Now if they'd just incorporate a "smartphone" (phone + calendar), with full-time internet access, it'd be an instant sell. We could carry just the one electronic barnacle.
Get one of the smartphones that have been out for like 2 or 3 years then. WiFi, video playback, streaming media, this is old old old news. I had Attack of the Clones on my cell phone not long after it was out (gimmic, watching films isn't great, but TV is passable on e.g. a bus ride).
My current device has a pretty large screen, it's one of the touch-screen ones.
I could even program it...
Sheesh, just download the free (beer) development kit then!
We could carry just the one electronic barnacle.
Nah, I still have my watch, that makes two devices.
Passive smoking kills 30 a day. Why the big deal over the bird flu?
I completely agree with your point, but have to point out this nonsense. Passive smoking doesn't kill 30 a day. There isn't even conclusive proof that it kills at all. Every time you hear these figures they are inflated higher. My bet is that your 30/day source is based on the completely discredited 1992 EPA "report", which they are still touting dispite there even being congressional inquests into it's falsehood. It wasn't even a real study, it was a meta-study. Which in terms of research is completely worthless as meta-studes can be summed up with "after throwing out all evidence to the contary, my results show...".
I believe the actual question is "Are you, or have you ever been a member of a terrorist organisation?", of course with a helpful footnote informing you that if you answer yes, you may be denied entry to the USA.
Seriously? Is that the EXACT wording? We are truely living in Orwellian times. The question USED to be:
"Are you, or have you ever been a member of the communist party?"
Where are people going to wake the fuck up and stop politicians using fear to manipulate them?
Increased security at the airport serves one important purpose: it makes people feel safe. After 9-11, flights weren't all that popular for obvious reasons. The security is very overt, that is, in your face. It makes people feel as though their flight will be just fine. Remember, these people are paying customers, and they are running a business. There's at least a dozen ways to bring down a plane that are not affected by this security.
In contrast, most real airport security is hidden. For example, if you get searched going through customs, it's not a random search. Some security guard singled you out over CCTV and informed the people at the desks to pull you in. They monitor people for suspicious behaviour, before the people realise they are being monitored.
Where did you "check"? There are numerous bodies representing wine makers. Google for "represent wine growers" and you'll see just a few on the first page. They are the ones funding these studies. Every large industry has it's own RIAA equivalent, it's essential in todays world.
. I smoked pot because I thought it was doing no damage to my brain. Had I known that it was doing permeanent damage I wouldn't have smoked it, and articles like these sicken me because they make out like marijuana is harmless, if not beneficial(!), which is completely false.
It is your belief that is completely false, not the article. Pot causes no long term brain damage. It never been proven, not has any credible study even hinted at it.
I bet you are one of the people walking around with the (false) belief that a glass of red wine per day is good for you. It's not, and the permanent damage of alcohol is well documented. By deffinition, 'getting drunk' involves brain damage. I bet you blame pot for a lot of things, but have no issue with going out for a drink. You are the one sickening us, going around spreading falsehoods.
If I had only known that my short term memory and concentration would get affected in the way they have I wouldn't have touched pot.
Are you saying that you have had long term impact? Pot doesn't affect these things outside of being stored, everyone should return to normal after. It's a similar mechanism to he way that getting blind drunk can include memory loss. No one credible has ever said pot has these long term effects.
If you feel that you have these effects all the time from some experiences in your past, you are either imagining up anecdotal evidence, or you have some other medical issue that you are unaware of. It could be your geekish tendances (hey, its/.), as it's been obvesved that regular use of computers and email brings the things you have noticed. Does your usage of the internet correlate to your perceived memory loss?
Alcohol can be dangerous, as well, I agree on this. But 100 stoners driving are *bound* to have accidents because their reflexes are so slow.
That would go counter to all of the studies into the subject. The 'drug free America' guys once funded a study on this, to try and promote this idea. The results didn't go their way and they quietly buried the study.
Alcohol fucks your driving up because your risk assessment is broken. Pot does not have that issue, in fact its the opposite. People take less chances, which more than compensates for the slightly slower reactions some people have.
Otherwise, why would you be justifying yourself?
