Hiroshima had industrial targets, this much is true. It was not however, a "military base". Pretty much any city in a wartime nation has some targets of military value, that does not make the city itself a military base. Would you call Chicago a military base in and of itself? Would you call an attack or a bombing of Chicago to be an attack against a military base?
"Truman specifically avoided targeting purely civilian locations, including an order that Tokyo and Kyoto not be on the list."
Tokyo was pretty much decimated because of the fire-bombings. If it had not been for that it too would not have been "purely civilian". I don't know how much more of a pure civilian target you can get than dropping a nuclear warhead in the center of a large populated city consisting mostly of civilians.
Let's take a look at more of the radio adress by Truman.
"The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians. But that attack is only a warning of things to come. If Japan does not surrender, bombs will have to be dropped on her war industries and, unfortunately, thousands of civilian lives will be lost."
This seems almost to suggest that the attack on Hiroshima was almost purely against a military target, and "thousands" of lives hadn't already been lost. Certainly seems to downplay the attack in my view.
"Nagasaki was the second target of its day, and was a significant military port."
Why not just attack the military targets in these two cities? Nuclear bombing was for the purpose of destroying the military targets? It most certainly was not military targets that the bombs were needed for. It was an attack on civilian populations, (and if the officially stated reasons are the only ones), an attack to frighten and terrorize the Japanese into submission through it's sheer devestation to entire cities, not as an attack on valid military targets to stop the military.
"Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare."
So those who do not follow the rules of war, need to have nuclear weapons dropped on their civilians? That is part of the justification? Surely "intentional" killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians, for any reason, is against what anyone would consider the rules of war. But it is justified because the other side did bad things? If we care so much about the rules of war, and treating soldiers, as well as civilians decently, we would not have to stoop to such tactics.
"Had Japan been considering a conditional surrender?"
Secretary Togo was talking to the USSR, the only major nation they were still at peace with, in order to act as an intermediary with the USA. The US, having cracked the Japanese codes, was aware of this and learned of it prior to Potsdam. Efforts were being made by the new civilian government of Japan, (Tojo and the power structure had resigned in shame), to end the war and negotiate a settlement with the USA, and to ensure the survival of the Emperor, which was the paramount concern. Negotiations were certainly being considered throughout the entire war. The plan of Japan's attack on the USA was to destroy the Pacific fleet in order to entirely eliminate the US presence in the region, thereby allowing the Japanese to take the Dutch East Indies, and the oil and rubber resources in the region, which they were in need of for their aggression in the rest of the Pacific Theater. After eliminating the US pacific fleet, they would then sue for peace with the US in order to avoid having to go to war with them on a massive scale, which they knew they could not win. This is very well established as being their strategy, and not just among cracy hippie professors.
Redundant and down to -1 now? I was the first, and maybe only poster, to offer a counter to any of the pro-bombing people in a detailed way, and the only one to provide any info and rational thought.
Total mod-war going on here. You may not agree with some of the opinions, but the facts are there. Seems like the "that's anti-american!" mods are out in force. Total shoot the messenger shit going on here. It's a bleak picture of the US actions, but Truman certainly did not think that Hiroshima was a military base, and Japan certainly was in a position to surrender. No fighters, no AA fire against the Enola Gay? The Americans already "own3d" Japan. That much was clear.
Watch the History Channel! They were in the process of surrender before the bombing, the historians all agree with it!
"It was well established [in the United States military] that the Japanese would have to surrender by the early fall"
"Above all, the United States felt it necessary to demonstrate it's overwhelming military might to the Russians"
If it's on a mainstream program like this on the History Channel... well I'm sorry, but that is the truth. It's not radical anti-american communists who have this view, it's everyone who studied the facts of the case.
They offered surrender before the bombs were dropped. So they most certainly did see surrender as an option. They just wanted to propose terms to that surrender. More bombing of a non-nuclear nature and the joining of the war by the Soviets very well could've convinced them that non-conditional surrender was the only option.
