"Don't you just love it when you watch your country slide into authoritarianism little by little each day."
And I'm still amazed at the numbers of europaens who can see what is going down in their own nations, and what is going down in the US, who just don't get it why a lot of us in the USA really want to hang on to our firearms. It's scary to think about it, but you have to look to history to see the actual *fact* that people who willingly disarm, to accept the notion that they are both incompetent to handle a tool and that their rulers are always going to be "nice guys", by either getting faked out into it or by force, are usually always eventually heinously persecuted by their own governments. It has happened so many times in the past....
Learn from history and do it better, or repeat the mistakes and suffer. The planetary amount of "crime" and violence is and never has been as high as the amount of "official crime" and violence perpetrated by out of control governments and their hired mercenaries, taken as an overall total. The timing changes some here and there, but eventually all governments become despotic, and becoming a willing victim in advance is a non smooth move.
The info to the advertiser is not valuable at all if the surfer fails to get to the site to see the content and ads.
What would work better is no annoying logins, just a form on the main page someplace where you can voluntarily click off on what banners and ads get displayed by topic, and/or it is parsed with what story you are looking at. And personally I prefer to look at printer friendly text pages instead of the latest flasheroo. Online news sites are expensive because most of them are just too freaking busy. Earlier webmasters understood that concept, now it appears to have been forgotten, perhaps to keep people employed? I don't know, but there ya go. Simple concept, google does it, these online registration papers are trying to beat the best success story out there, which proves they are WRONG.. You will see the ads anyway, might as well have them be somewhat relevant to your normal interests, and this CAN be done without logins. For instance, google sidebar ads, I have clicked through to a lot of them before after running a search, because they were relevant to my interests, and I don't need the ad company to have some cost increasing studies and extra people to hire to figure this out, to determine what my interests are because I already know that much better than they ever can do, and it doesn't require me logging in to them to know that. Same effect, better in fact, and it's better than logins and surveys from both privacy concerns and from useability and numbers of eyeballs looking at your website concerns. Some people won't ever look at ads, some will, you won't change that with a login or not. I will if they are relevant to my tastes, which can be determined by flicking off a form quickly and just by which articles and stories I am interested in. The insta-form method is superior, and nowadays it's just RUDE to ask a new visitor to your website for their email, right off the bat before you do anything else, because anyone who doesn't realise there's a spam problem is not paying any attention. Slashdot is an example of what I mean, I am not blocked from content immediately, even if I don't "login". I get offered a better expoperience if I *do* login, but I am not hit with a brickwall just to get to the site. It's a better idea. Google doesn't block me from their site, and as a consequence I use them, and their pages ALWAYS look good to me and always load fast and are clean, smooth, and it's never mattered what browser I use, and I don't have to eat their cookie to use the site, or be required to have the latest hardware or be on a broadband connection.
I have two basic criteria when I surf, if you are on the web and want my traffic,for whatever reason, don't make it hard for me to use your site, so your page should render fairly decent in my browser and with my connection-not yours but mine, and it shouldn't be a hassle to get to the content. One or the other of those problems is almost tolerable, *both* is a deal breaker, and if either one is "too bogus for me" that's a deal breaker as well, no visit from me.
The problem of spam and online privacy is real, and online privacy is important because it relates to meatspace privacy down the food chain. We have ENOUGH databases now. I walk into the grocery store I don't want to "login" to use their store. If I go to a newstand and buy a deadtrees magazine or newspaper, I don't want to login to buy it or read it. I'm willing to pay a reasonable fee for it because I know that sort of copy in hand is expensive to manufacture, and they don't give me the option of a cheaper version with just the two sections I am interested in, they are forced to sell the entire paper or mag. And here's where online is better, I don't have to "buy" the entire thing, I can usually get by with a page or two, I am hardly ever going to look at every single page on any online newspaper site.
If the online edition is too expensive for them, from bandwith and having to have a higher amount of employees all the time just to produce it, and they got su
... fellow neo-geezer. Not to be ageist about it, but sometimes I think you just need to put some miles on before "ohhh! new and shiny! must be good!" can be tempered with "I've seen this smoke and mirrors razzle dazzle before....".
And what everyone won't admit yet, but sure as... whatever is coming, is the RFID tags in YOU. And it will be forced, mandated, after a suitable time span of voluntary for the general public and mandated for like military/cops, etc. And even then you'll see people saying how cool it is. I am more pessimistic than you on the time span, I think the real bogus stuff is coming a lot sooner.
The other bad thing about using this and other intrusive technology is that inside the criminal justice "system" they are chronic serial liars more often than not, and only occassionally does the truth come out. Tell ya whut, there are few things scarier than to be standing in a courtroom, facing 20 years hard time, and have das authorities get up and testify to a complete lie, something they know is a lie, based on them flaunting their "technology" expertise in order to influence the judge and jury.
spooky stuff
RFID, what is here now and possible within a few years = a few good advantages,some of the quite good, and hundreds of disadvantages, some of them so bad they could be classified as near demonic.
....of replacing them. It can be a significant figure in price to many people. Not all, to some people a new hardrive is a pittance, or it's on the companys tab or it's deductable on taxes or whatnot, but to others it might be equivalent-say-to the monthly power bill or the weekly grocery money, etc.
I'd rather have a smaller drive that I was more confident wouldn't fail for a decade, if the price was the same. Say a 20 gigger with a decade warranty(deserved, and if it existed obviously) as opposed to a 200 gigger with a one year warranty.
good article, did you see...
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the next to the last links, to cryptome and the oakland tribune? "not found".
How bout them apples
And the comment with google news, YES, I have started noticing that the past few months, stuff I KNOW I've seen fails to show when searching their news, happened to me last night in fact trying to find some stuff for another thread.
hmmmm
Anyway, this government (and I am assuming most governments) always have massaged the news and had paid-off reporters, and the bigdogs in the media are usually always corporate/government apologists,uhh, because they are also the owners of huge corporations, etc, so there ya go on that. There's no unbiased news, there has always been unreported news, always been lies in the news, so might as well switch to blogs more,it can't be any worse!
ya know, I saved a lotta money...
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....not on my car insurance, but on them dad burned pesky elections! No more going around bribing off poll watchers and union bosses, and local sheriffs, no sir! We got us high tech whizz bang efficiency now, we just hack the machines, and it's easy to do, because WE *own the machines*, WE *own the media*, WE *pass the laws* and WE *control any investigations*!
que jacov - "Amerika, vat a country!"
you can always get...
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Fake "news" videos produced by the government using actors instead. Much more credible then "real" people actually reporting stuff. Nope, the US government doesn't "embed" propoganda, it's all those other furrin countries that have funny sounding names who are slap fulla "tarists" that do that.
my first distro was just someone I knew made a copy and gave it to me. that was enough to get me installed, but not online with, but luckily I have multiple computers so I was able to go find out what I was missing and doing wrong. Second distro was a boxed redhat 7.2, that came with two good paperbacks that had *some* useful info, but if what they said didn't work when you tried it, then back to googling here and there and yonder. Since then I just buy shipped-cloned because I am on dialup, well, don't own a burner either, running FC2 now, but that's only because I can go look up whatever I am stumped with, but I also have a lot of patience and the backup computer that I know very well, my trusty old mac classic, can get me to the web to find info. If all I had was the one computer, no way would I still be running linux, and driving an hour round trip to go to the library is not an option. I guess you just really have to WANT to run linux is what I am saying, to make it worth your while. I never went through windows insecurity, so that wasn't a factor in getting me to switch, I switched because steve jobs priced me outta macs to be frank, not because I didn't like them or couldn't figure things out, on the contrary, I always found classic to be fairly easy to use with zero instructions beyond click here, it does it. I never understood using windows *on purpose* as in going out and actually paying for it, and I never even saw anything unixy before I tried linux.
