Riiight. And any criticism from the Democrats, of course, is also motivated by personal animosity. Just a grudge. Pay it no mind.
You say this like the world is divided up into Democrats and Republicans. I'd prefer to listen to people who don't have a vested interest or an axe to grind.
Pat's whole Jewish angle is scary and typical of him, and I'm not in line with his world view at all -- but my personal feelings about his motives don't make the sources he's quoting from go away. These are people close to Bush.
Yeah, he's damn scary. I don't believe his ability to quote objectively or represent opinions. I find the whole global domination angle a tad over the top, and the fact that Pat is it's greatest champion should come as no surprise.
There is a HUGE difference between successfully avoiding the draft (Gore) and pretending to serve and then going AWOL (Bush.)
Yeah, one's a democrat, one's a republican.
One is a common practice defended buy the contentious objector law
Horseshit. Gore didn't file as a CO. He just used family connections to get out, just like Bush did. Who the fuck do you think was the Senator's son in CCR's song "Fortunate One"?
to INVITE attacks on US troops is TREASON
What the hell does that mean? How does one invite attacks on troops? Does one send a card to Osama asking for an RSVP?
Also I do care that the Kennedy's were bootleggers, one son was a pimp who took IV Methamphetamines,
one is a murderer, and one was a stand up guy who got murdered. I would object to Kennedy trying to invade Cuba for the same reasons that I object to Bush invading Iraq. GROUPTHINK? The Bush Whitehouse is the same uber industrial military groupthink from the Ford administration till now.
Well, that's fair at least. Second, it hasn't always been the same bunch in Rep. admins. Bush II is pretty much Reagan. Bush I had mostly different advisors and was much more moderate. The few holdovers Bush II has from Bush I, he's not really listening to (ie, Colin Powell).
I REALLY care about Bush because he is a fascist from a line of fascists. "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." "That trait skips a generation."
Those are dipshit idioms. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be associated with the mistakes made by my old man. Let's judge people on their merits, m'kay?
If you do a semiotic analysis of Bush's "communitarianism" it is the same as fascism. Remember that Mussolini's fascism means "the combination of corporation and government." He meant 1 CEO 1 Dictator, but that was fascism turned up to 11, Bush is fascism turned up to 7. It matters that his grandfather was a Nazi for 3 other reasons. 1.
You do realize you've forgotten to take your lithium, right?
It lead to the Bush Family manufacturing guns for the Rockefellers
I wasn't aware the Rockefellers had an army. And when have the Bush's made anything other than oil?
These people are who WWII vets fought and died to defeat and we hand them the presidency twice.
Did you forget the part about Bush Sr. volunteering to fight in WWII and SHOOTING NAZI'S DOWN??? Man, you have some crackpot schemes here.
My grandfather knew John Foster Dulles and said he was the most evil man in America.
I'll not be taking evidence from gramps, sorry. Also, I don't care.
my great uncle was one of the most famous Nazi sympathizers in the US,
Weren't you the one who said the apple doesn't fall far from the tree? Guess you're a Nazi.
'Besides, your guerillas are our "freedom fighters."'
Armed insurgents are armed insurgents, whether you agree with them or not. To state you have a war on terrorism, then turn around and feed terrorists is hypocritical at best. Such mixed signals cause fury amongst peoples who feel that America is interfering.
Yeah, I was being sarcastic there, I guess that didn't come through on the screeen.;)
My position is that the Sub-saharan nations can't be trusted with arms _because they use them_, not that America supports genocide. If anything, the Rwandan/Hutu conflagration sharply outlined that you can't stop such things by offering 'sweeteners'. Sh*t happens, and it happens with depressing regularity in Africa.
So plan is complete isolationism regarding Africa? Honestly, I think the US would prefer to stay out, but we always get badgered into it by European nations that always bitch that we should be "doing something more" and that "we'd help them if they had oil." Which ignores two things: 1) we've gone into other places with no resources, and 2) africa is very resource-rich, including resources near the surface thanks to the rift valley. It seems not to be a motive, but we always get baited. Somalia was a ball, I'm sure.
Ultimately, I'd probably agree with you: stay the hell out of Africa. At least until someone with some stability comes along. But with the killing that happens in the meantime, those factions that want the US to be the police arm of the UN start screaming bloody murder.
You did mention one person that managed to dupe others, but there's a hell of list of them that have received Western aid while engaging in killing their own populace. This should be a clue. Don't you think that it should supply a clue?
Yes, it should. The problem is that what we don't see are the times where it worked - namely, where there was instability, we backed a side, leader cleaned things up, and there was peace. We don't hear about that because it ceases to be news. So if the west (really, this should be at least a NATO or G7 thing) can solve more problems than it causes, it sounds good to me. Heck, I still don't know if backing Sadaam in 198? was a bad idea, from a net effect standpoint. We don't know what the hell the Ayatollah would have done had he won the war with Iraq.
In the past, we've always had the theory that we could get the dictators to dance for us if we used more carrots than sticks. Obviously, this doesn't always work, as former leaders (as far back as the Eisenhower administration) failed to consider these leaders might actually lie. Maybe a stick would work well with the carrot? I dunno.
I'm just wondering, but are you all the way with said isolationism? Including ignoring famines and such?
so what? block them anyway. unless it's someone you want to get emails from.
Good fucking plan. So you're going to block someone who's not causing the problem, while not blocking the people who are the problem, and setting up a whitelist with the rest of the world pretty much blacklisted. Go for it.
Won't this only work until someone recompiles any and all apps that have the ads in them? How long before packages appear with advertisement-less binaries?
The electoral college did not elect Bush. The Supreme Court elected Bush.
Waaaah! God, it's over two years later, get over it and quit your bitching. Hell, I would argue the Florida court went against clearly written laws to rule for Gore. If you play the bench legislation game, it cuts both ways. Without it, Gore's suit never would have gotten that far.
