Fixing the Middle East will not be clean. Fixing the root causes requires structural changes there, changes which will not happen peacefully, and which will not be possible without toppling governments, either with force or other means of intense and disruptive pressure. If we are not willing to use force or other pressures which will cause possible death and suffering, then we will never succeed.
The Muslim civilization used to be the most advanced on the planet, more so than China, and far more so than the Europeans. If things had gone a little better for them, they would have eliminated the Christian societies of Europe, and we'd all be Muslim. Something they once considered inevitable, as the most recent coming of God and the youngest major religion is, in their minds, the truest and superior representation of God's will.
Now look at them. While I've never been in a Muslim Middle Eastern school, I'd be surprised if they weren't taught about their grand history. And those kids grow up and see what has happened to their society, as a result not of evil Americans or Europeans, but because their expansionist society, which they felt was superior to all others, became stagnant, fell behind, and was finally conquered by those they considered the illiterate barbarians. The world has passed them by. Now they are a backwater, a place the world uses to get oil, and would rather not hear much about otherwise. Except maybe to visit as a nice tourism spot, see the ruins of their past glory, buy some cheap goods, let some kid give you a tour for change.
Then look at Israel! Here are some Jews, kicked out thousands of years ago, who came back, bought up undesirable land... and formed a new nation right in their midst, after being driven from Europe and nearly exterminated. What has happened there, despite decades of Muslim armies trying to wipe them out, blockades, refusals to recognize them, so on? Israel became, in fifty years, a modern nation, technologically advanced, politically stable, capable of handily defeating the Muslim nations around them (even before the US started giving them all that aid), armed with nuclear weapons, economically successful. In fifty years.
No wonder they are pissed. Who to focus anger on? On themselves? Their failed society? Their tinpot dicators and oligarchs? Probably lots do. But the ones we notice the most, they focus it on the West. Who is the biggest, baddest, most successful nation of the West? The United States, of course.
Want to cure the ills of the Middle East? How exactly would you lift an arguably failed society up, without first ridding it of the dictatorships, theocratic plutocracies, and other horrid forms of government and oppression? And will those go willingly? Pretty words, policies of accomodation, and putting money through commerce and aid into lining the pockets of the current scumbags and their families and successors will not help. You can't have fundamental changes without some pretty messy methods. Sometimes those work, sometimes they don't. That's the cost of trying.
I think going to Iraq is one of the best things we have done there in a long, long time. It has gotten the ball rolling. Hell, maybe even 9/11 may be a "good" thing in the long run, as bad as that may sound in the short term. The fact that so many people are pissed off means something at least is being done at long last, the Middle East may wind up a better place sooner rather than later. Yes, people got killed, babies smashed beneath concrete, bombs blew off the arms of little kids, so on. People die. Better they die in the midst of some upheaval that has a better than decent chance to make the lives of the people better in the long term, than at the hands of some power-hungry madmen, for no reason.
Ah, I see. Let us go over some points. You complained that we believe that there is no higher law than our own. That is a fact in our legal system. The only law which binds the citizens of this nation is the law their elected representatives approve. I have also stated that there is no such thing as international law, only treaty obligations. Note the word, obligations. Also note that nowhere did I state that we should renege on our obligations. If we do decide that it is in our interest to no longer abide by terms of a treaty, we need to work within the framework of the treaty to find an alternative, or we should formally give notice and withdraw.
There may be some confusion here as well. I do not know where you reside. But here, treaties are realized in two forms. First is the treaty as agreed among nations. That does not however immediately translate into law binding upon any citizen here. Congress must generally pass legislation, just as any other law, enabling the terms of the treaty as law, and authorizing the President if he needs power beyond his current grant in order to execute the treaty. A treaty is not some end-run around our legislative process.
Regarding the consent of the governed, perhaps we take that a little more seriously than you? Because we consider consent something that can be taken way, not simply given. We hold the power to review, alter or abolish law rather sacred. Hence the prominence of our judiciary, and the ability of a jury to refuse to enforce a law. Law that is outside of that process of review is not generally considered just or legitimate law. (Which, BTW, is why most Americans are rather uncomfortable with the situation in Cuba, myself included. I'm very happy the courts are getting involved.)
