Anybody involved with manufacturing or distributing methamphetamine, especially West of the Mississippi River, I am thinking, "Is the guy a Biker Dude with connections or membership in Hell's Angels bike club? I saw a one hour special on television a couple of weeks ago, maybe on The Learning Channel, describing how Canadian biker gangs and their American counterparts ruthlessly controlled and expanded their drug dealing business into Canadian cities.
As for the U.S. Prosecutors seeking to confiscate the 18,753 volume collection of comic books, I would suggest the U.S. Courts await a conviction, before handing over the goodies to our light-fingered new American Police State.
As for the comic books, maybe the Library of Congress would be interested in this fabulous collection of American literary culture. I wonder if this comic book collection includes several I read as a kid: Adventure comics, DC Comics, and maybe that issue titled "The Citadel."
What gets me, is how easily American international corporations and businesses - (think "big box" and "dollar stores" among other Importers) bed down with these totalitarian statist "one party rule" Chinese thugs. I cannot think of a single instance, whereby the Chinese Mandarin Rulers in Beijing have "lightened up" a little; not on Tibet; not on Hong Kong; not on Japan; not on Southeast Asia; not on the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Far East; and not on Taiwan, to name just a few concerns.
Why we Americans do not treat Mainland China, like Fidel Castro's Cuba, or the Ayatollah's Iran, is beyond my ability to comprehend the "realpolitik" of our foreign policy and MBA business smarts. They have brand new Buick factories; we have Flint Michigan, Detroit, Michigan, and now, Madison, Wisconsin.
When will the U.S. Dollar, and American political, financial, and business leaders "smarten up"? I hope it's not too late, when they do.
My Mozilla 3.5 version Browser was glitching up on my Desktop PC earlier today, after I committed to a Microsoft JavaScript Update. As a matter of fact, it was not working at all. Didn't Microsoft recently buy Sun Microsystems, the owner of JAVA? I believe so. They fought a big lawsuit over Microsoft unilaterally rewriting Java coding without Sun's permission or license. Now, that is all over with. Fortunately, everything on my PC works now, with a restart. Who knows what the future will bring, with Microsoft owning Java, and Mozilla running JavaScript threads? Could it be, that Microsoft bought Sun in order to take on the Open Source Mozilla Browser Project? Could be, could be . . . .
Fact is, the more "educated" or "trained" our so-called Journalists get, the more our newspapers and news outlets feed us pablum and celebrity dross.
The same holds true for the Human Resource or Personnel "Professionals" who are supposedly trained or certified to screen Applicants at major American Companies or Corporations. These people need a trail of crumbs to find their own washrooms, let alone a way towards hiring a qualified, able, and well-experienced new Worker.
You really do not want to get me started, but the truth is, even once you get an interview, or get hired by an American company or corporation, the amazing level of dimwitted "leadership" is quite astonishing.
While it makes for interesting cartoon panels, the fact is, a dying American Economy is no joke. Most people think ten percent unemployment is perfectly okay. Companies, Corporations, Governments and Elites especially, think that a tight labor market, one in which Workers are getting "trashed" every day in a million ways, is somehow good for themselves, or for the economy, or maybe just for purposes of "discipline." However, this is just another conceit that shows the extreme levels of ignorance stalking the North American Continent of late.
While foreigners with intelligence, saavy, business acumen and social norms and values, not to mention well established traditions and religious values, surge ahead with ease and fluidity in today's modern, interconnected and "global" economies of scale, the Anglo-American economic engine is sputtering and running on fewer cylinders than the engine actually has for propelling our own Economy forward.
I could go into more detail, and many specifics. However, they will have to await my Writer's Advance and Signed Book Contract, and maybe a Movie Deal, thereafter.
You want answers? I got your answers, right here!
People who use the Internet should "smarten up" about who is trying to curtail or limit their individual usage of the amazing and empowering enablement to use and transfer files between connected computers. These big companies and some government officials just cannot "get it through their heads" that they are not in charge of our files, computers and desktops: we are. In America we call it "We the People" but in the Queen's Canada, I don't know how you delineate or protect your alleged or asserted freedoms from these sneaky, ongoing and pernicious predations.