Yes, printed out instructions that could be included with a clone copy for another buck or two would be a pretty nice addition. I find any of the built in information I have seen to not be of much use unfortunately, for one, it's hard to keep track of what you are doing when all of it is brand new, better to have a dead trees manual by your side while you try to make sense of what is on the screen in front of you, at least it keeps the clutter down and you can scribble some notes in your manual as you tweak stuff.
I still like my idea of a command/GUI real time mirror though. Or even take it further, to build up the mind/muscle-memory deal, you start the mirror program, it forces YOU to follow the example that is indicated and to type the command, almost like a typing tutor but to learn linux, while you are actually doing what you want to be doing, not what they want you to do.
Hmm a name for the GUI/console mirror tool... heh heh heh , perfect for/., although someone's mom might not like it....
but it's not contained within the distro when you install it, you might not even be able to get online at all to find it, and if you did, you would have to know it exists in the first place. A lot of the problems with linux and newbies or intermediate level is that it's not WITH the installation. If you are lucky enough to have a friend or LUG handy to get you started, it's probably a lot better, but sometimes that isn't possible, and a lot of people only have one computer, so if they install linux and then get stuck, they are en-screwed pretty quick if they can't go find any decent help for one reason or another.
I agree though, task oriented and written in normal english with zero acronyms is a better idea. To ME that would make the difference between say just downloading or buying a cheap copy or paying a reasonable fee for a distro direct from the distro seller. I've gotten slightly past the total newbie experience, but initially it was a struggle, coming from an almost total no-command line background. And I'm about done registering with a buncha forums just to ask a question or take part in the conversations, I really don't want to use my email addy much anymore. I used to, but back then I got tons of spam, now that I don't register to new places or get on news lists I don't get much spam. I know that's a side issue but it's effective in keeping the box clean too.
Back to the subject, tell you what would be *nice* is if there was a program that would mirror what you are doing in the GUI right in the console in real time, just keep following along with what is going on just as if you were totally running from the console. Say you go to open a program, the console automagically types out what the command would be, and so on as you are using the program, say sorting through the file manager, and etc. Kind of like when the GUI will give you the keyboard shortcuts when you pop open a menu item, but *better*.
What manual? You mean man pages (already getting into an abbreviation now, just the name) written in programmer/sysadmin speak, which is composed of equal parts arcane jargon and acronyms, and assumes a background in Unix administration and total familiarity with running Bash? That manual? You are correct, they will look at it and go "this is absolutely NFG for my purposes right now".
unless it included a time bomb aspect to it as well? Some RK with the new shiny kernel crash script might wait until such a time as the number of zombies was high enough to get the desired effect maybe. I dunno, sploits are outside my expertise, never had any desire to engage in malicious sport or exploiting for some other profit. Perhaps these dudes might use it in the irc wars or something.
go to the trouble to get a paid for shell account at a provider, or a freebie I guess, then run this script, just to destroy their own account basically?
Or is the bigger danger is that this script would be the payload that is included within some linux worm?
Just wondering what this means for joe average home linux user who isn't running a server.
sorta offtopic, but I just finished with the two lastest BSD articles, and when I got to this one, and with the heavy image loads and whatnot, and now not only being slashdotted but also being referenced in a ton of other online news places, etc, I figured I'd take a peek and see what is that site running? at netcraft. Hmm, well neither BSD nor linux, it's running solaris 8 using netscape server. Just a FWIW.
obviously not. Of course not. But therein lies the absurdity, 4 wheeled vehicles and you are required to wear a belt, yet two wheeled vehicles are lawful in and of themselves, and they are demonstrably more unsafe as designed. That's not my opinion, that is the insurance industries opinion, who make an actuarial science of this sort of analysis. Last I looked (back when I was an insurance agent, so it could be changed by now I'll admit) bikes were roughly something like 16 times more unsafe than cars. I *like* bikes although I currently don't own one, I have in the past, but I think it's about a draw which is more unsafe, driving without a belt, or just driving a bike in general. One is illegal, one isn't, but they are about equal in terms of potential risk, so therein lies the hypocrisy of the law, IMO.
as far as I know, they are still running "stop everyone checkpoints". I don't think that has stopped at all. I saw some mention of one just a two weekends ago over memorial day holiday period on the TV in fact. I think all they did to get around the law was stop calling them "drug" checkpoints, and now they are "courtesy" checkpoints and they look for seatbelt useage, child safety restraint systems, etc, and if they just by happenstance "notice" something else then they can immediately search/whatever based on the new "suspicion" well, they would call it probable cause then, of DUI or drug use or whatever.
Thanks for the link though, I hadn't seen that case before. It's hard as snot to try and keep up with all of this police state action, I do my best within an enthusiasm menu of hundreds of things.
*suspicion* of it, whatever the officer says. They take a blood sample before any conviction of DUI, not after. Like I pointed out elsewhere, the officer can merely state in his opinion you appeared impaired to him. You don't have to be, the test can come back negative, etc, but they can do it based on his word against yours, and back at the station or clinic or wherever they just take the sample. From what I was just reading it's pretty common in nevada now for instance. I'm not saying it's highly abused-yet-but I can say most definetly cops arrest people on trumped up charges all the time, happened to me personally before, long story, but they did it because they got embarrassed. And they really want to expand it to everyone arrested, and they also want to take dna samples of all children born today too. It's inside the overall police state-esque goals, total command/control/surveillance.
It's arbitrary, random, taking the samples, but the various laws say they can, and if you have a license it means you gave consent in advance to whatever tests your state say may be done. Refusing the test is usually some crime in itself, at a minimum it is usually loss of your permission to drive, and even then they can still take a sample if they really want to. The real practical bottom line is "you can't say no" with impugnity in most cases, cops hate that action, you could easily suffer a lot more than a small blood sample taken, you might have a few teeth and a pint of two taken,plus some additional charges they think up, and man, they got plenty of evidence kicking around to say "you had this" too, if you follow my drift.
It's just another slippery slope deal. They don't pull full big brother action overnight, they know it would be actively resisted, what they do is chip away here and there, always starting with any sub classification of humans that most people don't like to justify it. It's only the druggies, so no knock raids won't hurt regular people. It's only the terrorists, what do you have to hide? Think of the children and perverts, we need full web police. Why no, this isn't some stasi "papers pleez" roadblock, this is a "courtesy checkpoint". Gun control? Don't worry, it will only apply to "the darkies". That's a real one there, where gun controls first started, they were "jim crow" laws. And etc, etc, etc. to me it just fits the general trends.
As to DUI, I can't think of a single crime that driving drunk wasn't covered before explicit DUI laws were passed. They had "driving while being a doofus and the accident was your fault" if I may sillify it a little, from simple fender benders all the way to negligent manslaughter, so it isn't needed there. Weaving is an arbitrary deal, if you are inside the yellow, you are inside, and outside used to be covered by driving to endanger, it didn't matter if you were over tired, drunk, or just a lamer. And so on.
Frankly, all I see DUI laws are is as a new and exciting revenue stream and a way to further get people inside the criminal justice system, plus they got people sucked into thinking random roadblocks are the american way. It's disgusitng, I can remember when even thinking about roadblocks never happened-it just weasn't done unless there was like a mass jail escape or something. You only saw it in ww2 movies. Now it's "routine" and people just meekly accept them.
