The "war on terror" is promoted by U.S. weapons manufacturers, for profit. The manufacturers show no interest in politics; they are equal opportunity killers.
The U.S. government has created more terror than any nation ever, in the history of the world. In the article, History surrounding
the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories, see the heading, "The U.S.
government has bombed 24 countries since the Second World War."
Only someone ignorant of the activities of the U.S. government would think that the attack on 9/11/2001 was the beginning of something.
The U.S. government has been dominated for a long time by people who think
that violence is the only way to solve problems. For example, see History surrounding
the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories. See the heading, "The U.S.
government has bombed 24 countries since the Second World War."
U.S. military commanders literally do not have the social sophistication to see
any other method than violence, and they are backed by similarly minded U.S.
citizens, many of whom have never seen a war they didn't like.
Also, there is an extreme conflict of interest. Weapons makers hire retired
military leaders, so supporting violence supports getting a good job after
military service. As former U.S. President General Dwight D. Eisenhower said
in a famous speech, beware of the "military-industrial complex". Here's a quote:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial
complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and
will persist.
"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or
democratic processes."
Another quote:
"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment,
project allocations, and the power of money is ever present - and is gravely
to be regarded."
President George W. Bush operates under extreme conflict of interest, also.
His family is heavily invested in The Carlyle
Group, which is a major owner of weapons manufacturers. That puts pressure on
him to see only violent possibilities.
United States citizens often have only 2 weeks vacation each year, and they
work more than the people of other nations besides Japan. They simply don't have
the time to try to understand their government. They can only hope that
everything is all right. But it isn't. For example, see Unprecedented
Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
Brazil is a country of about the same land size as the U.S. (excluding Alaska). Brazil is dominated by people of European descent, as is the United States. However, it has been more than 100 years since the Brazilian government has been involved with aggression against its neighbors. (Brazil did support the Allies in the Second World War.) Somehow, Brazilians have found a way to live in the world without killing other people.
Simoniker, you seem like a nice guy, and a good editor. However, the games topic is very different from the others on Slashdot. The other topics are for people who want to be participants. Games are for people who want to be spectators of someone else's creation. The two cultures are very different and don't belong together.
When non-participants get mod points, they often moderate stories in which they have little or no interest. They join discussions and make foolish jokes. Their viewpoint is very different from those who are continuing to educate themselves in the details of how things work.
The Bush administration depends on ignorance to stay in power. Most U.S.
citizens do not understand what their government is doing.
Osama bin Laden, according to him, wants two things: 1) He wants the U.S.
government to stop interfering in the politics of Saudi Arabia. 2) He wants
the U.S. government to stop giving money to the Israeli government to buy
weapons made by U.S. manufacturers (like those owned by the Carlyle Group, a
company partly owned by the Bush family) which are used to kill Arabs.
Logically, Osama bin Laden's requests are reasonable. Does the U.S. government
do 1) and 2) above? YES. U.S. citizens, and everyone in the world, should know
what the U.S. government is doing.
About 1) above, you would not like it if Arabs interfered with your
government. They feel the same way.
About 2) above, the U.S. government is involved in embezzling taxpayer money.
Every year, an amount of about $5 billion is given by the U.S. government to
the Israeli government. The money must be spent on weapons made by U.S.
manufacturers. This has put the Jewish people into a heavy battle they cannot
possibly win. Why does the U.S. government do this, besides the fact that it
is a "legal" way of transferring money to U.S. weapons makers? The answer is
that the U.S. religious extremists are not less crazy or violent than Arab
extremists. Those in the U.S. who call themselves "Evangelical Christians",
about 45% of the people, want to kill all the Jews. Encouraging battles with
Arabs is working toward this. The U.S. government has participated in killing
far more Arabs than the 3,000 Americans killed in the 9/11 attack. Not
surprisingly, Arabs don't like being killed. Not surprisingly, some of them
believe that fighting violence with violence is a good idea.
Know your government.
Protection is not the goal; it's money.
on
Semper WiFi
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Making money from an unnecessary invasion is not protecting your family. Your family is now in far more danger now that the U.S. government has invaded an oil-rich Arab country that was, at the time, not threatening other countries. Nothing a Madison Avenue advertising company could do would have given more support to crazed terrorists. It was an effective move for those who want more war, because there is profit in war.
Why do the soldiers need charity?
on
Semper WiFi
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
If U.S. government leaders truly respected the soldiers in Iraq, the soldiers would not need charity.
