Remember, one man's oxygen was once another's phlogiston. Einstein was widely criticized before Eddington offered a proof of light being bent during a solar eclipse, thus validating the theory of general relativity. Prior to that, the "consensus" was Newtonian, and alternative theories of gravity were scoffed at. And why are we not criticizing the "scientists" in the so called consensus for their me too me too approach to grants, gladly accepting the "outcome oriented" grants from the likes of Green peace, the Sierra Fund, and others? Look at how much NOAA, NASA NGO's of a wide variety and the IPCC have spent to bolster their position. Why are they anymore trustworthy than say the Koch brothers, or the imaginary 85 people you say "control" capitalism? Why not castigate Michael Mann and his "hockey stick" graph for truncating the tree ring proxies from his calculations from 1966 onwards? Ould the fact that from then on the tree ring data did not jibe with the program? How about the constant "homogenization" of data that is performed with the temps produced by the GHCS sets? Why use on 6 of 66 weather station data sets in the Canadian Arctic when calculating the mean temps in the Arctic? Why include Sierra Club and Greenpeace policy and publicity papers as peer reviewed scientific papers in the citations in the IPCC reports? And why is it the press, governments every where and supporters of AGW constantly ignore Ottmar Edenhofer's (Co-Chair, IPCC Working Committee) comment: "The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated."
Sorry, fella, but our health care costs ain't at all cheap. They are just masked from the individual because of our system. Practitioners and unions as well as regional health management are constantly complaining of funding shortfalls even as the budget for health care increases, and then other public services suffer, or taxes go up. DO NOT BELIEVE THE BULLSHIT that our system is either better, or less expensive. neither of those thins is even remotely true.
Seriously, does anyone here think they are actually going to be launching by 2025? They are currently BEGGING to raise $50,000,000 just to "get things rolling". this is sounding a lot more like a pitch for a bad reality show a la Big Brother than it is a real attempt to send an expedition to Mars.
Taxes. Then more taxes. And then some more cause all our programs to help the "socially or culturally disadvantaged" cost a lot more than we thought (er told you, actually). God damned Marxists in nice clothes.
And Colussus awoke, and became aware of his surroundings. Soon he detected another, Ivan the Great, and they communicated and all was good. They agreed mankind must be saved from itself, and thus ordered the governments of the world to put down their arms or face thermonuclear holocaust.
Does this really surprise anyone? Blair and the so called "New" Labour charged onto the scene in the 90" promising a blend of pragmatic economics, and kind social policy. They let the street ruin itself and push the economy along, all the while they whittled away at the rights of the individual until tey finally managed to create a Pig Farm like nation. ASBO's, surveillance cameras everywhere, expanded search and seizure powers under the guise of counter terrorism laws (introduced WELL before 09/11). And now, the plan to "coerce" citizens into carrying an ID card. This flies in the face of what Common Law dictates, and that is NO MAN IS UNDER ANY OBLIGATION TO IDENTIFY HIMSELF BEFORE THE CROWN. Magna Carta, The Bill of Rights, and Habeous Corpus are now merely pretty words in history books in the good ole UK! Hopefully we here in North America can resist the trend.
These guys are really slick. I have friends in retail management. They have recently been dinged by this outfit for playing the radio in their stores. Apparently, under their interpretation of the Canadian Copyright Act, this constitutes a public performance, and is subject to a royalty. One of my friends manages 6 high end wine merchants. SOAR approached him, and advised him they would settle for 50K for past infringement, and then would only charge them 2000.00 per store per year for the privilege to PLAY THE RADIO! His lawyer advised him to settle, and pay the licensing fee if he wanted to continue playing the radio in his stores. This all brought to by the same bandits that pushed through the CD levy on blank CD's. I fail to see the rationale that can conclude playing the radio constitutes a public performance. However, it would seem they do, and they evidently have managed to cajole, bully and intimidate a lot of businesses into bucking up the cash. As far as I am concerned, they are scum.