Exhibit A-driving intoxicated is in itself a "crime" now, but it is totally legal to go drive to a bar and get drinks. Uhh, which is it? The state insists on a scientific exact blood alcohol limit in their definition of this crime, yet they don't have state certified weight-scales and breathalysers for the customers as they walk in the door with an ounce of booze as per so many lbs of bodyweight per hour, etc, serving guidelines and hardware mandated by law in these bars. To me, that's an obvious one. It's stupid, but that's why the law is stupid, and why it certainly looks like just a cash flow enhancement for the government, plus a way to get more police state powers
yes, the state laws all differ, I realise I wasn't clear in the first post on that, mea culpa, but I didn't just yank it from my nether regions, supreme court said it was ok basically, and I had remembered that wisconsin test case back when it happened (I looked it up, there it was), and found the link to it, and implied consent laws are in all 50 states. and that appears to about cover it mostly. That was my main point, and they can force it if they "suspect" whatever,which is the vaguery I meant. They could say something like "In officer's opinion, suspect was slurring his words and gave the appearance of impaired reactions, and was observed weaving" yada yada. Along those lines. In general, the law was addressed, supreme court, 1965, Schmermber v. California, where they said the police could force-take blood. There hasn't been a newer case since then as far as I can find out, but it's common apparently in a lot of states now, and they appear to go beyond what the court said was hospitals-only, so another case is over due it looks like.
As an aside,related issue but not exact, I know I saw some newer fed legislation on it as well, but I can't find it right now. I *think* it's inside the model state health emergency powers act, which has been adopted/modified by a lot, but not all, states. It's a set of federal guidelines (the model part) that states can adopt for the latest "terror" stuff, it goes well beyond just blood sampling.
it's in the fine print when you get your license, and the precise details differ state to state, but it is common to have breath/blood and hair being included. It is their discretion how far to push it. You can refuse, and then it is up to them if they insist on it. The "forced" case is from wisconsin, some doofus refused a blood test when he was stinko, they held him down and took it anyway, and he lost the appeal. There have also been a couple of test checkpoints where they did this, colorado and dang I can't remember the other state. Lemme see what I can find....
Basically, near as I can scratch it out, you have to give a sample if they say they suspected you of whatever. Refusal penalties vary state to state, and how much force can be used varies, but more or less they can.
You don't need to be charged with a thing if you are driving with a license, you have already given consent to have a blood and/or a hair sample taken because of the contract you signed with the state agreeing to your legal ward position and under their care to be permitted to travel.
It's in effect in all 50 states and in DC now. Some areas are already doing this at "random courtesty checkpoints", where everyone is stopped and checked, and if you refuse, they are authorised the use of force to make you comply, all the way to strapping you down. This initiative in california is just a way to mandate a sampling procedure at every (felony) *arrest*, but it's already legal to do so at every traffic stop-no matter the reason,no arrest is required, no charges, merely if they choose to do it, they can mutter "suspicion of..." yada yada, that's enough.
under the help america vote act via the federal government.
http://fecweb1.fec.gov/hava/hava.htm
small cut from the text of the act:
HELP AMERICA VOTE ACT OF 2002
Page 116 STAT. 1666 Public Law 107-252 107th Congress
An Act
To establish a program to provide funds to States to replace punch card voting systems, to establish the Election Assistance Commission to assist in the administration of Federal elections and to otherwise provide assistance with the administration of certain Federal election laws and programs, to establish minimum election administration standards for States and units of local government with responsibility for the administration of Federal elections, and for other purposes.
Just for clarification purposes
begin short generic rant
Personally, I think it's a complete total scam and an effort to have even more powerful vote rigging capabilities by criminal elements embedded inside the government. Like in most other circumstances the last several decades, the federal government is usurping states rights, because they can, by taking such a huge slice of everyones wealth, then doling it back to the states as long as they play along with their various royal edicts. And it doesn't hurt those efforts of continual passing of bogus laws in that the feds control the so called "supreme" court who have complete discretion on which cases they will hear or not hear, and by the federal legislature having carte blanche to pass clearly unconstitutional laws whenever they feel like it. catch 22 combined with the carrot and the stick basically. When dealing with the feds, it's heads I win, tails you lose according to how they interpet things.
Really, you make some decent points. I can give you some more background though on a few topics. the issue of japanese cars versus US cars back in the early 70's was a combination of factors. One was, we had some severe gas pump sticker shock with the OPEC embargo. the japnese were in a much better position to pump out high MPG cars and small trucks then the US companies were, because basically that was about all they were making, so they were a smash hit. The US market at the time was based on sub 25 cents a gallon gasoline, and a culture that had big families and traveled long distances on interstates frequently, hence, larger vehicles with bigger engines, and not much care to gas prices-I know I never even thought much about gas prices at the time, although I was aware of them, even at a normal cheap blue collar job, gas and most everything else was cheap. I was also in the UAW a few years previous to that era, and I, too, saw the japanese cars coming on strong, but I didn't think they would ge5t the market share so soon, because I didn't anticipate the OPEC embargo. I DID argue unsuccessfully in union meetings to not concentrate so much on pay raises, as to concetrate more on trying to force the management to make better qualioty cars, but realistically, that was contrary to both the companies and the unions POV. It's axiomatic, but if you make your product TOO good, you don't sell enough of them year after year to stay in business as much. It's a catch 22. US made cars will last long, but you need to really do the maintenance, I own and drive weekly a 75 chevy van that has well over 300 thousand miles on it, and it runs perfectly fine. But most people don't change their oil often enough, or drive harder than what is prudent, etc, so their cars wear out faster. another factor that was hotly debated at the time was the japanese companies "dumping" their products on the US market in order to get a higher market share. Dumping means they sell for at cost or even below cost for awhile which enough evidence exists to prove was true at the time. they still do it I believe, in the case of the new hybrid vehicles, they are quite a deal. They also had higher tariffs and import inspections on US vehicles entering japan than what we charged. Now WHY we did that, why we went along with it I mean, I do not know.
Another phenomenon that has occurred in the last few decades is the extremely fast rise of upper management salaries as a proportion of their companies employees average pay. It has exactly paralleled outsourcing time-wise. I don't think it's a coincidence, I mean, that new money had to come from somewhere.
here is a reference URL http://www.inequality.org/ceopay2000sklar2.html
small quote from the page, note, this is from year 2000, but it is still close to these figures now:
"CEOs didn't always earn as much as small countries. In 1980, they made 45 times the pay of production and nonsupervisory workers. By 1990, the CEO-worker pay gap had doubled, with CEOs making 96 times as much. By last year, that ratio had reached 458."
Now there's no way in heck some boss from year 2000 was 458 times a better manager than some boss from 1980. It don't compute. Maybe a few exceptions over all, but as a general rule, nope, humansd are humans. what we HAVE gotten is corporate tax break after corporate tax break, all the way to a tax break for US companies to outsource, along with a much higher acceptable level of insourced workers, legal and illegal, blue and white collar. It's another facet of a skewed economy against the middle class primarily, but the top level bosses/pundits/politicians have mostly kept repeating the same lie over and over again to keep the middle class faked out, while they pushed credit instead of pay, the famous phrase from the 80's was it would "trickle down" to joe average paycheck if the ultra rich got mega rich. It was a variation on the jack and the beanstalk magic beans fairy tale, but a lot of people fell for it.
I was just posting generally speaking, but if you have a more specific request, I can find references to atrocities committed by militarily superior invading forces from about any war you might care to mention. It is more common than not. If you mean the current conflicts in iraq and afghanistan, or the previous balkans war, those are easy to find. Gulf war 1, or iran/iraq war, easy to find. Google, atrocities, iraq, afghanistan, serbia for a starter, you get hits. If you want to go back to say viet nam, geez, then it becomes even easier, just google for the term "free fire zone". If you want south or central american references, again, easy to find. Africa? man, it's daily. India/pakistan/kashmir/bangladesh/ceylon, again, easy.
It is more common than not.
