I agree with much, maybe even most, of what Brin says about Romatics and Enlightment.
Not really sure if it is all that relevant to Tolkien.... Isn't Brin just doing the old demagogue trick of painting the subject one color (often red) and then critizing the paintwork? At least, his reading of Tolkien differs from mine. Sure, Tolkien laments the loss of his precious Old World but, to me at least, he does accept the change as natural and unavoidable. Tolkien is not a counter-revolutionary, he is a critic.
Quite bravely, the more biting parts of Brin's critique are not directed towards Tolkien, but towards the common man of today. In this I am 100% with him.
First of and for the record I would like quote a favorite band of mine, The Clash: "I'm so bored with the U.S.A., but what can I do?"
Then to actual post and, hopefully, some substance.
I read the previous replies to this posts parent. Some funny comments were made and I started thinking about which country, in my view, actually is the best. I naturally concluded that my native country, Finland, is the greatest country in existence. That seemed slightly suspicious, after all, probably 98% of the world's population would agree with me, everybody's native country is the best country in the world.
After a moment of inner contemplation I concluded that the problem was not that I had limited knowledge or too negative view of other countries, the problem was that my view of Finland and Finns was too positive. I was more or less equaling my lifestyle and friends with Finland and Finns. Naturally, I like my lifestyle quite a bit and my friends are my friends for a reason.
Wasn't really hard to think about things I don't like about Finland, especially the rural areas. After thinging about this a while I am quite comfortable in saying that every coutry in the world sucks. Big time.
I have much more in common with young urban professionals of Europe and USA/Canada then with my fellow coutrymen of the Backwoods.
I still do feel that our un-glamorous and painfully honest politicians are something to write home about, but it really doesn't go very much further. You know, like, countries and nationalities aren't really anything to get excited about... unless, of course, we qualify for the 2004 European Championships in Portugal (and the 2006 WC in Germany, I can only dream).
--Flam,
slightly drunk and too busy to get totally wasted to spell-check.
Now we both are really getting into semantics. I will make this one reply but I will not make further comments on this.
You based your arguments in part on the meaning of "dislike" and "hate". Others don't hate the US, they dislike the US. IMHO that isn't very meaningful statement, but you seemed to hold it to very high value.
You yourself point out that meaning of words is very important. Note, however, that hate and dislike are not well defined terms that can be used without dire risk of misunderstanding. Even worse, statements based on the difference of the meanings of hazy terms are often hazy themselves.
Hated and disliked are very different things. To hate something is not the same as to not like something. If I don't like something, it doesn't mean that I hate something.
According to Merriam-Webster's Online Distionary (www.m-w.com) one of the meanings of hate is extreme dislike. On the other hand, does it matter in the slightest? A person who dislikes something can in time come to hate it. It is acceptable to disliked by everybody else as long as they don't hate?
Sorry about using questionmarks when I don't intend to reply to any possible replies. It's just my writing-style. I will probably reply to any comments to my original message, if they are about substance (as opposed to semantics).
Also, I guess I must make it clear that I do not think that Europeans per se hate, or even dislike, the US. Most Europeans, again judging from in my experience, have very mixed emotions about the US. Dislike/hate, love, admiration, fear, envy can often be found in strange combinations.
Wasn't going to reply but then I saw this on the bottom: "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it." (Oscar Wilde).:-)
Once again, the US is not respected for wealth in many countries, instead we are hated for the type of wealth driven culture that we create. When we
No, we are DISLIKED, not hated. As I was saying about Katz, there's a difference. A Frenchman's annoyance at a "Cultural Hiroshima" will never be enough to turn France into a mortal enemy of the US.
That's semantics. Hated, disliked, boring! Where exactly do suppose to draw the line? Does hating imply readiness for action, even violent and/or illegal action? Does dislike not imply such readiness?
Oh well, I better get on with my point.
Judging from my personal experience, USA is not very well liked in Western Europe. "I'm so bored with the U.S.A. (by The Class)" would probably sum up the majority opinion quite nicely.
There are probably scores of reasons for this, but the ones that seem to come up most often include the following:
Envy of USA power, wealth and prestige.
Selfish use of that power, wealth and prestige to wurther the cause of US busineses. Using national covert capabilities to benefit US busineses, to the detriment of busineses of contries allied to US.
Power-politics: becoming, being and wanting to remain the only Superpower. This has partly resulted in a major war. (The Gulf War, with the ample help of Saddam Hussein.)
Globalization: the new imperialism. The global free-trade is being rigged to benefit rich countries in expense of the Thrid World. Even if Europe will benefit just as much, the US is seen as the culprit. (I do think that US indeed is quilty, but I find it hard to belive that EU isn't.)
Disrecard for non-US public concerns. Examples include the Kioto Accord, Genetically engineered food and consumer privacy matters.
The Two-Party system and calling it democracy.
Power of Lobbies in US political system.
US judical system, where apparently only thing that matters is money and cunning of lawyers.
The Israeli-Palestinian situation and the one-sided (from European POV) pro-Isreali US policy. Ariel Sharon is to most Europeans a disreputable man, about as bad as they get. A collective cringe of disbelief was heard throughout Europe when Mr Bush called Sharon "a man of peace" in middle of crisis where Israelis may have commited mass-murder of palestinan civilians.
History, that's to say all the shit that's gone before. When attitudes in general turn to negative, good things are forgotten, or clouded, and bad things remembered.
Some of those may seem totally internal matters that shouldn't concern outsiders. Remember however that the US constantly holds itself as the model society for others to emulate or suffer.
I don't hold all those views. I'm not saying this to avoid responsibility for my words, but in an effort to stall knee-jerk reactions. Please, for the sake of the conversation, consider me an neutral messenger and, instead of shooting me, think about what I have said.
Another thing:
The people yelling in the streets DO NOT MATTER. Most of them would not harm an American.
and later
A Frenchman's annoyance at a "Cultural Hiroshima" will never be enough to turn France into a mortal enemy of the US.
True that not many Frenchmen would take violent action against but they may dump a big pile of sheep dung on the gates of the US embassy. But anyways, people expressing their views peacefully in demenstrations does not matter? What is a fellow to do then?
For the sake of an argument let's assume an even-tempered, law-abiding arab, whose religious sensibilities are deeply offended by US, the unbeliver, military presense in the sacred land, the Saudi Arabia. Because his views don't matter, he gets together one million of his peers and holds rallies and demonstrations throughout the world. Doesn't matter?
What does then matter? That the imaginary arab gets together 10 million like-minds? 100 million? A billion? Or is it when some of the peers aren't as nice and easy-to-ignore and blow something up?
> Any other European country that has a system like this?
Finland has had a digital version of a ID card since 1999 (1998?). It's been a bit show in gaining wide use. I don't think it has been really pushed by the gov and also businesses have their own solutions for eCommerce etc.
Can't comment on technicalities because I have't bothered to find out.
Weimar Germany was indeed a case of a "perfect" democracy being toppled, but the situation was quite extra-ordinary. The blockheaded French had humiliated Germans after WWI, economy was in ruins (much worse then Argentina today) and the whole world has more nationalistic then today. I don't think Weimar qualifies as an example a under-classes overthrowing a economically unbalanced society with a fluid social strata system. Actually, I don't there are examples of that, because it hasn't happened yet.
I don't see democracies (assuming fluid stratas) falling into civil war as a result of unequally distributed wealth. Different sort of civil unrest seems more likely, I would offer inner-city violence and drug-use as examples of this.
Nor am I a genetics major, but you really don't need to be to figure that one out.
