The belief that fundamentalist Isalmists could even come close to becoming "the seat of government for the world" boggles my mind.
It's WAY more ridiculous than the belief that communists could become "the seat of government for the world" and we managed to fend off that possibility without starting a real war.
"So how did a religion born in the middle east (afaik) end up dominating large tracts of the world already -"
Are you seriously saying that because there are a lot of islamic countries, they must be trying to take over the world? And that this only applies to them? Fallacy.
"Actually it is more likely the excuse/weapon used by the dicatorial regimes in the middle east (as mentioned by osama) who use the israel 'problem' as the unifying force to deflect the anger of their own people from their own repressive regimes.."
So... what's your point? Solve the Israel problem (and other injustices) and then they can concentrate on bringing those regimes down? Works for me.
"Just a wild guess but I would say that 'suicide missions' were around long before the modern state of israel was born and in fact long before bombs existed and have been used by many people and many nations thoughout history. Japan/kamikazi being a relatively recent and well known example"
Bad time to be guessing. Name one historical example of systemic suicide attacks, directed at civilians. One off's don't count.
"Best sweep under the carpet the outright and indefensible stealing of native american land in the not too distant history of america eh? Or the many european nations who colonised just about every corner of the globe?;)"
And that somehow justifies the behavior of Israel?
"In fact its been a feature of human behaviour/development throughout history that populations move, by force or by choice, borders are changed, countries come and go, empires rise and fall.. it was not invented by israel.. 'tis the nature of things.. we adapt and survive."
Again, might makes right? That's the best you can come up with? Even if that argument carried any moral weight, it wouldn't matter because the 'nature of things' is going to end pretty quick if we continue on in this way with the firepower currently available.
"This guy wants to create a fundamentalist muslims world."
And what evidence do you have to support this?
Osama would like a fundamentalist muslim of the world, no doubt. So what? Don't like it? Don't go there. We've got our fundamentalist capitalist portion.
There will never be an entirely muslim world. The idea is ridiculous. Islam isn't even an evangelical religion so to pull this off they would have to kill every non-muslim on earth. Only the truly paranoid would believe that they want this.
"If they did they would have taken the refugees into their own country and created a palestine state on their own soil."
Jordan took in about as many as they could absorb. I agree that more could have done the same, but then that would be a tacit admission of Israel's right to exist. Osama doesn't fall into this category anyway since he's not the leader of any country.
"The western way of life is his enemy"
I suspect this is true only when the western way of life is being shoved down his throat. Or when the west props up totalitarian governments to keep the oil flowing smoothly. Or when the west supports Israel in the outright and indefensible stealing of arab land. We ain't innocent. Let's quite pretending we are.
"what exactly took him so long to get Israel into his arguments"
Maybe you ought to read his entire speeches insteaded of the excerpts that Fox chooses to provide for you.
I will concede that Israel as a primary motive is not the whole story but US/western support for Israel is certainly the #1 uniting factor of the Arab world against the west. It's something that secular and fundamentalist muslim Arabs all agree on. It would definitely be a place to start.
Israel being a major part of the problem has always been right in front of our face and we choose to ignore it... no, excacerbate it.
The first sucide bombing occurred in Israel in 1984. They helped CREATE this. Took about 50 years of 'fighting terrorism' before the enemy resorted this relatively new tactic.
Some success that is. What makes you think we can do better? I personally don't have the stomach for genocide which, apart from compromise, will truly be the 'final solution'.
"Those who would be the allies thought that Hitler could be appeased by giving him Polen. That worked well, didn't it?"
This is not about appeasing Osama. I fully support and expect Osama to be hunted down and killed. That won't change a damn thing. He'll be one more martyr for the cause. His tactics are indefensible but his cause is real. His cause has a certain legitimacy whether you like it or not, and the sooner we accept this, the better off we will be.
"Do not use his public speeches to learn what he wants."
You might want to take your own advice when it comes to your own leader(s).
Is going to point out that according to the man himself, WE WERE ATTACKED BECAUSE OF OUR SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL? (and note that he cited direct military support for Israeli policy)
Or shall we just continue to pretend this doesn't matter?
Regardless of what you think may about Israel, you have to admit that this makes a helluvalot more sense than "they hate our freedom."