I've traveled to 33 countries, and been in a lot of low-rent cyber cafes. Would they steal info? Yes, and it has happened to me.
Before you disagree, read this:
on
Latest SP2 News
·
· Score: 1
More about the Windows XP printer redirection command NET USE.
There are many people who have intense ego involvement in seeing
themselves as people who understand Windows software, but who have little real
interest in computing.
After re-reading my comment above, I realize, from past experience, that it is
likely that there will be extremely strong replies that give the impression
that the writer knows a lot, but which are completely uninformed.
By design, the NET USE LPTx [printer share name] printer redirection command works
only for users with administrator rights. This is fine. There are three ways
that a command can be executed with administrator rights for the context of a
user with limited rights. All of them fail. The failures are not clean;
the failures are such that they indicate that there is a mess.
If you are a programmer, the problems are obvious.
on
Latest SP2 News
·
· Score: 1
The problems are obvious if you are a programmer. If you are a
programmer, the problems are so obvious that you may fail to mention them.
Microsoft has known for years that their Command Line Interface has not been
updated to the standards of the OS. Yet they continue to put out tools that
ignore the new standards, as they did in the case discussed in this Slashdot
story.
The Win XP Command Line Interface is not fully integrated. The lack of
integration of the CLI is extremely serious. In some cases, there are
commands that take you inside 16 bit code, where the OS loses control. There
are many, many bugs. For example NET USE LPT1: [printer share name] does not
work for users with limited rights. Not only does it not work, it fails in
several ways that show that there are multiple problems. This was reported
months ago, but it has not been fixed.
Microsoft knew there was a problem, but did nothing. There is
another extremely serious problem here. Microsoft programmers knew that the
information is cached (See the story.), and that the method of caching introduces a bug, yet they did nothing about it. (If you are a programmer, it would be impossible not to notice.) That is
something I've seen many, many times: Microsoft accepts code that everyone can
see is not finished.
My original comment, In general,
Microsoft seems sloppy is correct, and should not have been modded down.
It is definitely not "Off Topic", as it is moderated now.
When was the last time you went to an important meeting and said nothing? This is an example of problems with Slashdot moderation. When was the last
time you went to a meeting or a party, and said nothing? Generally, if there
is a discussion that is important to you, you will want to contribute. This
Slashdot story is of interest only to people who understand Window XP and
security risks. But moderators cannot moderate stories of interest to them.
They must moderate stories in which they have so little interest that they
have nothing to say. That's how my great-grandparent comment could be modded down as "Off Topic", and the
"Microsoft bashing" reply is +5 Funny.
Another problem with Slashdot moderation is that by covering issues about
games that are of interest only to players and spectators, and not
programmers, Slashdot attracts people who have no real interest in computing.
Look at the beginning comments of most Slashdot stories. Many of the comments
are from people who have no interest in the story, but are trying to be funny.
Humor is wonderful, but not at the expense of the quality of the discussion.
It is not bashing to discuss real problems.
on
Latest SP2 News
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
Read Microsoft: A matter of trust from the same author mentioned in the Slashdot story. He reported a bug, and Microsoft told him it was a feature.
In general, Microsoft seems sloppy.
on
Latest SP2 News
·
· Score: -1, Troll
In general, my experience with Microsoft is that the company is sloppy. Apparently Microsoft managers don't allow the programmers enough time to finish their code.
From the KeyGhost installation instructions: "To install the KeyGhost, all you need to do is plug it in between your keyboard cable and your computer."
Obviously, these require no expertise to install. Obviously, also, you would look for these on any computer you used.
It might be good to carry one of those laptop-size USB keyboards, and use it instead of the cyber cafe keyboard. That would guard against keystroke loggers inside the keyboard. USB keyboards install automatically; there is no need to detach the normal keyboard.
Probably the best way to connect securely when traveling cheaply is to boot a cyber cafe computer from a Knoppix CD. That way you can be certain there are no keystroke recorders installed by some previous user. Basically, you will want to check your bank accounts and get your email from a web-based client. So Knoppix gives you everything you need: an OS and a browser.
There might still be a problem with a hardware-based keystroke recorder, but that level of expertise is unlikely, I think. A thief who could do that could get a good job, and wouldn't need to be a thief.
Linux has very complete and powerful command line processors and command line tools.