No one is justifying anything, just pointing out many commonly held myths. People believe that pot is bad for you for the same reasons that 60% believe Saddam was behind 9-11. The people promoting these myths know what they are doing. For example, want to stop teenage boys smoking? Why not lie and say it promotes tittie growth? Who wants to be 'girly'?
That's largely a myth, promoted by the wine industry. Truth is, red wine can benefit a small proportion of the population that have a specific blood chemistry. I believe that the benefit is the thinning of the blood, but don't quote me on that.
Have you ever tried typing in a password after a gallon of beer?
Ya bunch of shandy drinking lightweight weekend drinkers!! Just last night, in Glasgow, I had to unlock my phone to fire up the mp3 player on the way home from the pub. And use a touch screen do-da. Nae problem!! Practice is all it takes!!
Perhaps the big-girls-blouses down south in that-there Engerland might have issues...? Or anyone who drinks any of that weak stuff that passes for beer in some countries.
And what's wrong with password auth on phones anyway? If the phone's stolen then it's out of your possession - you lose, whether the theif can use it or not.
Emm, I have my complete schedule on mine, contacts, email. It has cookies to online sites with auto-log in (e.g. eBay). It CAN be used to run up calls until the network can block it, including data calls. With many phones, you can do a hard-reset that brings them to an out-the-box state, including erasing the password. So, a smart crook might manage that, but if they do, my data is wiped. My data is more valuable than the device.
If everyone had a password, phone theft would be less common. I've always had a PIN on my phone, going back at least ten years. If I can't use it, why should the arsehole that nicked it be able to?;-)
WRT to the article, this would definately interest me. Though I'd prefer a system using perhaps WiFi networks. It would be nice not having to enter the password when at home, if the phone is picking up my network.
How the hell was sacrificing American lives in a backwater country like Bosnia where they've been fighting each other since they could pick up stick a good deed? Was it because that conflict was at your backdoor maybe? How do you decide that unilaterally invading country A is a good thing, but invading country B is a horrible deed? Because YOU said so?
Hmm, lets see. One was a bloody civil war tearing the country apart and destroying the lives of millions. The other was a not-so-nice leader, but certainally not the worst on the planet. It was an unprovoked attack which is highly profitable for your nation, strategically and financially.
You really ought to pick up a history book as well. Bosnia was the UN. Not America on it's own. That's what made the difference. The whole world saw the massacres (google "Srebrenica Massacre") and decided to stop it. A peacekeeping force was sent in and the leaders were forced to meet at the negotiation table, ending the war. 200,000 people died, but it could have been FAR worse without the UN.
Not "because I said so", but because the facts were completely different.
There were clear ties between Al Queda and Saddam's regime when it came to terrorist attacks on Western nations.
Nonsense. There were no ties at all. I could name a dozen countries with heavy ties to Al Qaida which you call allies.
You may ignore inconvient facts at your will.
You may ignore reality at your will. If you can find proof of terrorist involvement in Iraq (prior to your invasion), please tell your leaders because they would be anxious to hear it. Then they won't have told quite so many lies to the public.
If you believe this situation applies in any way, shape or form to the United States that I live in, then I understand your utter confusion on other matters.
No, of course not. However, Europe was claimed to be facist which is highly insulting. It's like calling the USA communist. My point was that the USA is far more "facist" than Europe, and that it was a silly accusation to make about us.
And yes, while you are not totalitarist, disagreeing with the government is rare and often frowned upon. It's not repressed of course, but it's not promoted either. Katrina was a strange one in your media circles; many commentators observed that the press actually got a pair of balls and started asking tough questions. It was interesting, but it didn't last.
I could go on for ages about the mechanisms behind this "censor" of unpopular speach in the US (and here in the UK, same situation). To cut a long story short, the press depends on the govenrment for information and access. Pissing them off makes it impossible to do your job. You don't get invited to press pools. You can't get interviews or comments. So, it's not real facism, but the end result is very much the same. What the government says goes, and dissent is discouraged.
Can you bind visual screen elements to xml nodes, e.g. using xpath? I'm working on something that Ruby might be a good UI to go with, but everything in my back-end is XML. All of the data will be presented to the client via xpath queries to the server from the client, and I'm looking for a good framework to present that info to the user.