If having a gene (normal or recessive) has no benefits and is harmful to the organism then it will disappear given time. Gene with a harmful recessive trait may be able to persist for a long time, as demonstrated by many hereditary diseases.
This gets tricky because having a gene can be beneficial in some cases and harmful in some cases. If I was a genetics major I probably could give examples of this here.:-)
Suicide statistics vary greatly for country to country. Along males between ages 15 and 24 suicide is ten time more common in Finland then it is in Greece. Is this because of genetics, culture or environment? Dunno really, my bet would be on culture and winter. The statistic is neither a new development nor does it seem to be lessening, so the net effect seems to be that suicidal tendencies are "hereditary" among Finns. *sick grin*
Sorry about answering to an AC, but kinda feel strongly about distoring history.
Taliban is both part of and an counterforce to the US-financed Mujahedeen ("freedom fighters"), the force that drove out Soviets.
In 1996 Taliban emerged as victors of the internal fighting among the Mujahedeen.
If US and other countries had not aided Mujahedeen there would not have been Taliban. If they had not stoped aiding Mujahadeen there might not have been Taliban.
Mujahedeen were and are an Islamic independence movement. They were also anti-communist, but that's bit out of vogue.
The West wanted anti-communists then and wants anti-taliban/anti-terrorists now. Doesn't matter what else their allies might be.
The Cold War should have been called the Dirty War. I'm also beinging to think that it's going to be a case of Lancasters and Yorks fighting and Tudors winning.
Many comments here seem to defend computer complexity. They are, after all, complex machines with powerful uses, it's really quite natural that they require an amount of expertise to use.
This is very common argument from experts in a given field. "This is our field, only authorized personel allowed, move along if don't want to play by our rules." I have always found it to be distasteful.
Techs or even information technology people of all variations aren't only ones guilty of this. Lawyers are infamous for this, like are doctors.
What would you think if a lawyer were to say something to effect that law doesn't have to be accessible to common man, but rather it should be as usable (=exact, readable) as possible to an expert. (Writing and reading law text is actually pretty similar practize to coding nowadays. Both have their conventions and rules that are purposeful, at least if accessibility is not considered a goal.)
I think many that have defended computer complexity would be ouraged by a law they can't understand.
(The next comment isn't about this particular blindspot, but rather a more general observation and flamebait based on my own work-experiences.) I sometimes wonder if the lack of respect that tech show towards normal users has an negative impacts on the finacial bottomline of their employers and if that would be enough reason to fire someone.
I'm fairly confident that we (the humans) could level and burn all the forests in the world in, say, a decade. Not quite sure what the exact effect on the global warming/cooling would be, but I can imagine it would be a noticable. So I don't think it's just our biological functions that we have to be worried about.
I fail to see how the Digital Age (as it is) would have any particulary profound effect on national states. They are out and digital is in, but it's all a coincidence. The nation states are going to disappear because they are a bad idea.
I guess every group of people have to try it out for themselves and they should be allowed to do so without exception (would you please wake up Middle East, he's sleeping again during the class).
Sure, digital stuff will have profound effect on many things, even how societies organized but I'm just saying that national states aren't alone in this regard, and in fact would come to an end with or without anything digital.
And I agree with the interviewed pundit that one of the things into which national states are going to change is the local state, a small and governable group of people in a smallish piece of land. A local state may be ethnically homogenous but that is not it's main defining feature.
Btw, phones aren't just phones. I really want at least two, possibly three phones with different qualities.
First a workphone which should be a optimally usable phone for voice communication without many fancy features. SMS/email-like features are a must. Games a bonus (you don't know how often I have an hour to kill.)
Secoundly I want a party/nighttime phone. Small, fancy looking. Either durable or cheep. Voice and SMS. Must have battery-life of 72 hours or more (friday morning thru monday morning).
The third is all-out computer-phone hybrid. I want one. I don't know what it should do exactly, but I want it. Gimme one I will find ways of using it. Why should I know what it should do yet? Never had one or even anything near it.
Point to the list is that there can be more then one uberphone. It's like which one is the better ballplayer His Airness or ZZ? (Of course Jordan is possibly the greatest athlete ever, but that is more then made up by the images of fierce troll warrior-god.)
--Flam,
who publicly predicted that the Dutch would win the World Cup a day before they are knocked out by the Irish.
If you can take out the infantry guarding the mechanized weapon, you can destroy the weapon. If you have small arms, you *can* take out the infantry.
and
If every block of a city is defended by a modest supply of small arms, the city is unconquerable. Destroyable, perhaps, but unconquerable. If there are enough defenders with guns, and the government-gone-bad doesn't have the will to exterminate the city, the revolution is successful.
What a wonderful piece of self-delusion. You probably belive this too. And why shouldn't you, after all, it happend in Vietnam (in jungle not in cities) and Chechnya, didn't it.
Ask yourself which was the most important weapon in the arsenal of the Chechen. The small arms? Nope. The defendable positions like Grozny and the Caucasus Mountains? Nope, although they help a lot.
The correct answer is determination. Most succesful rebels have been willing to endure such losses that it wouldn't be much of parabole to say that they are fighting by getting killed in large numbers. When you are able to endure 10 or 20 to 1 casualty ratio it really doesn't matter if you have any weapons at all.
To it has always been a mystery to me how people seem to become much braver and determined with a basicly useless gun in their hand. An determined non-violent opposition a'la the Gandhi-led Idian strugle against the British leads to lesser loss of life and limb and produces just the same result: the more determined wins.
Small arms also tend to keep the police and other government enforcers reasonable. If John Suspect might be carrying a gun, law enforcement won't be nearly so quick to put him in a position where he has nothing left to lose. Ditto for prospective mass murderers, muggers, rapists, and so forth.
The possibility that opposing participant in a potentially violent encounter might be armed with a deadly weapon makes a person act more reasonably? With more forethought, which is what you imply in your example, I agree, to an extent.
Forethought is reasonable, I concur. It is also forethought and reasonable for law enforcement officers to device and practize tactics and methods that emphesize their own safety when in dangerous situations. You are quite right, they won't put John Suspect into a desperate, nothing-to-lose situation, they put a bullet in his head. Likewise, the forethoughtful mugger is faced with a choice of becoming a begger or a murderer-robber.
Sure, 90% of the newly-dead John "Bullet in the head" Suspects were guilty and Mich Mugger has also been ripped. Streets are safe now for Jack Survivor and Jenny Bystander, the widow of Peter Bystander (whose draw wasn't fast enough), to go on a date and try to build their lifes anew.
I don't know about you but if I ever find myself in Dodge I will get the hell out and fast.
Guns make conflicts more dangerous and _most importantly_ harder to resolve without serious harm. A bar-room brawl becomes a shoot-up with bystanders at deadly risk. A domestic disturbance call leaves the drunken father dead and a police officer crippled.
But then again what I would know about guns and crime. After all I live in a country that, by American standards, has no violent crime or guns.
--Flam,
perversely, a Finnish male is more likely to shoot himself then any other persons
That's really dangerous thinking. Luckily US military won't be quilty of that, not with Powell around.
Taleban are in dire straits, their logistical situation may be critical. Other then that US doesn't have much more going for themselves that they didn't have in Vietnam or Brits or Soviets in Afghanistan, if it comes to having western troops on the ground there.
Taleban are a veteran army made of religious fanatics defending their faith and homes. They may well be the best fighting force in the world. Better on man-by-man bases then any special forces the professional western armies have.