And my other point is true too,most dictators get stuck in places,placed-in, they commit atrocities on their own people, larger nations support and train them and sell them stuff like the latest gee whizz fighter jets and tanks and whatnot, until such a time as for some reason they become "bad guys",usually from some high level business double crossing going on, then they get removed, they get called bad guys,"regime changed" is the current buzzword this century, then the cycle repeats itself someplace else. Hmm, there's a dude called noriega sitting in a US fed jail cell now, but at one time he was our bosom buddy,our ally, we sold him weapons and our soldiers trained with his soldiers, all great sport and fun,etc, but his peasants seem to suffer and whoops he seemed to be a big CIA asset in drug smuggling operations as well. Same thing happened in nicaragua, then in el salvador, and in chile and argentina and.... I guess Noriega got greedy with the dope cut or something because we had to go invade panama to remove our previous "strong ally and friend". Collateral damage, atrocities, check.
So anyway, which war ya want? Or do you really think atrocities aren't committed in your average war? Russia into afghanistan, atrocities, check. Into chechnya, check. America into viet nam, mega-check. Hmm, no viet nam into america though, funny...I remember being told if we didn't stop them there they would be in dubuque within weeks or sumthin... hmm, anyway, Germany into wherever in ww2, atrocities, check. Japan into china and southeast asia, atrocities, check. Russia back into poland and the ukraine and germany and finland in ww2, atrocities, check. Germany in the air into london, atrocities, random civilian genocide, check. Allies back into dresden, random civilian genocide, check. US cavalry into various indian villages, atrocities, check. British army into who knows how many nations over the centuries, atrocities, check. Spain into the new world, atrocities, check. Union army, sherman, through the south, atrocities, check.
On and on. It's real man, and your hate will never bring a one of those folks back.
I'm just not impressed anymore with superior ways for conscripted military serfs or uncaring paid mercenaries to be superior and more efficient killers for some politician/bankers purposes, sorry, I'm just not. When I was much younger I was quite different,very different, I was just the biggest flag waving fire breathin John Wayne clone you can imagine-but then I found about "real life". Whoops. Gee, I actually accumulated some real life data. Sort of blew all that jingoism I was brainwashed into. And guess I'm not real sorry it happened to me either, in fact, kinda greatful for it now.
Sorry, no longer impressed by more efficient ways to murder people so some huge international conglomerates can make more profits. I'm not a pacifist, I am a strong supporter of legitimate self defense, I think every dude out there has a born-with right to self defense, to be armed, and to resist being murdered, exploited, ripped off, and etc, and unfortunately, it's far more likely on a generic planetary scale to happen to people-I mean, getting murdered, blown up, raped, "detained", have your house smashed, etc, etc, from either their own
I wonder if there are any non military useages of the idea. Perhaps in a storm shelter? Not sure.
Anyway, here is my translation from a couple of paragraphs in the story,as if the story was written from some poor peasants point of view, as opposed to joe stockbroker sipping latte and reading the latest mil industrial complex conglomerate quotes at his local "axis of profits, nothing personal it's just business" coffee house
"With the easy availability of RPG-7 rocket launchers-thank god we have at least something to defend our village with- "it only takes one individual on, say, a rooftop in a village to cause major damage or destroy passing armoured vehicles", he said.-Man, those tanks and soldiers from BigNation.Com, Inc. suck the big one. They come in here, invade, kill the people, every one of us is called a terrorist, they drive their tanks over our crops causing famine, smash our huts down, shoot all the men they can find, rape our wives and daughters then sit around and torture the remnants for sport. This is dismal. Glad I scraped up enough dough to get me an RPG. It's not much but it might stop them. Why don't they stay in their own country anyway? Oh ya, I forgot, we have oil/tin/gold/diamonds/whatever, and they want it, and they say our current dictator is worse than their dictator, so that makes us all terrorists. Silly me, how could I forget....
"But the use of electric armour, which will protect against all shaped-charge warheads including artillery and tank shells, would reduce the threat to zero."--Oh crap! Now, we have nothing to stop those invaders with! I guess we lose, might as well get out the black boot polish and rags and beg for some pennies from the nice soldier guys, when they get done with our wives and daughters that is. In the mean time I'll get back to whittling a wooden leg for one of my kids who was unfortunately a "collateral damage" statistic. I hope the new dictator the soldiers appoint to be our ruler will be better than the last one they appointed 10 years ago.
The NAB (their members obviously)has been sticking the hand out for decades accepting the paylola money, and colluding with them to keep microbroadcasters and independents off the air, about as unfair and crooked as you can get, they know how the game is played, and it's a crooked game. So NOW they go OMG, THIS AIN'T FAIR!
duh It's like a falling out between two mafia gangs. There's no good guys here to speak of.
NAB=crooked
MAFFIA=crooked
bad guys=known to rip each other off
FCC=crooked beat cop "on the pad"
joe citizen=screwed as usual, and somehow it's all his fault and there needs to be a "crack down" on joe citizen
I am not trying to restrict them from the internet. the entire premise of the story is that the uni there is so poor they can't get it. I merely pointed out where the money is going-out of the country and mosty of the rest into local warlords pockets-at least a huge amount of it.. They have oil up the wazoo, yet the people remain poor. maybe you think this is OK, perhaps just normal capitalism or something,too bad, the people who can grab it are "entitled" to it or something, but I think it's abhorrent and I feel totally justified in pointing it out. The uni has to go scrounging for an internet connection and jump through hoops having a canned micronet sent to them, when for a relative pittance that could come out of their oil that has most of the profits skimmed off downstream they could have a normal net connection of some sort.
I can't explain it any better other than I think it's just "wrong" and I partially at least blame the entire system the way it is set up in oil trading. I also blame the nigerians themselves for clinging to ridiculous tribalism and general petty warfare, and for the rest of the world putting up with it and trading with whatever tinpot dictator some giant cartel sticks in, and yes, that's what happens in a lot of cases. I can rattle off a list of them without breaking sweat. The so called "third world" stays that way a lot from the first world wanting it that way, it is more profitable. Been like that for centuries, I doubt it can be disputed. they just don't call it colonialism any more, it's just "international business".
As to flaring, it just wasn't considered useful to the oil producers in the past to recover the gas, so they burned it off. Deal is, it *is and was useful to the people who live in the area*. The big oil companies didn't care in the past, because they had no easy way to collect and pipe out the gas and sell it,the local peasants couldn't buy their own gas back from the oil companies, they are peasants with no money, so it wasn't "profitable" for them to cut in the local peasants/peons/whatever into any sort of piece of the pie. All that dwould do was cost them "profit", so it wasn't done, they flared it off. It's very useful to people to use though, as is natural gas all over the world useful, IF it was part of the contract to force the oil companies to do it, but it's cheaper for them to slip the local warlord an extra bag of cash to not give a care about it. That's reality as much as any technical problems. Recovery of gas is quite doable, they do it all over now,and have been for at least a decade or more at well heads. Here is one URL I found easily with examples all over the planet
And I DO commend the people bring the net to those people, I just think it could be done at a much better rate and efficiency by using the tools for the job, in this case, take the oil money that is there by the boatload and apply it to the people who actually own the oil, help them out with their interests a little bit more fairly, rather than this low budget charity deal. If they were dirt poor from no natural resources, no nothing, I could see it, but this isn't the case here. You can't tell me out of all that oil an extra million or so dollars to build some sort of internet infrastructure and electrical structure couldn't be squeezed out without any fatcats missing a single mercedes ride or "power lunch" in some downtown club.
I see it here too in rural USA. We can't get broadband for nuthin,there's "no money" for it from anyplace to run any cable or fat copper or fiber, yet property taxes go to fund incredibly stupid things like football giant stadiums at high schools, or municipal bonds go to fund professional sports teams even more stadiums. I think things like that are nuts, and I just point them out. I just call 'em like I see 'em. I don't have a 120 gig hard drive full of baby internet stuff to donate, if I did I might, my largest is an 8 gig, I'm pretty poor
Slashdot Mirror
"Don't you just love it when you watch your country slide into authoritarianism little by little each day."