The case of Quebecor pinching people's Internet accounts, reminds me of the recent American brouhaha over Comcast Cable Company deciding unilaterally to squeeze the Internet pipeline for their customers who utilized file sharing programs. Once brought to the attention of the American people and those of us who favor a free and open, available Internet, Comcast, the rich and powerful corporation, was hauled into court, in a case which they lost. Proving to be sore losers, Comcast Corporation, run by the Roberts Brothers, continues to try an "end run" around this clear and decisive American court case result, this time by using Canada, it's government, people and legal structure, as it's foil to accomplish there, what they could not accomplish here in America, namely, steal the free and easy freedoms of the Internet for the millions of users who depend on it daily, for many important and vital functions in their lives, not just entertainment or file sharing, although these are certainly valid, useful, and quite legal activities in their own right.
The idea that you can have your Internet access pinched or terminated by a major Internet service provider or ISP such as Comcast or Quebecor is utterly ridiculous. Only some incredibly obtuse and unobservant person in the bureaucracies of government or corporations could possibly continue to think along these lines, in this modern era. I guess "hope springs eternal" even in the hearts of would-be, money focused, autocratic jerks. Wake up, Canadiens! Study the Case of Comcast here, and ask for help, if you need it. This battle for Internet freedom, will obviously be a continuous series of engagements with the enemies of our freedoms and individual empowerment and civil liberties. Time to Rock and Roll.
-- I worked as Tech Dispatcher (a Volt temp) for PlumChoice.com, a very new Company in Billerica, Massachusetts, that is doing a great business dispatching Circuit City Firedog PC and TV Techs nationwide. They are the biggest profit center for Circuit City. The loot is truly exceptionally good, adn the Company is growing quite strongly. They have received at least two rounds of venture capital funding. Unfortunately, they could not figure out a way to consider my 53 year old personage for a regular status job. Instead, when I asked why I was not getting considered, they chose to end my work assignment, rather than answer my question. This is the kind of corporate entity you cannot trust in any respect, let alone in the personal business of mucking around in your home PC computer and wireless network.
The technique used for remote tech support, was to e-mail the customer a Java applet attachment file which would supposedly expire at the conclusion of the appointed use for remote tech access to the person's home or office computer. However, I found that people were sold computers that had undesirable 30-day trial software, with pop-ups and advertisements and forceful blandishments to buy or be disabled in your PC functionality. Also, the PC tech support service guarantee was only 5 days. As such, people, particularly elderly or older Americans who were vulnerable to this sort of marketing and sales presssure, were encouraged to pay and pay again and again to fix the same problem. It was really quite disgraceful, but there you go -- mo' money means mo' business in corporate America. Based on my experience as a worker for these corporations, I would never use their proffered services, and I would be aware that they are now working with Microsoft's new "fix your computer remotely" service, whereby they download enabling software permanently and surreptitiously onto your computer. But what else is new, when it comes to Microsoft? Who controls your desktop and files, you or the Corporations and the Government? According to them, they have ownership, and you do not own your own files or desktop. Your description of a PC or Network Tech accessing your personal files is just the "tip of the iceberg" of this ongoing problem. The Internet started out free and accessable to all at a reasonable or nominal price. Now, the governments and the corporations are moving in to "take ownership" and their reach extends into your home, into your home network, into your operating system and your desktop and your files. I have heard that home PCs (and telephones) can be enabled to spy on the home's occupants, as well. So much for due process, limited government, privacy rights, worker rights, "government of, by and for the people" and informed consent. http://www.csoonline.com.au/index.php/id;334364884;fp;4;fpid;3
Well, I am 49 and have nothing to show for it, so "count your blessings", Mister, and get on with your life. Plenty to look forward to in the next ten years, I can assure you!
You make the fundamental misunderstanding of our modern era, that the only value a person has is his or her economic value. Even by this measure, your resulting valuation is only approximate, imperfect, flawed. For one thing, people who create our advances, whether in technology or otherwise, generally do not operate in a singular, solitary "vacuum". The Wright Brothers invented their airplane in the midst of a community of others working assiduously, and quite publicly, to enable manned flight. Word of both failures and successes travelled across the country and around the globe. Haven't you seen old videotapes of the various, abortive "flying machine" contraptions? Also, Bill Gates did not make DOS 1.0; he talked with IBM about their new, "personal" computer, they told him what they needed (an operating system) and he turned around and contracted the job out to some programmer in California (Stanford connected?) to do the job in a week or two for $3,000 or $5,000. Bill's daddy was a successful businessman, Bill blew off his admission to Harvard after one term, so he had both opportunity and capital, plus he recognized his opportunity when he found himself in the right place at the right time. By contrast, I met Ray Kroc in front of his first McDonald's Restaurant on Mount Prospect Road in Des Plaines, Illinois (near O'Hare Airport; now rebuilt as a secular, historic "shrine" by the McDonald's Corporation.) We talked business, hamburgers specifically, what a great product he had, how to expand the concept (franchise) into other markets quickly, but I was just a kid approaching seven years old, and my family was moving away. Ray Kroc repeatedly asked me to send my father over to meet him, he had a job waiting (ground floor opportunity in one of the greatest business ventures ever) but my Dad was entirely resistant, saying to me, "Son, I have a good job [utility engineer - Company provided Mom with zero pension after Dad's 23 years of service]" and utterly refused to meet the nice Mr. Kroc, despite my imploring, repeated entreaties. Thirteen years later, my family moved again, this time across the street from a first generation, business saavy Greek-American immigrant, who had bought the rights to franchise McDonald's Restaurants in the State of Maine. Without building a single store, the guy was worth millions. And I might add that the McDonald's franchise business model has transformed the business landscape both at home and abroad. Old Mr. Ray Kroc and I had the right idea, and it worked ("billions served") but I missed one of the biggest "ground floor" opportunities ever. Yet, I still have "value".