Presently I'm tending towards Open Laszlo, but it's flash based which I'm not a fan of. However, if it hides cross-browser issues, then it's a huge plus for me. Laszlo allows e.g. a text note to be bound to an xpath in a memory cached document.
I appreciate your viewpoint, but I honestly don't believe Iraq will work as a democracy. Even if the government manages to hold together, there will always be serious conflict. There are lots of different communities who don't get along for various reasons. The British defined the borders of Iraq, ignoring centuries old-territories carved out by millenia of war and peace. It's the perfect breeding ground for despots like Saddam.
I also appreciate you have a lot of national pride. But I think your view of the world is a little jaded by this. With no disrespect intended, America's responce to the Tsunami wasn't out-of-the-ordinary. The global appeal was massive and many poorer nations gave far more. I'm not belittling the aid you gave, it probably was a lot more than most countries, however you seem to be under the impression that your country is "special" in the world, and that anything it does must be valid. You may see it that way, but others do not.
The US government has been behind many regimes that oppress people. You still are. You have dismantled serval democratic countries because they were socialist leaning, especially in South America. The image of the US liberating the world only exists now in Hollywood. Check the history, read into your foreign policies of the last 50 years. The war in Iraq was not fought for peace, freedom or democracy. Originally it was started because if the immediate threat of WMD, just 45 minutes from our shores. There was no talk of nation building or bringing democracy. There was also a clear disinformation campaign from your leaders. Go and review their speaches. "Iraq", "Saddam", "9-11" and "terror" are said with in the same breath with repeated vigour, thus creating the false idea that Iraq has involvment. It was a complete PR campaign, very dishonest, and surely that must concern you? The last guy got thrown out for lying about a blowjob IIRC!;-)
The reason that democracy is now being used to sell the war is because of Americas love for it. It is something that you are all educated on it's merits at all levels of education. I consider it quite perverse that it is the admiral "fight for democracy" that is being used to essentially commit armed robbery. Your leaders are some of the most corrupt your country has seen. Almost as bad as Italy's...;-)
The war was started because the people of this country like to spread democracy. Iraq was one place where democracy could work.
Are there people who still buy that? How quaint. America has overthrown more democracies than you have created. You still support some of the most war like and viscious countries in the world. For example, Saudi Arabia has a vicious dictatorship that gets rid of dissenters quite readilly. You have had several thousand troops in that country protecting that government since the first gulf war. This is the specific reason why Bin Laden attacks you. But it's all about "hating freedom", right?
In the long-term (20+ years) this war will pay dividends in peace all across the world as the citizens of corrupt religion-driven monarachys and dictatorships realize that they don't have to be opressed.
You are a lunatic. This war has done nothing except divide the world in two. It is completely counter productive to the goal you stated.
This is what we are fighting this war for.
That, and the second largest oil reserves on the planet. Google for "peak oil" to learn why this is so strategically important. The peak oil issue is a fact; the only debate left is when the prices will start to go up. The US economy could not handle oil price increases all that well, it's too fundamental to your transit systems for example. The price of oil affects the price of everything.
That is why I think Bush is a great president. He has made the un-popular and painful decision, not because it had a short term payoff, but because of the long term.
Yes, I'm sure he has options in many of the wells that will make him millions over the coming years. The payoff was the elites only however, America as a whole will only suffer as much of the world hates you. Seriously. Things like invading Iraq is why people fly planes into buildings. You can't make them go away through overthrowing governments that had nothing to do with the original 9-11 attack in the first place. Terrorism has never been solved by those methods, only made worse. You've vastly increased the terrorists ranks with this action. You've inspired generations of hatred among some communities.
Are you out of your friggin' mind? It's costing us.
Who? The US people? Got news for you friend, your government doesn't work for you anymore. They work for those that fund their politcal campaigns. Businessmen who seek things like Return on Investment. Which company board of directors, in it's right mind, would give money away?
Harliburton and their ilk have came out of this just fine. The "costing us" comes from their receipt of your tax dollars. Likewise, the arms industry is sitting pretty. Go check out Harliburtons stock price for the past four years. Go look at the no-bid contracts they have been given. Your vice-president is still drawing a salary from them!!
