I'll give them credit for being a rare Communist dictatorship (oligarchy perhaps?) that did as you say. I think the Polish, Czech, Bulgarian and Hungarian governments did about the same, to their credit.
The Monroe Doctrine is pretty old stuff, but this is not solely US behavior. I don't know where you come from, but European powers were bombing civilians even after WWII to maintain their colonial dominions, and the Soviets were destabilizing countries up until their downfall - and continue to do so now, witness Georgia and the Ukraine recently. For that matter, why do you think the Darfur and Somalia things have persisted for so long - the same thing.
Wishing the world wasn't like this *does not make it so*.
The Sandinistas were not democratically elected. Period. They took over after a bloody coup of Somoza, who was a right-wing scumbag dictator, admittedly.
That doesn't change the fact that you're a propagandist for a bunch of commies.
Note that I carefully used the word 'insurgent' which hopefully isn't emotionally charged either way. People who rebel against their government rarely have the luxury of high ideals and even more rarely live up to claims about their motivations. They are usually motivated by food and/or repression.
You should try getting the story right at least. Accuracy is a basic requirement for being taken seriously. You aren't even close.
The Soviets (Russians) had invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Immediately afterwards, Carter (not Nixon) approved sending arms to the insurgents within the country. This policy was continued by the Reagan Administration. The Soviets withdrew in 1989 with their tails between their legs. This was all above-board, the US made no bones about opposing this and arming the insurgents.
The Sandinista regime in Nicaragua was aligned with Moscow and Havana which was unacceptable to most people in the US. From the instant that the Sandinista regime was in power (1977), there was a homegrown insurgency against the communist-dominated regime. The US began assisting the insurgents shortly thereafter. However, some Massachusetts and NYC Democrat types managed to get a set of amendments collectively called the Boland Amendment tacked onto some other bills which specifically instructed the DoD, CIA and ultimately the rest of the US Government to cease supporting the Contras. In this context, the Iran-Contra Affair occurred. Finally, we get to Ollie North.
I recommend reading the talk page on the Contras. The disagreements there, while profound, are also enlightening to show how much politics affect remembrance of the past.
Sheesh, kids these days. No one remembers the Cold War.
None of us take it seriously in the US. Catholic churches are ghost towns. People go there for weddings and to pay the Church for annullments. A couple grand will do. Woohoo!
Only a paranoid totalitarian state would waste time penetrating Congress. There's not much there that isn't accessible via the news. Anyone who had half a brain would target the Executive branch, where there is data that is not publically accessible.
I can tell you that the Army stopped having food service soldiers a long time ago to save on slots. This is part of the strategy to add more teeth and less tail to the Army as a whole. Most any logistical slot that they can manage has been converted to a contract or GS slot.
Especially in CONUS, you'll never see a soldier pushing a broom, guarding a gate or cooking food unless it is punishment. I'm surprised they still have supply sergeants, but the government's property book regimen pretty much requires a soldier in that role.
Not that I support this form of censorship, but those of us a bit older realize that 18 is an arbitrary number picked to avoid the majority of mortalities associated with childhood stupidity, and probably chosen in an age when 35 or 40 was the average lifespan.
People remain stupid kids for far longer than 18, usually. In my case, into my 30s!
Government contracting is funny business. I couldn't explain briefly why it is strange. Just consider this: the number of people who have the skills you need is finite. The money is funneled through contracts that are let out for particular tasks. The contracts are let out based on who has possession of the finite resource of people. When one wants to take control of said business, one hires off the other company's personnel. Then one convinces someone to let you out a contract. It is byzantine but it is pretty much how things work everywhere.
Also, consider that only US nationals are going to be in competition for this kind of contract for security reasons.
Then, think of who would be interested in this kind of contract. Not all that many companies.
Lastly, only known quantities are generally considered due to risk of nonperformance. There are lots of bidders for low-risk contracts like IT support and food service in safe locations. However, many of those bidders would never be considered because they lack the resources to fulfill the contract. Note that defense contracting tends to be a cartel business where such players as Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and a dozen or so smaller players tend to dominate things for this reason, precisely.