Oh God, we have not really tried "Communism" yet? How many intellectual, professorial fraudsters like Karl Marx and their spawn must we deal with? I am a Liberal, which is to say, I do not confuse the words "Community" and "Communism". Why is nobody mentioning the serial, governmental brutality of "Uncle Joe" Stalin here, or his Chinese cousin, "Chairman Mao" Tse Tung? Millions of lives were lost under each of these "comrades". Do you give any credence to the idea that these two governmental ideologues set back their countries, people and the world at large immeasurably in their few decades on this earth? I would think the Environmentalists, among others, would be livid at the thought of these two, shipwrecked, communist totalitarian regimes, and the industrial, political military and environmental slag they left behind for others to clean up. Although Uncle Joe was a tremendous party and bureaucratic organizer before he became a murderous head-of-state. He dragged Russia into the modern era, which might have happened anyway, and a lot faster, if men like Tesla and others had more freedoms. Mao was an astonishingly quick study, a very intelligent man, but also quite willing to engage the "cult of personality" during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and throughout his career. While both men are worthy subjects for historical and biographic studies, I think it would be to learn from the past, so as to avoid repeating it.
Slashdot Mirror
Anybody involved with manufacturing or distributing methamphetamine, especially West of the Mississippi River, I am thinking, "Is the guy a Biker Dude with connections or membership in Hell's Angels bike club? I saw a one hour special on television a couple of weeks ago, maybe on The Learning Channel, describing how Canadian biker gangs and their American counterparts ruthlessly controlled and expanded their drug dealing business into Canadian cities. As for the U.S. Prosecutors seeking to confiscate the 18,753 volume collection of comic books, I would suggest the U.S. Courts await a conviction, before handing over the goodies to our light-fingered new American Police State. As for the comic books, maybe the Library of Congress would be interested in this fabulous collection of American literary culture. I wonder if this comic book collection includes several I read as a kid: Adventure comics, DC Comics, and maybe that issue titled "The Citadel."
What gets me, is how easily American international corporations and businesses - (think "big box" and "dollar stores" among other Importers) bed down with these totalitarian statist "one party rule" Chinese thugs. I cannot think of a single instance, whereby the Chinese Mandarin Rulers in Beijing have "lightened up" a little; not on Tibet; not on Hong Kong; not on Japan; not on Southeast Asia; not on the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Far East; and not on Taiwan, to name just a few concerns. Why we Americans do not treat Mainland China, like Fidel Castro's Cuba, or the Ayatollah's Iran, is beyond my ability to comprehend the "realpolitik" of our foreign policy and MBA business smarts. They have brand new Buick factories; we have Flint Michigan, Detroit, Michigan, and now, Madison, Wisconsin. When will the U.S. Dollar, and American political, financial, and business leaders "smarten up"? I hope it's not too late, when they do.
My Mozilla 3.5 version Browser was glitching up on my Desktop PC earlier today, after I committed to a Microsoft JavaScript Update. As a matter of fact, it was not working at all. Didn't Microsoft recently buy Sun Microsystems, the owner of JAVA? I believe so. They fought a big lawsuit over Microsoft unilaterally rewriting Java coding without Sun's permission or license. Now, that is all over with. Fortunately, everything on my PC works now, with a restart. Who knows what the future will bring, with Microsoft owning Java, and Mozilla running JavaScript threads? Could it be, that Microsoft bought Sun in order to take on the Open Source Mozilla Browser Project? Could be, could be . . . .