Think of Afghanistan as a natural bunker and you get the idea how decisive air superiority will be.
US would have a very hard time sustaining a ground campaign in Afghanistan. Where's the supply line?
Don't think you can win with ground troops. That's the road to defeat. US public support is high now, but it won't be as high after the bodybags start arriving. And they would. Afghans might die on 10 to 1 ratio in battle but just as many casualties could come behind the frontlines. That's a lot of bags.
The Norther Alliance is the only possibility for a quick victory. Air support and the new equipment they have reportedly been getting, they might just be able to do enough. Taleban could crack much easier in front of a internal enemy then a foreign one.
Like you say, and you're right when you say it, the Tet Offensive was the turning point of the war. It was then that the public (not necessarily the anti-war movement) woke up to the idea that there was no way we could win this thing. That aside, we were definitely not losing--US troops won every battle they fought in.
A tactical victory, a strategic defeat.
I'm no expert on Vietnam War, but would still hazard a guess that US troops lost every battle they fought, in fact had lost every battle they fought even before it started.
It's rather common occurance in military history. Napoleon had a string of tactical victories before his first capitulation.
"People tend to dislike foreign armies on their soil. Unless the army is perceived to be a very friendly indeed, it will be asked to leave... in one form or another."
That could be one of those lessons...
Why shouldn't America leave from Saudi Arabia?
Personally, I think you got your schoolyard-analogies wrong. America isn't the good kid being bullied here. America is the self-centered rich jock, that thinks himself better then others and, if need be, can beat up anyone that thinks otherwise.
I didn't. It is possible that I didn't spell out my view very clearly, got distracted by the political stuff.
"One of my points is that evil exists everywhere and it many different forms."
There is no inherent good or evil in humans. Every person is able to do both good and evil. I will grand you that a person can become twisted enough to merit use of the word evil.
"It is not our fault that these evil people do not understand anything but force. And no, we are not 'dropping to their level' by using force. WE ARE PROTECTING OURSELVES!."
Dropping to their levels and using force are two separate matters. We can and in this event very likely must use force and it can be done without dropping to "their level". We can also drop to their by other actions which may or may not involve the use of force.
I would have thought my view on use of force was pretty clear from previous. It has to be practical in preventing future aggression, it should not be done to dispense justice or to reap vengence.
I agree that there are evil people in this world. Fact that I belive that they have become so because of their experiences is practically of no consequence. Doesn't really matter if Hitler became "evil" in his childhood, during the WW1 or his stay in prison, does it. Fact remains that he was absolutelly wrong person to have power, delusional megalomaniac, someone who we are well entitled to label evil.
That in no way lessens the burden of respossibility on the West for creating, now and in history, the political, social and economical conditions that allow evil people to prosper and gain power.
A nation and a society has the right and the obligation to defend itself.For us, blessed with the perfect hindsight, it seems inevitable that after gaining power Nazi's would lead Europe to a conflict of large scale. So using force, in practical manner, was a morally justifiable option open for the West after Nazi's came to power. Nothing in that justifies the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler, the person, was not a creation of the West. Hitler's Nazi regime is a direct and perversely logical response to the West's actions. Because of this causal relationship, in my view, Hitler, the ruler, was a creation of the West.
This world is pretty much creation of the West. I fear we will have to fight the Islamic Fundamentalists, they hate us so much that guns must speak before anyone is willing to listen the voice of reason. I think we will win. I sure hope we will. But let's not fool ourselves to thinking that this war wasn't preventable if the West had learned form history and made wiser politics in the last 10-20 years. Also, we are terribly close to making the Palestinians and possibly the many other Arab nations another group we will have to fight.
When will we learn? How many times do we have to make the same mistakes. How many times more will we choose greed and arrogance as our guidelines and do injustice to people that aren't one of "us" until they are have become our evil enemy?
Do you see the difference between out opinions? You look to the current enemy and see an evil that must be destroyed utterly. I see the current enemy as sign of our failure, and, while the current enemy must be fought, I try to see how to make friend of the next one.
--Flam,
who wishes for more hours per day, so many things to write about... a new pair of wrists would be nice too.
I was hoping someone non-AC would answer. Talking to an AC about matters this sensitive is something I don't want to do.
My political views probably do not align with any liberal party. However, I will be more then willing to carry that label in the sense you seem to give it. So, I am one of those Fucking Idiot Liberals. And I am not an American, but a Finn.
To begin with, I find myself in third or forth message in this thread and I feel the following is past-due. I would like express my shock at the this horrible attack. I offer my deepest condolances to all the victims, their families, loved ones and friends. I also wish for strenght and courage for the American people at this traumatic moment. Furthermore, I assure for my own very small part that you do not stand alone, in this all democracies are together.
For there to be peace in anywhere, someone has either had to stop the cycle of violence and revenge or one of the participants has been destroyed completely.
Your examples of pure evil are not what you seem to think they are.
Hitler was a madman, and something that could be thought as pure evil. It could be said that West was innocent to him starting the WW2. And it wouldn't be more then a simplification of the truth if we were only to look at the events of 1930's. However, the West is very must bear the blame for creating a political and economical situation in Germany and elsewhere that not only made Hitler's rise to power a possibility but inevitable. The draconian and vengeful (of previous war) terms of German surrender after WW1 demanded by the French and the betrayal of their ally Italy by the French and British are the single most important reason for the failure of the Weimar Germany and creation of the Nazi/Facist block in central Europe.
Soviet Union was engaged in a war of world domination with the West, be it a cold war, when they invaded Afghanistan. There were many similar events during that war and in that war all participants some much lost their sense of right and wrong that all participants could be equally held responsible for all actions during that time. They were acting out of percived necessity, which in turn was motivated by fear and hared for the enymy, themselves and the nucliar weapons.
Saddam Husein was armed by the West, his army was trained by the West. He was the western weapon against the Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah's Iran. Possibly a worthy cause, as those were during real-politik of the Cold War, but Saddam was and is also a madman of the Hitler-type. The West knew this, they were well aware that he would want to use his military might against the weak but silly rich Kuwait and Saudi-Arabia. They thought they could handle him, they were wrong. How much more guilty could you be?
I will not get into debate over various American Presidents. I'm certain that my wisdom in that is well appreciated.
I agree with you that PLO disgracefully got very creedy a year ago and blundered a very real chance of peace. I was, as I often am, disapointed but not very surprised.
"Since the dawn of mankind the aggressor has ALWAYS set the ground rules."
and
"We should not bring these animals to justice. We should kill them, in their on land, and make a major example of them.
As long as these GOD DAMN liberals continually say 'We need to understand them' , 'We need to end the cycle of violence' this will never end.
The USA did not start this. The USA is not responsible in any way for this. By God, we do need to finish this."
The USA certainly didn't start this. The cycle of violence and injustice may well be as old as the mankind.
The USA certainly didn't deserve this henious act of violence. Never do innocent civilians deserve to die in the hand of terrorists.
I mean no disrespect to the victims nor do I wish to belittle the tragedy when I say that the West is not trying hard enough to end violence and injustice not just in North America or Europe but all around the world. The West is still all too keen to gather more wealth even by means that stifle the development of the Third World. We already have plenty.
The West is guilty of not learning from history. There is are groups of fundamentalist muslims that should not be accepted by any moral man. And mostly they are not, other muslims and even their compatriots shun them. They would find it very hard to gain popularity, support and harbor if not the mistakes maybe by the West. In the past decades the West and SU/Russia have again created a situation which not only makes it possible for a madmen to prosper and come to power, but in fact makes it inevitable. It's the road from Sarajevo to Hitler again, and it saddens me greatly.