I don't think it's simple like that, actually. Yeah, sure anyone can cook food. Can you deliver it in usable shape? On the way to doing that, can you avoid the Iraqi bureaucracy? Can you assure that things like the lettuce being frozen don't happen? I did not envy those running a DFAC in that environment. They had limited transport capabilities and they had to be precise about ordering - when and how much. One of the big problems AISG had was that their food service head took sick for a couple months and left the food ordering to a lesser personage who basically ordered nothing. Hence, the rotten food.
So yeah, you probably could do it yourself if you had access to the right people with the right skills. It appears KBR has hired most of them up, though.
Halliburton was responsible, amongst other things, for chow halls in Iraq. KBR specifically, a Halliburton subsidiary. Still are, to my knowledge, though Halliburton spun off KBR in early 2007.
Another company, AISG, was responsible for the chow hall at the location I inhabited for about 6 months in 07-08. KBR chow halls were all over the place: they were premier providers of this kind of service. At many of my remote stops, KBR DFACs were available. So I got to sample both in quantity.
Anecdotally, the AISG personnel were mostly inexperienced, except for the most senior leader. The AISG people put out moldy bread for months on end, served decaying cold cuts and ran out of simple things like breakfast cereals, a staple of any chow hall. They also made sure all the lettuce was frozen and white by the time it got to us. The help were all Filipinos except for the leadership. The Filipinos were notorious for sexually harassing a couple soldiers that were detailed to help out with the food service. A frequent comment was "I felt harassed just watching that", referring to the fondling of the soldiers' bodies, who were too terrified and embarrassed to report it properly.
I actually requested MREs from my chain of command. I was refused, but not with disdain, as the issues with the food were well known. We just had an insufficient supply of same to distribute, and had to rely on the crappy food.
The KBR people appeared to have their head withdrawn from their asses and seemed to know what was required to get quality foodstuffs delivered and cooked. The help was US in origin, mostly. The food was solid, not great by US standards but certainly a welcome relief after the rotten stuff at the AISG location. Facilities were well constructed. No rotten anything. Clean, at least clean by Iraqi standards. Adequate washbasins and such (dust is always a problem there, washing is required constantly).
Bottom line, I think the assertion that Halliburton/KBR was the 'only source' for such services might well be true. I have seen when others try: it sucks ass.
His point is that blaming GWB for a choice that was heartily approved of by a fair majority of the population (at the time) is hardly appropriate. He was an instrument of the will of the people - once again, at the time.
Everyone who thinks it was a mistake now needs to absorb that truth.
Robert Plant's LYRICS were pompous and self-indulgent perhaps. 26 minutes of "Dazed and Confused" perhaps also. Jimmy Page's heroin habit was rather self-indulgent too.
But leave the music alone, in general. Page and Jones (Baldwin), between them, were responsible for many of the non-Beatles hits of the 1960s while playing sessions/arranging during that timeframe. What they did with Zeppelin was much, much better.
I enjoyed it up to the point where Abe Lincoln supposedly ran for President in 1858. It was 1860. 1858 was the Senate race against Douglas. I know most of the rest is accurate, but finding a gross inaccuracy like that really destroys the suspense of disbelief required for reading the rest.
The government is only good at making repetitive processes function. Unfortunately, they gild the lily of these repetitive processes over time, increasing the cost and time required.
Some things that have been tried are creating a new agency and abolishing the old one, to streamline the process. This has a limited effect as those hired by the new agency are often the same faces as at the old. The only way to reduce cost and streamline the process would be to privatize it, but the inevitable corruption in this approach would show forth the futility of the entire process.
Mind you, none of this increases safety. This mostly increases perceived safety, and is analogous to the security theater in US airports in this regard. But people are always asking government for things government cannot do, such as assuring safety.
Firm rule: those who malign hardware RAID aren't using the right controllers. The three you list are nowhere near the top of the heap. Try a HP Smart controller for some hardware RAID pleasure.
Then again you were defending the Sun x4100 servers last time I saw you, which also has a POS RAID controller. And crappy disk bandwidth in general.
Well, one good reason is that MAC addresses do not have embedded routing information in them and do not pass off the local network. They were intended for local identification of the interface and have manufacturer information and a serial number in there by default.
Another is that the MAC address space is smaller than the IPv6 space.
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It wasn't 100% true though. At the very least, the debugger existed with its command line, even in the days of yore.
I'll give them credit for being a rare Communist dictatorship (oligarchy perhaps?) that did as you say. I think the Polish, Czech, Bulgarian and Hungarian governments did about the same, to their credit.