Now, this is how our system works. In this little conversation, I have never advocated breaking treaty obligations. I have never stated that we should thumb our nose at our obligations. But I have stated that there is no such thing as international law. This is an attempt to draw the difference between law, something binding upon people, and inter-governmental agreements and obligations. The large majority of Americans are fundamentally opposed to there being some sort of international body capable of making law binding upon us without the involvement of our Congress to approve it or later repeal it, and our courts to review it.
How exactly is that childish? It is childish to demand control over the law which controls our lives? If the people of your nation want to surrender power over their lives to some body outside their control, more power to them. Have fun with that. BTW, how do they feel about the WTO being able to force your nations to import and sell gene-altered and/or irradiated food? I know your viewpoint, based on your prior statement: "... prepared to respect international law as well as try to impose it on others." The people of this nation do not, and likely will never, assent to that. We will not have international "law" imposed on us against our collective will and outside of our legal system. If that is childish position, then children we be.
I re-iterate: if others want the ability to control our lives without providing us the means to assent to and review, alter or abolish that within our own legal framework, fuck 'em.
Oh, and pompous? Which of us is being condescending, and advocating that they know better and that others should alter their legal system to suit their belief? Perhaps you should examine your own position a bit more.
I am not entirely sure what your point is. I am supposing that it is either that treaties can override Congress' authority, or that treaties can be a higher law than our own. Both are wrong. You refer of course to Art.VI.2:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Two things to understand about that clause, known as the "Supremacy Clause." First, what it establishes is that the federal constitution, and laws and treaties agreed to under its authority, are supreme over state constitutions and laws. Second, the key phrase is "under the Authority of the United States."
Treaties in the United States take two forms after ratification. One is the treaty which is signed, and which the Senate has authorized. The second form is the enabling legislation, passed by Congress as a body just as any other law, which gives the treaty force domestically. That law is what actually implements the treaty, and that is what sometimes irks other nations, when Congress makes changes to the treaty as agreed, or refuses to implement particular portions. And in some cases, the Congress refuses to pass enabling legislation entirely, making the ratification a moot thing.
The Supreme Court has ruled on these issues. First, Congress can only pass laws exercising powers as authorized by the constitution. A treaty does not grant additional authorization beyond that. Second, a treaty is formally split in those two parts. For relations internationally, the President's implementation of the treaty may be done within the powers available to him, as granted via the constitution and Congress. For domestic enforcement, though, Congress must enable it via specific law, and within the powers it has. The mere act of ratifying a treaty does not suddenly make it law over the citizens of this nation, and does not suddenly give the federal government more power than it had previously. Treaties have, however, been considered by courts to *negate* existing state law, via the supremacy clause, merely by being ratified.
For those who believe that a treaty is a magic document, able to bypass the will of the people and grant new powers to or strip powers from the federal government, that is nonsensical. To believe that a positive constitution such as the United States', which expressly grants enumerated, limited powers in a finite numbered list, which requires any changes to the constitution to obtain a super-majority of the individual state's assent, would then include a backdoor to make that elaborate system totally moot and permit the federal government to obtain any power it wishes merely by getting another government to grant it and the Senate to agree, is, well, moronic. Thankfully, the Supremes have always concurred.
It is interesting how the original framers of the US constitutional system approached this, and how we have perverted it. We formally recognize in this nation that all powers rest with the people. Governments only exist with the consent of the people. Therefore, it is not possible for a government to "grant" a right to the people. (please note the distinction: people have rights; governments only have powers) Our legal system originally recognized this by explicitly creating a limited government, given only limited and specific powers. Then, over protest, that was perverted with a "bill of rights" approaching the problem from the totally opposite direction with explicit enumeration of rights. As foreseen, that has since been foolishly construed to be some sort of limited grant of rights to the people and an absolute grant of power to the government to restrict rights in non-reserved areas, an absurd concept. With the result that courts search and search within the magic words of the "bill of rights" for our rights.