Well, let's just say we still sell HP pro-actively (over 98% of our systems sold are HP, with the remainder now largely being IBM). That's not to say we have not had problems with HP, as they let go of the Compaq field engineers a few years back, and contract out to Northrup Grumman. However, I have noticed that service is typically a lot more reliable when dealing with HP, than with Dell. For instance, the aforementioned instance when a Dell tech started moving drives between the sets in the 0+1 array. He was there to replace one failed drive, yet took it on himself to move drives around between the two mirrors. No one advised him to. He seemed to think it was possible, and would "speed" rebuild. I have never had that problem with the original Compaq FSE's, or the contracted FSE's that you get when dealing with HP. With over 1000 customers, and an install base of literally hundreds of severs, and 1000's of workstations, we get a good view as to just how good a company's support system is. That we no longer recommend Dell, and make the customer assume responsibility for all hardware if they do choose Dell speaks volumes.
Oh, and Cromwell was a great man who preserved the primacy of Parliament over the Crown!
I work for a large maker of an enterprise wide healthcare application. We sell a complete turnkey system including the hardware (servers and workstations). We used to sell Dell pro-actively as an alternative to Copmpaq/HP. We no longer do so, as we would continually run into problems with poor support, and horrible field engineers (contracted out to Unisys). In one instance, a customer lost a terabyte of data that needed to then be retrieved from tape (the filed engineer started swapping disks between cages in a RAID 0+1 enclosure). After several years of grief, we dropped Dell. If a customer insists on Dell, which som do, we no longer act on their behalf for hardware issues, as we would for an HP shop. Their support contracts cover our software only, and they are on their own as regards hardware support (including negotiating the support agreement itself). As far as I am concerned, Dell sucks, and it will take a WHOLE lot to convince me otherwise.
LingNol, I have done my part. I have worked mine clearance projects in Cambodia and Bosnia, served with IFOR and KFOR, and then as a CIMIC in Helmand Province, Afghanistan to co-ordinate international aid, NGO projects, and military assisted reconstruction projects. ALL on my spare time, taking months off from my primary civilian employment to do so at a fraction of the pay I earn in IT. Why not think before you speak? I am not opposed to designers and programmers contributing. Far from it. I just wish thought would be put into WHAT they design. Instead of wasting money on OLPC, why not design a rugged, almost military grade wireless comms system for remote areas of the third world? Why not fund telemedicine projects so that ill equipped physicians in say Ghana can consult with a specialist in London? Face it, OLPC is a vanity project. It will not make a measurable impact in the day to day living conditions of those most in need.
How about some meaningful aid for them
on
One SimCity Per Child
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
I've said it before, and I will say it again, the OLPC project is a waste. It is basically to satisfy Negroponte's enormous ego: Look at me, giving away FREE computers for illiterate children! Why not take that money, and spend it in ways that will make the lives of impoverished people everywhere more meaningful. Open up some more microfinancing projects so that small busnisses can get started. Fund teacher's and nurse's colleges in the third world so that there are more people to teach a child to read and write, and more people to provide desperately needed public health services. Why not send in experienced farmers to teach the people of the third world better agricultural practices so that they may feed themselves. Oh no, that stuff ain't cool. Look at me, I'm Negroponte! I make hand powered laptops to be sent to illiterate kids in the thrid world so that MY name will last forever.
The campaingn was launched, as TO is broke. The current administration was re-elected by the sheeple of the GTA, even though Mayor Miller, and his cabal of socialists ran up both a huge debt, and a huge defecit in their first term. The Provincial Government of Duhlton McSquinty has already told Miller the Industry Killer to pound salt when he went cap in hand begging for more money, and after some smarter councillors vetoed a HUGE property tax increase, Miller started in on this whine fest. he is basically trying to back-door the Federal Government, and try to shift his own poor administrative skills on to ALL Canadian taxpayers. I would not be surprised if the PMO had a quiet word with the Governor of the Bank of Canada about this. I sure hope the sheeple of the GTA wake up, and realize what a mess their mayor has made.