Your post that suggests the Japanese were entirely irrational is racist flamebait in my view. They would've surrendered with terms before the bombing...so you have no basis for your claim that they were irrationally fanatical and incapable of surrender. Japanese forces were brave and "crazy", by our standards, but not entirely incapable of surrender.
The Japanese wanted assurances that the Emperor would still be allowed to sit on the throne, if you were wathing the current program on the history Channel you would see the well documented history of efforts taken from various members of the Japanese government to try and have the Soviets act as an intermediary with the US government for peace talks. The Japanese were waiting to hear back from the Potsdam conference, which is when Truman made the decision to drop the bomb, and then offered a meaningless ultimatum to the Japanese. He offered peace, after he had already given the order to drop the bomb.
The Japanese were entirely capable of acting in a non-fanatical way. I may be Western, but I do have Japanese family members, so your take on their psychology seems to me to be a bit more negative then what reality would suggest.
Utter propaganda developed by the United States for it's own benefit.
Take a look at the scholarly work on the subject. Japan was ready to surrender, they had offered conditional surrender before the bombs were dropped. Of course that was rejected, and no doubt should have been for strategic reasons.
US military officials agreed that Japan was close to surrender, and it's military capability was almost entirely destroyed in the fire-bombings that took place before Hiroshima/Nagasaki. The military dictatorship that influenced and basically forced the Emperor to support it and their ideals has already collapsed under the shame from their losses and failure to defend Japan. Take a look at the 1946 Bombing Survey for more info. Japan was not a significant military threat at the time. Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" is a good starting point. Though if you think he's biased you can find the same referenced info elsewhere. Military officials were clear that Japan was not a great threat anymore. Marshall councilled against using the bomb on civilian populations, as did most other advisors and the creators of the weapons.
No evidence backs up the claim that anywhere from half a million, to a million US lives would be required to take Japan. No data at all supports that, indeed the numbers seem to be drawn out of thin air. There is no accurate measurement of how many lives would be needed to take Japan, especially as many suggest that Japan was close to surrender, had little military might, and might not even need to be invaded at all.
It is clear that Truman lied to the American people when he notified them on the bombing of Japan with nuclear weapons. "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians."
Hiroshima was not a "military base". The aim of dropping the bomb was not to hasten Japanese defeat in order to spare US lives, but rather as a strategic move to check Stalin. Stalin was to declare war on Japan and join in any possible invasion. The US did not want to face another East/West Germany situation, with a possible unfriendly government in the region. Instead they wished to have influence in the region, and to show military might. Taking the first step in the Cold War meant that they had to make a show of power, and dropping the Bomb was that step. It showed the region, Stalin, and the world at large that they were in control. An impressive step was needed to assert this power, and indeed Truman no doubt felt that by asserting US authority and making a power play he could prevent the US from having to fight more wars in the future and scede power to unfriendly governments.
So your point is entirely falacious. Often repeated and held as truth in schools and blindly pro-US people, but there is no factual evidence to support it. Please take a look at all the scholarly work on the subject. It is so one-sided as to be ridiculous. Bombing Japan in order to save hundreds of thousands of US lives is a story without any merit at all.
Shell Users' Revolutionary Front Rage Against the Web
Once again the *nix world has had this taken care of for years.
I posted about this an AC earlier today, but now that I'm back at home time to give some more info.
From the website: "Surfraw provides a fast unix command line interface to a variety of
popular WWW search engines and other artifacts of power. It reclaims
google, altavista, babelfish, dejanews, freshmeat, research index,
slashdot and many others from the false-prophet, pox-infested heathen
lands of html-forms, placing these wonders where they belong, deep in
unix heartland, as god loving extensions to the shell.
Surfraw abstracts the browser away from input. Doing so lets it get on
with what it's good at. Browsing. Interpretation of linguistic forms
is handed back to the shell, which is what it, and human beings are
good at. Combined with netscape-remote or incremental text browsers,
such as links (http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mikulas/links/), w3m
(http://www.w3m.org/), and screen(1) a Surfraw liberateur is capable
of navigating speeds that leave GUI tainted idolaters agape with fear
and wonder.