And what does this have to do with evil corporations taking away our rights? Well, one of those rights was long seen as the right to contract. We have no obligation to contract with somebody on terms we dislike. Hence, the government tends to remain neutral in cases like this. If a business decides to offer lower prices but supports that with a no-returns policy, then that is the right of the two parties, given prior disclosure of course! Problem is, we now have a system where rights are not absolute. Contract rights are no longer absolute. The reasoning is that people are, fundamentally, unable to fight on an equal footing for their rights with others (and sadly that may be right... who reads the fine print?). So the law must limit rights to protect those rights. Sort of like killing the village to save the village.:-) In Europe, it appears that they have taken that concept farther than here, but we are well on the way. I am sure that there are jurisdictions in the US which do require refunds.
Heh. As my paternal grandmother said, our ancestors were criminals and religious whackos. We came over in the 1600s. For a time, some ancestors had a slave-trading company. Several fought in the revolution, kick the King out.:-) I'm sure a good number were involved in persecuting the native Americans, the slaves, and lots of others.
Something I learned in college was the concept of presentism. Somebody wise once said "the past is a different country. They do things differently there." When you study history, you lose the ability to learn when you judge the actions of the past by the standards of today. Those here who also wish to judge the people of yesterday by the standards of today are blinded by their judgementalism. The world was a very different place long ago. People have "stolen" land from others from time immemorial. My particular focus was on ancient history, so I can speak of the Etruscans conquering the Italians, the Romans conquering Europe, the Greeks their area, the Persians theirs, the Egyptians theirs, the Chinese theirs. Enslaving, abusing, persecuting. Then later tyrants, Popes, kings, emperors, French Republics, British Empires and so on.
The fact that we in the last couple centuries have learned that it is better to relate with one another differently should not be used to condemn thousands of years of human history and its progeny. Because if that is the standard we will apply, basically every last person on this planet is guilty of gross attrocity. The past is a different place. You weren't there. Learn from it, but don't judge it.
First thing: there is no such thing as international "law." There are only treaty obligations among sovereign nations.
Where do you believe law originates? We believe it originates from the consent of the people, formally known as the sovereigns. We further believe that the people being governed have the ultimate right to abolish or alter that law as they see fit. This is a fundamental tenet of the American legal system.
My countrymen who do believe that they should be subject to "law" made not with their consent and beyond their power to review, alter, or abolish, are most welcome to it. They can move to some other nation. But the United States will never, ever, permit the people of this nation to be subject to such "law."
If believing that law is subject to the consent, both initially and continually, of the governed is a hallmark of a rogue nation, then by god yes, we are proudly rogues. If other nations disagree, well, fuck 'em.
Uh, the only law higher than Congress is our federal constitution and the court system of review organized under it. International treaties are only legal insofar as they implement powers already authorized under the constitution. There is no higher law, certainly nothing UN related.
Something "you boys" may not realize is how strong our legal tradition is when it comes to these things. In our legal system, it is formally recognized that *all* power lies with the people. The people grant portions of that power to our governments, through written constitutions. Our governments exercise powers only as granted through that mechanism. It doesn't matter what papers a President signs, the only body that determines what is and is not legal here is the Congress and the courts in review. While this system has been weakened throughout the 20th century, it remains a fundamental tenet of our legal system.
So, in fact, there is no higher law than Congress when it comes to the United States. We fundamentally reject the notion that any body other than our elected representatives, subject to review by our courts, have any legitimate power whatsoever to regulate us. This all goes back to the fact that we really do believe in self-government, in the sense that only the people of the nation have the right to govern the people. Treaty obligations (what some refer to as international "law") are only legitimate and operative within that context.
Um, no. We'd be in a successful nation just like today, as we have the spirit and the brains to innovate and create here, and find resources elsewhere. Whereas those in the Middle East, utterly dependant on the happenstance of having a lot of dead vegetation from millions of years ago beneath their otherwise rather arid land, would likely still be bickering and fighting amongst themselves today over which sect of that third religion is best and which petty tyrant should oppress them. Though the Jews, with their ingenuity and incredible perseverance and determination to succeed and prosper, would likely rule all of the Middle East instead of just their little toe-hold, as those Arab pseudo-nations wouldn't have had the windfall of oil to fund their pathetic militaries.
Remember Xenophon? 10,000 Greeks kicking the ass of the *huge* Persian military (if you call it that) at the height of its power? Remember Rome turning back a "mighty" Arab army with nothing but a consul and some bodyguards? Ever since the west encountered the Arab world, it's been kicking its pathetic ass. I'd think you people would be used to it by now.