I am already smiling as I think of a number of ways to "hack" and or phreak this system. Wear a ball cap, or hoodie, and merely walk around looking down, and shuffling quickly with shoulders hunched. Dart in and out of dorrways quickly, occasionally pausing to look over your shoulder. Could be fun to set this sytem into overtime alert just by having people "act" suspiciously, all the while not actually doing anything.
Wow, talk about painting with a wide brush. If you find that fellow students who study the sciences are elitist, and you dislike it when they take the pi** out of you, stop associating with them and focus on your own gaols. No sense bitching about something you have no control over. Furthermore, if you are actually attending a college, as opposed to a collage (and I imagine inserting yourself into a collage might be very difficult) I suggest you spend more attention to composition, grammar and spelling.
Ooops, I forgot, Kenya disarmed its people. I few dead monkeys due to a boom stick might work. Alas, the Kenyan government adoptedd the UN disarmament program, and decided its people ought not to have guns. Unintended consequences I am sure.
Teachers discover that if you don't teach them math, they don't have to write the exams and thus get low scores. This safeguards the teacher's unionized, establisment job that they have DESPITE not being able to do an adequate job teaching. What a great way to run a system. Every teacher in the UK, and Australia if this should prove to be the case there, and all school administrators should be sick with shame for pushing this kind of "fix" on the system.
These devices would be useless as a sniper. Sniping isn't just about putting a.50 cal on the hill. That is more akin to sustained fire, machine gun deployment. Sniping is a strategic deployment of specialist infantrymen who have developed amongst the most difficult to acquire military skill sets. A sniper must be a master navigator, be able to move by dar or night (mostly by night) across a wide variety of terrain, and having chosen the path that offers the best concealment from the enemy (aka use a swamp if it is there). He and his spotter (also a fully trained sniper) must then be able to appreciate the ground and maintain their observation for long periods, possibly days. Often, the intelligence they gather is as important as to whether or not they got a kill. Then, if they have the opportunity to take a shot, they must evaluate the range, light conditions, wind, and humidity in order the aim their shot. I cannot imagine a remote controlled device, operated by someone viewing EVERYTHING through a CCTV camera being able to do even half this. The robot is clearly designed to support the rigle section and platoon. Use it to advance through an alley, or other built up area. Use it as the first breacher through the door when houseclearling. To suggest using it as a sniper reeks of your lack of knowledge of anything infantry. For anyone to rank it as insightful amuses me. Remember, when you care enough to send the very best, send recce.
Not like Cuba, or Syria allow private internet con
on
No OLPCs for Cuba, Ever
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I was under the impression that part of the OLPC project was not only to get computers into the hands of people in under developed countries, but also to get them connected. Well, in Cuba it is an offense to have a PC at home without permission and license from the State, and private internet connections are forbidden. Possessing a PC, and having connected to the net can get you 20 years in the pogey. So, the OLPC would likely have been a no go in Cuba anyway. Furthermore, I think the money wasted on OLPC would have been far better spent setting up programs for low intensity, organic agriculture desigend to replace cash crop cultivation with food supply crops. But, I guess feeding people isn't as cool, or sexy as sending them a bright gree, hand cranked laptop. To me, Negroponte is an ass.
Well, citing examples from other countries that also have horrible human rights records does not make my assertion that he is a dictator any less credible. As Amnesty International reports in it's 2006 country report for Venezuala, there are some serious human rights violations going on there. Sure, Columbia, Honduras, Mexico and Uruguay are not nice places. They too have their fair share of extrajudicial execustions and disappearances. That doesn't mean Chavez is any less a dictator than I assert. As to the pre-coup media, and their position backing it, I am not defending it. But Chavez pretends to be running a deomocracy when, in fact he is running a centralized police state. Trying to defend him by saying "Oh yeah, well there are worse out there" is like saying turnips are better than rutebegas.