Windows has very weak ones. Many of the Windows command line tools are not completely integrated into the Windows OS. For example, here is a non-destructive test you can try: Run the command SUBST L: C:\. That makes L: point to the root of the C: drive, so that L: is equivalent to C:. Now open the recycle bin. Delete something and see the recycle bin malfunctioning; it automatically deletes items rather than holding them. Run SUBST L:/D to get back to normal. There are many examples of failures like this that were reported a long time before SP1, and were not fixed in SP1.
Microsoft is extremely sloppy, in my experience. Some things they fix, some things they don't. Notice that the items in the bug list are not dated. Note that there is no way to know what was fixed between SP1 and SP2. The convenience of the technical writers is considered more important than the huge amount of time lost by customers because things are documented in a sloppy way.
Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer are tired of getting up in the morning and doing the same thing every day, it appears to me. Slowly they are losing touch with their company, and slowly the company is decaying. Microsoft was, in my experience, always abusive toward its customers, but now it is sliding more into disfunction.
Download the new Sysprep: Windows XP Service Pack 2 Deployment Tools. See these instructions in the Readme.txt file, which has the usual sloppy, uncaring Microsoft writing and editing:
* You cannot run Update.exe within an I386 directory to update a
Windows XP installation to Windows XP SP2. You must run Update.exe
against the entire contents of a Windows CD. If the entire contents
of a Windows CD is not present in your installation share, Update.exe
fails to complete the installation process.
1. Download Windows XP Service Pack 2.
2. At the command prompt, go to the folder where you downloaded the
XPSP2.EXE file, and then type this command:
xpsp2.exe -x
3. When prompted, type the path from which you want the service pack
to be expanded. For example, type:
C:\XPSP2
4. Create a temporary directory on your system and copy the entire
Windows XP product CD to this directory. For example, type:
Slashdot Mirror
Every story is more complicated than can be told in a Slashdot comment. The military coup happened because it was supported by the U.S. government.
I agree, Brazil has a problem with police violence.
The "war on terror" is promoted by U.S. weapons manufacturers, for profit. The manufacturers show no interest in politics; they are equal opportunity killers.
The U.S. government has created more terror than any nation ever, in the history of the world. In the article, History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories, see the heading, "The U.S. government has bombed 24 countries since the Second World War."
Only someone ignorant of the activities of the U.S. government would think that the attack on 9/11/2001 was the beginning of something.
I expect military leaders to be fully responsible leaders, and not butchers.
"Why is the north-west region of India darker than the rest?"
Most of Rajasthan is desert.
Another topic: I find it interesting that the entire eastern part of the United States, and all of Europe, are lit.
I find it odd that version 3.6 is not mentioned on the Official Knoppix site, or on Knoppix.net.
Can someone explain that? Is 3.6 a trojan?
The U.S. government has been dominated for a long time by people who think that violence is the only way to solve problems. For example, see History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories. See the heading, "The U.S. government has bombed 24 countries since the Second World War."
U.S. military commanders literally do not have the social sophistication to see any other method than violence, and they are backed by similarly minded U.S. citizens, many of whom have never seen a war they didn't like.
Also, there is an extreme conflict of interest. Weapons makers hire retired military leaders, so supporting violence supports getting a good job after military service. As former U.S. President General Dwight D. Eisenhower said in a famous speech, beware of the "military-industrial complex". Here's a quote:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."
Another quote:
"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present - and is gravely to be regarded."
President George W. Bush operates under extreme conflict of interest, also. His family is heavily invested in The Carlyle Group, which is a major owner of weapons manufacturers. That puts pressure on him to see only violent possibilities.
United States citizens often have only 2 weeks vacation each year, and they work more than the people of other nations besides Japan. They simply don't have the time to try to understand their government. They can only hope that everything is all right. But it isn't. For example, see Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
Brazil is a country of about the same land size as the U.S. (excluding Alaska). Brazil is dominated by people of European descent, as is the United States. However, it has been more than 100 years since the Brazilian government has been involved with aggression against its neighbors. (Brazil did support the Allies in the Second World War.) Somehow, Brazilians have found a way to live in the world without killing other people.
We can, but it should logically be on a different site.
Simoniker, you seem like a nice guy, and a good editor. However, the games topic is very different from the others on Slashdot. The other topics are for people who want to be participants. Games are for people who want to be spectators of someone else's creation. The two cultures are very different and don't belong together.