It may be more productive to address this one issue than to run around invading whomever we like and justifying it by calling them terrorists no matter how tenuous the relationship is between them and Al Qaeda.
Let me clarify. And I hope I'm wrong but.......isn't access to the vast majority of popular binary groups carrying material of provable illegality provided by relatively few "newgroup companies"? They behave as 'central servers'. USENET is distributed yes, but access to the binaries seems fairly concentrated.
They just seem like an easy target and I'm sure it would be easy to prove that 99% of their traffic is stolen IP. There are free speech issues involved, of course, but but I'll media companies will work their way around them.
I don't think USENET will really be completely shut down but I do think that things will inevitably occur to make the mass trading of IP via nntp difficult and impractical.
There is no way in hell Bush wrote those answers.
Have you heard the man speak?
He probably never even saw the questions.
The others' answers are certainly more authentic.
As usual, Nader is the only one who isn't blowing smoke up my ass.
"I'm sorry, but if you're downloading Brittney Spears or something like that, you have no excuse. Pay The Man. If it's some obscure band, then no big deal since you probably couldn't find a way to legitimately pay for it."
I'm sorry, did you just tell me I should pay Brittney Spears (and co.) but rip off... say, Four Tet?
I also held stock options worth around a million dollars but by the time the waiting period was over, The stock was worth less than the price that the options were granted.
"(6) reveal information, including foreign government information, that would seriously and demonstrably impair relations between the United States and a foreign government, or seriously and demonstrably undermine ongoing diplomatic activities of the United State"
May as well toss this one out... it's been mooted.
Get a Visor then. You can get 'em real cheap now. They take AAAs and you can use rechargables if you like. You will never go dead because you can get them anywhere in the world. Plus, the throwaways don't lose their charge significantly if you don't use it for a long period of time. (years even)
I typically change batteries every three to four weeks. Normal use includes 15-20 minutes of Bejewled every day plus 5-10 data lookups or entries.
Unfortunately RockBox only runs on the 1st gen Archos players. None of the new ones.
I agree this was the best part about the Archos and I've bought two players from them because of it.
Valve had the most popular multiplayer FPS in the world handed to them on a silver platter and they blew it. Condition Zero took way too long and seems like an afterthought. I would have loved to have seen CStrike converted to the Q3 engine (or similar) years ago. It's a bit late now. I doubt I'll be back in any significant way even if it's runnining on Source. There are too many other good games out there.
And I really, really hope this deosn't mean that Halflife 2 multiplayer is going to suck.
If you use multiple machines and have an ftp or web server handy, this one is great.
http://update.mozilla.org/extensions/install.php/B ookmarks_FTP_0.9.6.xpi?id=14&vid=15
I know it's bad form to plug MS products on/. but I've been using MS Terminal Services/Remote Desktop for a few years now to get much the same result and it works wonderfully.
Over a DSL connection you barely notice you're not there.
It's even tolerable on 56k connecion... better than VNC.
I use it literally everyday to connect to my home machine from all over the world. I run it on port 443 which has so far allowed me to access my desktop at home from ANYWHERE, even military networks.
If you run Windows and need this ability... try it it, you'll like it. Ships with XP and 2k/2k3 servers.
Slashdot Mirror
No shit. Though I don't see that taking away the right to vote from people who don't exercise it is much of a punishment.
I almost hope (and fully expect) that they get drafted in the next for years.
And I wish they would start with 18-24 year old males who actually voted Bush. If they haven't enlisted yet, they are fucking hypocrites.
Then grab the ones that didn't vote.
If more people live in cities then the vote be skewed to urban interests. It's called democracy.
The belief that fundamentalist Isalmists could even come close to becoming "the seat of government for the world" boggles my mind.
It's WAY more ridiculous than the belief that communists could become "the seat of government for the world" and we managed to fend off that possibility without starting a real war.
"So how did a religion born in the middle east (afaik) end up dominating large tracts of the world already -"
;)"
Are you seriously saying that because there are a lot of islamic countries, they must be trying to take over the world? And that this only applies to them? Fallacy.