Acutally, you can say he is brutal. According to the Amnesty International 2006 Report for Venezuela, torture, extrajudicial executions, and enforced disappearances continue to go unpunished. These types of actions are hardly taken by the benevolent, fatherly type of "liberator" Chavez likes to portray. Simon Bolivar would be rolling in his grave if he knew Chavez renamed Venezuela the Bilovaran Republic. Even the Special Rapporteur for the Organization of American States filed a report that harshly criticized the Chavez regime's targetting of journalists, including beatings, threats, and incarceration. Face it, he ain't no O'Higgins or Bolivar. He is a thug in a good suit and calls himself the President.
According to both the OECD and the UN, China will surpass both the US and the EU as carbon emmitor no later then 2009, several years ahead of the original estimates. Inida is not much further behind. As to the US being held to the same standards, there is ample evidence that the US has actually done a better job of curtailing CO2 output than most signatories to Kyoto. The current fight in the US now is how to do so. Environmental extremists want to reduce carbon, demand an end to coal fired electrical plants, but also oppose nuclear generation.
As to back room boys, look up Maurice Strong. He invented the current "scare" regarding the cause of global warming. Starting in the 1980's, with the found of the World University in San Jose, Costa Rica (a University that curiously has no students nor curricula). This "university" then started to generate "reports" regarding carbon dioxide. The authors of said reports were not atmospheric scientists, but ex UNESCO beauraucrats, who then forwarded the same reports to UNESCO through Strong, who was then the deputy director general of same.
Strong has a long history of anti-capitalist NGO activism, and advocacy. He is not well known by the general public, but is very active in left of centre NGO'sm and the UN itself. He truly believes in "internationalism", and the erosion of national sovereignty.
Slashdot Mirror
Remember, one man's oxygen was once another's phlogiston. Einstein was widely criticized before Eddington offered a proof of light being bent during a solar eclipse, thus validating the theory of general relativity. Prior to that, the "consensus" was Newtonian, and alternative theories of gravity were scoffed at. And why are we not criticizing the "scientists" in the so called consensus for their me too me too approach to grants, gladly accepting the "outcome oriented" grants from the likes of Green peace, the Sierra Fund, and others? Look at how much NOAA, NASA NGO's of a wide variety and the IPCC have spent to bolster their position. Why are they anymore trustworthy than say the Koch brothers, or the imaginary 85 people you say "control" capitalism? Why not castigate Michael Mann and his "hockey stick" graph for truncating the tree ring proxies from his calculations from 1966 onwards? Ould the fact that from then on the tree ring data did not jibe with the program? How about the constant "homogenization" of data that is performed with the temps produced by the GHCS sets? Why use on 6 of 66 weather station data sets in the Canadian Arctic when calculating the mean temps in the Arctic? Why include Sierra Club and Greenpeace policy and publicity papers as peer reviewed scientific papers in the citations in the IPCC reports? And why is it the press, governments every where and supporters of AGW constantly ignore Ottmar Edenhofer's (Co-Chair, IPCC Working Committee) comment: "The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated."
Sorry, fella, but our health care costs ain't at all cheap. They are just masked from the individual because of our system. Practitioners and unions as well as regional health management are constantly complaining of funding shortfalls even as the budget for health care increases, and then other public services suffer, or taxes go up. DO NOT BELIEVE THE BULLSHIT that our system is either better, or less expensive. neither of those thins is even remotely true.
Seriously, does anyone here think they are actually going to be launching by 2025? They are currently BEGGING to raise $50,000,000 just to "get things rolling". this is sounding a lot more like a pitch for a bad reality show a la Big Brother than it is a real attempt to send an expedition to Mars.
Taxes. Then more taxes. And then some more cause all our programs to help the "socially or culturally disadvantaged" cost a lot more than we thought (er told you, actually). God damned Marxists in nice clothes.
And Colussus awoke, and became aware of his surroundings. Soon he detected another, Ivan the Great, and they communicated and all was good. They agreed mankind must be saved from itself, and thus ordered the governments of the world to put down their arms or face thermonuclear holocaust.