Many people are not unduly afraid of violence, pain and death. Some are so because they are desperate, some have an inner conviction that gives them strenght, some are plain mad.
The USA will not be able to Kill'em All. The USA will not be able to make them fear. Violence will not suffice. Violence will not break the cycle. Pacificim and tolerance will break the cycle, free trade between equals will break it, bread and circus will break it.
Now, I am not saying that do not strike back. On the contrary, do strike if it is practical and effective way to prevent immediate new attacks. In the future, do also strike if need be. A country and a society do have the right to protect itself from violent attacks with violence. You are quite correct, aggressor sets the ground rules and thus may gain enormous advantages over others. There's no virtue in being naive.
Temptation of vengence is hard to resists. But it must be. As a practical matter, vengence is bad policy. Vengence is not justice nor is it protecting yourself. It is betrayal of yourself. It is letting others rule our actions. We want to be just, free and moral. We must be so consistantly or we are worthless. Do not make yourself worthless, do not betray yourself and what ever you do not let fear cloud your judgement. If you do, the terrorists have succeeded.
If we fail to retaliate, do we invite more terrorism?
Yes.
So which is worse? You tell me.
Don't be scared -- that's what they want.
Please moderators, mod up this up! The most rational and insightful comment I have read so far.
"Don't be scared -- that's what they."
Don't do anything just because you are scared, if you do they have succeeded. Fear is the cancer that can destroy our way of life. Terrorists can plant the seed of the fear, of the cancer, but the rest is up to us. Terrorisist can't make the seed grow, they can't make it consume us. Only we can... and only we can prevent it.
This is our fight, make no mistake about that. Other generations have had other fights and other ways of fighting. Way we fight it is by being brave. We may have to put our foot down in other ways at some point, but that won't be the when the fight is won or lost. We will lose if we let them change us. We will win if refuse to be frightend and carefully judge our response so that it meets both ethical and practical standards of our societies.
I'm using we even thou I am a Finn because in this all democracies stand together.
Why did you choose to ignore the following: "Proper judicial procedures are not a symptom of weakness and dissipation." I will contend that you have no comeback for this, no matter how much you have studied Nuremberg. Dismissing this argument based on a weakness in a minor sidenote just won't do.
Furthermore, I would like to make an observation and to ask you a question. It would seem to me that there is a high correlation with following the opinions: a) tighter security mesures affecting the whole society should be imposed immediatelly and permanently, b) immediate and strong military response should be made and c) those actions are necessary to protect freedom, justice and civilization. The two-part question to you is: do you agree with my observation, and if so, do you find that kind of thinking to be inconsistant?
> Fox news were the only ones showing this
> footage over and over. It showed a bunch of 10-
> year old boys "celebrating", egged on by one or
> two adults.
Untrue. It was reported on all major networks, and the clips shown were not always of the same people, or even of the same country. It was also reported independantly on the BBC.
Actually, here in Finland it was reported that celebrations involved a small group. All reports I have seen (CNN, BBC, Yle and MTV3 of Finland, DW) show a clip of the same and very recognizable woman and some children. That clip may occasionally be accompanied by other clips, but mostly it's just that one scene.
If the celebrations were wide-spread I would think we would see more diverse footage.
Kohan is apparently a rather traditional fantasy RTS, but also a pretty darn good (as in "Done Right"). At least that's what I get from reading the reviews.
My guess is the author has never actually admin'd Apache. He's probably been just an Apache user his whole life. (I see nothing to the contrary in his bio at the bottom of the article). Apache is a wonderful tool that is upto/any/ job we throw at it. Jakarta is a great example of a web-services enabling extension to the Apache project.
I have admin'd Apache quite a bit, I have also developed for and admin'd Zope and WebLogic.
Web Services is a viable paradigm. It isn't the only one or the right one for everything. In that it is like everything else, even Apache.
Web Services are a technically sound way of harnesing the power of frameworks and design patterns in the Web environment. They also make a great business sense for commercial software developers of all sizes. Right now they are also sexy and have a momentum. Web Services are already big and are going to get really big, like it or not.
Apache isn't going to die, it's going to be the perfect solution for a whole lot of people for years to come. Just like for a whole lot of people Web Services will be the perfect solution. More money will be changing hands via Web Services, and because of that many people will dismiss Apache (and other traditional Web Servers) as second tier, out-dated and amateurish. Personally, I don't care what people like that think.
I would use Zope (+custom product) to almost everything, because I am most familiar with it. Someone else might well use Apache (+extension module), because that's what they know best. In most cases we both would get the thing done. I would think I am better off, but I would, wouldn't I.
--Flam, who should start working one that +custom product...
Read this: it may not change your life, but it might just change your mind. If it does, mod it up;)
Wish I could, but I'm fresh out of mod points.
I use Zope a lot. Doing a webhosting kind of a thingy at a ISP. A collaborative environment at a university. A online game by myself. That last is of course a hobbyist project, but the other two are "enterprise-level".
I am very much into the web services paradigm (seen it called at least "application server" and "web application platform") and have looked into a number of different implementations. Zope compares really well. It's unproven at highest levels of scalability (the Megaportal class), but also is the most flexible and has the best user management I have seen.
Don't despair about J2EE or.NET. Take a look at Zope and relive the wonderful sensation of first discovering Linux/Apache/Perl/gcc/* and realising that there's a free product that's just as good that the closed ones.
(A few quotes from earlier replies.)
"I admit Zope is cool. But mention it to your average pointy-hair, and they'll look at you cross-eyed. Java and J2EE they've at least heard of - maybe they don't really understand it - but they've heard of it."
"I perfectly agree. I don't know how come Zope has never taken off. Zope and Python are sweet:)"
"Zope is cool. Python is cool. But neither have the marketing budget of IIS and ASP."
Don't be the defeatist! Remember the time not so long ago when somebody would the same thing, except it was about Linux or Apache. So you might get the same funny stares and sighs you did the last time, but you probably already have their ear. After all, you were right the last time.
A point to stress in the excellent list above: Zope is useful out-of-box and, while extensive development is going on, the core of Zope is a mature product.
I read the early comments (1+ rated anyways) with quite a bit of amazement. Almost without execption they focused, in outrage, on one sentance of the article. The outrage was naturally focused on the greedy, gimme-money-for-nothing-for-we-sue demand for payment made by... nobody.
The paragraph in question:
"I'm interested in the ethical - or not so ethical - relationship between Henrietta Lacks, her family, and Johns Hopkins University," Gilbert said, noting that the Lacks story is a cautionary one with major implications today. Neither Henrietta nor the Lacks family gave permission for her cells to be used for research; in fact, the family didn't learn about the proliferation of HeLa cells until the early 1970s. The Lacks family - still poor and struggling to access health care - has not been compensated for the use of Henrietta's cells.
I checked, although not very carefully, and it seems this is only mention of compensation in the article. It's not even a demand for compensation but a statement of a fact, although made in a way undeniably suggests that a compensation of some sort might be in order.
Even though I agree that a demand for monitary compensation for the cells would pretty questionable, I find it hard to sympathize with those who read the article and found that particular detail the only thing worth commenting on. What about the ethical questions about, for example as there are many that could be asked, persons right to decide what happens to her body? What about funny feeling you get (well, I get at least) when you think about immortality? What about those experimental documentry techniques?