Has the U.S. done anything at all to squelch internet access? Has France, or Germany, or China, or the host of the conference Tunisia? Hmmm? U.S. zero dings, others many.
Have you not been following the news lately? The US is having a massive crackdown on porn. In France and Germany, they hate facism and nazism. In America, they hate porn. It's all relative. But again, you list a few specific abuses on a "mostly harmless" world and think that makes you righteous. Want me to ring off the names of countries that haven't tried to censor the net?
Now, just why would your prefer that countries that have actively tried to supress web content in other countries (France) or actively suppress their own citizens (China, Tunisia) have any controlling rights at all? Please be specific.
Because no one nation should have that power. Especially one as agressive and distrusted as yours. You've just incited a civil war that has already killed 26,000 civilians, a war that's not going to end any time in the next 3-5 years. Expect it to get worse before it gets better. 26,000. A number never ONCE mentioned on the mainstream news. And you talk of France surpressing information? All of the lies behind the Iraq war justification, where is the media backlash? Where is this wonderful free press fighting for truth and justice? We were lied to, and 10 times as many who died on 9-11 are dead as a result. You are living in a dream world. The America we were brought up to believe in doesn't exist.
Can you list any reasons why we should trust you with it?
Who is building the walls in this dispute? The US is changing nothing with the internet. It is the "allies" who are talking about breaking a working system, just to spite the US.
You make a very good point, and I completely agree with you. I'm personally not all that bothered about the issue right now, ideally I think we should work together on a decentralised version of DNS as it's the net achillies heel, the one point of centralisation.
However, I am here arguing the "why" behind many peoples feelings on this subject. I don't agree that it should be left in the care of one nation (especially one as distrusted as yours is right now), however I also don't agree that fragmenting it is a good idea either.
I knew it. I'd always figured out the internet was too good to be true and offered so much to humanity. It was inevitable the politicians would fuck it all up for their gain.
There has been no duplicity what so ever, so we the USA says we don't tell ICANN what to do, we don't and we won't.
Unlike many, I do actually understand how exactly the US government has no influence over ICANN, especially those in the whitehouse. However, things change. Expect to be bombarded with the phrase "cyber-terrorism" over the next five years. Here's one scenario I made up for shits & giggles:
"Bring the internet under direct government control is essential for the freedoms it brings. Cyber-terrorist threaten to attack it and America must defend it in order to ensure the prosperity of our country. People who 'hate our freedom'(tm) seek to put up hate sites to aid terrorists, and because of this we must be able to control them. Today we present a bill giving federal agencies easier access to the internet. All internet sites from now on must be registered against the owners social security number to aid investigators hunt down evil doers. This bill will be called the 'Internet Freedom Act' and those who seek to oppose it are unAmerican and threaten the very freedoms on which our country was founded."
Now, in all seriousness, is any of the above all that unrealistic? I based it largely on how the Patriot Act was passed, perhaps the most unpatriotic law to ever come out of the US legislators.
Umm, I can resolve addresses just fine, so... umm, what is broke?
The worlds economies are now utterly dependant on it. It's too important to be left with people we don't trust to do what's in the worlds best interests. People who are willing to start wars for their own direct strategic and financial gain. Where does dicking around with DNS stand on the scale of moral wrongness? I'd say it was a little easier than starting a war, yes? In short, we have zero faith that someday in the future, your leaders start to interfere with it as a bargaining chip. E.g. not in the collalition of the willing? Bye bye banking system for a day then...and don't say that'll never happen because it wasn't a collalition of the willing; it was a collation of the cajouled. Fiscal blackmail was a part of the "package" at the negotiation table when you were looking for allies/landing strips.
Our fears are based on your actions recently, not unjustified paranoia.
And prior to these events "most of the world" DID trust the US? Um, no...
In 2002 pretty much the whole world was on your side. I'm still amazed that your leaders managed to piss away that much goodwill.
Fine, I have no one to blame but us for all this whining. Happily, I can just ignore it! =)
Yes. Let's build walls between us. Personally, I'd rather we got along, but it's kinda hard given the situation. None of us have anything against you or your fellow citizens. Your leaders on the other hand...;-)
One reason comes to mind- If it ain't broke, don't fix it..