For example:
$ ask why is jeeves gay?
$ google -results=100 RMS, GNU, which is sinner, which is sin?
$ austlii -method=phrase dog like
$ rhyme -method=perfect Julian"
And obviously you can hack this to make it work with whatever website you could want to use. Much better than this YubNub stuff from my glance at it.
Not to mention having the "wrong" word spelled right. What if tar is there instead of tear? Lots of little mistakes like this can only be determined by reading the work in context.
I saw a question that was "what is an IP address?", and the answer was not an IP addy, one of the numbers was 4 or 5 hundred something, clearly not a valid IP address. No response from the Jeopardy people after my email pointing this out.
"Or maybe it's genetic differences between the populations that mean that caffeine has different effects in the two countries?"
Please turn your brain in to the proper authorities right now mate.
Take a caffeine pill or two or four from the store and observe.
DNS + Bind is hardly a bleeding heart liberal appeaser IIRC. Pulling out of Saudi Arabia was the right thing to do as well, even if it was one of Osama's demands. Sometimes these striking world events cause some people to realize that they have been on the wrong path... no matter how unsettling it is to admit it.
What's China going to do? Those nukes aren't for protection against China I can tell you that... although they work for that too.
No the ball is in our court now, and as they have nukes... well I'm not too sure what the move is. It just goes to show other nations (Iran), that stepping things up is probably the way to go if you don't want to be the next Iraq.
All fine and good, but what exactly constitutes unauthorized exhibition of a motion picture or video tape?
Can I just watch the tape myself? With my family? What about playing it during a party where some other folks might be able to also enjoy my lawfully purchased motion picture? You know that churches and the like often have parties or events where large groups of people all gather and watch a movie together? This also happens at schools, summercamps, and other nefarious locations. Someone must put a stop to this so-called "fair-use".
Picture slackjawed marketers and capitalist techno-theives everywhere with looks of utter bliss drooling and murmuring "convergence..." as they picture the obscene profits yet to come when your toaster is loaded with embedded Longhorn so that you can listen to mp3s on it aquired wirelessly from your refrigerator/render-farm.
We need to develop tools to share and distribute information securely, anonymously, and efficiently. Government control in these matters is not in our best interests, and in the best interests of the rest of the world. Sure this sounds like your normal "information wants to be free" rant, but when the government here in the United States tries to send someone to jail on trumped up Terrorism Charges for running a website... well it's quite clear that freedom of speech and the rights I hold dear mean nothing to those in power. "Even" in the "freeset nation on earth".
Sure there's freenet and what have you, but when it comes to oppressive governments I'd rather not have anyone know I'm functioning as a freenet node and a relay for certain information.
Since when have foreign nationals been able to be charged with treason against our nation? He's not from the US, hence he cannot commit treason against the United States. Funny how ACs can't even comprehend the Constitution...
Transferring information will lead to an OKC-type attack? How's that? People are free to spread information on bombs and the like and there's plenty of those types of sites out there. People can advocate violence if they so choose. FOIA allows people to get and share information about building plans and the like. If you want to ban websites because they "lead" to an act of terrorism then why don't you start banning books, certain types of speech and the like? Websites don't make people commit acts of terrorism, if shutting down sites that you disagree with is your idea of stopping future terrorist attacks then you must not have many other good ideas.
I knew freep was scary and wrong, but I had no idea that they could be this nuts...
Nice page you have there, Jeff! Here is this map again. I am trying to post it so most are aware of it. The media down plays the fact that thousands of Muslims ARE living in our Country!
Thousands of Muslims living in "our" country? Thousands?! Where does this guy live? Who doesn't know that millions of Muslims live in this country along with "us"? Just plain shocking.
Oooh E. Coli. How dangerous. Jack in the Box has biological weapons, and they've already killed children with them! Somebody call the feds!