As for the fairness of the election, there was quite a bit of election interference in the 200 election
I know a number of disenfranchised and convicted felons voted for Gore in FL. That, I believe, was on NPR. Also, Gore fought to get a large number of military ballots stricken. He also only sued for recounts in counties where he had a lead (and presumably the fraction of Gore uncounted votes was the same as the county average). The only fair thing would have been a recount of the entire state, something Gore was NOT interested in. So I don't want to hear it about the Democratic process, as Gore didn't care. He wanted to win.
including having armed police officers waiting to drag away black voters as felons even though they were not,
Were 20,000 black, NON-felon voters not allowed to vote? Evidence, please.
drag away anyone who had unpaid traffic tickets or could not show proof of insurance for an automobile
Let's see that.
Also, any count of the votes which includes all votes cast in FL gives the election to Gore.
Bullshit. They did the recounts in Gore-heavy counties, he still lost. You don't get to try it 10 times until you finally win. The only fair way would have been to do recounts in Bush-heavy counties too. Also, give some evidence for this, I'm not taking your word for it.
don't believe a president who tries to prevent the counting of votes in an election (before he is even president!) is acting in support of democracy or his oath to the Constitution.
I've seen no credible ev for this in 2000, but it's been proven for Kennedy in 1960, the last election that close, thanks to Daley in Chicago, Johnson in TX, and probably Byrd in WV and Inouye (sp?) in HI. Does your analysis extend to Kennedy?
Testimony of Kathi Austin, independent consultant to non-government organizations, and Visiting Scholar, Center for African Studies, Stanford University
I was hoping for documented sources (he doesn't document his, in most cases). That said, I'll go with it with reservations:
"From the get-go, the U.S. government has provided training and support to the military leader of the RPF, General Paul Kagame.
He provides no evidence here. I'd like to see some. What sort of training? When was the get-go? When did it stop? Does it still continue? What sort of support? Weapons? He makes a bold and unsubstantiated statement here.
Most of what I'm seeing is from the VERY beginning an attempt to stabilize the region, get rid of land mines, and provide humanitarian assistance. Damn, that's horrible. It's also nothing like you implied, namely that we're fostering genocide. What's the date on these events?
Pretty much the same thing, which is why I oppose that policy as well. Backchannel arming, advising and training is nothing more than trying to exert influence for diplomatic means. By supporting these regimes, they are given legitimacy.
Then don't blame the US, chic as it seems. Also, it's a damned hard game to play. Everyone wants to foster stability in the region. However, the chances of getting a leader in power who's not a jackass are slim. So the west is left with two unappealing choices: stay out and let them slaughter each other, or get involved, back the stablest faction you can find, and hope they didn't dupe you. And you will sometimes get duped (Sadaam in the 80's). Equating that to support of genocide is irresponsible.
Okay, we've fixed the 'prior to 1989' as 'ancient history', but you didn't even approach the state dept. licenses that totalled around $62 million in 1998 alone in arms supplies to the Great Lakes area.
Didn't see that, might have glanced over it. I know the michigan militias are dangerous, but I see no problem with supplying the great lakes with arms. Okay, I'm being facetious. Assuming you mean the rift valley area, some countries around there are more stable than others. If we were arming the poor bastards with crazy neighbors, that might be a good thing. Besides, even $62M for a "region" ain't much.
Look everyone is getting in a tizzy from what appears to be jingoism. You cannot seriously believe that arming 'resistance fighters' such as the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) doesn't actually fly in the face of a 'war on terror',
From your site: "The Act authorizes to be appropriated $100 million for each of the fiscal years 2003, 2004, and 2005 for assistance to areas outside government control to prepare the population for peace and democratic governance, including support for civil administration, communications infrastructure, education, health, and agriculture."
Now, I know that sometimes "agriculture" isn't agriculture. The statement of that law, however, is peaceful. I'm not dense enough to think that such agreements have never been fronts in the past, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one until I see otherwise.
Besides, your guerillas are our "freedom fighters.";)
If nothing, history has shown, time and time again, that such initiatives allow money to disappear or food aid to be directly supplied to soldiers rather than civilians. Not only that, but they tend to supply allies. If you don't know the geography of the region, go find a map.
Let's not be a dick, m'kay? I'm not an African scholar, but I know a fair amount about the continent, and I know food aid can be subverted. However, you've done nothing but criticize many efforts that can only be qualified as humanitarian. Let's hear your bright ideas, you seem better at attacking than constructing.
Ah, now that finally makes sense. For future reference, people typically find variable names like "1" a tad confusing.
Please note that I am not even going to bother figuring in the cost of building/tearing down TCP/IP etc as you aren't concerned when one big image is split into multiple images on a web page are you?
When we're talking about a system already getting clogged from attacks and stupid bounces, yes. I do think that, as usual, the human costs will be higher.
What I really wanted to point out wasn't when a bounce message is infectios (cause I agree wholeheartedly that sending that "back" infectable is dumb)
It is dumb, but it occurs. I'm not sure what fraction of the time.
It is the JOB of people manning a help desk to correctly educate the users. It takes me as an outside consultant about 1 minute to explain it for even the dumbest users and nobody would run more than 50:1 user:hd ratio. A major virus breaks out, the phone is tied up for an hour. That is COMPLETELY acceptable.
Come on, that's just insane. For one, even granting you the most amazing powers of explanation, the dumbest user is going to glaze over, stare, and nod. You might want to check for actual comprehension, I'd like to see this "stupidest user" a month later when they get a respnse from the next virus. And for what it's worth, your education defeated any purpose of the emails in terms of informative power. The bounce emails are thus either useless or harmful, depending on if they've had someone explain things to them.
And it's not like the IT desk is sitting on their hands waiting for morons to call when a virus hits. Typically, they're damned busy. They really DO NOT need everyone calling them! It's damned easy for you to say, as an outside consultant, because your don't have to DEAL with it. You pick up the pieces later.