Problem is, things are broke. Due to certain global events, most of the world doesn't trust the USA anymore. In fact, I'd say the attitude is one of fear and suspicion. You were warned this would happen, and you have no one to blame but yourselves.
I'm a huge urban-myth fan, and I'd seen Mythbusters mentioned all over the web for several years. I finally got round to downloading the first series. Boy was I disappointed.
The show itself is dreadful. The editor is useless, the crew likewise. They show fuck ups and dialog that any self-respecting director would yell "cut" and redo. It's almost as though they just don't care about style. Looked like a cable-access show.
The guys themselves were hicks. I really took an instant dislike to them. They conducted the "experiments" with no professionalism or insight. If they were just blowing stuff up, I wouldn't mind, but they tried to present themselves as some sort of authority on whatever subject they are doing.
I never did finish watching the show. I wouldn't put faith in any of their conclusions.
I concur. For a large complex project, CVS doesn't cut the mustard. It doesn't even keep directory history. Throw in a few remote development sites, and ClearCase really begins to justify itself. It's very complicated and powerful, much like many other computing tools. If you don't know what you are doing, you'll have a hard time setting it up. If you do understand the concepts, you'll sail through the project, with the version control actually adding value as opposed to simply being a historical reference. I've tried to explain the differences to CVS fans on many occasions and most just don't understand the advantages.
Slashdot Mirror
Get one of the smartphones that have been out for like 2 or 3 years then. WiFi, video playback, streaming media, this is old old old news. I had Attack of the Clones on my cell phone not long after it was out (gimmic, watching films isn't great, but TV is passable on e.g. a bus ride).
My current device has a pretty large screen, it's one of the touch-screen ones.
I could even program it ...
Sheesh, just download the free (beer) development kit then!
We could carry just the one electronic barnacle.
Nah, I still have my watch, that makes two devices.
Because one day he might give WMD to terrorists. Oh wait, wrong discussion. Or is it?
This is just another media scare, useful to sell more copy. Nothing more. In six months it'll be something else.
The infamous London Underground map is copyrighted. They probably couldn't get a license.
I completely agree with your point, but have to point out this nonsense. Passive smoking doesn't kill 30 a day. There isn't even conclusive proof that it kills at all. Every time you hear these figures they are inflated higher. My bet is that your 30/day source is based on the completely discredited 1992 EPA "report", which they are still touting dispite there even being congressional inquests into it's falsehood. It wasn't even a real study, it was a meta-study. Which in terms of research is completely worthless as meta-studes can be summed up with "after throwing out all evidence to the contary, my results show...".
Seriously? Is that the EXACT wording? We are truely living in Orwellian times. The question USED to be:
Where are people going to wake the fuck up and stop politicians using fear to manipulate them?
In contrast, most real airport security is hidden. For example, if you get searched going through customs, it's not a random search. Some security guard singled you out over CCTV and informed the people at the desks to pull you in. They monitor people for suspicious behaviour, before the people realise they are being monitored.
Where did you "check"? There are numerous bodies representing wine makers. Google for "represent wine growers" and you'll see just a few on the first page. They are the ones funding these studies. Every large industry has it's own RIAA equivalent, it's essential in todays world.
It is your belief that is completely false, not the article. Pot causes no long term brain damage. It never been proven, not has any credible study even hinted at it.
I bet you are one of the people walking around with the (false) belief that a glass of red wine per day is good for you. It's not, and the permanent damage of alcohol is well documented. By deffinition, 'getting drunk' involves brain damage. I bet you blame pot for a lot of things, but have no issue with going out for a drink. You are the one sickening us, going around spreading falsehoods.
Are you saying that you have had long term impact? Pot doesn't affect these things outside of being stored, everyone should return to normal after. It's a similar mechanism to he way that getting blind drunk can include memory loss. No one credible has ever said pot has these long term effects.
If you feel that you have these effects all the time from some experiences in your past, you are either imagining up anecdotal evidence, or you have some other medical issue that you are unaware of. It could be your geekish tendances (hey, its /.), as it's been obvesved that regular use of computers and email brings the things you have noticed. Does your usage of the internet correlate to your perceived memory loss?