The Monroe Doctrine is pretty old stuff, but this is not solely US behavior. I don't know where you come from, but European powers were bombing civilians even after WWII to maintain their colonial dominions, and the Soviets were destabilizing countries up until their downfall - and continue to do so now, witness Georgia and the Ukraine recently. For that matter, why do you think the Darfur and Somalia things have persisted for so long - the same thing.
Wishing the world wasn't like this *does not make it so*.
The Sandinistas were not democratically elected. Period. They took over after a bloody coup of Somoza, who was a right-wing scumbag dictator, admittedly.
That doesn't change the fact that you're a propagandist for a bunch of commies.
Note that I carefully used the word 'insurgent' which hopefully isn't emotionally charged either way. People who rebel against their government rarely have the luxury of high ideals and even more rarely live up to claims about their motivations. They are usually motivated by food and/or repression.
You should try getting the story right at least. Accuracy is a basic requirement for being taken seriously. You aren't even close.
The Soviets (Russians) had invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Immediately afterwards, Carter (not Nixon) approved sending arms to the insurgents within the country. This policy was continued by the Reagan Administration. The Soviets withdrew in 1989 with their tails between their legs. This was all above-board, the US made no bones about opposing this and arming the insurgents.
The Sandinista regime in Nicaragua was aligned with Moscow and Havana which was unacceptable to most people in the US. From the instant that the Sandinista regime was in power (1977), there was a homegrown insurgency against the communist-dominated regime. The US began assisting the insurgents shortly thereafter. However, some Massachusetts and NYC Democrat types managed to get a set of amendments collectively called the Boland Amendment tacked onto some other bills which specifically instructed the DoD, CIA and ultimately the rest of the US Government to cease supporting the Contras. In this context, the Iran-Contra Affair occurred. Finally, we get to Ollie North.
I recommend reading the talk page on the Contras. The disagreements there, while profound, are also enlightening to show how much politics affect remembrance of the past.
Sheesh, kids these days. No one remembers the Cold War.
None of us take it seriously in the US. Catholic churches are ghost towns. People go there for weddings and to pay the Church for annullments. A couple grand will do. Woohoo!
It's known where the attack originated from. No one wants to reveal *how* they know that, so it's left ambiguous.
Shhh. We can't talk about that, yet.
Only a paranoid totalitarian state would waste time penetrating Congress. There's not much there that isn't accessible via the news. Anyone who had half a brain would target the Executive branch, where there is data that is not publically accessible.
Silly commies.
I can tell you that the Army stopped having food service soldiers a long time ago to save on slots. This is part of the strategy to add more teeth and less tail to the Army as a whole. Most any logistical slot that they can manage has been converted to a contract or GS slot.
Especially in CONUS, you'll never see a soldier pushing a broom, guarding a gate or cooking food unless it is punishment. I'm surprised they still have supply sergeants, but the government's property book regimen pretty much requires a soldier in that role.
Not that I support this form of censorship, but those of us a bit older realize that 18 is an arbitrary number picked to avoid the majority of mortalities associated with childhood stupidity, and probably chosen in an age when 35 or 40 was the average lifespan.
People remain stupid kids for far longer than 18, usually. In my case, into my 30s!
Government contracting is funny business. I couldn't explain briefly why it is strange. Just consider this: the number of people who have the skills you need is finite. The money is funneled through contracts that are let out for particular tasks. The contracts are let out based on who has possession of the finite resource of people. When one wants to take control of said business, one hires off the other company's personnel. Then one convinces someone to let you out a contract. It is byzantine but it is pretty much how things work everywhere.
Also, consider that only US nationals are going to be in competition for this kind of contract for security reasons.
Then, think of who would be interested in this kind of contract. Not all that many companies.
Lastly, only known quantities are generally considered due to risk of nonperformance. There are lots of bidders for low-risk contracts like IT support and food service in safe locations. However, many of those bidders would never be considered because they lack the resources to fulfill the contract. Note that defense contracting tends to be a cartel business where such players as Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and a dozen or so smaller players tend to dominate things for this reason, precisely.
I don't think it's simple like that, actually. Yeah, sure anyone can cook food. Can you deliver it in usable shape? On the way to doing that, can you avoid the Iraqi bureaucracy? Can you assure that things like the lettuce being frozen don't happen? I did not envy those running a DFAC in that environment. They had limited transport capabilities and they had to be precise about ordering - when and how much. One of the big problems AISG had was that their food service head took sick for a couple months and left the food ordering to a lesser personage who basically ordered nothing. Hence, the rotten food.