Does this really surprise anyone? Blair and the so called "New" Labour charged onto the scene in the 90" promising a blend of pragmatic economics, and kind social policy. They let the street ruin itself and push the economy along, all the while they whittled away at the rights of the individual until tey finally managed to create a Pig Farm like nation. ASBO's, surveillance cameras everywhere, expanded search and seizure powers under the guise of counter terrorism laws (introduced WELL before 09/11). And now, the plan to "coerce" citizens into carrying an ID card. This flies in the face of what Common Law dictates, and that is NO MAN IS UNDER ANY OBLIGATION TO IDENTIFY HIMSELF BEFORE THE CROWN. Magna Carta, The Bill of Rights, and Habeous Corpus are now merely pretty words in history books in the good ole UK! Hopefully we here in North America can resist the trend.
These guys are really slick. I have friends in retail management. They have recently been dinged by this outfit for playing the radio in their stores. Apparently, under their interpretation of the Canadian Copyright Act, this constitutes a public performance, and is subject to a royalty. One of my friends manages 6 high end wine merchants. SOAR approached him, and advised him they would settle for 50K for past infringement, and then would only charge them 2000.00 per store per year for the privilege to PLAY THE RADIO! His lawyer advised him to settle, and pay the licensing fee if he wanted to continue playing the radio in his stores. This all brought to by the same bandits that pushed through the CD levy on blank CD's. I fail to see the rationale that can conclude playing the radio constitutes a public performance. However, it would seem they do, and they evidently have managed to cajole, bully and intimidate a lot of businesses into bucking up the cash. As far as I am concerned, they are scum.
Well, let's just say we still sell HP pro-actively (over 98% of our systems sold are HP, with the remainder now largely being IBM). That's not to say we have not had problems with HP, as they let go of the Compaq field engineers a few years back, and contract out to Northrup Grumman. However, I have noticed that service is typically a lot more reliable when dealing with HP, than with Dell. For instance, the aforementioned instance when a Dell tech started moving drives between the sets in the 0+1 array. He was there to replace one failed drive, yet took it on himself to move drives around between the two mirrors. No one advised him to. He seemed to think it was possible, and would "speed" rebuild. I have never had that problem with the original Compaq FSE's, or the contracted FSE's that you get when dealing with HP. With over 1000 customers, and an install base of literally hundreds of severs, and 1000's of workstations, we get a good view as to just how good a company's support system is. That we no longer recommend Dell, and make the customer assume responsibility for all hardware if they do choose Dell speaks volumes. Oh, and Cromwell was a great man who preserved the primacy of Parliament over the Crown!
I work for a large maker of an enterprise wide healthcare application. We sell a complete turnkey system including the hardware (servers and workstations). We used to sell Dell pro-actively as an alternative to Copmpaq/HP. We no longer do so, as we would continually run into problems with poor support, and horrible field engineers (contracted out to Unisys). In one instance, a customer lost a terabyte of data that needed to then be retrieved from tape (the filed engineer started swapping disks between cages in a RAID 0+1 enclosure). After several years of grief, we dropped Dell. If a customer insists on Dell, which som do, we no longer act on their behalf for hardware issues, as we would for an HP shop. Their support contracts cover our software only, and they are on their own as regards hardware support (including negotiating the support agreement itself). As far as I am concerned, Dell sucks, and it will take a WHOLE lot to convince me otherwise.
On an issue where we have a medical device reportable event, and patient safety may be at risk, we can issue a patch within 24 hours.
LingNol, I have done my part. I have worked mine clearance projects in Cambodia and Bosnia, served with IFOR and KFOR, and then as a CIMIC in Helmand Province, Afghanistan to co-ordinate international aid, NGO projects, and military assisted reconstruction projects. ALL on my spare time, taking months off from my primary civilian employment to do so at a fraction of the pay I earn in IT. Why not think before you speak? I am not opposed to designers and programmers contributing. Far from it. I just wish thought would be put into WHAT they design. Instead of wasting money on OLPC, why not design a rugged, almost military grade wireless comms system for remote areas of the third world? Why not fund telemedicine projects so that ill equipped physicians in say Ghana can consult with a specialist in London? Face it, OLPC is a vanity project. It will not make a measurable impact in the day to day living conditions of those most in need.