That would go counter to all of the studies into the subject. The 'drug free America' guys once funded a study on this, to try and promote this idea. The results didn't go their way and they quietly buried the study.
Alcohol fucks your driving up because your risk assessment is broken. Pot does not have that issue, in fact its the opposite. People take less chances, which more than compensates for the slightly slower reactions some people have.
Otherwise, why would you be justifying yourself?
No one is justifying anything, just pointing out many commonly held myths. People believe that pot is bad for you for the same reasons that 60% believe Saddam was behind 9-11. The people promoting these myths know what they are doing. For example, want to stop teenage boys smoking? Why not lie and say it promotes tittie growth? Who wants to be 'girly'?
That's largely a myth, promoted by the wine industry. Truth is, red wine can benefit a small proportion of the population that have a specific blood chemistry. I believe that the benefit is the thinning of the blood, but don't quote me on that.
Ya bunch of shandy drinking lightweight weekend drinkers!! Just last night, in Glasgow, I had to unlock my phone to fire up the mp3 player on the way home from the pub. And use a touch screen do-da. Nae problem!! Practice is all it takes!!
Perhaps the big-girls-blouses down south in that-there Engerland might have issues...? Or anyone who drinks any of that weak stuff that passes for beer in some countries.
Emm, I have my complete schedule on mine, contacts, email. It has cookies to online sites with auto-log in (e.g. eBay). It CAN be used to run up calls until the network can block it, including data calls. With many phones, you can do a hard-reset that brings them to an out-the-box state, including erasing the password. So, a smart crook might manage that, but if they do, my data is wiped. My data is more valuable than the device.
If everyone had a password, phone theft would be less common. I've always had a PIN on my phone, going back at least ten years. If I can't use it, why should the arsehole that nicked it be able to? ;-)
WRT to the article, this would definately interest me. Though I'd prefer a system using perhaps WiFi networks. It would be nice not having to enter the password when at home, if the phone is picking up my network.
Hmm, lets see. One was a bloody civil war tearing the country apart and destroying the lives of millions. The other was a not-so-nice leader, but certainally not the worst on the planet. It was an unprovoked attack which is highly profitable for your nation, strategically and financially.
You really ought to pick up a history book as well. Bosnia was the UN. Not America on it's own. That's what made the difference. The whole world saw the massacres (google "Srebrenica Massacre") and decided to stop it. A peacekeeping force was sent in and the leaders were forced to meet at the negotiation table, ending the war. 200,000 people died, but it could have been FAR worse without the UN.
Not "because I said so", but because the facts were completely different.
There were clear ties between Al Queda and Saddam's regime when it came to terrorist attacks on Western nations.
Nonsense. There were no ties at all. I could name a dozen countries with heavy ties to Al Qaida which you call allies.
You may ignore inconvient facts at your will.
You may ignore reality at your will. If you can find proof of terrorist involvement in Iraq (prior to your invasion), please tell your leaders because they would be anxious to hear it. Then they won't have told quite so many lies to the public.
If you believe this situation applies in any way, shape or form to the United States that I live in, then I understand your utter confusion on other matters.
No, of course not. However, Europe was claimed to be facist which is highly insulting. It's like calling the USA communist. My point was that the USA is far more "facist" than Europe, and that it was a silly accusation to make about us.
And yes, while you are not totalitarist, disagreeing with the government is rare and often frowned upon. It's not repressed of course, but it's not promoted either. Katrina was a strange one in your media circles; many commentators observed that the press actually got a pair of balls and started asking tough questions. It was interesting, but it didn't last.
I could go on for ages about the mechanisms behind this "censor" of unpopular speach in the US (and here in the UK, same situation). To cut a long story short, the press depends on the govenrment for information and access. Pissing them off makes it impossible to do your job. You don't get invited to press pools. You can't get interviews or comments. So, it's not real facism, but the end result is very much the same. What the government says goes, and dissent is discouraged.
Presently I'm tending towards Open Laszlo, but it's flash based which I'm not a fan of. However, if it hides cross-browser issues, then it's a huge plus for me. Laszlo allows e.g. a text note to be bound to an xpath in a memory cached document.