Updating your virus software costs nothing. And if you need to pay because you don't have it, then are you saying that people should NOT have the latest AV SW?
No, but a misinformation campaign is hardly a the best way to go about it, for one. And second, while updating AV is free, taking your computer into the shop (yes, dumb people really do that) because you can't figure out what's wrong with it (because nothing is!) is NOT free. If there were an efficient way to tell infected people they're infected, that's great. Or, if the email was more accurate, that would be better. Maybe it could say "This is an automatic message. Either you or someone who has emailed you in the past is infected.," That might be a tad irritating after a while. But what they're doing now is flat irresponsible because it confuses people, despite how well you THINK you're explaining these concepts. And not everyone has benefit of receiving the explanation.
Yes, they don't understand when 50 emails come in saying they have a virus when they really don't... but they need to be responsible for finding out what this SoBig thing is, and every search engine and geek cousin or hired help knows.
Bullshit. A car mechanic, for instance, has no more obligation to know all about the latest virus than you have to know about the latest Ford recall for a fan motor fuse. And this presupposes that they have the savvy and knowledge to ask the appropriate question in the first place! It may surprise you, but not everyone has a geek in the family. And most people want to treat their computer like an appliance, not a hobby. They have the right.
Bottom line is there's no advantage to these emails. I would like to see stats on how many clueless people got that email and really got their shit together. I don't think it's happening. Regardless of how *bad* it is for networks, it's not *good*. And the only people typically skilled enough to use the information (ie, if I'm getting these messages I need to update AV) are those likely to be updating their AV *anyway*.
So we'd all be better off if the AV companies added a bool to their virus defs that would clue their autoresponders into which virus forge headers.
well, it's spam so you block it. even if it's people who know people that have you in their address list, they should be blocked because the person you both know has proven himself irresponsible. I think it's a good thing.
Right. And if the general populace likes being as friendless and isolated as the typical/. reader, that'll be a peach. And what if that asshat's your boss?
Logistically, you have to make that decision for each of your contacts. Logically, even that wouldn't work, as non-techy users 1) don't implement span blocks, and 2) the person whose name is on the header is NOT the one who's infected. So you'll have blocked your entire list for no reason. That's the entire point of this thread.
That's just perspective: you're using a zoom lens because you're so far away, and it's causing foreshortening. Those articles are centre-left from my point of view, and I know people who are WAY WAY left of me, even miles.
I'm glad for you, but that's typical association by similarity. However, as an experiment, your sample is screwed. If you hang around people who think like you, and you assume that the mean political opinion of your friends is "center," you can't expect that this is representative.
The political spectrum is much broader than that offered in the corporate media.
Yes, particularly on the RIGHT. If you consider "center" to be the average views of the average American, the media is typically a bit "left." If you consider "center" to be an average of the NYT and WSJ, you are WAY left.
"The media don't tell you what to think, but they DO tell you what to think about." I forget who told me that (probably Communication Studies 110), but it's relevant.
That's true. And consider what shows like dateline show: problems with health care, unemployment, homelessness, etc. All more liberal concerns, again based on the "average" american. You won't see many shows based on the immigration problem, or our weak legal system letting criminals out of jail when they shouldn't, or other typically conservative agendas. Regardless of where the media is to you, it's left of the "average american." You are very, very left of the average american. There's nothing *wrong* with that. But when I say that the stories on there are all liberal agendas...they are. There's not one that is indicative of the beliefs of a majority of "conservatives" and not by a majority of "liberals."
OK that is troll material, since these are fairly well-researched
What are? Slashdot stories? That's an absolute joke. Submissions to that site? Also pretty funnynd you don't even bother with substantive rebuttals.
I wouldn't know where to start. You give me an example of one that you consider representative, fair, unbiased, and well researched. I'll rebut it.
Gosh, let's see: try this, or you can just check out the Straight Dope, he's a pretty good skeptic. The grandparent post is confusing Prescott with the rest of his family, although they all benefited from dealing with the Nazis.
Wow. Who cares. Don't forget the part about GHWB being a war hero who flew fighter jets, got shot down, lived, and flew again. If we're going to blame Bush II for his grandfather, give him credit for his father's "Nazi" actions. Namely shooting them.
some of this story's discussion would qualify! Lots of liberal-baiting, with nary a substantive rebuttal in sight, lots of kneeJerks.
And make sure to keep just as open a mind for it too.
Wow, do you actually believe that it's extremist to be concerned that people don't know that their non-elected government has planned global domination by force for decades, and that their current actions are falsely justified? That concern is extremist? Wow.
No, but painting that picture from the obscenely shitty evidence portrayed is. Some people hear a conspiracy in a dial tone (I stole that from an old straight dope article, circa 88 btw). Non-elected? That's not baiting. We have the electoral college, the election was fair. As they say in the hood, don't hate the player. Hate the game. Planning global domination? That's a little nutso. What's the evidence for that? ANd I want *real* evidence, not some bullshit from a site that also has picture of UFO's.
Gonna have to disagree with your conclusion. When you have x^y where x is the size/impact of a single letter and y is the branching factor (average number of recipients per message) than (x+1)^y isn't a great difference. You see what I am saying?
No, the math's still off. If x is the so big rate, and y is the exponential propogation rate, and A is the AV copmany's market share (between 0 and 1), the rate of propogation of Sobig is x^y. The rate of propogation of bounces is A(x^y). So the propogation rate of sobig + bounces is (1+A)(x^y), not (x+1)^y. Actually, if I amended your math, it would be worse (your formula assumes that a bounce can be branched). There, it would be (x+Ax)^y. And that would be a phenomenal impact. The way you write the formula (x+1)^y, it assumes that only one bounce were ever sent. If that were the case, no one would worry. But it's not. And if you take the derivative of my amended version of your formula, which is the incremental impact per message sent, it increases exponentially too. Think about that. I can do the calculus too if you like. Either way, it's bad. At best the impact is a constant fraction of the sobig rate. At worst, they work together geometrically.