No. You edited out the SA step. Basically all mail tagged by SA is discarded, except that which is questionable, which is set aside. Everything that makes it past SA is then sent through TMDA. TMDA sends out the challenges, yes. But as the SA step has already weeded it down, we are now talking about a couple thousand a month.
Most of those are to non-existent mailboxes. Thankfully, most sites are now checking recipients before accepting email. Those do not generate a bounce from the other MTA. Rather, they generate a failed SMTP session (message 550) causing the *local* MTA to generate the bounce. That generates extra traffic, yes, but it doesn't use WAN bandwidth, only gigE LAN if not on the same server, and no disk space, as it is automatically discarded.
Note also that all this happens after Postfix has already done checks on the sender, the sender domain, and against blacklists. There certainly are some people who get the TMDA challenge whose account was spoofed. But from the stats I have on the number of challenges sent out, and the number of immediate bounces discarded due to those being illegal addresses, it doesn't seem to be many. And I have yet to get one complaint (which has surprised me) in two months since going to TMDA in the final step before local delivery.
Do you realize how much spam costs? The structure is entirely backwards. I help run a small ISP, since 1994. Today, at least 75% of mail coming in is spam. That's at least half a million messages a day. Customers are clamoring for ways to delete it. That means that of the resources deployed to handle email (disk space, servers, bandwidth, people's time) 75% of that is wasted on mail that nobody wants. That costs customers, because those costs are not just eaten.
Marketing email which is honest, which people can stop if they want, I have no problem whatsoever with. It is the email that isn't wanted, is delivered fraudulently, and which cannot be stopped except through a constant battle of filters, that is the problem. It costs real people real money and time, and costs the senders almost nothing. That model is just wrong.
Regulate commercial email. Make it illegal, punishable by prison time and sizeable fines, to ever send a single bit via email promoting a commercial product, which is not 100% easily traceable to its source, and extremely simple to stop within a very short timeframe. Then the guys trying to make a living can do it, legimately.
But always understand this: our network is *our* network. No traffic has any right whatsoever to ever cross it. Ralsky states that he thought it was unfair that he has to identify himself, and ISPs can still delete his email, but much easier now. Tell him what. If he wants to become a *paying customer* of ours, we'll grant him the right to transit our network, for which our customers pay real money to support. Otherwise, we will continue to provide the means to delete all his and other's unwanted email, sight unseen.
Indeed. I receive around 70,000 spam messages to my account monthly. That's around one every thirty seconds, all day, every day. With filters and Spam Assassin, I was able to tag and delete the large majority of that automatically. But still, thousands got past, to my mailbox. I now use TMDA, no more spam, period. Though now that they legally have to use real addresses, I imagine TMDA will become less effective.
And to put this another way: I receive that many because I help run an ISP. I have a front-line view of the effect of spam. I can say with confidence that AT LEAST 75% of the email received here is spam. We don't have precise stats, but a conservative guess is around half a million PER DAY come through our servers. Those messages take processing power, disk space, electricity, so on to handle. Messages our customers agree to recieve, we have no problem with. But messages that our customers do not want, and cannot stop, and we cannot stop, we consider theft of our resources, our customer's money, and everybody's time. You as an individual user may think "big deal, I just press delete." But when there are tens of thousands of users at an ISP doing that, it really does add up, and really is a serious issue. And you as an individual user are paying for it, don't think you aren't.
Why doesn't the computer boot in seconds? Well, my latest Windows PC gets past the BIOS in a couple seconds. It then starts loading the OS. With Windows, the hard drive grinds and grinds and grinds, and then grinds some more, as it loads who knows what. It takes much, much longer to get Windows into memory and operating than the BIOS. Seems Windows might be the candidate for the complete re-write if fast bootup is your goal.
What I would like to see in the default standard PC BIOS is remote control via ethernet. Be able to reboot a machine remotely and get console access from the moment the machine powers up, without an add-in board.
Precisely! It will permit India to become even more competitive as a labor source for western corporations. That money will go into the Indian economy, and through taxes and investment be used to improve the infrastructure of India. Better transport, telecom, education, all will make India better able to compete for labor in the global market. However, the difference between their standard of living and ours is so great (in cost) that it will be to our disadvantage, as their costs will not rise quickly enough to offset the effect of that vast inexpensive labor pool on our standard of living. Same for China, another huge, huge pool of potential labor. The Western world is in for a ride.