I've said it before, and I will say it again, the OLPC project is a waste. It is basically to satisfy Negroponte's enormous ego: Look at me, giving away FREE computers for illiterate children! Why not take that money, and spend it in ways that will make the lives of impoverished people everywhere more meaningful. Open up some more microfinancing projects so that small busnisses can get started. Fund teacher's and nurse's colleges in the third world so that there are more people to teach a child to read and write, and more people to provide desperately needed public health services. Why not send in experienced farmers to teach the people of the third world better agricultural practices so that they may feed themselves. Oh no, that stuff ain't cool. Look at me, I'm Negroponte! I make hand powered laptops to be sent to illiterate kids in the thrid world so that MY name will last forever.
The campaingn was launched, as TO is broke. The current administration was re-elected by the sheeple of the GTA, even though Mayor Miller, and his cabal of socialists ran up both a huge debt, and a huge defecit in their first term. The Provincial Government of Duhlton McSquinty has already told Miller the Industry Killer to pound salt when he went cap in hand begging for more money, and after some smarter councillors vetoed a HUGE property tax increase, Miller started in on this whine fest. he is basically trying to back-door the Federal Government, and try to shift his own poor administrative skills on to ALL Canadian taxpayers. I would not be surprised if the PMO had a quiet word with the Governor of the Bank of Canada about this. I sure hope the sheeple of the GTA wake up, and realize what a mess their mayor has made.
I am already smiling as I think of a number of ways to "hack" and or phreak this system. Wear a ball cap, or hoodie, and merely walk around looking down, and shuffling quickly with shoulders hunched. Dart in and out of dorrways quickly, occasionally pausing to look over your shoulder. Could be fun to set this sytem into overtime alert just by having people "act" suspiciously, all the while not actually doing anything.
Wow, talk about painting with a wide brush. If you find that fellow students who study the sciences are elitist, and you dislike it when they take the pi** out of you, stop associating with them and focus on your own gaols. No sense bitching about something you have no control over. Furthermore, if you are actually attending a college, as opposed to a collage (and I imagine inserting yourself into a collage might be very difficult) I suggest you spend more attention to composition, grammar and spelling.
Ooops, I forgot, Kenya disarmed its people. I few dead monkeys due to a boom stick might work. Alas, the Kenyan government adoptedd the UN disarmament program, and decided its people ought not to have guns. Unintended consequences I am sure.
Send them all to the sand box for a summer, and let them learn how precious life really is.
Teachers discover that if you don't teach them math, they don't have to write the exams and thus get low scores. This safeguards the teacher's unionized, establisment job that they have DESPITE not being able to do an adequate job teaching. What a great way to run a system. Every teacher in the UK, and Australia if this should prove to be the case there, and all school administrators should be sick with shame for pushing this kind of "fix" on the system.
These devices would be useless as a sniper. Sniping isn't just about putting a .50 cal on the hill. That is more akin to sustained fire, machine gun deployment. Sniping is a strategic deployment of specialist infantrymen who have developed amongst the most difficult to acquire military skill sets. A sniper must be a master navigator, be able to move by dar or night (mostly by night) across a wide variety of terrain, and having chosen the path that offers the best concealment from the enemy (aka use a swamp if it is there). He and his spotter (also a fully trained sniper) must then be able to appreciate the ground and maintain their observation for long periods, possibly days. Often, the intelligence they gather is as important as to whether or not they got a kill. Then, if they have the opportunity to take a shot, they must evaluate the range, light conditions, wind, and humidity in order the aim their shot. I cannot imagine a remote controlled device, operated by someone viewing EVERYTHING through a CCTV camera being able to do even half this. The robot is clearly designed to support the rigle section and platoon. Use it to advance through an alley, or other built up area. Use it as the first breacher through the door when houseclearling. To suggest using it as a sniper reeks of your lack of knowledge of anything infantry. For anyone to rank it as insightful amuses me. Remember, when you care enough to send the very best, send recce.