What does one do if they think they have a virus? If they are in a corporate environment, they ping the help desk (and that would be ONCE per person, regardless of the number of emails they get).
Yeah, and in a large environment of thousands of people, that's *exactly* what the help desk needs. Trust me, I know some of these people, and it's driving them nuts.
If they are a home user, they make sure they have updated virus software. If they are clueless, then they will take it somewhere and get anti-virus software installed.
And if they were already up-to-date, then they just paid money for nothing. And once they get up-to-date and know they're OK, and they keep getting messages, they learn to ignore them. So when another message comes out that they're not prepared for, they think they are.
Just curious, would you put all Canada's parties to the left because they support public healthcare and the Kyoto accord (except for the Reform Party which favours a two-tiered health system and no Kyoto)?
It's hard to say, partly because America and Canada have different geographies. Not being overly xenophobic, but Canada doesn't border Mexico. America has to balance between attempting to help its own poor with realizing that under the interpretation of the constitution we can't restrict anything to citizens. As such, any program we institute is very expensive. Also, our population is roughly 10x that of Canada, and bureaucracies scale. We can't implement any large social program right, and there are those (ie, me) that would rather see us not try and not pay for it than pay for it and screw it up more than it is now.
So I would say that public health care would be more of a moderate position if mexico wasn't there (or if it were better developed). As it is, it's more leftist. Kyoto I think was originally a middle left agenda, but became more leftist as the moderate supporters abandoned it due to the fact that 1) the unindustrialized world didn't contribute really, and 2) the goals were a tad ambitious.
That said, I'll have to claim a bit of ignorance on Canada's system. Honestly, America's media could give a damn what happens politically elsewhere. That said, I'm at least interested, so what's the difference between the major Canadian parties in terms of ideology?
When looking at a virus that is spreading not linearly, but geometrically, this double-sized payload begins to have little total impact.
Nope. Because the bounce rate is simply a linear factor of (market share of idiot AV vendor) * (virus propogation rage). So if the virus goes geometric, so does the bounce rate.
We aren't talking MB of data, we're talking a couple KB per message.
Remember the total overhead of sending a message as well.
I suggest that at the very least, users get the message that there is something going on (even it it isn't there particular machine that is affected)
That's *NOT* a good thing. If users get appropriate info, fine. But telling someone to upgrade when they could be just fine isn't good. People will start taking computers in for repair when they don't need them. Confusing people with constant virus warnings will make them blase about it and leave them with less information than they had before.
but I find it a weak argument to blame the worm problem on anti-virus software without giving numbers of how much bounces actually added to the problem
I don't. Their contribution to the problem is only limited to their marketshare. Any antivirus can block the viruses - but using these idiots over better competitors results in how many *illions of extra messages? Not to mention the confusion it creates on behalf of less savvy recipients. How many people paid for tech service on their "infected" computers only to discover they were fine?
Under any circumstances, I don't find this behavior acceptable.
Define what you mean by "back" here. Most news sources bend over backwards to say nothing at all that could be construed as support for one side or the other.
Most newspapers (or at least many) end up officially backing a candidate in the op-ed section. And failing that, the NYT never fails to do a hatchet job on Republicans. I don't necessarily disagree when they do, but it's still a slant.
Also, the Washington Post was run for many years by Catherine Graham, a friend of Lyndon Johnson. She is on record as never voting Republican. Indeed, she claimed not to even know anyone who voted for Nixon over McGovern, who lost in a landslide. Point is that the leadership of most papers is overwhelmingly Democrat. And while they may, or may not, bend over backward, few people are capable of overcoming their own personal bias when reporting.
180 degrees means a full turnaround. Let's see, in 1996 Pat was to the right of the Republican party. You've just said he's now an ultra-liberal. Writing "liberal propaganda" for American Conservative magazine. That weasel!
The 180 was on his war hawk stance. I could be very mistaken, but I though he was gung ho on the first gulf war. His new stance does fit with his isolationism, but there have been many republicans who saw no problem with the apparant contradiction of being militarily expansionist and economically isolationist.
I honestly think he's just taking potshots at the party for effectively booting him, and because he has a massive ego and can't stand being out of the limelight. Hell, that's why he ran in 2000. Reform my ass - if Buchanan is the reform, I don't even want to know what the actual problem is.
That's not to say he's necessarily wrong - however, I'm always wary about listening to people with such a clear axe to grind.
The proper way to define 'center' would probably be to look at all the viewpoints out there and find a middle ground. Relative to the far-right and far-left wackos, you'll find that both American parties are to the right.
If you define "out there" to be America, then that statement isn't even self consistent - an overwhelming fraction of Americans vote for one party or the other. Counting Europe as "out there," I'd put the democrats roughly center, republicans obviously right.
Of course, the 1-dimensional axis is hardly adequate for this. The political compass looks at a 2-dimensional classification with economic left/right and authoritarian/libertarian axes.
That's true - I've taken that before and it's fun. I took it again and came out Econ:-0.38, L/A -3.74. I'm al for corporate AND personal responsibility, and stay out of my personal life.
Also remember that this "liberal media" never grilled the current Bush on his war record, (being put on the "Champagne Flight" the name for the Texas Air National Guard, or that he went AWOL from it when he ran for congress (and lost) in Texas.
They couldn't, because 1) liberals never win on a war angle, and 2) Gore spent the war hundreds of miles behind the lines as a "journalist" thanks to his father, Sen. A. Gore Sr.
Did you know that the Bush family was charged under the "Trading with the Enemy Act" and had all of their possessions taken away from them?
First, Bush Jr. wasn't even alive in WWII, so that's just moronic to criticize him over. Did you know that Kennedy's father was a bootlegger and a racketeer? No? Do you care? Second, let's see some evidence, the Bushes aren't even German.