The thing that is different now is how transparent borders have become. In the past, the cost of moving an industry abroad guaranteed that it had an incubation period, perhaps a lengthy one, in the U.S. However, from now on, that incubation period may be terribly short. When a new industry comes along, it will very rapidly take advantage of the telecommunications systems we have, the low cost of transport, and the rising ability of offshore providers to quickly ramp up and produce. The fact that India and China have huge populations, attending better schools, becoming better educated, means that when these new, presumably knowledge-related (whether bio or whatever) industries come about, they can have a ready pool of educated labor immediately. Those foreign nations currently getting the benefit of our off-shoring will use that money to improve their infrastructure, airports, transport systems, telecommunications, education and so on, and thus be much more able to compete with us than in the past.
I believe that we in the western world, not just the United States, are going to experience a painful period of global re-adjustment. For centuries, our better educational systems, liberal social systems, open legal systems, superior technology and such have given us the ability to dominate the world. However, we have been busily exporting those benefits in the hope of gaining trading partners for our goods. The reality is though that world out-numbers us, and as they become more on-par with us and able to compete for our jobs at a far lower cost, it will be only natural that our standards of living fall while theirs rise.
I'm just glad I didn't buy a stupid-expensive house with a stupid-expensive monthly mortgage commitment a few years ago... people paying $3000 a month for an urban home better hope their industry doesn't feel the global pricing pressures too soon.
I watched some scenes for a reality TV show being filmed at my yacht club. I'd gone there to use the free wifi and have lunch... as I walked up to the entrance, there was a cab letting three women out. There was a guy with a camera, and a woman with a sound boom and satchel, recording. I waited for them to finish and went in. I asked at the desk what was going on, and they said they were filming scenes for a TV show where three divorced guy date some guy who is supposedly rich. They borrowed a member's big-ass power yacht for the show. The crew for this filming was literally those two people. Just two. And the "actors." Even if they paid a decent amount to rent the yacht and for club access, they still are making it soooo cheaply. The annoying thing was the the camera was wireless, probably recording to the satchel the woman wore. Every time they filmed, my wifi died.
Oh, get real. The rise of the Imperial Presidency in the 20th century has led to this myth about how powerful the man is and how much effect he has. But it is a myth largely. The vast, vast, vast majority of spending in this country is fixed. For a Congress to make any substantive changes in spending would require *large* cuts in programs outside of mandatory spending, be far too controversial for some vocal interest group, and far too politically dangerous. The President has no line-item veto. Sure, he could impound funds (refuse to spend it), but none has the guts to do that and set the precedent for a following president of the opposing party. So the reality is that the President must work with Congress. Congress must make a majority of 535 people, each with their own constituencies, happy. This is not a formula for fiscal constraint. And it is not something to be blamed on one person or one party. It is systemic.
The *only* thing that would prevent overspending is a) restriction on income and b) a hard, legal, unbreakable limit on debt. Our government is a reflection of *US*. *WE* (the American people as a whole) spend every cent we earn. We have tons of debt to gratify our desires. And, we let our government do the exact same thing. Whoever happens sits in the white house at the moment did not create that cultural fact.
The only thing that Republicans have proven by taking over control of the federal government is that they are just as bad as the democrats at spending our money. The only thing that made Clinton look good fiscally was that he was lucky, yes, lucky, enough to be in office during a *global* economic boom.
Until people recognize that tax is a necessary evil, with the emphasis on evil, thus minimizing taxation, and that public debt is an evil, rarely necessary, thus combining to restrict public spending to that which is truly NECESSARY for us, we will have bloated government which runs deficits when the winds of economic prosperity change. But this will never happen. One big reason is that we have foolishly destroyed one of the pillars of our constitutional system as designed by our founders: GEOGRAPHIC separation of powers. We have concentrated so much power into the hands of so few people (536) in this nation, by making everything we possibly can a federal issue, that everybody with any pet issue or peeve knows exactly where to go for a one-stop-solution: Washington, District of Columbia. That will never change either.