The researchers didn't ask your Mrs. Lacks permissions to use the cells. That's wrong, but not very surpricing as this was the 50's. Lack's family didn't learn about this until the 70's, wrong too. The doctors and researchers do not have any moral right to decide what happens to a patients body, including body parts like organs and cells. Patient's rights must be paramount to doctor's.
There is no question that HeLa cells were extremelly useful for medical research. While usefulness to a researcher does not have baring, usefulness to society does have. A patient must have the right to deny a researcher use of her cells, but I would also content that society has the right to overturn that denial. This should not be taken as a carte blanc assertion that the need of many outweight the right of few. This is a basis for a pragmatic proposal to this difficult question. I for one would feel rather silly if some poor bitter bastard, that had with a chance-mutation developed a cure for cancer, wanted to take it with him to the grave. There ought to be some way to compel him to donate the cells needed (assuming of course that it's just a few cell and not a leg or an eye). Such action should be rare and the procedure formalized, transparent and under democratic control.
I'm far for certain that all questions involed in "commercalization of the human body" would have nice pragmatic solution. In those cases I think we will be better of going with the rights, even if other choices would present clear and useful benefits.
Slashdot Mirror
Question: Who is Brin critical of?
... Isn't Brin just doing the old demagogue trick of painting the subject one color (often red) and then critizing the paintwork? At least, his reading of Tolkien differs from mine. Sure, Tolkien laments the loss of his precious Old World but, to me at least, he does accept the change as natural and unavoidable. Tolkien is not a counter-revolutionary, he is a critic.
I agree with much, maybe even most, of what Brin says about Romatics and Enlightment.
Not really sure if it is all that relevant to Tolkien.
Quite bravely, the more biting parts of Brin's critique are not directed towards Tolkien, but towards the common man of today. In this I am 100% with him.
-- Flam,
a much too zealous Tolkien fanatic
People ride bicycles to the office. They leave the bikes outside unlocked. A stranger comes by and takes one bike, rides for some time and returns it.
:-)
Theft? - No.
Illegal? - Yes.
Immoral/unethical? - possibly, althou that may be subjective.
--Flam
First of and for the record I would like quote a favorite band of mine, The Clash: "I'm so bored with the U.S.A., but what can I do?"
... unless, of course, we qualify for the 2004 European Championships in Portugal (and the 2006 WC in Germany, I can only dream).
Then to actual post and, hopefully, some substance.
I read the previous replies to this posts parent. Some funny comments were made and I started thinking about which country, in my view, actually is the best. I naturally concluded that my native country, Finland, is the greatest country in existence. That seemed slightly suspicious, after all, probably 98% of the world's population would agree with me, everybody's native country is the best country in the world.
After a moment of inner contemplation I concluded that the problem was not that I had limited knowledge or too negative view of other countries, the problem was that my view of Finland and Finns was too positive. I was more or less equaling my lifestyle and friends with Finland and Finns. Naturally, I like my lifestyle quite a bit and my friends are my friends for a reason.
Wasn't really hard to think about things I don't like about Finland, especially the rural areas. After thinging about this a while I am quite comfortable in saying that every coutry in the world sucks. Big time.
I have much more in common with young urban professionals of Europe and USA/Canada then with my fellow coutrymen of the Backwoods.
I still do feel that our un-glamorous and painfully honest politicians are something to write home about, but it really doesn't go very much further. You know, like, countries and nationalities aren't really anything to get excited about
--Flam,
slightly drunk and too busy to get totally wasted to spell-check.
Now we both are really getting into semantics. I will make this one reply but I will not make further comments on this.
You based your arguments in part on the meaning of "dislike" and "hate". Others don't hate the US, they dislike the US. IMHO that isn't very meaningful statement, but you seemed to hold it to very high value.
You yourself point out that meaning of words is very important. Note, however, that hate and dislike are not well defined terms that can be used without dire risk of misunderstanding. Even worse, statements based on the difference of the meanings of hazy terms are often hazy themselves.
Hated and disliked are very different things. To hate something is not the same as to not like something. If I don't like something, it doesn't mean that I hate something.
According to Merriam-Webster's Online Distionary (www.m-w.com) one of the meanings of hate is extreme dislike. On the other hand, does it matter in the slightest? A person who dislikes something can in time come to hate it. It is acceptable to disliked by everybody else as long as they don't hate?
Sorry about using questionmarks when I don't intend to reply to any possible replies. It's just my writing-style. I will probably reply to any comments to my original message, if they are about substance (as opposed to semantics).
Also, I guess I must make it clear that I do not think that Europeans per se hate, or even dislike, the US. Most Europeans, again judging from in my experience, have very mixed emotions about the US. Dislike/hate, love, admiration, fear, envy can often be found in strange combinations.
--Flam
That's semantics. Hated, disliked, boring! Where exactly do suppose to draw the line? Does hating imply readiness for action, even violent and/or illegal action? Does dislike not imply such readiness?
Oh well, I better get on with my point.
Judging from my personal experience, USA is not very well liked in Western Europe. "I'm so bored with the U.S.A. (by The Class)" would probably sum up the majority opinion quite nicely.
There are probably scores of reasons for this, but the ones that seem to come up most often include the following:
Envy of USA power, wealth and prestige.
Selfish use of that power, wealth and prestige to wurther the cause of US busineses. Using national covert capabilities to benefit US busineses, to the detriment of busineses of contries allied to US.
Power-politics: becoming, being and wanting to remain the only Superpower. This has partly resulted in a major war. (The Gulf War, with the ample help of Saddam Hussein.)
Globalization: the new imperialism. The global free-trade is being rigged to benefit rich countries in expense of the Thrid World. Even if Europe will benefit just as much, the US is seen as the culprit. (I do think that US indeed is quilty, but I find it hard to belive that EU isn't.)
Disrecard for non-US public concerns. Examples include the Kioto Accord, Genetically engineered food and consumer privacy matters.
The Two-Party system and calling it democracy.
Power of Lobbies in US political system.
US judical system, where apparently only thing that matters is money and cunning of lawyers.
The Israeli-Palestinian situation and the one-sided (from European POV) pro-Isreali US policy. Ariel Sharon is to most Europeans a disreputable man, about as bad as they get. A collective cringe of disbelief was heard throughout Europe when Mr Bush called Sharon "a man of peace" in middle of crisis where Israelis may have commited mass-murder of palestinan civilians.
History, that's to say all the shit that's gone before. When attitudes in general turn to negative, good things are forgotten, or clouded, and bad things remembered.
Some of those may seem totally internal matters that shouldn't concern outsiders. Remember however that the US constantly holds itself as the model society for others to emulate or suffer.
I don't hold all those views. I'm not saying this to avoid responsibility for my words, but in an effort to stall knee-jerk reactions. Please, for the sake of the conversation, consider me an neutral messenger and, instead of shooting me, think about what I have said.
Another thing:
and later
True that not many Frenchmen would take violent action against but they may dump a big pile of sheep dung on the gates of the US embassy. But anyways, people expressing their views peacefully in demenstrations does not matter? What is a fellow to do then?
For the sake of an argument let's assume an even-tempered, law-abiding arab, whose religious sensibilities are deeply offended by US, the unbeliver, military presense in the sacred land, the Saudi Arabia. Because his views don't matter, he gets together one million of his peers and holds rallies and demonstrations throughout the world. Doesn't matter?
What does then matter? That the imaginary arab gets together 10 million like-minds? 100 million? A billion? Or is it when some of the peers aren't as nice and easy-to-ignore and blow something up?
--Flam
> Any other European country that has a system like this?