So yeah, you probably could do it yourself if you had access to the right people with the right skills. It appears KBR has hired most of them up, though.
Halliburton was responsible, amongst other things, for chow halls in Iraq. KBR specifically, a Halliburton subsidiary. Still are, to my knowledge, though Halliburton spun off KBR in early 2007.
Another company, AISG, was responsible for the chow hall at the location I inhabited for about 6 months in 07-08. KBR chow halls were all over the place: they were premier providers of this kind of service. At many of my remote stops, KBR DFACs were available. So I got to sample both in quantity.
Anecdotally, the AISG personnel were mostly inexperienced, except for the most senior leader. The AISG people put out moldy bread for months on end, served decaying cold cuts and ran out of simple things like breakfast cereals, a staple of any chow hall. They also made sure all the lettuce was frozen and white by the time it got to us. The help were all Filipinos except for the leadership. The Filipinos were notorious for sexually harassing a couple soldiers that were detailed to help out with the food service. A frequent comment was "I felt harassed just watching that", referring to the fondling of the soldiers' bodies, who were too terrified and embarrassed to report it properly.
I actually requested MREs from my chain of command. I was refused, but not with disdain, as the issues with the food were well known. We just had an insufficient supply of same to distribute, and had to rely on the crappy food.
The KBR people appeared to have their head withdrawn from their asses and seemed to know what was required to get quality foodstuffs delivered and cooked. The help was US in origin, mostly. The food was solid, not great by US standards but certainly a welcome relief after the rotten stuff at the AISG location. Facilities were well constructed. No rotten anything. Clean, at least clean by Iraqi standards. Adequate washbasins and such (dust is always a problem there, washing is required constantly).
Bottom line, I think the assertion that Halliburton/KBR was the 'only source' for such services might well be true. I have seen when others try: it sucks ass.
His point is that blaming GWB for a choice that was heartily approved of by a fair majority of the population (at the time) is hardly appropriate. He was an instrument of the will of the people - once again, at the time.
Everyone who thinks it was a mistake now needs to absorb that truth.
Robert Plant's LYRICS were pompous and self-indulgent perhaps. 26 minutes of "Dazed and Confused" perhaps also. Jimmy Page's heroin habit was rather self-indulgent too.
But leave the music alone, in general. Page and Jones (Baldwin), between them, were responsible for many of the non-Beatles hits of the 1960s while playing sessions/arranging during that timeframe. What they did with Zeppelin was much, much better.
I approve of your sig.
I enjoyed it up to the point where Abe Lincoln supposedly ran for President in 1858. It was 1860. 1858 was the Senate race against Douglas. I know most of the rest is accurate, but finding a gross inaccuracy like that really destroys the suspense of disbelief required for reading the rest.
Load XP on the same hardware and give a honest comparison.
If you are happy with slow, then i'm glad you are. Happy people are a good thing. But Vista is slow.
Yeah, I wanted my 2 minutes back.
The government is only good at making repetitive processes function. Unfortunately, they gild the lily of these repetitive processes over time, increasing the cost and time required.
Some things that have been tried are creating a new agency and abolishing the old one, to streamline the process. This has a limited effect as those hired by the new agency are often the same faces as at the old. The only way to reduce cost and streamline the process would be to privatize it, but the inevitable corruption in this approach would show forth the futility of the entire process.
Mind you, none of this increases safety. This mostly increases perceived safety, and is analogous to the security theater in US airports in this regard. But people are always asking government for things government cannot do, such as assuring safety.
It's a reference to the Royal Albert Hall.
It has about the same relevance as saying how many Libraries of Congress would be filled, though.
Firm rule: those who malign hardware RAID aren't using the right controllers. The three you list are nowhere near the top of the heap. Try a HP Smart controller for some hardware RAID pleasure.
Then again you were defending the Sun x4100 servers last time I saw you, which also has a POS RAID controller. And crappy disk bandwidth in general.
Well, one good reason is that MAC addresses do not have embedded routing information in them and do not pass off the local network. They were intended for local identification of the interface and have manufacturer information and a serial number in there by default.
Another is that the MAC address space is smaller than the IPv6 space.