I think you're the one who has no background in this stuff. If a guy with frickin hamburger bacteria raises your heckles you are out of your depth.
I have many thousands of CDs that I have burnt over the last ~8 years. Audios as well as backups in lossless data formats of all of those CDs. All legal as can be.
I really have no worries about trying to duplicate all those thousands of discs.
The prospect of backing up all of my data to a different medium is daunting at best. The option of having everything backed up to a RAID setup just has not been viable at all until recent times. Even now I'd need at least a couple TBs just to fit all of the lossless data onto and have room for more. And the robotic process of having to load all of that data and wait for it to be read into the hard drives is mind-numbing.
Frankly I'm not so concerned about the forecasts of data corruption vis-a-vis degrading optical media. I've got hundreds of store-bought CDs from the 80s and early 90s. Never a single problem with those "old" discs. Not one of my burnt CDs has ever become unreadable. All of my lossless data backup CDs have md5 checksums burnt onto the discs that I can verify the files against. Not one bit has been lost... so far.
Personally I'll just wait for the next-big-thing to come along... multiple TBs on a single disc/HD... scanner guns that can read the data off a CD and feed it into my box... something nice. Until then I archive everything away in a cool, dark, semi-controlled environment. Screw the naysayers.
Personally I could really care less about my supposed "right" to piracy, warez and downloading mp3s. I don't care about the content that they, (the fuckers), provide. I question the taste of those who feel the need to soak themselves in the sewage that makes up the majority of entertainment.
I use linux, I download legal music (etree.org), and I have no Tivo to worry about. But yet these issues matter greatly to me. The heart of the matter is that this is just another step in the march against our rights. A minor one in it's current incarnation but a blow against our rights all the same.
If we are not vocal, if we are not enraged when the public domain is attacked and weakened, if we do not fight back we will just be taken along for the ride.
This fight is not about my right to download mp3s, it's about nipping the corporate agenda in the bud.
Remember that in Germany no one thought much of the laws against smoking and various sterilization programs that targeted deviants, the handicapped, the mentally disabled and undesirables. We must fight these minor battles lest we become even more numbed to the government that seeks ever more control.
Your point is taken. Opponents of DRM on slashdot are extremely vocal and often engage in demagoguery.
The biggest application of hardware DRM will probably be in things like Tivos and other home electronic components.
And? Is this a good thing, this scenario that you envision?
What possible good will DRM do for ME, on my own Tivo? Why is it there? Will it stop me from copying files from my Tivo over to my computer? Perhaps I will be able to do so if my computer is an approved device or I have another DRM approved device to move the information to.
Is this scenario beneficial to me and to the unwashed masses of consumers? No. It merely serves the interests of the content-providers and corporations.
It is a continuing slide down the slippery slope that we currently find ourselves engaged in. Our rights are shrinking, corporations own America, and perhaps worst of all people are happily lapping up this vulgar "content" and have a seemingly endless appetite for it.
If some of us are figuratively screaming and becoming hysterical in this matter it is entirely justified, although perhaps not the best face to put on our case.
But remember, we are reacting to their hysterics. They are the ones who are suing children and attempted to silence researchers and students under the DMCA. They are the ones who illegally manipulated prices to gouge the consumers.
If they had their way we would be bottled heads bathed in the Technicolor nutrient-fluid of the content providers who gave us "Friends". Unable to do anything but devolve under the mind-numbing entertainment to come, and happy to stream money directly into the bloodless veins of our providers, we retrograde and the Constitution becomes an ever shrinking image in our sight./hysterics
They're just busy. Over 62,000 signatures and 4000 in the last 24 hrs. Hit them up again and get the word out. BUt if 500,000 signatures to censure our president doesn't make a blip on the national radar then who's to say what good this will do. At least it's something. Also feel free to email FCC Chairman Powell. You can find his email on the FCC website. Fuck censorship.