And for the record there is something wrong with being liberal.
No, but claiming it as representative or "news" is. When you have an extremist position and no one cares what you have to say, don't complain when no one listens. That's not censorship, that's just supply/demand in the marketplace of ideas.
Paranoid people find the holes, paranoid liberals are the Linux hackers of our social fabric.
I think you're overinflating the importance of yourself and people like you. For that to be consistent, you'd have to at least include paranoid conservatives as well, but I suspect you don't want to listen to them. Put your money where your mouth is and make sure to read some ultra-conservative propaganda as well. Otherwise you're simply a hypocrite.
I do think that the Democrats are too conservative. I find the republicans slightly more so.
Hey, me too (in most ways), but that's where center is. I would say though, that most republicans (sitting president excepted) are getting a bit more liberal over the years. Dems have gotten very conservative over last 10 years. The result is what we have now, yaaaay!
Slashdot Mirror
But not him. Problem NOT solved. And really, for anyone who actually has a damn job, that's not an option.
You say this like the world is divided up into Democrats and Republicans. I'd prefer to listen to people who don't have a vested interest or an axe to grind.
Pat's whole Jewish angle is scary and typical of him, and I'm not in line with his world view at all -- but my personal feelings about his motives don't make the sources he's quoting from go away. These are people close to Bush.
Yeah, he's damn scary. I don't believe his ability to quote objectively or represent opinions. I find the whole global domination angle a tad over the top, and the fact that Pat is it's greatest champion should come as no surprise.
Yeah, one's a democrat, one's a republican.
One is a common practice defended buy the contentious objector law
Horseshit. Gore didn't file as a CO. He just used family connections to get out, just like Bush did. Who the fuck do you think was the Senator's son in CCR's song "Fortunate One"?
to INVITE attacks on US troops is TREASON
What the hell does that mean? How does one invite attacks on troops? Does one send a card to Osama asking for an RSVP?
Also I do care that the Kennedy's were bootleggers, one son was a pimp who took IV Methamphetamines, one is a murderer, and one was a stand up guy who got murdered. I would object to Kennedy trying to invade Cuba for the same reasons that I object to Bush invading Iraq. GROUPTHINK? The Bush Whitehouse is the same uber industrial military groupthink from the Ford administration till now.
Well, that's fair at least. Second, it hasn't always been the same bunch in Rep. admins. Bush II is pretty much Reagan. Bush I had mostly different advisors and was much more moderate. The few holdovers Bush II has from Bush I, he's not really listening to (ie, Colin Powell).
I REALLY care about Bush because he is a fascist from a line of fascists. "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." "That trait skips a generation."
Those are dipshit idioms. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be associated with the mistakes made by my old man. Let's judge people on their merits, m'kay?
If you do a semiotic analysis of Bush's "communitarianism" it is the same as fascism. Remember that Mussolini's fascism means "the combination of corporation and government." He meant 1 CEO 1 Dictator, but that was fascism turned up to 11, Bush is fascism turned up to 7. It matters that his grandfather was a Nazi for 3 other reasons. 1.
You do realize you've forgotten to take your lithium, right?
It lead to the Bush Family manufacturing guns for the Rockefellers
I wasn't aware the Rockefellers had an army. And when have the Bush's made anything other than oil?
These people are who WWII vets fought and died to defeat and we hand them the presidency twice.
Did you forget the part about Bush Sr. volunteering to fight in WWII and SHOOTING NAZI'S DOWN??? Man, you have some crackpot schemes here.
My grandfather knew John Foster Dulles and said he was the most evil man in America.
I'll not be taking evidence from gramps, sorry. Also, I don't care.
my great uncle was one of the most famous Nazi sympathizers in the US,
Weren't you the one who said the apple doesn't fall far from the tree? Guess you're a Nazi.
Armed insurgents are armed insurgents, whether you agree with them or not. To state you have a war on terrorism, then turn around and feed terrorists is hypocritical at best. Such mixed signals cause fury amongst peoples who feel that America is interfering.
Yeah, I was being sarcastic there, I guess that didn't come through on the screeen. ;)
My position is that the Sub-saharan nations can't be trusted with arms _because they use them_, not that America supports genocide. If anything, the Rwandan/Hutu conflagration sharply outlined that you can't stop such things by offering 'sweeteners'. Sh*t happens, and it happens with depressing regularity in Africa.
So plan is complete isolationism regarding Africa? Honestly, I think the US would prefer to stay out, but we always get badgered into it by European nations that always bitch that we should be "doing something more" and that "we'd help them if they had oil." Which ignores two things: 1) we've gone into other places with no resources, and 2) africa is very resource-rich, including resources near the surface thanks to the rift valley. It seems not to be a motive, but we always get baited. Somalia was a ball, I'm sure.
Ultimately, I'd probably agree with you: stay the hell out of Africa. At least until someone with some stability comes along. But with the killing that happens in the meantime, those factions that want the US to be the police arm of the UN start screaming bloody murder.
You did mention one person that managed to dupe others, but there's a hell of list of them that have received Western aid while engaging in killing their own populace. This should be a clue. Don't you think that it should supply a clue?
Yes, it should. The problem is that what we don't see are the times where it worked - namely, where there was instability, we backed a side, leader cleaned things up, and there was peace. We don't hear about that because it ceases to be news. So if the west (really, this should be at least a NATO or G7 thing) can solve more problems than it causes, it sounds good to me. Heck, I still don't know if backing Sadaam in 198? was a bad idea, from a net effect standpoint. We don't know what the hell the Ayatollah would have done had he won the war with Iraq.
In the past, we've always had the theory that we could get the dictators to dance for us if we used more carrots than sticks. Obviously, this doesn't always work, as former leaders (as far back as the Eisenhower administration) failed to consider these leaders might actually lie. Maybe a stick would work well with the carrot? I dunno.