Didn't I expressly say that I was not insulting them? I have no fury. They are using the computer to do what they like. Perfectly respectable. No issue whatsoever. My clients are people like that, every day, using their computer as a tool to do their job. I'm quite comfortable with them.
I was referring to those who use Windows and do consider themselves power users, who do consider themselves to be extremely proficient, who are then confronted with another environment in which their seeming expertise and proficiency is utterly useless. Some would see that situation as an opportunity to learn some more and expand their skills. Others, of course, just keep walking and pay no mind. Some, though, have a personality such that they see it as a threat to their concept of themself as a "expert" and then seek to belittle the other.
There are profound differences between the world of *nix and the world of Windows. I'll use myself as an example. I learned computers back in the 80s. A soldering iron was something you used sometimes. I learned to program 8-bit machines with 4k of RAM. I went to college, and graduated in computer science (at a school where it was still a science). I have written operating systems, compilers, programming languages, database systems, so on. For me, the *nix world is like water is to a fish. The *nix world still revolves around people like me. Specifically, people interested in the science of computing, and who see the computer and the operating system as a tool to learn about that science and expand their skills.
The Windows world, however, revolves around customers in a consumer model, using products to solve problems, such as writing a letter or whatever else. A Windows user can become an "expert" in their own mind quite easily, without any truly technical understanding of the operating system, how it works, and other fundamentals. They merely install some products, learn how to tweak some of them in the ways permitted by the vendor, perhaps troubleshoot and solve some issues which your average Windows user could never do. That is a rather low bar technically, but as a Windows user is truly a *user,* it is the bar.
That is not traditionally true in the *nix world. In the *nix world, to be considered an expert by your peers requires a great deal more understanding of fundamentals, more ability to troubleshoot and solve issues than available to the Windows user, some programming skills (whether scripted or compiled), and so on.
The hobbyist Windows expert confronting the Linux expert is generally a very lopsided match. And as I stated before, some personalities see that as a threat and react as such.
I have no intent whatsoever to denigrate the users of Windows. Each to their own. Whatever floats your boat. Now, on the other hand, I do find Windows to be wanting in many ways. But if a Windows user finds thoughtful criticism of their OS to be a personal insult, then they have issues. Ditto for Linux users in the same situation.
Where I once worked, all the developers worked in UNIX. HP-UX to be exact. All had either X-terminals to a server, or preferably Linux boxes on their desks. We all also had Windows boxes, because the business used Exchange/Outlook for email. Many of the developers NEVER used the Windows PC for anything other than email. We therefore decided to see about handling our email under Linux or HP-UX, and getting rid of the useless, space-wasting, heat-generating other computer and monitor.
We could receive the email, no problem. Exchange did IMAP (sort of). But we had issues sending email, as we needed to do SMTP. We spoke with our email system admin, Dan. His official title was something along those lines. Dan knew nothing whatsoever about SMTP. Basically didn't know what it was. He was a Windows person, 100%. So we attempted to educate him a bit. That was a mistake. See, Dan was like a lot of Windows people. Windows and Microsoft enabled him to do his job, without having to know a lot technically. He was, to management, the email expert. We learned that by showing that he is not the expert (only to him and us even, initially), we endangered his view of himself as the email expert, and his role in the organization I suppose. We then became the enemies, because we presented him with something we needed, which he should have been able to provide, but was unable to due to his ignorance.
Windows has done this for a lot of people, such as the parent's author. It has enabled them. They are able to buy a PC, install software, learn how to click here and there, play games, do all the other cool stuff that comes pre-packaged for them. But when they are confronted by other users, ostensibly the same as them, who are able and willing to use a technically more challenging system such as Linux or other *nix systems, they see that as a challenge to their own view of themselves as a knowledgeable "power user." When the other users then heap scorn on the tool which has empowered them to use a modern computer, they see that in a less than rational way. They see it as a threat. And they respond as the author did. Or as Dan did. Or as countless other users of technology who don't really understand that technology, yet believe they do.
Sure, there are tons of Linux users who bait the Windows users and make stupid inflamatory comments. And sure, there lots of Windows users who do really understand Windows and computers deeply. But in general, a Linux user is a far more technically proficient person than a Windows user, by necessity, and that is a threat to the Windows "power user" who sees himself as a technically elite person, when he really isn't. And if you are going to bring up exceptions, remember: the exception proves the rule.