Slashdot Mirror
Hiroshima had industrial targets, this much is true. It was not however, a "military base". Pretty much any city in a wartime nation has some targets of military value, that does not make the city itself a military base. Would you call Chicago a military base in and of itself? Would you call an attack or a bombing of Chicago to be an attack against a military base?
"Truman specifically avoided targeting purely civilian locations, including an order that Tokyo and Kyoto not be on the list."
Tokyo was pretty much decimated because of the fire-bombings. If it had not been for that it too would not have been "purely civilian". I don't know how much more of a pure civilian target you can get than dropping a nuclear warhead in the center of a large populated city consisting mostly of civilians.
Let's take a look at more of the radio adress by Truman.
"The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians. But that attack is only a warning of things to come. If Japan does not surrender, bombs will have to be dropped on her war industries and, unfortunately, thousands of civilian lives will be lost."
This seems almost to suggest that the attack on Hiroshima was almost purely against a military target, and "thousands" of lives hadn't already been lost. Certainly seems to downplay the attack in my view.
"Nagasaki was the second target of its day, and was a significant military port."
Why not just attack the military targets in these two cities? Nuclear bombing was for the purpose of destroying the military targets? It most certainly was not military targets that the bombs were needed for. It was an attack on civilian populations, (and if the officially stated reasons are the only ones), an attack to frighten and terrorize the Japanese into submission through it's sheer devestation to entire cities, not as an attack on valid military targets to stop the military.
"Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare."
So those who do not follow the rules of war, need to have nuclear weapons dropped on their civilians? That is part of the justification? Surely "intentional" killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians, for any reason, is against what anyone would consider the rules of war. But it is justified because the other side did bad things? If we care so much about the rules of war, and treating soldiers, as well as civilians decently, we would not have to stoop to such tactics.
"Had Japan been considering a conditional surrender?"
Secretary Togo was talking to the USSR, the only major nation they were still at peace with, in order to act as an intermediary with the USA. The US, having cracked the Japanese codes, was aware of this and learned of it prior to Potsdam. Efforts were being made by the new civilian government of Japan, (Tojo and the power structure had resigned in shame), to end the war and negotiate a settlement with the USA, and to ensure the survival of the Emperor, which was the paramount concern. Negotiations were certainly being considered throughout the entire war. The plan of Japan's attack on the USA was to destroy the Pacific fleet in order to entirely eliminate the US presence in the region, thereby allowing the Japanese to take the Dutch East Indies, and the oil and rubber resources in the region, which they were in need of for their aggression in the rest of the Pacific Theater. After eliminating the US pacific fleet, they would then sue for peace with the US in order to avoid having to go to war with them on a massive scale, which they knew they could not win. This is very well established as being their strategy, and not just among cracy hippie professors.
Redundant and down to -1 now? I was the first, and maybe only poster, to offer a counter to any of the pro-bombing people in a detailed way, and the only one to provide any info and rational thought.
Total mod-war going on here. You may not agree with some of the opinions, but the facts are there. Seems like the "that's anti-american!" mods are out in force. Total shoot the messenger shit going on here. It's a bleak picture of the US actions, but Truman certainly did not think that Hiroshima was a military base, and Japan certainly was in a position to surrender. No fighters, no AA fire against the Enola Gay? The Americans already "own3d" Japan. That much was clear.
Watch the History Channel! They were in the process of surrender before the bombing, the historians all agree with it!
"It was well established [in the United States military] that the Japanese would have to surrender by the early fall"
"Above all, the United States felt it necessary to demonstrate it's overwhelming military might to the Russians"
If it's on a mainstream program like this on the History Channel... well I'm sorry, but that is the truth. It's not radical anti-american communists who have this view, it's everyone who studied the facts of the case.
They offered surrender before the bombs were dropped. So they most certainly did see surrender as an option. They just wanted to propose terms to that surrender. More bombing of a non-nuclear nature and the joining of the war by the Soviets very well could've convinced them that non-conditional surrender was the only option.