I'm just wondering, but are you all the way with said isolationism? Including ignoring famines and such?
Good fucking plan. So you're going to block someone who's not causing the problem, while not blocking the people who are the problem, and setting up a whitelist with the rest of the world pretty much blacklisted. Go for it.
Damn that GPL! ;)
Let's hear it for country's original badass.
And yes, mods, I know I'm offtopic. I don't give a shit.
Waaaah! God, it's over two years later, get over it and quit your bitching. Hell, I would argue the Florida court went against clearly written laws to rule for Gore. If you play the bench legislation game, it cuts both ways. Without it, Gore's suit never would have gotten that far.
As for the fairness of the election, there was quite a bit of election interference in the 200 election
I know a number of disenfranchised and convicted felons voted for Gore in FL. That, I believe, was on NPR. Also, Gore fought to get a large number of military ballots stricken. He also only sued for recounts in counties where he had a lead (and presumably the fraction of Gore uncounted votes was the same as the county average). The only fair thing would have been a recount of the entire state, something Gore was NOT interested in. So I don't want to hear it about the Democratic process, as Gore didn't care. He wanted to win.
including having armed police officers waiting to drag away black voters as felons even though they were not,
Were 20,000 black, NON-felon voters not allowed to vote? Evidence, please.
drag away anyone who had unpaid traffic tickets or could not show proof of insurance for an automobile
Let's see that.
Also, any count of the votes which includes all votes cast in FL gives the election to Gore.
Bullshit. They did the recounts in Gore-heavy counties, he still lost. You don't get to try it 10 times until you finally win. The only fair way would have been to do recounts in Bush-heavy counties too. Also, give some evidence for this, I'm not taking your word for it.
don't believe a president who tries to prevent the counting of votes in an election (before he is even president!) is acting in support of democracy or his oath to the Constitution.
I've seen no credible ev for this in 2000, but it's been proven for Kennedy in 1960, the last election that close, thanks to Daley in Chicago, Johnson in TX, and probably Byrd in WV and Inouye (sp?) in HI. Does your analysis extend to Kennedy?
I was hoping for documented sources (he doesn't document his, in most cases). That said, I'll go with it with reservations:
"From the get-go, the U.S. government has provided training and support to the military leader of the RPF, General Paul Kagame.
He provides no evidence here. I'd like to see some. What sort of training? When was the get-go? When did it stop? Does it still continue? What sort of support? Weapons? He makes a bold and unsubstantiated statement here.
Most of what I'm seeing is from the VERY beginning an attempt to stabilize the region, get rid of land mines, and provide humanitarian assistance. Damn, that's horrible. It's also nothing like you implied, namely that we're fostering genocide. What's the date on these events?
Pretty much the same thing, which is why I oppose that policy as well. Backchannel arming, advising and training is nothing more than trying to exert influence for diplomatic means. By supporting these regimes, they are given legitimacy.
Then don't blame the US, chic as it seems. Also, it's a damned hard game to play. Everyone wants to foster stability in the region. However, the chances of getting a leader in power who's not a jackass are slim. So the west is left with two unappealing choices: stay out and let them slaughter each other, or get involved, back the stablest faction you can find, and hope they didn't dupe you. And you will sometimes get duped (Sadaam in the 80's). Equating that to support of genocide is irresponsible.
Okay, we've fixed the 'prior to 1989' as 'ancient history', but you didn't even approach the state dept. licenses that totalled around $62 million in 1998 alone in arms supplies to the Great Lakes area.
Didn't see that, might have glanced over it. I know the michigan militias are dangerous, but I see no problem with supplying the great lakes with arms. Okay, I'm being facetious. Assuming you mean the rift valley area, some countries around there are more stable than others. If we were arming the poor bastards with crazy neighbors, that might be a good thing. Besides, even $62M for a "region" ain't much.
Look everyone is getting in a tizzy from what appears to be jingoism. You cannot seriously believe that arming 'resistance fighters' such as the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) doesn't actually fly in the face of a 'war on terror',
From your site: "The Act authorizes to be appropriated $100 million for each of the fiscal years 2003, 2004, and 2005 for assistance to areas outside government control to prepare the population for peace and democratic governance, including support for civil administration, communications infrastructure, education, health, and agriculture."
Now, I know that sometimes "agriculture" isn't agriculture. The statement of that law, however, is peaceful. I'm not dense enough to think that such agreements have never been fronts in the past, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one until I see otherwise.
Besides, your guerillas are our "freedom fighters." ;)
If nothing, history has shown, time and time again, that such initiatives allow money to disappear or food aid to be directly supplied to soldiers rather than civilians. Not only that, but they tend to supply allies. If you don't know the geography of the region, go find a map.
Let's not be a dick, m'kay? I'm not an African scholar, but I know a fair amount about the continent, and I know food aid can be subverted. However, you've done nothing but criticize many efforts that can only be qualified as humanitarian. Let's hear your bright ideas, you seem better at attacking than constructing.
Ah, now that finally makes sense. For future reference, people typically find variable names like "1" a tad confusing.
Please note that I am not even going to bother figuring in the cost of building/tearing down TCP/IP etc as you aren't concerned when one big image is split into multiple images on a web page are you?
When we're talking about a system already getting clogged from attacks and stupid bounces, yes. I do think that, as usual, the human costs will be higher.
What I really wanted to point out wasn't when a bounce message is infectios (cause I agree wholeheartedly that sending that "back" infectable is dumb)
It is dumb, but it occurs. I'm not sure what fraction of the time.
It is the JOB of people manning a help desk to correctly educate the users. It takes me as an outside consultant about 1 minute to explain it for even the dumbest users and nobody would run more than 50:1 user:hd ratio. A major virus breaks out, the phone is tied up for an hour. That is COMPLETELY acceptable.
