing Bush for driving drunk or "conservative" as sensational stories of character such as swift boat for truth or what not... but your missing the point they are showing whatever is supportive of their selling environment.
I would consider a "liberal" media as one that critiques the use of imperialism as an unjust undemocratic mechanism for social or economic change domestically and abroad.
We have hundreds of people on this board saying the media is liberal because it prefers Kerry...
I would really grow tired of people proclaiming the media is "liberal" without engaging in well founded critical work that states otherwise.
In other words... if you're going to say the media is liberal where is your rebuttal to the propaganda model?
I am not spiting on soldiers but I am not spiting on the graves of the nameless either.
if you cant recognize the difference between a system and the agents operating with good will within that system then your moral standing is equivalent with those you criticize.
I think "the fog of war" film would enlighten your discussion a great deal, I highly recommend you check it out.
You might be asking the wrong questions... rather then asking if its right for soldiers to take extra precautions to save their lives we might want to ask if means we use are irrelevant in relation to our stated goals / ends ?
just Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky.
you might want to research FAIR institute a bit more... they are a nonprofit.. So they are not necessarily in it for the "money" as compared to some for-profit think-tank institution. They are self-described as "progressive" so who said anything about un-biased... does that word even make sense?
I don't know if your recommendation is good idea: >
"If you really want to make up your mind on the bias of the media, then you don't need to be trying to use a source that has a very evident bias in themselves and who seek to profit by this bias."
There is no "un-biased" source for information. So chouse your bias!... an institutional analysis of corporate mainstream media will consistently show their "bias" lies in the support of capital, power and the people that run it. This has to do with their institutional construction at a very basic level and has little to do with ideology or personal bias of media players. That is to say the support of capital will show up as left or right bias depending on the situation; ideally it will show up as a liberal/left bias to further marginalize any organization that must be operating off the planet by being to the "left" of the "liberal" corporate mainstream news.
So I think a prerequisite for my preference of news bias is looking at where their fanatical support comes from. So if an organizations bias is from non corporate contributions it is at least starting on the right track.
Institutions such as FAIR and zmag at least satisfy this prerequisite by not having advertisements in their publications and being solely supported by their readers direct contributions.
This is not saying that all people operating in the corporate mainstream are lying or dishonest, they are likely really good honest people only they are operating within a specific system or institution which particular characteristics and behaviors.
Sure you can label what I read as "propaganda, lies" or whatever. But to me their analysis of what's going on is much more logical and morally consistent. For example they won't say we had to form an alliance of convince with Saddam or it was a good idea to train and support the Osama in his early days. They consistently oppose tyranny. When Cuba did it crack down and killed some of its violent dissidents, they condemned it, when we support Colombia with weapons they consistently say it's a bad idea, rather then our government leaders whose morality is extremely convenient. Why not oppose Saddam when we where selling him all those WMD in the first place? That is the kind of consistency the mainstream corporate media lacks.
But I realize that not everyone feels that way. Some want to destroy evil with no concern for the means in which we do it or the history behind it. I hope to change their minds but recognize it's not always possible.
FAIR is good for matter of fact type analysis, but for more analytical approach I read zmag.
It has my kind of "bias"... a bias that does not rationalize imperialism through convenient morality.
I checked out "Bowling for truth" a while ago and check it out again it is hilarious but does little to dispute any facts rather engages in exotic twists of logic to criticize the film. Click on one of their disputes of Moors claims at random, I pull up the return the bullets to Kmart section, here are some gems:
"If some guy buys a Twinkie and shoves it in my face, I can't go to the grocery store and return it."
Right... cuz Twinkies are the same as massive amounts of bullets being sold to kids.
"Too bad nobody at K-Mart did not accuse Moore of responsibility for Columbine. After all, he supports gun free school zones which guaranteed a safe working environment for the killers."
if only we militarized the schools and gave every teacher and student over the age of 18 a weapon those killer kids could have been stopped in their tracks.