I also appreciate you have a lot of national pride. But I think your view of the world is a little jaded by this. With no disrespect intended, America's responce to the Tsunami wasn't out-of-the-ordinary. The global appeal was massive and many poorer nations gave far more. I'm not belittling the aid you gave, it probably was a lot more than most countries, however you seem to be under the impression that your country is "special" in the world, and that anything it does must be valid. You may see it that way, but others do not.
The US government has been behind many regimes that oppress people. You still are. You have dismantled serval democratic countries because they were socialist leaning, especially in South America. The image of the US liberating the world only exists now in Hollywood. Check the history, read into your foreign policies of the last 50 years. The war in Iraq was not fought for peace, freedom or democracy. Originally it was started because if the immediate threat of WMD, just 45 minutes from our shores. There was no talk of nation building or bringing democracy. There was also a clear disinformation campaign from your leaders. Go and review their speaches. "Iraq", "Saddam", "9-11" and "terror" are said with in the same breath with repeated vigour, thus creating the false idea that Iraq has involvment. It was a complete PR campaign, very dishonest, and surely that must concern you? The last guy got thrown out for lying about a blowjob IIRC! ;-)
The reason that democracy is now being used to sell the war is because of Americas love for it. It is something that you are all educated on it's merits at all levels of education. I consider it quite perverse that it is the admiral "fight for democracy" that is being used to essentially commit armed robbery. Your leaders are some of the most corrupt your country has seen. Almost as bad as Italy's... ;-)
Are there people who still buy that? How quaint. America has overthrown more democracies than you have created. You still support some of the most war like and viscious countries in the world. For example, Saudi Arabia has a vicious dictatorship that gets rid of dissenters quite readilly. You have had several thousand troops in that country protecting that government since the first gulf war. This is the specific reason why Bin Laden attacks you. But it's all about "hating freedom", right?
In the long-term (20+ years) this war will pay dividends in peace all across the world as the citizens of corrupt religion-driven monarachys and dictatorships realize that they don't have to be opressed.
You are a lunatic. This war has done nothing except divide the world in two. It is completely counter productive to the goal you stated.
This is what we are fighting this war for.
That, and the second largest oil reserves on the planet. Google for "peak oil" to learn why this is so strategically important. The peak oil issue is a fact; the only debate left is when the prices will start to go up. The US economy could not handle oil price increases all that well, it's too fundamental to your transit systems for example. The price of oil affects the price of everything.
That is why I think Bush is a great president. He has made the un-popular and painful decision, not because it had a short term payoff, but because of the long term.
Yes, I'm sure he has options in many of the wells that will make him millions over the coming years. The payoff was the elites only however, America as a whole will only suffer as much of the world hates you. Seriously. Things like invading Iraq is why people fly planes into buildings. You can't make them go away through overthrowing governments that had nothing to do with the original 9-11 attack in the first place. Terrorism has never been solved by those methods, only made worse. You've vastly increased the terrorists ranks with this action. You've inspired generations of hatred among some communities.
Who? The US people? Got news for you friend, your government doesn't work for you anymore. They work for those that fund their politcal campaigns. Businessmen who seek things like Return on Investment. Which company board of directors, in it's right mind, would give money away?
Harliburton and their ilk have came out of this just fine. The "costing us" comes from their receipt of your tax dollars. Likewise, the arms industry is sitting pretty. Go check out Harliburtons stock price for the past four years. Go look at the no-bid contracts they have been given. Your vice-president is still drawing a salary from them!!
Has the U.S. done anything at all to squelch internet access? Has France, or Germany, or China, or the host of the conference Tunisia? Hmmm? U.S. zero dings, others many.
Have you not been following the news lately? The US is having a massive crackdown on porn. In France and Germany, they hate facism and nazism. In America, they hate porn. It's all relative. But again, you list a few specific abuses on a "mostly harmless" world and think that makes you righteous. Want me to ring off the names of countries that haven't tried to censor the net?
Now, just why would your prefer that countries that have actively tried to supress web content in other countries (France) or actively suppress their own citizens (China, Tunisia) have any controlling rights at all? Please be specific.