And I'm still amazed at the numbers of europaens who can see what is going down in their own nations, and what is going down in the US, who just don't get it why a lot of us in the USA really want to hang on to our firearms. It's scary to think about it, but you have to look to history to see the actual *fact* that people who willingly disarm, to accept the notion that they are both incompetent to handle a tool and that their rulers are always going to be "nice guys", by either getting faked out into it or by force, are usually always eventually heinously persecuted by their own governments. It has happened so many times in the past....
Learn from history and do it better, or repeat the mistakes and suffer. The planetary amount of "crime" and violence is and never has been as high as the amount of "official crime" and violence perpetrated by out of control governments and their hired mercenaries, taken as an overall total. The timing changes some here and there, but eventually all governments become despotic, and becoming a willing victim in advance is a non smooth move.
What would work better is no annoying logins, just a form on the main page someplace where you can voluntarily click off on what banners and ads get displayed by topic, and/or it is parsed with what story you are looking at. And personally I prefer to look at printer friendly text pages instead of the latest flasheroo. Online news sites are expensive because most of them are just too freaking busy. Earlier webmasters understood that concept, now it appears to have been forgotten, perhaps to keep people employed? I don't know, but there ya go. Simple concept, google does it, these online registration papers are trying to beat the best success story out there, which proves they are WRONG.. You will see the ads anyway, might as well have them be somewhat relevant to your normal interests, and this CAN be done without logins. For instance, google sidebar ads, I have clicked through to a lot of them before after running a search, because they were relevant to my interests, and I don't need the ad company to have some cost increasing studies and extra people to hire to figure this out, to determine what my interests are because I already know that much better than they ever can do, and it doesn't require me logging in to them to know that. Same effect, better in fact, and it's better than logins and surveys from both privacy concerns and from useability and numbers of eyeballs looking at your website concerns. Some people won't ever look at ads, some will, you won't change that with a login or not. I will if they are relevant to my tastes, which can be determined by flicking off a form quickly and just by which articles and stories I am interested in. The insta-form method is superior, and nowadays it's just RUDE to ask a new visitor to your website for their email, right off the bat before you do anything else, because anyone who doesn't realise there's a spam problem is not paying any attention. Slashdot is an example of what I mean, I am not blocked from content immediately, even if I don't "login". I get offered a better expoperience if I *do* login, but I am not hit with a brickwall just to get to the site. It's a better idea. Google doesn't block me from their site, and as a consequence I use them, and their pages ALWAYS look good to me and always load fast and are clean, smooth, and it's never mattered what browser I use, and I don't have to eat their cookie to use the site, or be required to have the latest hardware or be on a broadband connection.
I have two basic criteria when I surf, if you are on the web and want my traffic,for whatever reason, don't make it hard for me to use your site, so your page should render fairly decent in my browser and with my connection-not yours but mine, and it shouldn't be a hassle to get to the content. One or the other of those problems is almost tolerable, *both* is a deal breaker, and if either one is "too bogus for me" that's a deal breaker as well, no visit from me.
The problem of spam and online privacy is real, and online privacy is important because it relates to meatspace privacy down the food chain. We have ENOUGH databases now. I walk into the grocery store I don't want to "login" to use their store. If I go to a newstand and buy a deadtrees magazine or newspaper, I don't want to login to buy it or read it. I'm willing to pay a reasonable fee for it because I know that sort of copy in hand is expensive to manufacture, and they don't give me the option of a cheaper version with just the two sections I am interested in, they are forced to sell the entire paper or mag. And here's where online is better, I don't have to "buy" the entire thing, I can usually get by with a page or two, I am hardly ever going to look at every single page on any online newspaper site.
If the online edition is too expensive for them, from bandwith and having to have a higher amount of employees all the time just to produce it, and they got su
... fellow neo-geezer. Not to be ageist about it, but sometimes I think you just need to put some miles on before "ohhh! new and shiny! must be good!" can be tempered with "I've seen this smoke and mirrors razzle dazzle before....".
... whatever is coming, is the RFID tags in YOU. And it will be forced, mandated, after a suitable time span of voluntary for the general public and mandated for like military/cops, etc. And even then you'll see people saying how cool it is.
And what everyone won't admit yet, but sure as
I am more pessimistic than you on the time span, I think the real bogus stuff is coming a lot sooner.
The other bad thing about using this and other intrusive technology is that inside the criminal justice "system" they are chronic serial liars more often than not, and only occassionally does the truth come out. Tell ya whut, there are few things scarier than to be standing in a courtroom, facing 20 years hard time, and have das authorities get up and testify to a complete lie, something they know is a lie, based on them flaunting their "technology" expertise in order to influence the judge and jury.
spooky stuff
RFID, what is here now and possible within a few years = a few good advantages,some of the quite good, and hundreds of disadvantages, some of them so bad they could be classified as near demonic.
....of replacing them. It can be a significant figure in price to many people. Not all, to some people a new hardrive is a pittance, or it's on the companys tab or it's deductable on taxes or whatnot, but to others it might be equivalent-say-to the monthly power bill or the weekly grocery money, etc.
I'd rather have a smaller drive that I was more confident wouldn't fail for a decade, if the price was the same. Say a 20 gigger with a decade warranty(deserved, and if it existed obviously) as opposed to a 200 gigger with a one year warranty.
the next to the last links, to cryptome and the oakland tribune? "not found".
How bout them apples
And the comment with google news, YES, I have started noticing that the past few months, stuff I KNOW I've seen fails to show when searching their news, happened to me last night in fact trying to find some stuff for another thread.
hmmmm
Anyway, this government (and I am assuming most governments) always have massaged the news and had paid-off reporters, and the bigdogs in the media are usually always corporate/government apologists,uhh, because they are also the owners of huge corporations, etc, so there ya go on that. There's no unbiased news, there has always been unreported news, always been lies in the news, so might as well switch to blogs more,it can't be any worse!
....not on my car insurance, but on them dad burned pesky elections! No more going around bribing off poll watchers and union bosses, and local sheriffs, no sir! We got us high tech whizz bang efficiency now, we just hack the machines, and it's easy to do, because WE *own the machines*, WE *own the media*, WE *pass the laws* and WE *control any investigations*!
que jacov - "Amerika, vat a country!"
Fake "news" videos produced by the government using actors instead. Much more credible then "real" people actually reporting stuff. Nope, the US government doesn't "embed" propoganda, it's all those other furrin countries that have funny sounding names who are slap fulla "tarists" that do that.
my first distro was just someone I knew made a copy and gave it to me. that was enough to get me installed, but not online with, but luckily I have multiple computers so I was able to go find out what I was missing and doing wrong. Second distro was a boxed redhat 7.2, that came with two good paperbacks that had *some* useful info, but if what they said didn't work when you tried it, then back to googling here and there and yonder. Since then I just buy shipped-cloned because I am on dialup, well, don't own a burner either, running FC2 now, but that's only because I can go look up whatever I am stumped with, but I also have a lot of patience and the backup computer that I know very well, my trusty old mac classic, can get me to the web to find info. If all I had was the one computer, no way would I still be running linux, and driving an hour round trip to go to the library is not an option. I guess you just really have to WANT to run linux is what I am saying, to make it worth your while. I never went through windows insecurity, so that wasn't a factor in getting me to switch, I switched because steve jobs priced me outta macs to be frank, not because I didn't like them or couldn't figure things out, on the contrary, I always found classic to be fairly easy to use with zero instructions beyond click here, it does it. I never understood using windows *on purpose* as in going out and actually paying for it, and I never even saw anything unixy before I tried linux.
/., although someone's mom might not like it....
Yes, printed out instructions that could be included with a clone copy for another buck or two would be a pretty nice addition. I find any of the built in information I have seen to not be of much use unfortunately, for one, it's hard to keep track of what you are doing when all of it is brand new, better to have a dead trees manual by your side while you try to make sense of what is on the screen in front of you, at least it keeps the clutter down and you can scribble some notes in your manual as you tweak stuff.