Come on, that's just insane. For one, even granting you the most amazing powers of explanation, the dumbest user is going to glaze over, stare, and nod. You might want to check for actual comprehension, I'd like to see this "stupidest user" a month later when they get a respnse from the next virus. And for what it's worth, your education defeated any purpose of the emails in terms of informative power. The bounce emails are thus either useless or harmful, depending on if they've had someone explain things to them.
And it's not like the IT desk is sitting on their hands waiting for morons to call when a virus hits. Typically, they're damned busy. They really DO NOT need everyone calling them! It's damned easy for you to say, as an outside consultant, because your don't have to DEAL with it. You pick up the pieces later.
Updating your virus software costs nothing. And if you need to pay because you don't have it, then are you saying that people should NOT have the latest AV SW?
No, but a misinformation campaign is hardly a the best way to go about it, for one. And second, while updating AV is free, taking your computer into the shop (yes, dumb people really do that) because you can't figure out what's wrong with it (because nothing is!) is NOT free. If there were an efficient way to tell infected people they're infected, that's great. Or, if the email was more accurate, that would be better. Maybe it could say "This is an automatic message. Either you or someone who has emailed you in the past is infected.," That might be a tad irritating after a while. But what they're doing now is flat irresponsible because it confuses people, despite how well you THINK you're explaining these concepts. And not everyone has benefit of receiving the explanation.
Yes, they don't understand when 50 emails come in saying they have a virus when they really don't... but they need to be responsible for finding out what this SoBig thing is, and every search engine and geek cousin or hired help knows.
Bullshit. A car mechanic, for instance, has no more obligation to know all about the latest virus than you have to know about the latest Ford recall for a fan motor fuse. And this presupposes that they have the savvy and knowledge to ask the appropriate question in the first place! It may surprise you, but not everyone has a geek in the family. And most people want to treat their computer like an appliance, not a hobby. They have the right.
Bottom line is there's no advantage to these emails. I would like to see stats on how many clueless people got that email and really got their shit together. I don't think it's happening. Regardless of how *bad* it is for networks, it's not *good*. And the only people typically skilled enough to use the information (ie, if I'm getting these messages I need to update AV) are those likely to be updating their AV *anyway*.
So we'd all be better off if the AV companies added a bool to their virus defs that would clue their autoresponders into which virus forge headers.
Right. And if the general populace likes being as friendless and isolated as the typical /. reader, that'll be a peach. And what if that asshat's your boss?
Logistically, you have to make that decision for each of your contacts. Logically, even that wouldn't work, as non-techy users 1) don't implement span blocks, and 2) the person whose name is on the header is NOT the one who's infected. So you'll have blocked your entire list for no reason. That's the entire point of this thread.
A circle jerk! Hey, remember not to eat the soggy cracker...
I'm glad for you, but that's typical association by similarity. However, as an experiment, your sample is screwed. If you hang around people who think like you, and you assume that the mean political opinion of your friends is "center," you can't expect that this is representative.
The political spectrum is much broader than that offered in the corporate media.
Yes, particularly on the RIGHT. If you consider "center" to be the average views of the average American, the media is typically a bit "left." If you consider "center" to be an average of the NYT and WSJ, you are WAY left.
"The media don't tell you what to think, but they DO tell you what to think about." I forget who told me that (probably Communication Studies 110), but it's relevant.
That's true. And consider what shows like dateline show: problems with health care, unemployment, homelessness, etc. All more liberal concerns, again based on the "average" american. You won't see many shows based on the immigration problem, or our weak legal system letting criminals out of jail when they shouldn't, or other typically conservative agendas. Regardless of where the media is to you, it's left of the "average american." You are very, very left of the average american. There's nothing *wrong* with that. But when I say that the stories on there are all liberal agendas...they are. There's not one that is indicative of the beliefs of a majority of "conservatives" and not by a majority of "liberals."
OK that is troll material, since these are fairly well-researched
What are? Slashdot stories? That's an absolute joke. Submissions to that site? Also pretty funnynd you don't even bother with substantive rebuttals.
I wouldn't know where to start. You give me an example of one that you consider representative, fair, unbiased, and well researched. I'll rebut it.
Wow. Who cares. Don't forget the part about GHWB being a war hero who flew fighter jets, got shot down, lived, and flew again. If we're going to blame Bush II for his grandfather, give him credit for his father's "Nazi" actions. Namely shooting them.
some of this story's discussion would qualify! Lots of liberal-baiting, with nary a substantive rebuttal in sight, lots of kneeJerks.
And make sure to keep just as open a mind for it too.
Wow, do you actually believe that it's extremist to be concerned that people don't know that their non-elected government has planned global domination by force for decades, and that their current actions are falsely justified? That concern is extremist? Wow.
No, but painting that picture from the obscenely shitty evidence portrayed is. Some people hear a conspiracy in a dial tone (I stole that from an old straight dope article, circa 88 btw). Non-elected? That's not baiting. We have the electoral college, the election was fair. As they say in the hood, don't hate the player. Hate the game. Planning global domination? That's a little nutso. What's the evidence for that? ANd I want *real* evidence, not some bullshit from a site that also has picture of UFO's.
No, the math's still off. If x is the so big rate, and y is the exponential propogation rate, and A is the AV copmany's market share (between 0 and 1), the rate of propogation of Sobig is x^y. The rate of propogation of bounces is A(x^y). So the propogation rate of sobig + bounces is (1+A)(x^y), not (x+1)^y. Actually, if I amended your math, it would be worse (your formula assumes that a bounce can be branched). There, it would be (x+Ax)^y. And that would be a phenomenal impact. The way you write the formula (x+1)^y, it assumes that only one bounce were ever sent. If that were the case, no one would worry. But it's not. And if you take the derivative of my amended version of your formula, which is the incremental impact per message sent, it increases exponentially too. Think about that. I can do the calculus too if you like. Either way, it's bad. At best the impact is a constant fraction of the sobig rate. At worst, they work together geometrically.