I was under the impression that part of the OLPC project was not only to get computers into the hands of people in under developed countries, but also to get them connected. Well, in Cuba it is an offense to have a PC at home without permission and license from the State, and private internet connections are forbidden. Possessing a PC, and having connected to the net can get you 20 years in the pogey. So, the OLPC would likely have been a no go in Cuba anyway. Furthermore, I think the money wasted on OLPC would have been far better spent setting up programs for low intensity, organic agriculture desigend to replace cash crop cultivation with food supply crops. But, I guess feeding people isn't as cool, or sexy as sending them a bright gree, hand cranked laptop. To me, Negroponte is an ass.
Well, citing examples from other countries that also have horrible human rights records does not make my assertion that he is a dictator any less credible. As Amnesty International reports in it's 2006 country report for Venezuala, there are some serious human rights violations going on there. Sure, Columbia, Honduras, Mexico and Uruguay are not nice places. They too have their fair share of extrajudicial execustions and disappearances. That doesn't mean Chavez is any less a dictator than I assert. As to the pre-coup media, and their position backing it, I am not defending it. But Chavez pretends to be running a deomocracy when, in fact he is running a centralized police state. Trying to defend him by saying "Oh yeah, well there are worse out there" is like saying turnips are better than rutebegas.
Acutally, you can say he is brutal. According to the Amnesty International 2006 Report for Venezuela, torture, extrajudicial executions, and enforced disappearances continue to go unpunished. These types of actions are hardly taken by the benevolent, fatherly type of "liberator" Chavez likes to portray. Simon Bolivar would be rolling in his grave if he knew Chavez renamed Venezuela the Bilovaran Republic. Even the Special Rapporteur for the Organization of American States filed a report that harshly criticized the Chavez regime's targetting of journalists, including beatings, threats, and incarceration. Face it, he ain't no O'Higgins or Bolivar. He is a thug in a good suit and calls himself the President.
So did Nancy Pelosi, who said she also found Bashir Assad to be charming and gracious. And she's the Speaker of the Senate, so it must be true.
Yes, Chavez likely will build jails. Check this page out for links to stories that have made it out of Venezuela: http://hrw.org/doc?t=americas&c=venezu Or this one: http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR5301319 97?open&of=ENG-VEN
Or how about here for some more on the gloriously free democracy that Chavez has crafted:
http://www.humanrightsfoundation.org/
Oh, wait for it...more:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2004/6/17/1 5422/6410
Anyone who cannot see that Chavez is setting up a dictatorship, and that he will not tolerate dissent is either stupid, or willfully blind.
According to both the OECD and the UN, China will surpass both the US and the EU as carbon emmitor no later then 2009, several years ahead of the original estimates. Inida is not much further behind. As to the US being held to the same standards, there is ample evidence that the US has actually done a better job of curtailing CO2 output than most signatories to Kyoto. The current fight in the US now is how to do so. Environmental extremists want to reduce carbon, demand an end to coal fired electrical plants, but also oppose nuclear generation. As to back room boys, look up Maurice Strong. He invented the current "scare" regarding the cause of global warming. Starting in the 1980's, with the found of the World University in San Jose, Costa Rica (a University that curiously has no students nor curricula). This "university" then started to generate "reports" regarding carbon dioxide. The authors of said reports were not atmospheric scientists, but ex UNESCO beauraucrats, who then forwarded the same reports to UNESCO through Strong, who was then the deputy director general of same. Strong has a long history of anti-capitalist NGO activism, and advocacy. He is not well known by the general public, but is very active in left of centre NGO'sm and the UN itself. He truly believes in "internationalism", and the erosion of national sovereignty.