I still like my idea of a command/GUI real time mirror though. Or even take it further, to build up the mind/muscle-memory deal, you start the mirror program, it forces YOU to follow the example that is indicated and to type the command, almost like a typing tutor but to learn linux, while you are actually doing what you want to be doing, not what they want you to do.
Hmm a name for the GUI/console mirror tool... heh heh heh , perfect for
Command Line Interactive Training
but it's not contained within the distro when you install it, you might not even be able to get online at all to find it, and if you did, you would have to know it exists in the first place. A lot of the problems with linux and newbies or intermediate level is that it's not WITH the installation. If you are lucky enough to have a friend or LUG handy to get you started, it's probably a lot better, but sometimes that isn't possible, and a lot of people only have one computer, so if they install linux and then get stuck, they are en-screwed pretty quick if they can't go find any decent help for one reason or another.
I agree though, task oriented and written in normal english with zero acronyms is a better idea. To ME that would make the difference between say just downloading or buying a cheap copy or paying a reasonable fee for a distro direct from the distro seller. I've gotten slightly past the total newbie experience, but initially it was a struggle, coming from an almost total no-command line background. And I'm about done registering with a buncha forums just to ask a question or take part in the conversations, I really don't want to use my email addy much anymore. I used to, but back then I got tons of spam, now that I don't register to new places or get on news lists I don't get much spam. I know that's a side issue but it's effective in keeping the box clean too.
Back to the subject, tell you what would be *nice* is if there was a program that would mirror what you are doing in the GUI right in the console in real time, just keep following along with what is going on just as if you were totally running from the console. Say you go to open a program, the console automagically types out what the command would be, and so on as you are using the program, say sorting through the file manager, and etc. Kind of like when the GUI will give you the keyboard shortcuts when you pop open a menu item, but *better*.
What manual? You mean man pages (already getting into an abbreviation now, just the name) written in programmer/sysadmin speak, which is composed of equal parts arcane jargon and acronyms, and assumes a background in Unix administration and total familiarity with running Bash? That manual? You are correct, they will look at it and go "this is absolutely NFG for my purposes right now".
unless it included a time bomb aspect to it as well? Some RK with the new shiny kernel crash script might wait until such a time as the number of zombies was high enough to get the desired effect maybe. I dunno, sploits are outside my expertise, never had any desire to engage in malicious sport or exploiting for some other profit. Perhaps these dudes might use it in the irc wars or something.
go to the trouble to get a paid for shell account at a provider, or a freebie I guess, then run this script, just to destroy their own account basically?
Or is the bigger danger is that this script would be the payload that is included within some linux worm?
Just wondering what this means for joe average home linux user who isn't running a server.
sorta offtopic, but I just finished with the two lastest BSD articles, and when I got to this one, and with the heavy image loads and whatnot, and now not only being slashdotted but also being referenced in a ton of other online news places, etc, I figured I'd take a peek and see what is that site running? at netcraft. Hmm, well neither BSD nor linux, it's running solaris 8 using netscape server. Just a FWIW.
obviously not. Of course not. But therein lies the absurdity, 4 wheeled vehicles and you are required to wear a belt, yet two wheeled vehicles are lawful in and of themselves, and they are demonstrably more unsafe as designed. That's not my opinion, that is the insurance industries opinion, who make an actuarial science of this sort of analysis. Last I looked (back when I was an insurance agent, so it could be changed by now I'll admit) bikes were roughly something like 16 times more unsafe than cars. I *like* bikes although I currently don't own one, I have in the past, but I think it's about a draw which is more unsafe, driving without a belt, or just driving a bike in general. One is illegal, one isn't, but they are about equal in terms of potential risk, so therein lies the hypocrisy of the law, IMO.
as far as I know, they are still running "stop everyone checkpoints". I don't think that has stopped at all. I saw some mention of one just a two weekends ago over memorial day holiday period on the TV in fact. I think all they did to get around the law was stop calling them "drug" checkpoints, and now they are "courtesy" checkpoints and they look for seatbelt useage, child safety restraint systems, etc, and if they just by happenstance "notice" something else then they can immediately search/whatever based on the new "suspicion" well, they would call it probable cause then, of DUI or drug use or whatever.
Thanks for the link though, I hadn't seen that case before. It's hard as snot to try and keep up with all of this police state action, I do my best within an enthusiasm menu of hundreds of things.
%^)
*suspicion* of it, whatever the officer says. They take a blood sample before any conviction of DUI, not after. Like I pointed out elsewhere, the officer can merely state in his opinion you appeared impaired to him. You don't have to be, the test can come back negative, etc, but they can do it based on his word against yours, and back at the station or clinic or wherever they just take the sample. From what I was just reading it's pretty common in nevada now for instance. I'm not saying it's highly abused-yet-but I can say most definetly cops arrest people on trumped up charges all the time, happened to me personally before, long story, but they did it because they got embarrassed. And they really want to expand it to everyone arrested, and they also want to take dna samples of all children born today too. It's inside the overall police state-esque goals, total command/control/surveillance.
It's arbitrary, random, taking the samples, but the various laws say they can, and if you have a license it means you gave consent in advance to whatever tests your state say may be done. Refusing the test is usually some crime in itself, at a minimum it is usually loss of your permission to drive, and even then they can still take a sample if they really want to. The real practical bottom line is "you can't say no" with impugnity in most cases, cops hate that action, you could easily suffer a lot more than a small blood sample taken, you might have a few teeth and a pint of two taken,plus some additional charges they think up, and man, they got plenty of evidence kicking around to say "you had this" too, if you follow my drift.
It's just another slippery slope deal. They don't pull full big brother action overnight, they know it would be actively resisted, what they do is chip away here and there, always starting with any sub classification of humans that most people don't like to justify it. It's only the druggies, so no knock raids won't hurt regular people. It's only the terrorists, what do you have to hide? Think of the children and perverts, we need full web police. Why no, this isn't some stasi "papers pleez" roadblock, this is a "courtesy checkpoint". Gun control? Don't worry, it will only apply to "the darkies". That's a real one there, where gun controls first started, they were "jim crow" laws. And etc, etc, etc. to me it just fits the general trends.
As to DUI, I can't think of a single crime that driving drunk wasn't covered before explicit DUI laws were passed. They had "driving while being a doofus and the accident was your fault" if I may sillify it a little, from simple fender benders all the way to negligent manslaughter, so it isn't needed there. Weaving is an arbitrary deal, if you are inside the yellow, you are inside, and outside used to be covered by driving to endanger, it didn't matter if you were over tired, drunk, or just a lamer. And so on.
Frankly, all I see DUI laws are is as a new and exciting revenue stream and a way to further get people inside the criminal justice system, plus they got people sucked into thinking random roadblocks are the american way. It's disgusitng, I can remember when even thinking about roadblocks never happened-it just weasn't done unless there was like a mass jail escape or something. You only saw it in ww2 movies. Now it's "routine" and people just meekly accept them.
Exhibit A-driving intoxicated is in itself a "crime" now, but it is totally legal to go drive to a bar and get drinks. Uhh, which is it? The state insists on a scientific exact blood alcohol limit in their definition of this crime, yet they don't have state certified weight-scales and breathalysers for the customers as they walk in the door with an ounce of booze as per so many lbs of bodyweight per hour, etc, serving guidelines and hardware mandated by law in these bars. To me, that's an obvious one. It's stupid, but that's why the law is stupid, and why it certainly looks like just a cash flow enhancement for the government, plus a way to get more police state powers
yes, the state laws all differ, I realise I wasn't clear in the first post on that, mea culpa, but I didn't just yank it from my nether regions, supreme court said it was ok basically, and I had remembered that wisconsin test case back when it happened (I looked it up, there it was), and found the link to it, and implied consent laws are in all 50 states. and that appears to about cover it mostly. That was my main point, and they can force it if they "suspect" whatever,which is the vaguery I meant. They could say something like "In officer's opinion, suspect was slurring his words and gave the appearance of impaired reactions, and was observed weaving" yada yada. Along those lines. In general, the law was addressed, supreme court, 1965, Schmermber v. California, where they said the police could force-take blood. There hasn't been a newer case since then as far as I can find out, but it's common apparently in a lot of states now, and they appear to go beyond what the court said was hospitals-only, so another case is over due it looks like.