And that is back to the original point. The *nix culture is about technically proficient users being able to interact with the system in a technically rewarding manner. Meaning, with knowledge comes power.
The Windows culture was traditionally about empowering end-users to be able to use a technically complex device (a general purpose computer) without having to acquire technical proficiency beyond what was needed to complete the task at hand. As Windows has moved beyond that role, and is used by technically proficient users (technical professionals, in server environments, so on) it has adopted more complicated and powerful features, but always strives to hide them. And at the core, it hides everything, either through black-box interfaces/methods, or an incredibly cryptic registry.
You are not a technically proficient user, in the sense that you don't know too much about how a computer works, and you don't want to. That's not an insult, that's just who you are, along with the vast, vast, vast majority of other people. For you, certainly, Windows is better, because it hides the complexities and makes you feel good about yourself being able to harness the computer to do what you want.
For me, I very often despise Windows, because I find it so difficult to control the computer when it is designed from the start as a black-box. I've written optimizing compilers, operating systems, shells, memory-management systems, in-memory data normalization for data warehouses, parsers, my own languages, so on, and administered various *nix systems since the late 80s. I know how computers work, fundamentally. And yet, Windows frustrates me to no end at times.
With Unix, it most definitely takes a lot more techical proficiency, but I am confident that I can control the system, and fix most any problem, with the minimal loss of my data or time. Sometimes Windows just blows up, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, you can do to save the system other than completely re-install the OS, and then have to completely re-install every last application due to the registry.
A catastrophic failure in a Unix system generally presents me with the opportunity to attack the problem in numerous ways and through technical means save the system. A failure in a Windows system all too often means I get to put a CD-ROM in the drive and click some buttons while it happily wipes away the system (and that incredibly idiotic damn single-point-of-failure registry). And then more CD-ROMs, and more clicking, for a long time. I find that to be incredibly dis-empowering and frustrating personally.
I didn't say it would work. I said that is why we attacked. Those are two different topics. As for the occupation and transformation of Iraq being a failure, time will tell. Not less than a year. To argue otherwise merely shows your political viewpoints.
As for the casulty numbers, whatever. Most Americans are not as risk-averse as Europeans. We do not see the number of soldiers being killed as some great bloodbath. Yes, it is terrible. Yes, we wish it wouldn't happen. But our soldiers are not like your soldiers. They are actually expected to fight and perhaps die. That is something that happens when you fight. More people die here from car accidents going out to get damn groceries. A few hundred soldiers being killed in an attempt to pacify a large, somewhat hostile country is nothing. Except of course to their families.
Americans are far, far more concerned with having a policy and strategy that leads to eventual downdrawl (we know there will be no withdrawl for a long time), and if we believe that policy and strategy is rational, we will accept bodybags coming back for a while. The fact that the Bush administration has altered its policy and strategy to adapt to the realities there is something most Americans see as good leadership. Only the political opponents of the administration expected them to have prescience and a perfect strategy before even setting foot in Iraq.
Financial ties in Iraq? You get real. Indeed, we armed and trained Iraq against Iran. But the "modern" Iraq army was built largely of Russian and French equipment. In case you forgot, those were MiGs being buried by Iraq, and Russian and Chinese tanks being blown up. It is a fact that France and Russia and others are owed huge sums of money primarily for military and energy equipment, and they don't want to forgive it. If you're denying that, there's no hope for you. If you think Russia and France and China opposed the war against Iraq because they cared a tiny bit even for the people of Iraq, you are foolish. Those nations wouldn't put a strain on their relations with the United States unless they saw it as being in *their* interests. And *their* interests are financial and political.
As for you, I too am bored with you people. Post WWII, you Europeans developed a strong, strong aversion to nationalism. You have been socially trained that nationalism, patriotism, and such lead to conflicts such as WWII. You have been trained that to avoid conflict is paramount, and that everything can be solved through discussion, consensus, and maybe some sanctions if push comes to shove. You devolve more and more control over your allegedly sovereign nations to inter-national governing and regulating bodies, creating those ties that bind.