Finland has had a digital version of a ID card since 1999 (1998?). It's been a bit show in gaining wide use. I don't think it has been really pushed by the gov and also businesses have their own solutions for eCommerce etc.
Can't comment on technicalities because I have't bothered to find out.
--Flam
Weimar Germany was indeed a case of a "perfect" democracy being toppled, but the situation was quite extra-ordinary. The blockheaded French had humiliated Germans after WWI, economy was in ruins (much worse then Argentina today) and the whole world has more nationalistic then today. I don't think Weimar qualifies as an example a under-classes overthrowing a economically unbalanced society with a fluid social strata system. Actually, I don't there are examples of that, because it hasn't happened yet.
I don't see democracies (assuming fluid stratas) falling into civil war as a result of unequally distributed wealth. Different sort of civil unrest seems more likely, I would offer inner-city violence and drug-use as examples of this.
--Flam,
"Yeah!" - Black Sabbath
Nor am I a genetics major, but you really don't need to be to figure that one out.
:-)
If having a gene (normal or recessive) has no benefits and is harmful to the organism then it will disappear given time. Gene with a harmful recessive trait may be able to persist for a long time, as demonstrated by many hereditary diseases.
This gets tricky because having a gene can be beneficial in some cases and harmful in some cases. If I was a genetics major I probably could give examples of this here.
Suicide statistics vary greatly for country to country. Along males between ages 15 and 24 suicide is ten time more common in Finland then it is in Greece. Is this because of genetics, culture or environment? Dunno really, my bet would be on culture and winter. The statistic is neither a new development nor does it seem to be lessening, so the net effect seems to be that suicidal tendencies are "hereditary" among Finns. *sick grin*
--Flam
Sorry about answering to an AC, but kinda feel strongly about distoring history.
Taliban is both part of and an counterforce to the US-financed Mujahedeen ("freedom fighters"), the force that drove out Soviets.
In 1996 Taliban emerged as victors of the internal fighting among the Mujahedeen.
If US and other countries had not aided Mujahedeen there would not have been Taliban. If they had not stoped aiding Mujahadeen there might not have been Taliban.
Mujahedeen were and are an Islamic independence movement. They were also anti-communist, but that's bit out of vogue.
The West wanted anti-communists then and wants anti-taliban/anti-terrorists now. Doesn't matter what else their allies might be.
The Cold War should have been called the Dirty War. I'm also beinging to think that it's going to be a case of Lancasters and Yorks fighting and Tudors winning.
--Flam
Many comments here seem to defend computer complexity. They are, after all, complex machines with powerful uses, it's really quite natural that they require an amount of expertise to use.
This is very common argument from experts in a given field. "This is our field, only authorized personel allowed, move along if don't want to play by our rules." I have always found it to be distasteful.
Techs or even information technology people of all variations aren't only ones guilty of this. Lawyers are infamous for this, like are doctors.
What would you think if a lawyer were to say something to effect that law doesn't have to be accessible to common man, but rather it should be as usable (=exact, readable) as possible to an expert. (Writing and reading law text is actually pretty similar practize to coding nowadays. Both have their conventions and rules that are purposeful, at least if accessibility is not considered a goal.)
I think many that have defended computer complexity would be ouraged by a law they can't understand.
(The next comment isn't about this particular blindspot, but rather a more general observation and flamebait based on my own work-experiences.) I sometimes wonder if the lack of respect that tech show towards normal users has an negative impacts on the finacial bottomline of their employers and if that would be enough reason to fire someone.
-- Flam, a tech if anyone was wondering
I'm fairly confident that we (the humans) could level and burn all the forests in the world in, say, a decade. Not quite sure what the exact effect on the global warming/cooling would be, but I can imagine it would be a noticable. So I don't think it's just our biological functions that we have to be worried about.
--Flam
I guess every group of people have to try it out for themselves and they should be allowed to do so without exception (would you please wake up Middle East, he's sleeping again during the class).
Sure, digital stuff will have profound effect on many things, even how societies organized but I'm just saying that national states aren't alone in this regard, and in fact would come to an end with or without anything digital.
And I agree with the interviewed pundit that one of the things into which national states are going to change is the local state, a small and governable group of people in a smallish piece of land. A local state may be ethnically homogenous but that is not it's main defining feature.
Btw, phones aren't just phones. I really want at least two, possibly three phones with different qualities.
Point to the list is that there can be more then one uberphone. It's like which one is the better ballplayer His Airness or ZZ? (Of course Jordan is possibly the greatest athlete ever, but that is more then made up by the images of fierce troll warrior-god.)
--Flam,
who publicly predicted that the Dutch would win the World Cup a day before they are knocked out by the Irish.
and
What a wonderful piece of self-delusion. You probably belive this too. And why shouldn't you, after all, it happend in Vietnam (in jungle not in cities) and Chechnya, didn't it.
Ask yourself which was the most important weapon in the arsenal of the Chechen. The small arms? Nope. The defendable positions like Grozny and the Caucasus Mountains? Nope, although they help a lot.
The correct answer is determination. Most succesful rebels have been willing to endure such losses that it wouldn't be much of parabole to say that they are fighting by getting killed in large numbers. When you are able to endure 10 or 20 to 1 casualty ratio it really doesn't matter if you have any weapons at all.
To it has always been a mystery to me how people seem to become much braver and determined with a basicly useless gun in their hand. An determined non-violent opposition a'la the Gandhi-led Idian strugle against the British leads to lesser loss of life and limb and produces just the same result: the more determined wins.
The possibility that opposing participant in a potentially violent encounter might be armed with a deadly weapon makes a person act more reasonably? With more forethought, which is what you imply in your example, I agree, to an extent.
Forethought is reasonable, I concur. It is also forethought and reasonable for law enforcement officers to device and practize tactics and methods that emphesize their own safety when in dangerous situations. You are quite right, they won't put John Suspect into a desperate, nothing-to-lose situation, they put a bullet in his head. Likewise, the forethoughtful mugger is faced with a choice of becoming a begger or a murderer-robber.
Sure, 90% of the newly-dead John "Bullet in the head" Suspects were guilty and Mich Mugger has also been ripped. Streets are safe now for Jack Survivor and Jenny Bystander, the widow of Peter Bystander (whose draw wasn't fast enough), to go on a date and try to build their lifes anew.
I don't know about you but if I ever find myself in Dodge I will get the hell out and fast.
Guns make conflicts more dangerous and _most importantly_ harder to resolve without serious harm. A bar-room brawl becomes a shoot-up with bystanders at deadly risk. A domestic disturbance call leaves the drunken father dead and a police officer crippled.
But then again what I would know about guns and crime. After all I live in a country that, by American standards, has no violent crime or guns.
--Flam,
perversely, a Finnish male is more likely to shoot himself then any other persons
That's really dangerous thinking. Luckily US military won't be quilty of that, not with Powell around.
Taleban are in dire straits, their logistical situation may be critical. Other then that US doesn't have much more going for themselves that they didn't have in Vietnam or Brits or Soviets in Afghanistan, if it comes to having western troops on the ground there.
Taleban are a veteran army made of religious fanatics defending their faith and homes. They may well be the best fighting force in the world. Better on man-by-man bases then any special forces the professional western armies have.
Think of Afghanistan as a natural bunker and you get the idea how decisive air superiority will be.
US would have a very hard time sustaining a ground campaign in Afghanistan. Where's the supply line?
Don't think you can win with ground troops. That's the road to defeat. US public support is high now, but it won't be as high after the bodybags start arriving. And they would. Afghans might die on 10 to 1 ratio in battle but just as many casualties could come behind the frontlines. That's a lot of bags.