Fact is, the more "educated" or "trained" our so-called Journalists get, the more our newspapers and news outlets feed us pablum and celebrity dross. The same holds true for the Human Resource or Personnel "Professionals" who are supposedly trained or certified to screen Applicants at major American Companies or Corporations. These people need a trail of crumbs to find their own washrooms, let alone a way towards hiring a qualified, able, and well-experienced new Worker. You really do not want to get me started, but the truth is, even once you get an interview, or get hired by an American company or corporation, the amazing level of dimwitted "leadership" is quite astonishing. While it makes for interesting cartoon panels, the fact is, a dying American Economy is no joke. Most people think ten percent unemployment is perfectly okay. Companies, Corporations, Governments and Elites especially, think that a tight labor market, one in which Workers are getting "trashed" every day in a million ways, is somehow good for themselves, or for the economy, or maybe just for purposes of "discipline." However, this is just another conceit that shows the extreme levels of ignorance stalking the North American Continent of late. While foreigners with intelligence, saavy, business acumen and social norms and values, not to mention well established traditions and religious values, surge ahead with ease and fluidity in today's modern, interconnected and "global" economies of scale, the Anglo-American economic engine is sputtering and running on fewer cylinders than the engine actually has for propelling our own Economy forward. I could go into more detail, and many specifics. However, they will have to await my Writer's Advance and Signed Book Contract, and maybe a Movie Deal, thereafter. You want answers? I got your answers, right here!
People who use the Internet should "smarten up" about who is trying to curtail or limit their individual usage of the amazing and empowering enablement to use and transfer files between connected computers. These big companies and some government officials just cannot "get it through their heads" that they are not in charge of our files, computers and desktops: we are. In America we call it "We the People" but in the Queen's Canada, I don't know how you delineate or protect your alleged or asserted freedoms from these sneaky, ongoing and pernicious predations. The case of Quebecor pinching people's Internet accounts, reminds me of the recent American brouhaha over Comcast Cable Company deciding unilaterally to squeeze the Internet pipeline for their customers who utilized file sharing programs. Once brought to the attention of the American people and those of us who favor a free and open, available Internet, Comcast, the rich and powerful corporation, was hauled into court, in a case which they lost. Proving to be sore losers, Comcast Corporation, run by the Roberts Brothers, continues to try an "end run" around this clear and decisive American court case result, this time by using Canada, it's government, people and legal structure, as it's foil to accomplish there, what they could not accomplish here in America, namely, steal the free and easy freedoms of the Internet for the millions of users who depend on it daily, for many important and vital functions in their lives, not just entertainment or file sharing, although these are certainly valid, useful, and quite legal activities in their own right. The idea that you can have your Internet access pinched or terminated by a major Internet service provider or ISP such as Comcast or Quebecor is utterly ridiculous. Only some incredibly obtuse and unobservant person in the bureaucracies of government or corporations could possibly continue to think along these lines, in this modern era. I guess "hope springs eternal" even in the hearts of would-be, money focused, autocratic jerks. Wake up, Canadiens! Study the Case of Comcast here, and ask for help, if you need it. This battle for Internet freedom, will obviously be a continuous series of engagements with the enemies of our freedoms and individual empowerment and civil liberties. Time to Rock and Roll.
-- I worked as Tech Dispatcher (a Volt temp) for PlumChoice.com, a very new Company in Billerica, Massachusetts, that is doing a great business dispatching Circuit City Firedog PC and TV Techs nationwide. They are the biggest profit center for Circuit City. The loot is truly exceptionally good, adn the Company is growing quite strongly. They have received at least two rounds of venture capital funding. Unfortunately, they could not figure out a way to consider my 53 year old personage for a regular status job. Instead, when I asked why I was not getting considered, they chose to end my work assignment, rather than answer my question. This is the kind of corporate entity you cannot trust in any respect, let alone in the personal business of mucking around in your home PC computer and wireless network. The technique used for remote tech support, was to e-mail the customer a Java applet attachment file which would supposedly expire at the conclusion of the appointed use for remote tech access to the person's home or office computer. However, I found that people were sold computers that had undesirable 30-day trial software, with pop-ups and advertisements and forceful blandishments to buy or be disabled in your PC functionality. Also, the PC tech support service guarantee was only 5 days. As such, people, particularly elderly or older Americans who were vulnerable to this sort of marketing and sales presssure, were encouraged to pay and pay again and again to fix the same problem. It was really quite disgraceful, but there you go -- mo' money means mo' business in corporate America. Based on my experience as a worker for these corporations, I would never use their proffered services, and I would be aware that they are now working with Microsoft's new "fix your computer remotely" service, whereby they download enabling software permanently and surreptitiously onto your computer. But what else is new, when it comes to Microsoft? Who controls your desktop and files, you or the Corporations and the Government? According to them, they have ownership, and you do not own your own files or desktop. Your description of a PC or Network Tech accessing your personal files is just the "tip of the iceberg" of this ongoing problem. The Internet started out free and accessable to all at a reasonable or nominal price. Now, the governments and the corporations are moving in to "take ownership" and their reach extends into your home, into your home network, into your operating system and your desktop and your files. I have heard that home PCs (and telephones) can be enabled to spy on the home's occupants, as well. So much for due process, limited government, privacy rights, worker rights, "government of, by and for the people" and informed consent. http://www.csoonline.com.au/index.php/id;334364884;fp;4;fpid;3
Well, I am 49 and have nothing to show for it, so "count your blessings", Mister, and get on with your life. Plenty to look forward to in the next ten years, I can assure you!