When non-participants get mod points, they often moderate stories in which they have little or no interest. They join discussions and make foolish jokes. Their viewpoint is very different from those who are continuing to educate themselves in the details of how things work.
We need more intelligent leadership. Robot for President!
Know your government.
Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government
The Bush administration depends on ignorance to stay in power. Most U.S. citizens do not understand what their government is doing.
Osama bin Laden, according to him, wants two things: 1) He wants the U.S. government to stop interfering in the politics of Saudi Arabia. 2) He wants the U.S. government to stop giving money to the Israeli government to buy weapons made by U.S. manufacturers (like those owned by the Carlyle Group, a company partly owned by the Bush family) which are used to kill Arabs.
Logically, Osama bin Laden's requests are reasonable. Does the U.S. government do 1) and 2) above? YES. U.S. citizens, and everyone in the world, should know what the U.S. government is doing.
About 1) above, you would not like it if Arabs interfered with your government. They feel the same way.
About 2) above, the U.S. government is involved in embezzling taxpayer money. Every year, an amount of about $5 billion is given by the U.S. government to the Israeli government. The money must be spent on weapons made by U.S. manufacturers. This has put the Jewish people into a heavy battle they cannot possibly win. Why does the U.S. government do this, besides the fact that it is a "legal" way of transferring money to U.S. weapons makers? The answer is that the U.S. religious extremists are not less crazy or violent than Arab extremists. Those in the U.S. who call themselves "Evangelical Christians", about 45% of the people, want to kill all the Jews. Encouraging battles with Arabs is working toward this. The U.S. government has participated in killing far more Arabs than the 3,000 Americans killed in the 9/11 attack. Not surprisingly, Arabs don't like being killed. Not surprisingly, some of them believe that fighting violence with violence is a good idea.
Know your government.
Making money from an unnecessary invasion is not protecting your family. Your family is now in far more danger now that the U.S. government has invaded an oil-rich Arab country that was, at the time, not threatening other countries. Nothing a Madison Avenue advertising company could do would have given more support to crazed terrorists. It was an effective move for those who want more war, because there is profit in war.
If U.S. government leaders truly respected the soldiers in Iraq, the soldiers would not need charity.
It's illogical to vote Republican in 2004.
You're right about people in the U.S. making a lot of money from U.S. government violence. George W. Bush's family is heavily invested in the Carlyle Group, which owns weapons manufacturing companies. See: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
If U.S. government leaders truly respected the soldiers, the soldiers would not need charity.
It's illogical to vote Republican in 2004.
I've traveled to 33 countries, and been in a lot of low-rent cyber cafes. Would they steal info? Yes, and it has happened to me.
More about the Windows XP printer redirection command NET USE. There are many people who have intense ego involvement in seeing themselves as people who understand Windows software, but who have little real interest in computing.
After re-reading my comment above, I realize, from past experience, that it is likely that there will be extremely strong replies that give the impression that the writer knows a lot, but which are completely uninformed.
By design, the NET USE LPTx [printer share name] printer redirection command works only for users with administrator rights. This is fine. There are three ways that a command can be executed with administrator rights for the context of a user with limited rights. All of them fail. The failures are not clean; the failures are such that they indicate that there is a mess.
The problems are obvious if you are a programmer. If you are a programmer, the problems are so obvious that you may fail to mention them. Microsoft has known for years that their Command Line Interface has not been updated to the standards of the OS. Yet they continue to put out tools that ignore the new standards, as they did in the case discussed in this Slashdot story.
The Win XP Command Line Interface is not fully integrated. The lack of integration of the CLI is extremely serious. In some cases, there are commands that take you inside 16 bit code, where the OS loses control. There are many, many bugs. For example NET USE LPT1: [printer share name] does not work for users with limited rights. Not only does it not work, it fails in several ways that show that there are multiple problems. This was reported months ago, but it has not been fixed.
See my comment in another story for more about this: Many command line tools are not fully integrated.
Microsoft knew there was a problem, but did nothing. There is another extremely serious problem here. Microsoft programmers knew that the information is cached (See the story.), and that the method of caching introduces a bug, yet they did nothing about it. (If you are a programmer, it would be impossible not to notice.) That is something I've seen many, many times: Microsoft accepts code that everyone can see is not finished.
My original comment, In general, Microsoft seems sloppy is correct, and should not have been modded down. It is definitely not "Off Topic", as it is moderated now.