The Norther Alliance is the only possibility for a quick victory. Air support and the new equipment they have reportedly been getting, they might just be able to do enough. Taleban could crack much easier in front of a internal enemy then a foreign one.
--Flam
A tactical victory, a strategic defeat.
I'm no expert on Vietnam War, but would still hazard a guess that US troops lost every battle they fought, in fact had lost every battle they fought even before it started.
It's rather common occurance in military history. Napoleon had a string of tactical victories before his first capitulation.
Unpopular wars are usually lost.
--Flam
Many lessons can be learned from history.
... in one form or another."
...
"People tend to dislike foreign armies on their soil. Unless the army is perceived to be a very friendly indeed, it will be asked to leave
That could be one of those lessons
Why shouldn't America leave from Saudi Arabia?
Personally, I think you got your schoolyard-analogies wrong. America isn't the good kid being bullied here. America is the self-centered rich jock, that thinks himself better then others and, if need be, can beat up anyone that thinks otherwise.
--Flam
"You miss the point."
... a new pair of wrists would be nice too.
I didn't. It is possible that I didn't spell out my view very clearly, got distracted by the political stuff.
"One of my points is that evil exists everywhere and it many different forms."
There is no inherent good or evil in humans. Every person is able to do both good and evil. I will grand you that a person can become twisted enough to merit use of the word evil.
"It is not our fault that these evil people do not understand anything but force. And no, we are not 'dropping to their level' by using force. WE ARE PROTECTING OURSELVES!."
Dropping to their levels and using force are two separate matters. We can and in this event very likely must use force and it can be done without dropping to "their level". We can also drop to their by other actions which may or may not involve the use of force.
I would have thought my view on use of force was pretty clear from previous. It has to be practical in preventing future aggression, it should not be done to dispense justice or to reap vengence.
I agree that there are evil people in this world. Fact that I belive that they have become so because of their experiences is practically of no consequence. Doesn't really matter if Hitler became "evil" in his childhood, during the WW1 or his stay in prison, does it. Fact remains that he was absolutelly wrong person to have power, delusional megalomaniac, someone who we are well entitled to label evil.
That in no way lessens the burden of respossibility on the West for creating, now and in history, the political, social and economical conditions that allow evil people to prosper and gain power.
A nation and a society has the right and the obligation to defend itself.For us, blessed with the perfect hindsight, it seems inevitable that after gaining power Nazi's would lead Europe to a conflict of large scale. So using force, in practical manner, was a morally justifiable option open for the West after Nazi's came to power. Nothing in that justifies the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler, the person, was not a creation of the West. Hitler's Nazi regime is a direct and perversely logical response to the West's actions. Because of this causal relationship, in my view, Hitler, the ruler, was a creation of the West.
This world is pretty much creation of the West. I fear we will have to fight the Islamic Fundamentalists, they hate us so much that guns must speak before anyone is willing to listen the voice of reason. I think we will win. I sure hope we will. But let's not fool ourselves to thinking that this war wasn't preventable if the West had learned form history and made wiser politics in the last 10-20 years. Also, we are terribly close to making the Palestinians and possibly the many other Arab nations another group we will have to fight.
When will we learn? How many times do we have to make the same mistakes. How many times more will we choose greed and arrogance as our guidelines and do injustice to people that aren't one of "us" until they are have become our evil enemy?
Do you see the difference between out opinions? You look to the current enemy and see an evil that must be destroyed utterly. I see the current enemy as sign of our failure, and, while the current enemy must be fought, I try to see how to make friend of the next one.
--Flam,
who wishes for more hours per day, so many things to write about
I was hoping someone non-AC would answer. Talking to an AC about matters this sensitive is something I don't want to do.
My political views probably do not align with any liberal party. However, I will be more then willing to carry that label in the sense you seem to give it. So, I am one of those Fucking Idiot Liberals. And I am not an American, but a Finn.
To begin with, I find myself in third or forth message in this thread and I feel the following is past-due. I would like express my shock at the this horrible attack. I offer my deepest condolances to all the victims, their families, loved ones and friends. I also wish for strenght and courage for the American people at this traumatic moment. Furthermore, I assure for my own very small part that you do not stand alone, in this all democracies are together.
For there to be peace in anywhere, someone has either had to stop the cycle of violence and revenge or one of the participants has been destroyed completely.
Your examples of pure evil are not what you seem to think they are.
Hitler was a madman, and something that could be thought as pure evil. It could be said that West was innocent to him starting the WW2. And it wouldn't be more then a simplification of the truth if we were only to look at the events of 1930's. However, the West is very must bear the blame for creating a political and economical situation in Germany and elsewhere that not only made Hitler's rise to power a possibility but inevitable. The draconian and vengeful (of previous war) terms of German surrender after WW1 demanded by the French and the betrayal of their ally Italy by the French and British are the single most important reason for the failure of the Weimar Germany and creation of the Nazi/Facist block in central Europe.
Soviet Union was engaged in a war of world domination with the West, be it a cold war, when they invaded Afghanistan. There were many similar events during that war and in that war all participants some much lost their sense of right and wrong that all participants could be equally held responsible for all actions during that time. They were acting out of percived necessity, which in turn was motivated by fear and hared for the enymy, themselves and the nucliar weapons.
Saddam Husein was armed by the West, his army was trained by the West. He was the western weapon against the Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah's Iran. Possibly a worthy cause, as those were during real-politik of the Cold War, but Saddam was and is also a madman of the Hitler-type. The West knew this, they were well aware that he would want to use his military might against the weak but silly rich Kuwait and Saudi-Arabia. They thought they could handle him, they were wrong. How much more guilty could you be?
I will not get into debate over various American Presidents. I'm certain that my wisdom in that is well appreciated.
I agree with you that PLO disgracefully got very creedy a year ago and blundered a very real chance of peace. I was, as I often am, disapointed but not very surprised.
"Since the dawn of mankind the aggressor has ALWAYS set the ground rules."
and
"We should not bring these animals to justice. We should kill them, in their on land, and make a major example of them.
As long as these GOD DAMN liberals continually say 'We need to understand them' , 'We need to end the cycle of violence' this will never end.
The USA did not start this. The USA is not responsible in any way for this. By God, we do need to finish this."
The USA certainly didn't start this. The cycle of violence and injustice may well be as old as the mankind.
The USA certainly didn't deserve this henious act of violence. Never do innocent civilians deserve to die in the hand of terrorists.
I mean no disrespect to the victims nor do I wish to belittle the tragedy when I say that the West is not trying hard enough to end violence and injustice not just in North America or Europe but all around the world. The West is still all too keen to gather more wealth even by means that stifle the development of the Third World. We already have plenty.
The West is guilty of not learning from history. There is are groups of fundamentalist muslims that should not be accepted by any moral man. And mostly they are not, other muslims and even their compatriots shun them. They would find it very hard to gain popularity, support and harbor if not the mistakes maybe by the West. In the past decades the West and SU/Russia have again created a situation which not only makes it possible for a madmen to prosper and come to power, but in fact makes it inevitable. It's the road from Sarajevo to Hitler again, and it saddens me greatly.
Many people are not unduly afraid of violence, pain and death. Some are so because they are desperate, some have an inner conviction that gives them strenght, some are plain mad.
The USA will not be able to Kill'em All. The USA will not be able to make them fear. Violence will not suffice. Violence will not break the cycle. Pacificim and tolerance will break the cycle, free trade between equals will break it, bread and circus will break it.