Your post that suggests the Japanese were entirely irrational is racist flamebait in my view. They would've surrendered with terms before the bombing...so you have no basis for your claim that they were irrationally fanatical and incapable of surrender. Japanese forces were brave and "crazy", by our standards, but not entirely incapable of surrender.
The Japanese wanted assurances that the Emperor would still be allowed to sit on the throne, if you were wathing the current program on the history Channel you would see the well documented history of efforts taken from various members of the Japanese government to try and have the Soviets act as an intermediary with the US government for peace talks. The Japanese were waiting to hear back from the Potsdam conference, which is when Truman made the decision to drop the bomb, and then offered a meaningless ultimatum to the Japanese. He offered peace, after he had already given the order to drop the bomb.
The Japanese were entirely capable of acting in a non-fanatical way. I may be Western, but I do have Japanese family members, so your take on their psychology seems to me to be a bit more negative then what reality would suggest.
Utter propaganda developed by the United States for it's own benefit.
Take a look at the scholarly work on the subject. Japan was ready to surrender, they had offered conditional surrender before the bombs were dropped. Of course that was rejected, and no doubt should have been for strategic reasons.
US military officials agreed that Japan was close to surrender, and it's military capability was almost entirely destroyed in the fire-bombings that took place before Hiroshima/Nagasaki. The military dictatorship that influenced and basically forced the Emperor to support it and their ideals has already collapsed under the shame from their losses and failure to defend Japan. Take a look at the 1946 Bombing Survey for more info. Japan was not a significant military threat at the time. Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" is a good starting point. Though if you think he's biased you can find the same referenced info elsewhere. Military officials were clear that Japan was not a great threat anymore. Marshall councilled against using the bomb on civilian populations, as did most other advisors and the creators of the weapons.
No evidence backs up the claim that anywhere from half a million, to a million US lives would be required to take Japan. No data at all supports that, indeed the numbers seem to be drawn out of thin air. There is no accurate measurement of how many lives would be needed to take Japan, especially as many suggest that Japan was close to surrender, had little military might, and might not even need to be invaded at all.
It is clear that Truman lied to the American people when he notified them on the bombing of Japan with nuclear weapons. "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians."
Hiroshima was not a "military base". The aim of dropping the bomb was not to hasten Japanese defeat in order to spare US lives, but rather as a strategic move to check Stalin. Stalin was to declare war on Japan and join in any possible invasion. The US did not want to face another East/West Germany situation, with a possible unfriendly government in the region. Instead they wished to have influence in the region, and to show military might. Taking the first step in the Cold War meant that they had to make a show of power, and dropping the Bomb was that step. It showed the region, Stalin, and the world at large that they were in control. An impressive step was needed to assert this power, and indeed Truman no doubt felt that by asserting US authority and making a power play he could prevent the US from having to fight more wars in the future and scede power to unfriendly governments.
So your point is entirely falacious. Often repeated and held as truth in schools and blindly pro-US people, but there is no factual evidence to support it. Please take a look at all the scholarly work on the subject. It is so one-sided as to be ridiculous. Bombing Japan in order to save hundreds of thousands of US lives is a story without any merit at all.
Shell Users' Revolutionary Front Rage Against the Web
, w3m
Once again the *nix world has had this taken care of for years.
I posted about this an AC earlier today, but now that I'm back at home time to give some more info.
From the website:
"Surfraw provides a fast unix command line interface to a variety of
popular WWW search engines and other artifacts of power. It reclaims
google, altavista, babelfish, dejanews, freshmeat, research index,
slashdot and many others from the false-prophet, pox-infested heathen
lands of html-forms, placing these wonders where they belong, deep in
unix heartland, as god loving extensions to the shell.
Surfraw abstracts the browser away from input. Doing so lets it get on
with what it's good at. Browsing. Interpretation of linguistic forms
is handed back to the shell, which is what it, and human beings are
good at. Combined with netscape-remote or incremental text browsers,
such as links (http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mikulas/links/)
(http://www.w3m.org/), and screen(1) a Surfraw liberateur is capable
of navigating speeds that leave GUI tainted idolaters agape with fear
and wonder.