As an aside,related issue but not exact, I know I saw some newer fed legislation on it as well, but I can't find it right now. I *think* it's inside the model state health emergency powers act, which has been adopted/modified by a lot, but not all, states. It's a set of federal guidelines (the model part) that states can adopt for the latest "terror" stuff, it goes well beyond just blood sampling.
it's in the fine print when you get your license, and the precise details differ state to state, but it is common to have breath/blood and hair being included. It is their discretion how far to push it. You can refuse, and then it is up to them if they insist on it. The "forced" case is from wisconsin, some doofus refused a blood test when he was stinko, they held him down and took it anyway, and he lost the appeal. There have also been a couple of test checkpoints where they did this, colorado and dang I can't remember the other state. Lemme see what I can find....
3 4& i=275&t=275
a ws .htm
here's a reference to the wisconsin case
http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=
Here's a good generic one on the whole subject of DNA sampling by law enforcement
general overview, implied consent laws:
http://www.legal-database.com/implied-consent-l
Basically, near as I can scratch it out, you have to give a sample if they say they suspected you of whatever. Refusal penalties vary state to state, and how much force can be used varies, but more or less they can.
You don't need to be charged with a thing if you are driving with a license, you have already given consent to have a blood and/or a hair sample taken because of the contract you signed with the state agreeing to your legal ward position and under their care to be permitted to travel.
..." yada yada, that's enough.
It's in effect in all 50 states and in DC now. Some areas are already doing this at "random courtesty checkpoints", where everyone is stopped and checked, and if you refuse, they are authorised the use of force to make you comply, all the way to strapping you down. This initiative in california is just a way to mandate a sampling procedure at every (felony) *arrest*, but it's already legal to do so at every traffic stop-no matter the reason,no arrest is required, no charges, merely if they choose to do it, they can mutter "suspicion of
FWIW/YMMV
under the help america vote act via the federal government.
http://fecweb1.fec.gov/hava/hava.htm
small cut from the text of the act:
HELP AMERICA VOTE ACT OF 2002
Page 116 STAT. 1666
Public Law 107-252
107th Congress
An Act
To establish a program to provide funds to States to replace punch card voting systems, to establish the Election Assistance Commission to assist in the administration of Federal elections and to otherwise provide assistance with the administration of certain Federal election laws and programs, to establish minimum election administration standards for States and units of local government with responsibility for the administration of Federal elections, and for other
purposes.
Just for clarification purposes
begin short generic rant
Personally, I think it's a complete total scam and an effort to have even more powerful vote rigging capabilities by criminal elements embedded inside the government. Like in most other circumstances the last several decades, the federal government is usurping states rights, because they can, by taking such a huge slice of everyones wealth, then doling it back to the states as long as they play along with their various royal edicts. And it doesn't hurt those efforts of continual passing of bogus laws in that the feds control the so called "supreme" court who have complete discretion on which cases they will hear or not hear, and by the federal legislature having carte blanche to pass clearly unconstitutional laws whenever they feel like it. catch 22 combined with the carrot and the stick basically. When dealing with the feds, it's heads I win, tails you lose according to how they interpet things.
end rant
Really, you make some decent points. I can give you some more background though on a few topics. the issue of japanese cars versus US cars back in the early 70's was a combination of factors. One was, we had some severe gas pump sticker shock with the OPEC embargo. the japnese were in a much better position to pump out high MPG cars and small trucks then the US companies were, because basically that was about all they were making, so they were a smash hit. The US market at the time was based on sub 25 cents a gallon gasoline, and a culture that had big families and traveled long distances on interstates frequently, hence, larger vehicles with bigger engines, and not much care to gas prices-I know I never even thought much about gas prices at the time, although I was aware of them, even at a normal cheap blue collar job, gas and most everything else was cheap. I was also in the UAW a few years previous to that era, and I, too, saw the japanese cars coming on strong, but I didn't think they would ge5t the market share so soon, because I didn't anticipate the OPEC embargo. I DID argue unsuccessfully in union meetings to not concentrate so much on pay raises, as to concetrate more on trying to force the management to make better qualioty cars, but realistically, that was contrary to both the companies and the unions POV. It's axiomatic, but if you make your product TOO good, you don't sell enough of them year after year to stay in business as much. It's a catch 22. US made cars will last long, but you need to really do the maintenance, I own and drive weekly a 75 chevy van that has well over 300 thousand miles on it, and it runs perfectly fine. But most people don't change their oil often enough, or drive harder than what is prudent, etc, so their cars wear out faster. another factor that was hotly debated at the time was the japanese companies "dumping" their products on the US market in order to get a higher market share. Dumping means they sell for at cost or even below cost for awhile which enough evidence exists to prove was true at the time. they still do it I believe, in the case of the new hybrid vehicles, they are quite a deal. They also had higher tariffs and import inspections on US vehicles entering japan than what we charged. Now WHY we did that, why we went along with it I mean, I do not know.
Another phenomenon that has occurred in the last few decades is the extremely fast rise of upper management salaries as a proportion of their companies employees average pay. It has exactly paralleled outsourcing time-wise. I don't think it's a coincidence, I mean, that new money had to come from somewhere.
here is a reference URL http://www.inequality.org/ceopay2000sklar2.html
small quote from the page, note, this is from year 2000, but it is still close to these figures now:
"CEOs didn't always earn as much as small countries. In 1980, they made 45 times the pay of production and nonsupervisory workers. By 1990, the CEO-worker pay gap had doubled, with CEOs making 96 times as much. By last year, that ratio had reached 458."
Now there's no way in heck some boss from year 2000 was 458 times a better manager than some boss from 1980. It don't compute. Maybe a few exceptions over all, but as a general rule, nope, humansd are humans. what we HAVE gotten is corporate tax break after corporate tax break, all the way to a tax break for US companies to outsource, along with a much higher acceptable level of insourced workers, legal and illegal, blue and white collar. It's another facet of a skewed economy against the middle class primarily, but the top level bosses/pundits/politicians have mostly kept repeating the same lie over and over again to keep the middle class faked out, while they pushed credit instead of pay, the famous phrase from the 80's was it would "trickle down" to joe average paycheck if the ultra rich got mega rich. It was a variation on the jack and the beanstalk magic beans fairy tale, but a lot of people fell for it.
I don't think the ramifications are ov
I was just posting generally speaking, but if you have a more specific request, I can find references to atrocities committed by militarily superior invading forces from about any war you might care to mention. It is more common than not. If you mean the current conflicts in iraq and afghanistan, or the previous balkans war, those are easy to find. Gulf war 1, or iran/iraq war, easy to find. Google, atrocities, iraq, afghanistan, serbia for a starter, you get hits. If you want to go back to say viet nam, geez, then it becomes even easier, just google for the term "free fire zone". If you want south or central american references, again, easy to find. Africa? man, it's daily. India/pakistan/kashmir/bangladesh/ceylon, again, easy.
It is more common than not.