Now, I am not saying that do not strike back. On the contrary, do strike if it is practical and effective way to prevent immediate new attacks. In the future, do also strike if need be. A country and a society do have the right to protect itself from violent attacks with violence. You are quite correct, aggressor sets the ground rules and thus may gain enormous advantages over others. There's no virtue in being naive.
Temptation of vengence is hard to resists. But it must be. As a practical matter, vengence is bad policy. Vengence is not justice nor is it protecting yourself. It is betrayal of yourself. It is letting others rule our actions. We want to be just, free and moral. We must be so consistantly or we are worthless. Do not make yourself worthless, do not betray yourself and what ever you do not let fear cloud your judgement. If you do, the terrorists have succeeded.
--Flam
Please moderators, mod up this up! The most rational and insightful comment I have read so far.
"Don't be scared -- that's what they."
Don't do anything just because you are scared, if you do they have succeeded. Fear is the cancer that can destroy our way of life. Terrorists can plant the seed of the fear, of the cancer, but the rest is up to us. Terrorisist can't make the seed grow, they can't make it consume us. Only we can
This is our fight, make no mistake about that. Other generations have had other fights and other ways of fighting. Way we fight it is by being brave. We may have to put our foot down in other ways at some point, but that won't be the when the fight is won or lost. We will lose if we let them change us. We will win if refuse to be frightend and carefully judge our response so that it meets both ethical and practical standards of our societies.
I'm using we even thou I am a Finn because in this all democracies stand together.
--Flam
Sorry matey, but I have to call you on that.
As far as I know, you are correct on Nuremberg.
Why did you choose to ignore the following: "Proper judicial procedures are not a symptom of weakness and dissipation." I will contend that you have no comeback for this, no matter how much you have studied Nuremberg. Dismissing this argument based on a weakness in a minor sidenote just won't do.
Furthermore, I would like to make an observation and to ask you a question. It would seem to me that there is a high correlation with following the opinions: a) tighter security mesures affecting the whole society should be imposed immediatelly and permanently, b) immediate and strong military response should be made and c) those actions are necessary to protect freedom, justice and civilization. The two-part question to you is: do you agree with my observation, and if so, do you find that kind of thinking to be inconsistant?
--Flam
> Fox news were the only ones showing this
> footage over and over. It showed a bunch of 10-
> year old boys "celebrating", egged on by one or
> two adults.
Untrue. It was reported on all major networks, and the clips shown were not always of the same people, or even of the same country. It was also reported independantly on the BBC.
Actually, here in Finland it was reported that celebrations involved a small group. All reports I have seen (CNN, BBC, Yle and MTV3 of Finland, DW) show a clip of the same and very recognizable woman and some children. That clip may occasionally be accompanied by other clips, but mostly it's just that one scene.
If the celebrations were wide-spread I would think we would see more diverse footage.
--Flam
Kohan is apparently a rather traditional fantasy RTS, but also a pretty darn good (as in "Done Right"). At least that's what I get from reading the reviews.
Gameraider
Gamespot
Gamerankings
I am going to give it a try.
--Flam,
who has never played games as little as the time when he was paid for it.
I have admin'd Apache quite a bit, I have also developed for and admin'd Zope and WebLogic.
Web Services is a viable paradigm. It isn't the only one or the right one for everything. In that it is like everything else, even Apache.
Web Services are a technically sound way of harnesing the power of frameworks and design patterns in the Web environment. They also make a great business sense for commercial software developers of all sizes. Right now they are also sexy and have a momentum. Web Services are already big and are going to get really big, like it or not.
Apache isn't going to die, it's going to be the perfect solution for a whole lot of people for years to come. Just like for a whole lot of people Web Services will be the perfect solution. More money will be changing hands via Web Services, and because of that many people will dismiss Apache (and other traditional Web Servers) as second tier, out-dated and amateurish. Personally, I don't care what people like that think.
I would use Zope (+custom product) to almost everything, because I am most familiar with it. Someone else might well use Apache (+extension module), because that's what they know best. In most cases we both would get the thing done. I would think I am better off, but I would, wouldn't I.
--Flam, who should start working one that +custom product
Wish I could, but I'm fresh out of mod points.
I use Zope a lot. Doing a webhosting kind of a thingy at a ISP. A collaborative environment at a university. A online game by myself. That last is of course a hobbyist project, but the other two are "enterprise-level".
I am very much into the web services paradigm (seen it called at least "application server" and "web application platform") and have looked into a number of different implementations. Zope compares really well. It's unproven at highest levels of scalability (the Megaportal class), but also is the most flexible and has the best user management I have seen.
Don't despair about J2EE or
(A few quotes from earlier replies.)
"I admit Zope is cool. But mention it to your average pointy-hair, and they'll look at you cross-eyed. Java and J2EE they've at least heard of - maybe they don't really understand it - but they've heard of it."
"I perfectly agree. I don't know how come Zope has never taken off. Zope and Python are sweet
"Zope is cool. Python is cool. But neither have the marketing budget of IIS and ASP."
Don't be the defeatist! Remember the time not so long ago when somebody would the same thing, except it was about Linux or Apache. So you might get the same funny stares and sighs you did the last time, but you probably already have their ear. After all, you were right the last time.
A point to stress in the excellent list above: Zope is useful out-of-box and, while extensive development is going on, the core of Zope is a mature product.
--Flam, an admited Zopista
The paragraph in question:
"I'm interested in the ethical - or not so ethical - relationship between Henrietta Lacks, her family, and Johns Hopkins University," Gilbert said, noting that the Lacks story is a cautionary one with major implications today. Neither Henrietta nor the Lacks family gave permission for her cells to be used for research; in fact, the family didn't learn about the proliferation of HeLa cells until the early 1970s. The Lacks family - still poor and struggling to access health care - has not been compensated for the use of Henrietta's cells.
I checked, although not very carefully, and it seems this is only mention of compensation in the article. It's not even a demand for compensation but a statement of a fact, although made in a way undeniably suggests that a compensation of some sort might be in order.
Even though I agree that a demand for monitary compensation for the cells would pretty questionable, I find it hard to sympathize with those who read the article and found that particular detail the only thing worth commenting on. What about the ethical questions about, for example as there are many that could be asked, persons right to decide what happens to her body? What about funny feeling you get (well, I get at least) when you think about immortality? What about those experimental documentry techniques?
The researchers didn't ask your Mrs. Lacks permissions to use the cells. That's wrong, but not very surpricing as this was the 50's. Lack's family didn't learn about this until the 70's, wrong too. The doctors and researchers do not have any moral right to decide what happens to a patients body, including body parts like organs and cells. Patient's rights must be paramount to doctor's.
There is no question that HeLa cells were extremelly useful for medical research. While usefulness to a researcher does not have baring, usefulness to society does have. A patient must have the right to deny a researcher use of her cells, but I would also content that society has the right to overturn that denial. This should not be taken as a carte blanc assertion that the need of many outweight the right of few. This is a basis for a pragmatic proposal to this difficult question. I for one would feel rather silly if some poor bitter bastard, that had with a chance-mutation developed a cure for cancer, wanted to take it with him to the grave. There ought to be some way to compel him to donate the cells needed (assuming of course that it's just a few cell and not a leg or an eye). Such action should be rare and the procedure formalized, transparent and under democratic control.
I'm far for certain that all questions involed in "commercalization of the human body" would have nice pragmatic solution. In those cases I think we will be better of going with the rights, even if other choices would present clear and useful benefits.
--Flam