You make the fundamental misunderstanding of our modern era, that the only value a person has is his or her economic value. Even by this measure, your resulting valuation is only approximate, imperfect, flawed. For one thing, people who create our advances, whether in technology or otherwise, generally do not operate in a singular, solitary "vacuum". The Wright Brothers invented their airplane in the midst of a community of others working assiduously, and quite publicly, to enable manned flight. Word of both failures and successes travelled across the country and around the globe. Haven't you seen old videotapes of the various, abortive "flying machine" contraptions? Also, Bill Gates did not make DOS 1.0; he talked with IBM about their new, "personal" computer, they told him what they needed (an operating system) and he turned around and contracted the job out to some programmer in California (Stanford connected?) to do the job in a week or two for $3,000 or $5,000. Bill's daddy was a successful businessman, Bill blew off his admission to Harvard after one term, so he had both opportunity and capital, plus he recognized his opportunity when he found himself in the right place at the right time. By contrast, I met Ray Kroc in front of his first McDonald's Restaurant on Mount Prospect Road in Des Plaines, Illinois (near O'Hare Airport; now rebuilt as a secular, historic "shrine" by the McDonald's Corporation.) We talked business, hamburgers specifically, what a great product he had, how to expand the concept (franchise) into other markets quickly, but I was just a kid approaching seven years old, and my family was moving away. Ray Kroc repeatedly asked me to send my father over to meet him, he had a job waiting (ground floor opportunity in one of the greatest business ventures ever) but my Dad was entirely resistant, saying to me, "Son, I have a good job [utility engineer - Company provided Mom with zero pension after Dad's 23 years of service]" and utterly refused to meet the nice Mr. Kroc, despite my imploring, repeated entreaties. Thirteen years later, my family moved again, this time across the street from a first generation, business saavy Greek-American immigrant, who had bought the rights to franchise McDonald's Restaurants in the State of Maine. Without building a single store, the guy was worth millions. And I might add that the McDonald's franchise business model has transformed the business landscape both at home and abroad. Old Mr. Ray Kroc and I had the right idea, and it worked ("billions served") but I missed one of the biggest "ground floor" opportunities ever. Yet, I still have "value".
Oh God, we have not really tried "Communism" yet? How many intellectual, professorial fraudsters like Karl Marx and their spawn must we deal with? I am a Liberal, which is to say, I do not confuse the words "Community" and "Communism". Why is nobody mentioning the serial, governmental brutality of "Uncle Joe" Stalin here, or his Chinese cousin, "Chairman Mao" Tse Tung? Millions of lives were lost under each of these "comrades". Do you give any credence to the idea that these two governmental ideologues set back their countries, people and the world at large immeasurably in their few decades on this earth? I would think the Environmentalists, among others, would be livid at the thought of these two, shipwrecked, communist totalitarian regimes, and the industrial, political military and environmental slag they left behind for others to clean up. Although Uncle Joe was a tremendous party and bureaucratic organizer before he became a murderous head-of-state. He dragged Russia into the modern era, which might have happened anyway, and a lot faster, if men like Tesla and others had more freedoms. Mao was an astonishingly quick study, a very intelligent man, but also quite willing to engage the "cult of personality" during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and throughout his career. While both men are worthy subjects for historical and biographic studies, I think it would be to learn from the past, so as to avoid repeating it.
Here is a link from the government: http://rredc.nrel.gov/kidzlinks.html and here is one from Bucks Mont Astronomical Association: http://bma2.org/