Though some fantastic twist in logic schools would be safer if there where more guns there. WOW that not really disputing Moores claims rather is making some pretty dramatic claims of its own.
"Moore does and when he does not supply sources, dates for footage, where he got translations for speech in other languages, and the like,"
you might want to check out his website he cites sources for all the so-called inaccurate facts and what not.
That being said I fully support any factual criticism, but please cite sources rather then repeat what has already been debunked on his site by references to original documents. I have bothered to fallow up on many of the criticisms leveled against him, and often they are very hallow. People seem to be against the idea of someone making an argument by choosing pieces of information that they feel are more relevant then others.
Some critiques are well written and worth reading, it is a shame that some people don't hold the white house government and the corporate media to the same standards as Moore.
Sure its a very small percentage of people that will use the backward compatibility cuz we will all want to be playing the xbox2 version of all the games that we play today. that being said what's the big deal of spending a few 100k on programming an emulator in the context of a 100s of millions dollar system launch? You could have guaranteed compatibility with a few of the top xbox games at first(ie halo 2), If people are doing this sort of thing forfun I am sure you could get something done for a relatively small cost relative to the consoles launch.
come-on now. . What time frame are we talking about? I mean in a few years (20-30) we will likely have direct neural taps that replicate reality on the neurological level, sending the same electrical impulses that actual sensory perception would have sent. I don't see how that can't be considered realistic when your brain has no way of telling the difference.
I think your missing a lot of information here, for example US agro buizness unloading Goverment subsidized crops onto developing nations at a cost lower then it is fesable to produce them. The joys of plowing rice paddy is not a option for people when the market is satrurated with a product payed for by US taxes and sold for less then cost of production.
by that logic lets fight with nucular weaopns why mess around.
.. US. Are you willing to bet your life that N. Korea would never sell a nuke? ..
correction are you willing to bet the life of a few thousand Iraqi's? I don't know it seems to me these countries are pissed off at the US because of our policie to prevent tragedy "here", often involves tragedy over "there"
All this tech looks really impressive, but don't count on real coverage affter all this is a war we are fighting to win not to pull out because of political pressure, count on some quality propaganda
I have seen more with low tech 128kbs video feed because it's from the perspective of those getting bombed rather then those dropping them.
ah. . yea .. those dirty deals .. nice of the US to clean it up with a nice clean war.
The assumption made is because Saddam is bad anything we do there will be good. That assumption is just wrong. there is no evidence to support that assumption rather there is ample evidence to the contrary just look at the crippling sanctions levied against the people of Iraq, when everyone agrees that Saddam would be unaffected by the sanctions as he smuggled oil out to maintain his "standard of living" so all the sanctions accomplish is limiting rebuilding of a devastated infrastructure which amounts to brutal biological warfare as civilians are denied basic access to clean water and medial supplies.
Well they could at least link to a bitTorrent mirror or something for the big file anyway.
When the US bombs water treatment plants killing hundreds of thousands with biological toxicity is that considered high tech or low tech? "Destroy the infostructure?" with a more honest approach to language it would be called biological warfare against the Iraqi people
I don't know about that> flash seems to work, along with dreamweaver, and photoshop 6, and more windows applications can run in linux every day. http://appdb.codeweavers.com/
Microsoft's Windows 2000 offers a better total cost of ownership (TCO) than Linux for most traditional server workloads over a five-year time span, according to an IDC study.
.. .? and know how Linux will develop over the course of the next 5 years as Linux is pretty much the same operating system it was 5 years ago, right...? Sure is Amazing they can predict the future so accurately.
It must be a really good report if windows 2000 offers a better TCO over 5 years. . pretty cool that they can see into the future like that, and know exactly what windows will cost tomorrow, cuz the cost has been constant for the last 5 years right
I am probably not the only one who does not see the big deal with this, "so what" dragons layer is in 3d now, not exactly as revolutionary as it was when it first came out. . considering most games that come out for console now a days are 3d action/adventure .. its just using an old license but which has little relevance to the arcade laser disk game