And my other point is true too,most dictators get stuck in places,placed-in, they commit atrocities on their own people, larger nations support and train them and sell them stuff like the latest gee whizz fighter jets and tanks and whatnot, until such a time as for some reason they become "bad guys",usually from some high level business double crossing going on, then they get removed, they get called bad guys,"regime changed" is the current buzzword this century, then the cycle repeats itself someplace else. Hmm, there's a dude called noriega sitting in a US fed jail cell now, but at one time he was our bosom buddy,our ally, we sold him weapons and our soldiers trained with his soldiers, all great sport and fun,etc, but his peasants seem to suffer and whoops he seemed to be a big CIA asset in drug smuggling operations as well. Same thing happened in nicaragua, then in el salvador, and in chile and argentina and.... I guess Noriega got greedy with the dope cut or something because we had to go invade panama to remove our previous "strong ally and friend". Collateral damage, atrocities, check.
So anyway, which war ya want? Or do you really think atrocities aren't committed in your average war? Russia into afghanistan, atrocities, check. Into chechnya, check. America into viet nam, mega-check. Hmm, no viet nam into america though, funny...I remember being told if we didn't stop them there they would be in dubuque within weeks or sumthin... hmm, anyway, Germany into wherever in ww2, atrocities, check. Japan into china and southeast asia, atrocities, check. Russia back into poland and the ukraine and germany and finland in ww2, atrocities, check. Germany in the air into london, atrocities, random civilian genocide, check. Allies back into dresden, random civilian genocide, check. US cavalry into various indian villages, atrocities, check. British army into who knows how many nations over the centuries, atrocities, check. Spain into the new world, atrocities, check. Union army, sherman, through the south, atrocities, check.
On and on. It's real man, and your hate will never bring a one of those folks back.
I'm just not impressed anymore with superior ways for conscripted military serfs or uncaring paid mercenaries to be superior and more efficient killers for some politician/bankers purposes, sorry, I'm just not. When I was much younger I was quite different,very different, I was just the biggest flag waving fire breathin John Wayne clone you can imagine-but then I found about "real life". Whoops. Gee, I actually accumulated some real life data. Sort of blew all that jingoism I was brainwashed into. And guess I'm not real sorry it happened to me either, in fact, kinda greatful for it now.
Sorry, no longer impressed by more efficient ways to murder people so some huge international conglomerates can make more profits. I'm not a pacifist, I am a strong supporter of legitimate self defense, I think every dude out there has a born-with right to self defense, to be armed, and to resist being murdered, exploited, ripped off, and etc, and unfortunately, it's far more likely on a generic planetary scale to happen to people-I mean, getting murdered, blown up, raped, "detained", have your house smashed, etc, etc, from either their own
I wonder if there are any non military useages of the idea. Perhaps in a storm shelter? Not sure.
Anyway, here is my translation from a couple of paragraphs in the story,as if the story was written from some poor peasants point of view, as opposed to joe stockbroker sipping latte and reading the latest mil industrial complex conglomerate quotes at his local "axis of profits, nothing personal it's just business" coffee house
"With the easy availability of RPG-7 rocket launchers-thank god we have at least something to defend our village with- "it only takes one individual on, say, a rooftop in a village to cause major damage or destroy passing armoured vehicles", he said.-Man, those tanks and soldiers from BigNation.Com, Inc. suck the big one. They come in here, invade, kill the people, every one of us is called a terrorist, they drive their tanks over our crops causing famine, smash our huts down, shoot all the men they can find, rape our wives and daughters then sit around and torture the remnants for sport. This is dismal. Glad I scraped up enough dough to get me an RPG. It's not much but it might stop them. Why don't they stay in their own country anyway? Oh ya, I forgot, we have oil/tin/gold/diamonds/whatever, and they want it, and they say our current dictator is worse than their dictator, so that makes us all terrorists. Silly me, how could I forget....
"But the use of electric armour, which will protect against all shaped-charge warheads including artillery and tank shells, would reduce the threat to zero."--Oh crap! Now, we have nothing to stop those invaders with! I guess we lose, might as well get out the black boot polish and rags and beg for some pennies from the nice soldier guys, when they get done with our wives and daughters that is. In the mean time I'll get back to whittling a wooden leg for one of my kids who was unfortunately a "collateral damage" statistic. I hope the new dictator the soldiers appoint to be our ruler will be better than the last one they appointed 10 years ago.
The NAB (their members obviously)has been sticking the hand out for decades accepting the paylola money, and colluding with them to keep microbroadcasters and independents off the air, about as unfair and crooked as you can get, they know how the game is played, and it's a crooked game. So NOW they go OMG, THIS AIN'T FAIR!
duh It's like a falling out between two mafia gangs. There's no good guys here to speak of.
NAB=crooked
MAFFIA=crooked
bad guys=known to rip each other off
FCC=crooked beat cop "on the pad"
joe citizen=screwed as usual, and somehow it's all his fault and there needs to be a "crack down" on joe citizen
I am not trying to restrict them from the internet. the entire premise of the story is that the uni there is so poor they can't get it. I merely pointed out where the money is going-out of the country and mosty of the rest into local warlords pockets-at least a huge amount of it.. They have oil up the wazoo, yet the people remain poor. maybe you think this is OK, perhaps just normal capitalism or something,too bad, the people who can grab it are "entitled" to it or something, but I think it's abhorrent and I feel totally justified in pointing it out. The uni has to go scrounging for an internet connection and jump through hoops having a canned micronet sent to them, when for a relative pittance that could come out of their oil that has most of the profits skimmed off downstream they could have a normal net connection of some sort.
I can't explain it any better other than I think it's just "wrong" and I partially at least blame the entire system the way it is set up in oil trading. I also blame the nigerians themselves for clinging to ridiculous tribalism and general petty warfare, and for the rest of the world putting up with it and trading with whatever tinpot dictator some giant cartel sticks in, and yes, that's what happens in a lot of cases. I can rattle off a list of them without breaking sweat. The so called "third world" stays that way a lot from the first world wanting it that way, it is more profitable. Been like that for centuries, I doubt it can be disputed. they just don't call it colonialism any more, it's just "international business".
As to flaring, it just wasn't considered useful to the oil producers in the past to recover the gas, so they burned it off. Deal is, it *is and was useful to the people who live in the area*. The big oil companies didn't care in the past, because they had no easy way to collect and pipe out the gas and sell it,the local peasants couldn't buy their own gas back from the oil companies, they are peasants with no money, so it wasn't "profitable" for them to cut in the local peasants/peons/whatever into any sort of piece of the pie. All that dwould do was cost them "profit", so it wasn't done, they flared it off. It's very useful to people to use though, as is natural gas all over the world useful, IF it was part of the contract to force the oil companies to do it, but it's cheaper for them to slip the local warlord an extra bag of cash to not give a care about it. That's reality as much as any technical problems. Recovery of gas is quite doable, they do it all over now,and have been for at least a decade or more at well heads. Here is one URL I found easily with examples all over the planet
http://www.seen.org/db/Dispatch?action-ProjectWi dg et:728-detail=1
And I DO commend the people bring the net to those people, I just think it could be done at a much better rate and efficiency by using the tools for the job, in this case, take the oil money that is there by the boatload and apply it to the people who actually own the oil, help them out with their interests a little bit more fairly, rather than this low budget charity deal. If they were dirt poor from no natural resources, no nothing, I could see it, but this isn't the case here. You can't tell me out of all that oil an extra million or so dollars to build some sort of internet infrastructure and electrical structure couldn't be squeezed out without any fatcats missing a single mercedes ride or "power lunch" in some downtown club.
I see it here too in rural USA. We can't get broadband for nuthin,there's "no money" for it from anyplace to run any cable or fat copper or fiber, yet property taxes go to fund incredibly stupid things like football giant stadiums at high schools, or municipal bonds go to fund professional sports teams even more stadiums. I think things like that are nuts, and I just point them out. I just call 'em like I see 'em. I don't have a 120 gig hard drive full of baby internet stuff to donate, if I did I might, my largest is an 8 gig, I'm pretty poor