"Actually it is more likely the excuse/weapon used by the dicatorial regimes in the middle east (as mentioned by osama) who use the israel 'problem' as the unifying force to deflect the anger of their own people from their own repressive regimes.."
So... what's your point? Solve the Israel problem (and other injustices) and then they can concentrate on bringing those regimes down? Works for me.
"Just a wild guess but I would say that 'suicide missions' were around long before the modern state of israel was born and in fact long before bombs existed and have been used by many people and many nations thoughout history. Japan/kamikazi being a relatively recent and well known example"
Bad time to be guessing. Name one historical example of systemic suicide attacks, directed at civilians. One off's don't count.
"Best sweep under the carpet the outright and indefensible stealing of native american land in the not too distant history of america eh? Or the many european nations who colonised just about every corner of the globe?
And that somehow justifies the behavior of Israel?
"In fact its been a feature of human behaviour/development throughout history that populations move, by force or by choice, borders are changed, countries come and go, empires rise and fall.. it was not invented by israel.. 'tis the nature of things.. we adapt and survive."
Again, might makes right? That's the best you can come up with? Even if that argument carried any moral weight, it wouldn't matter because the 'nature of things' is going to end pretty quick if we continue on in this way with the firepower currently available.
"This guy wants to create a fundamentalist muslims world."
And what evidence do you have to support this?
Osama would like a fundamentalist muslim of the world, no doubt. So what? Don't like it? Don't go there. We've got our fundamentalist capitalist portion.
There will never be an entirely muslim world. The idea is ridiculous. Islam isn't even an evangelical religion so to pull this off they would have to kill every non-muslim on earth. Only the truly paranoid would believe that they want this.
"If they did they would have taken the refugees into their own country and created a palestine state on their own soil."
Jordan took in about as many as they could absorb. I agree that more could have done the same, but then that would be a tacit admission of Israel's right to exist. Osama doesn't fall into this category anyway since he's not the leader of any country.
"The western way of life is his enemy"
I suspect this is true only when the western way of life is being shoved down his throat. Or when the west props up totalitarian governments to keep the oil flowing smoothly. Or when the west supports Israel in the outright and indefensible stealing of arab land. We ain't innocent. Let's quite pretending we are.
"what exactly took him so long to get Israel into his arguments"
Maybe you ought to read his entire speeches insteaded of the excerpts that Fox chooses to provide for you.
I will concede that Israel as a primary motive is not the whole story but US/western support for Israel is certainly the #1 uniting factor of the Arab world against the west. It's something that secular and fundamentalist muslim Arabs all agree on. It would definitely be a place to start.
Israel being a major part of the problem has always been right in front of our face and we choose to ignore it... no, excacerbate it.
The first sucide bombing occurred in Israel in 1984. They helped CREATE this. Took about 50 years of 'fighting terrorism' before the enemy resorted this relatively new tactic.
Some success that is. What makes you think we can do better? I personally don't have the stomach for genocide which, apart from compromise, will truly be the 'final solution'.
"Those who would be the allies thought that Hitler could be appeased by giving him Polen. That worked well, didn't it?"
This is not about appeasing Osama. I fully support and expect Osama to be hunted down and killed. That won't change a damn thing. He'll be one more martyr for the cause. His tactics are indefensible but his cause is real. His cause has a certain legitimacy whether you like it or not, and the sooner we accept this, the better off we will be.
"Do not use his public speeches to learn what he wants."
You might want to take your own advice when it comes to your own leader(s).
Is going to point out that according to the man himself, WE WERE ATTACKED BECAUSE OF OUR SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL? (and note that he cited direct military support for Israeli policy)
Or shall we just continue to pretend this doesn't matter?
Regardless of what you think may about Israel, you have to admit that this makes a helluvalot more sense than "they hate our freedom."
It may be more productive to address this one issue than to run around invading whomever we like and justifying it by calling them terrorists no matter how tenuous the relationship is between them and Al Qaeda.
Let me clarify. And I hope I'm wrong but.... ...isn't access to the vast majority of popular binary groups carrying material of provable illegality provided by relatively few "newgroup companies"? They behave as 'central servers'. USENET is distributed yes, but access to the binaries seems fairly concentrated.