When was the last time you went to an important meeting and said nothing? This is an example of problems with Slashdot moderation. When was the last time you went to a meeting or a party, and said nothing? Generally, if there is a discussion that is important to you, you will want to contribute. This Slashdot story is of interest only to people who understand Window XP and security risks. But moderators cannot moderate stories of interest to them. They must moderate stories in which they have so little interest that they have nothing to say. That's how my great-grandparent comment could be modded down as "Off Topic", and the "Microsoft bashing" reply is +5 Funny.
Another problem with Slashdot moderation is that by covering issues about games that are of interest only to players and spectators, and not programmers, Slashdot attracts people who have no real interest in computing. Look at the beginning comments of most Slashdot stories. Many of the comments are from people who have no interest in the story, but are trying to be funny. Humor is wonderful, but not at the expense of the quality of the discussion.
Read Microsoft: A matter of trust from the same author mentioned in the Slashdot story. He reported a bug, and Microsoft told him it was a feature.
In general, my experience with Microsoft is that the company is sloppy. Apparently Microsoft managers don't allow the programmers enough time to finish their code.
From the KeyGhost installation instructions: "To install the KeyGhost, all you need to do is plug it in between your keyboard cable and your computer."
Obviously, these require no expertise to install. Obviously, also, you would look for these on any computer you used.
It might be good to carry one of those laptop-size USB keyboards, and use it instead of the cyber cafe keyboard. That would guard against keystroke loggers inside the keyboard. USB keyboards install automatically; there is no need to detach the normal keyboard.
Probably the best way to connect securely when traveling cheaply is to boot a cyber cafe computer from a Knoppix CD. That way you can be certain there are no keystroke recorders installed by some previous user. Basically, you will want to check your bank accounts and get your email from a web-based client. So Knoppix gives you everything you need: an OS and a browser.
There might still be a problem with a hardware-based keystroke recorder, but that level of expertise is unlikely, I think. A thief who could do that could get a good job, and wouldn't need to be a thief.
Linux has very complete and powerful command line processors and command line tools.
Windows has very weak ones. Many of the Windows command line tools are not completely integrated into the Windows OS. For example, here is a non-destructive test you can try: Run the command SUBST L: C:\. That makes L: point to the root of the C: drive, so that L: is equivalent to C:. Now open the recycle bin. Delete something and see the recycle bin malfunctioning; it automatically deletes items rather than holding them. Run SUBST L:
Microsoft is extremely sloppy, in my experience. Some things they fix, some things they don't. Notice that the items in the bug list are not dated. Note that there is no way to know what was fixed between SP1 and SP2. The convenience of the technical writers is considered more important than the huge amount of time lost by customers because things are documented in a sloppy way.
Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer are tired of getting up in the morning and doing the same thing every day, it appears to me. Slowly they are losing touch with their company, and slowly the company is decaying. Microsoft was, in my experience, always abusive toward its customers, but now it is sliding more into disfunction.
SP1 fixed very serious bugs in Win XP that were not on the SP1 bug list. Also, serious bugs that had been reported a long time before were NOT fixed.
Are you saying that wolves cannot be trusted to treat hens with respect?
Download the new Sysprep: Windows XP Service Pack 2 Deployment Tools. See these instructions in the Readme.txt file, which has the usual sloppy, uncaring Microsoft writing and editing:
* You cannot run Update.exe within an I386 directory to update a Windows XP installation to Windows XP SP2. You must run Update.exe against the entire contents of a Windows CD. If the entire contents of a Windows CD is not present in your installation share, Update.exe fails to complete the installation process.
1. Download Windows XP Service Pack 2.
2. At the command prompt, go to the folder where you downloaded the XPSP2.EXE file, and then type this command:
xpsp2.exe -x
3. When prompted, type the path from which you want the service pack to be expanded. For example, type:
C:\XPSP2
4. Create a temporary directory on your system and copy the entire Windows XP product CD to this directory. For example, type:
MD C:\INTSP2 XCopy CDROM Drive Letter:\*.* C:\INTSP2
[Probably should be:]
MD C:\INTSP2
XCopy [CDROM Drive Letter]:\*.* C:\INTSP2
5. After the previous step is completed, change to the directory that contains the Windows XP SP2 files. For example, type:
CD C:\xpsp2\update
6. To update the Windows XP files to include SP2, type:
update.exe -s c:\INTSP2
This procedure results in an I386 directory updated to Windows XP SP2.
Alternatively, see How to slipstream SP2 into your XP CD.