Because no one nation should have that power. Especially one as agressive and distrusted as yours. You've just incited a civil war that has already killed 26,000 civilians, a war that's not going to end any time in the next 3-5 years. Expect it to get worse before it gets better. 26,000. A number never ONCE mentioned on the mainstream news. And you talk of France surpressing information? All of the lies behind the Iraq war justification, where is the media backlash? Where is this wonderful free press fighting for truth and justice? We were lied to, and 10 times as many who died on 9-11 are dead as a result. You are living in a dream world. The America we were brought up to believe in doesn't exist.
Can you list any reasons why we should trust you with it?
You make a very good point, and I completely agree with you. I'm personally not all that bothered about the issue right now, ideally I think we should work together on a decentralised version of DNS as it's the net achillies heel, the one point of centralisation.
However, I am here arguing the "why" behind many peoples feelings on this subject. I don't agree that it should be left in the care of one nation (especially one as distrusted as yours is right now), however I also don't agree that fragmenting it is a good idea either.
I knew it. I'd always figured out the internet was too good to be true and offered so much to humanity. It was inevitable the politicians would fuck it all up for their gain.
Unlike many, I do actually understand how exactly the US government has no influence over ICANN, especially those in the whitehouse. However, things change. Expect to be bombarded with the phrase "cyber-terrorism" over the next five years. Here's one scenario I made up for shits & giggles:
"Bring the internet under direct government control is essential for the freedoms it brings. Cyber-terrorist threaten to attack it and America must defend it in order to ensure the prosperity of our country. People who 'hate our freedom'(tm) seek to put up hate sites to aid terrorists, and because of this we must be able to control them. Today we present a bill giving federal agencies easier access to the internet. All internet sites from now on must be registered against the owners social security number to aid investigators hunt down evil doers. This bill will be called the 'Internet Freedom Act' and those who seek to oppose it are unAmerican and threaten the very freedoms on which our country was founded."
Now, in all seriousness, is any of the above all that unrealistic? I based it largely on how the Patriot Act was passed, perhaps the most unpatriotic law to ever come out of the US legislators.
The worlds economies are now utterly dependant on it. It's too important to be left with people we don't trust to do what's in the worlds best interests. People who are willing to start wars for their own direct strategic and financial gain. Where does dicking around with DNS stand on the scale of moral wrongness? I'd say it was a little easier than starting a war, yes? In short, we have zero faith that someday in the future, your leaders start to interfere with it as a bargaining chip. E.g. not in the collalition of the willing? Bye bye banking system for a day then...and don't say that'll never happen because it wasn't a collalition of the willing; it was a collation of the cajouled. Fiscal blackmail was a part of the "package" at the negotiation table when you were looking for allies/landing strips.
Our fears are based on your actions recently, not unjustified paranoia.
In 2002 pretty much the whole world was on your side. I'm still amazed that your leaders managed to piss away that much goodwill.
Fine, I have no one to blame but us for all this whining. Happily, I can just ignore it! =)
Yes. Let's build walls between us. Personally, I'd rather we got along, but it's kinda hard given the situation. None of us have anything against you or your fellow citizens. Your leaders on the other hand... ;-)
Problem is, things are broke. Due to certain global events, most of the world doesn't trust the USA anymore. In fact, I'd say the attitude is one of fear and suspicion. You were warned this would happen, and you have no one to blame but yourselves.
The show itself is dreadful. The editor is useless, the crew likewise. They show fuck ups and dialog that any self-respecting director would yell "cut" and redo. It's almost as though they just don't care about style. Looked like a cable-access show.
The guys themselves were hicks. I really took an instant dislike to them. They conducted the "experiments" with no professionalism or insight. If they were just blowing stuff up, I wouldn't mind, but they tried to present themselves as some sort of authority on whatever subject they are doing.
I never did finish watching the show. I wouldn't put faith in any of their conclusions.
I concur. For a large complex project, CVS doesn't cut the mustard. It doesn't even keep directory history. Throw in a few remote development sites, and ClearCase really begins to justify itself. It's very complicated and powerful, much like many other computing tools. If you don't know what you are doing, you'll have a hard time setting it up. If you do understand the concepts, you'll sail through the project, with the version control actually adding value as opposed to simply being a historical reference. I've tried to explain the differences to CVS fans on many occasions and most just don't understand the advantages.