They just seem like an easy target and I'm sure it would be easy to prove that 99% of their traffic is stolen IP. There are free speech issues involved, of course, but but I'll media companies will work their way around them.
I don't think USENET will really be completely shut down but I do think that things will inevitably occur to make the mass trading of IP via nntp difficult and impractical.
Some kind soul pretty regularly posts The Daily Show in alt.binaries.multimedia every week.
I've lived in Europe for two years and have seen nearly all of them within days of them airing in the US.
Thank you Mr. Poster!!! Please keep them coming.
Oh am I going to cry when they finally shut USENET down.
We are well and truly fucked folks.
There is no way in hell Bush wrote those answers. Have you heard the man speak? He probably never even saw the questions. The others' answers are certainly more authentic. As usual, Nader is the only one who isn't blowing smoke up my ass.
"I'm sorry, but if you're downloading Brittney Spears or something like that, you have no excuse. Pay The Man. If it's some obscure band, then no big deal since you probably couldn't find a way to legitimately pay for it."
I'm sorry, did you just tell me I should pay Brittney Spears (and co.) but rip off... say, Four Tet?
That was modded interesting?!
I also held stock options worth around a million dollars but by the time the waiting period was over, The stock was worth less than the price that the options were granted.
Oh well...
Oi vay! Morality != Legality
"(6) reveal information, including foreign government information, that would seriously and demonstrably impair relations between the United States and a foreign government, or seriously and demonstrably undermine ongoing diplomatic activities of the United State"
May as well toss this one out... it's been mooted.
Get a Visor then. You can get 'em real cheap now. They take AAAs and you can use rechargables if you like. You will never go dead because you can get them anywhere in the world. Plus, the throwaways don't lose their charge significantly if you don't use it for a long period of time. (years even)
I typically change batteries every three to four weeks. Normal use includes 15-20 minutes of Bejewled every day plus 5-10 data lookups or entries.
Don't drop the acid until you're sure everything is working correctly.
So what PDA do you use then?
All the new wizbang color pda's I've played with only get 2-3 hours max.
I really prefer my old b&w Visor for exactly this reason.
I'm with you 100% but I still can't figure out who to vote for to help this happen.
Unfortunately RockBox only runs on the 1st gen Archos players. None of the new ones. I agree this was the best part about the Archos and I've bought two players from them because of it.
Valve had the most popular multiplayer FPS in the world handed to them on a silver platter and they blew it. Condition Zero took way too long and seems like an afterthought. I would have loved to have seen CStrike converted to the Q3 engine (or similar) years ago. It's a bit late now. I doubt I'll be back in any significant way even if it's runnining on Source. There are too many other good games out there.
And I really, really hope this deosn't mean that Halflife 2 multiplayer is going to suck.
or when I'm feeling malicious, generic dept name@company I hate.com
If you use multiple machines and have an ftp or web server handy, this one is great. http://update.mozilla.org/extensions/install.php/B ookmarks_FTP_0.9.6.xpi?id=14&vid=15
I know it's bad form to plug MS products on
Over a DSL connection you barely notice you're not there.
It's even tolerable on 56k connecion... better than VNC.
I use it literally everyday to connect to my home machine from all over the world. I run it on port 443 which has so far allowed me to access my desktop at home from ANYWHERE, even military networks.
If you run Windows and need this ability... try it it, you'll like it. Ships with XP and 2k/2k3 servers.
oops
Then again, there's this: (www.theinquirer.net) The absolute best thing about Archos is RockBox/A> "MP3 PLAYER-MAKING COMPANY iRiver is taking the mick, according to its own message board's users. iRiver has been promising upgrades and firmware releases since last year, when the 40GB iHP-140 - pretty much an iPod clone - was launched. However, the company has released nothing yet. Originally, iRiver said the new features - including on-the-fly file deletion, real shuffle mode, on-the-fly playlist and gapless playback - would be released in May and June. The company offered an apology at the end of May and promised to sort things out as soon as possible. Still nothing. Thanks to such huge delay, the message board users are up in arms over the lack of updates. User "jotwee" says, "If they don't change their behaviour I will never buy an iRiver product again". This thread is full of angry iRiver customers. And, as a side note, your blue-haired logo-lady looks like she's suffering from horrible acne"