For example:
$ ask why is jeeves gay?
$ google -results=100 RMS, GNU, which is sinner, which is sin?
$ austlii -method=phrase dog like
$ rhyme -method=perfect Julian"
And obviously you can hack this to make it work with whatever website you could want to use. Much better than this YubNub stuff from my glance at it.
Enter spyware. We all know that is the likely result, as it becomes more mainstream it will be targeted more often.
"Trojans, spyware... you don't HAVE to install it..."
Redefine revolution and all the square pegs fit nicely into place!
Not to mention having the "wrong" word spelled right. What if tar is there instead of tear? Lots of little mistakes like this can only be determined by reading the work in context.
I saw a question that was "what is an IP address?", and the answer was not an IP addy, one of the numbers was 4 or 5 hundred something, clearly not a valid IP address. No response from the Jeopardy people after my email pointing this out.
"Or maybe it's genetic differences between the populations that mean that caffeine has different effects in the two countries?" Please turn your brain in to the proper authorities right now mate. Take a caffeine pill or two or four from the store and observe.
DNS + Bind is hardly a bleeding heart liberal appeaser IIRC. Pulling out of Saudi Arabia was the right thing to do as well, even if it was one of Osama's demands. Sometimes these striking world events cause some people to realize that they have been on the wrong path... no matter how unsettling it is to admit it.
What's China going to do? Those nukes aren't for protection against China I can tell you that... although they work for that too.
No the ball is in our court now, and as they have nukes... well I'm not too sure what the move is. It just goes to show other nations (Iran), that stepping things up is probably the way to go if you don't want to be the next Iraq.
All fine and good, but what exactly constitutes unauthorized exhibition of a motion picture or video tape?
Can I just watch the tape myself? With my family? What about playing it during a party where some other folks might be able to also enjoy my lawfully purchased motion picture? You know that churches and the like often have parties or events where large groups of people all gather and watch a movie together? This also happens at schools, summercamps, and other nefarious locations. Someone must put a stop to this so-called "fair-use".
Use a real hosts file, like This one . It's massive, constantly updated, and formatted nicely to show you how to redirect slashdot.org to "s".
Picture slackjawed marketers and capitalist techno-theives everywhere with looks of utter bliss drooling and murmuring "convergence..." as they picture the obscene profits yet to come when your toaster is loaded with embedded Longhorn so that you can listen to mp3s on it aquired wirelessly from your refrigerator/render-farm.
Think Infinite Jest.
We need to develop tools to share and distribute information securely, anonymously, and efficiently. Government control in these matters is not in our best interests, and in the best interests of the rest of the world. Sure this sounds like your normal "information wants to be free" rant, but when the government here in the United States tries to send someone to jail on trumped up Terrorism Charges for running a website... well it's quite clear that freedom of speech and the rights I hold dear mean nothing to those in power. "Even" in the "freeset nation on earth".
Sure there's freenet and what have you, but when it comes to oppressive governments I'd rather not have anyone know I'm functioning as a freenet node and a relay for certain information.
Since when have foreign nationals been able to be charged with treason against our nation? He's not from the US, hence he cannot commit treason against the United States. Funny how ACs can't even comprehend the Constitution...
Transferring information will lead to an OKC-type attack? How's that? People are free to spread information on bombs and the like and there's plenty of those types of sites out there. People can advocate violence if they so choose. FOIA allows people to get and share information about building plans and the like. If you want to ban websites because they "lead" to an act of terrorism then why don't you start banning books, certain types of speech and the like? Websites don't make people commit acts of terrorism, if shutting down sites that you disagree with is your idea of stopping future terrorist attacks then you must not have many other good ideas.
Map?
Thousands of Muslims living in "our" country? Thousands?! Where does this guy live? Who doesn't know that millions of Muslims live in this country along with "us"? Just plain shocking.