What does one do if they think they have a virus? If they are in a corporate environment, they ping the help desk (and that would be ONCE per person, regardless of the number of emails they get).
Yeah, and in a large environment of thousands of people, that's *exactly* what the help desk needs. Trust me, I know some of these people, and it's driving them nuts.
If they are a home user, they make sure they have updated virus software. If they are clueless, then they will take it somewhere and get anti-virus software installed.
And if they were already up-to-date, then they just paid money for nothing. And once they get up-to-date and know they're OK, and they keep getting messages, they learn to ignore them. So when another message comes out that they're not prepared for, they think they are.
It's hard to say, partly because America and Canada have different geographies. Not being overly xenophobic, but Canada doesn't border Mexico. America has to balance between attempting to help its own poor with realizing that under the interpretation of the constitution we can't restrict anything to citizens. As such, any program we institute is very expensive. Also, our population is roughly 10x that of Canada, and bureaucracies scale. We can't implement any large social program right, and there are those (ie, me) that would rather see us not try and not pay for it than pay for it and screw it up more than it is now.
So I would say that public health care would be more of a moderate position if mexico wasn't there (or if it were better developed). As it is, it's more leftist. Kyoto I think was originally a middle left agenda, but became more leftist as the moderate supporters abandoned it due to the fact that 1) the unindustrialized world didn't contribute really, and 2) the goals were a tad ambitious.
That said, I'll have to claim a bit of ignorance on Canada's system. Honestly, America's media could give a damn what happens politically elsewhere. That said, I'm at least interested, so what's the difference between the major Canadian parties in terms of ideology?
Nope. Because the bounce rate is simply a linear factor of (market share of idiot AV vendor) * (virus propogation rage). So if the virus goes geometric, so does the bounce rate.
We aren't talking MB of data, we're talking a couple KB per message.
Remember the total overhead of sending a message as well.
I suggest that at the very least, users get the message that there is something going on (even it it isn't there particular machine that is affected)
That's *NOT* a good thing. If users get appropriate info, fine. But telling someone to upgrade when they could be just fine isn't good. People will start taking computers in for repair when they don't need them. Confusing people with constant virus warnings will make them blase about it and leave them with less information than they had before.
is a Good Thing(tm).
Like insider trading, Martha? ;)
...if you prefer discrete integer variables, you could go with the number of chins. That kid had about 4.
I don't. Their contribution to the problem is only limited to their marketshare. Any antivirus can block the viruses - but using these idiots over better competitors results in how many *illions of extra messages? Not to mention the confusion it creates on behalf of less savvy recipients. How many people paid for tech service on their "infected" computers only to discover they were fine?
Under any circumstances, I don't find this behavior acceptable.
Most newspapers (or at least many) end up officially backing a candidate in the op-ed section. And failing that, the NYT never fails to do a hatchet job on Republicans. I don't necessarily disagree when they do, but it's still a slant.
Also, the Washington Post was run for many years by Catherine Graham, a friend of Lyndon Johnson. She is on record as never voting Republican. Indeed, she claimed not to even know anyone who voted for Nixon over McGovern, who lost in a landslide. Point is that the leadership of most papers is overwhelmingly Democrat. And while they may, or may not, bend over backward, few people are capable of overcoming their own personal bias when reporting.
Hell, look how the moderators act around here.
The 180 was on his war hawk stance. I could be very mistaken, but I though he was gung ho on the first gulf war. His new stance does fit with his isolationism, but there have been many republicans who saw no problem with the apparant contradiction of being militarily expansionist and economically isolationist.
I honestly think he's just taking potshots at the party for effectively booting him, and because he has a massive ego and can't stand being out of the limelight. Hell, that's why he ran in 2000. Reform my ass - if Buchanan is the reform, I don't even want to know what the actual problem is.
That's not to say he's necessarily wrong - however, I'm always wary about listening to people with such a clear axe to grind.
If you define "out there" to be America, then that statement isn't even self consistent - an overwhelming fraction of Americans vote for one party or the other. Counting Europe as "out there," I'd put the democrats roughly center, republicans obviously right.
Of course, the 1-dimensional axis is hardly adequate for this. The political compass looks at a 2-dimensional classification with economic left/right and authoritarian/libertarian axes.
That's true - I've taken that before and it's fun. I took it again and came out Econ:-0.38, L/A -3.74. I'm al for corporate AND personal responsibility, and stay out of my personal life.
Your claim, not mine. So show me 2.5 billion people.
They couldn't, because 1) liberals never win on a war angle, and 2) Gore spent the war hundreds of miles behind the lines as a "journalist" thanks to his father, Sen. A. Gore Sr.
Did you know that the Bush family was charged under the "Trading with the Enemy Act" and had all of their possessions taken away from them?
First, Bush Jr. wasn't even alive in WWII, so that's just moronic to criticize him over. Did you know that Kennedy's father was a bootlegger and a racketeer? No? Do you care? Second, let's see some evidence, the Bushes aren't even German.
And for the record there is something wrong with being liberal.
No, but claiming it as representative or "news" is. When you have an extremist position and no one cares what you have to say, don't complain when no one listens. That's not censorship, that's just supply/demand in the marketplace of ideas.
Paranoid people find the holes, paranoid liberals are the Linux hackers of our social fabric.
I think you're overinflating the importance of yourself and people like you. For that to be consistent, you'd have to at least include paranoid conservatives as well, but I suspect you don't want to listen to them. Put your money where your mouth is and make sure to read some ultra-conservative propaganda as well. Otherwise you're simply a hypocrite.
Hey, me too (in most ways), but that's where center is. I would say though, that most republicans (sitting president excepted) are getting a bit more liberal over the years. Dems have gotten very conservative over last 10 years. The result is what we have now, yaaaay!