Oooh E. Coli. How dangerous. Jack in the Box has biological weapons, and they've already killed children with them! Somebody call the feds! I think you're the one who has no background in this stuff. If a guy with frickin hamburger bacteria raises your heckles you are out of your depth.
I have many thousands of CDs that I have burnt over the last ~8 years. Audios as well as backups in lossless data formats of all of those CDs. All legal as can be.
I really have no worries about trying to duplicate all those thousands of discs.
The prospect of backing up all of my data to a different medium is daunting at best. The option of having everything backed up to a RAID setup just has not been viable at all until recent times. Even now I'd need at least a couple TBs just to fit all of the lossless data onto and have room for more. And the robotic process of having to load all of that data and wait for it to be read into the hard drives is mind-numbing.
Frankly I'm not so concerned about the forecasts of data corruption vis-a-vis degrading optical media. I've got hundreds of store-bought CDs from the 80s and early 90s. Never a single problem with those "old" discs. Not one of my burnt CDs has ever become unreadable. All of my lossless data backup CDs have md5 checksums burnt onto the discs that I can verify the files against. Not one bit has been lost... so far.
Personally I'll just wait for the next-big-thing to come along... multiple TBs on a single disc/HD... scanner guns that can read the data off a CD and feed it into my box... something nice. Until then I archive everything away in a cool, dark, semi-controlled environment. Screw the naysayers.
Personally I could really care less about my supposed "right" to piracy, warez and downloading mp3s. I don't care about the content that they, (the fuckers), provide. I question the taste of those who feel the need to soak themselves in the sewage that makes up the majority of entertainment.
I use linux, I download legal music (etree.org), and I have no Tivo to worry about. But yet these issues matter greatly to me. The heart of the matter is that this is just another step in the march against our rights. A minor one in it's current incarnation but a blow against our rights all the same.
If we are not vocal, if we are not enraged when the public domain is attacked and weakened, if we do not fight back we will just be taken along for the ride.
This fight is not about my right to download mp3s, it's about nipping the corporate agenda in the bud.
Remember that in Germany no one thought much of the laws against smoking and various sterilization programs that targeted deviants, the handicapped, the mentally disabled and undesirables. We must fight these minor battles lest we become even more numbed to the government that seeks ever more control.
And? Is this a good thing, this scenario that you envision?
What possible good will DRM do for ME, on my own Tivo? Why is it there? Will it stop me from copying files from my Tivo over to my computer? Perhaps I will be able to do so if my computer is an approved device or I have another DRM approved device to move the information to.
Is this scenario beneficial to me and to the unwashed masses of consumers? No. It merely serves the interests of the content-providers and corporations.
It is a continuing slide down the slippery slope that we currently find ourselves engaged in. Our rights are shrinking, corporations own America, and perhaps worst of all people are happily lapping up this vulgar "content" and have a seemingly endless appetite for it.
If some of us are figuratively screaming and becoming hysterical in this matter it is entirely justified, although perhaps not the best face to put on our case.
But remember, we are reacting to their hysterics. They are the ones who are suing children and attempted to silence researchers and students under the DMCA. They are the ones who illegally manipulated prices to gouge the consumers.
If they had their way we would be bottled heads bathed in the Technicolor nutrient-fluid of the content providers who gave us "Friends". Unable to do anything but devolve under the mind-numbing entertainment to come, and happy to stream money directly into the bloodless veins of our providers, we retrograde and the Constitution becomes an ever shrinking image in our sight.
They're just busy. Over 62,000 signatures and 4000 in the last 24 hrs. Hit them up again and get the word out. BUt if 500,000 signatures to censure our president doesn't make a blip on the national radar then who's to say what good this will do. At least it's something. Also feel free to email FCC Chairman Powell. You can find his email on the FCC website. Fuck censorship.
Stop the FCC!
Sign the petition to stop the FCC from further eroding our rights. Thanks.