And that is all fine, your choice, more power to you. But, you then translate your political structural changes in the last century as being the right and proper way to do things for everybody. You collectively denigrate the U.S. because we do not buy into your mindset, which you have decided is the *right* mindset. Sound a little familiar?
Well, we do not buy into the idea of allowing anyone other than our elected officials to hold the power to make policy and political decisions for us, in particular issues of national security. We do not see fealty to our nation as a problem. And we still believe that sometimes force is required. We don't want to resort to it as a first means, but we won't shy away from using it.
And finally, which of us in this little discussion is being judgemental? Look in the mirror sometime.
Uh, there is no such thing as the Internet as we know it today. ARPAnet is long gone. The Internet simply doesn't exist as an entity you could point to and control. It isn't owned by anybody. What we call the Internet is merely the interconnection of privately owned networks speaking common protocols. Of course, you probably know that.
I happen to co-operate a small regional ISP (about 8000 users). The only control ICANN has is name registration and DNS standards. They don't even own the DNS servers. They don't assign IP space. See ARIN for that. I am curious as to what exactly the U.N. wants to control? What do they think they can do?
When you speak of this ownership and control, what exactly do you mean? Do you know what you mean? Do you know how all this works? What US interests are there that need to be challenged? Because all I know is that as a small part of the Internet, there is basically no control exerted whatsoever over our operations by any of the bodies the U.N. may want to co-opt. Is the big plan of the U.N. to do what, have more DNS root servers? Put them all in New York in the basement of the U.N. headquarters? Or maybe take over ARIN, and force the big classful IP allocations back into the pool and give out CIDR space? Oooh, how revolutionary. Or maybe take over IETF and make the U.N. vote on all RFCs? Start mucking with some core protocols?
I mean, what is there to control, and what can be done with that control? Anyone?
The reason we invaded Iraq was simple. It had nothing to do with WMD. It had nothing to do with liberating the poor suffering people of Iraq. It had nothing to do with mass graves, with sanction violations.
Those things were merely pretexts. The whole idea of a "illegal" war is a wet dream of the "international law" fantasy believers, and thus the logic of using violations of an armistice to speak their language.
The truth of the matter is, Bush had no interest in going to war in Iraq before 9/11. His advisors may have wanted to, but he didn't, despite all the grand conspiracy theories.
Why did we attack Iraq? As an object lesson. Read Friedman: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/06/04/nyt.friedman/ Smart guy.
It is the same reason we fire-bombed Dresden, melted the city, and killed all those people in a hellish inferno. Dresden was an object lesson to the Russians. Iraq was an object lesson to the nations that would harbor/aid terrorists. Do as we wish, or face the consequences. Not consequences of words, sanctions, meaningless UN resolutions. Consequences of the US war machine in a hot war, taking your government down. That's why we attacked Iraq. And that is the real world, not some fantasy land of "proving Saddam a danger to world peace blah blah blah."
And back in the real world, those who think Russia and France opposed us due to some moral issues, due to caring for the people of Iraq, due to a belief in international law and "peace through consensus" bullshit are children. Russia and France armed Iraq, and are owed billions and billions. They engaged in commerce despite the sanctions, and had numerous very valuable contracts pending. And, they had a chance to gang up on the new top dog of the world. Mix that all together, and it was no surprise, only disappointing. That is called realpolitik. As for Germany, they went along because they want to have a buddy-buddy relationship with their neighbor France in dominating the EU. Remember France, the nation that said "we should all respect the opinions of our allies and friends," telling the Eastern European nations to just shut up and toe the line vis-a-vis France's wisdom? France dearly wants the EU to take on a role in the world, led by France of course, as a co-equal competitor to the US in both commerce and political fealty. Not even to mention France's demographics: aging population, low birth rate, high social costs. Their salvation (other than enlarging the EU and spreading the burden around)? Immigration from largely Muslim nations, and their growing Muslim population, and sensitivities to that growing domestic political bloc.
In the real world, Iraq and Saddam are insignificant. The real picture is much bigger. The geo-political structures of the post Cold War world are sitting on some major fault lines, and Iraq just highlighted that. It didn't create the fault lines. We live in interesting times.
In my place, I have at least four machines running 24x7. Sometimes more. Also one each monitor, UPS, HP5N printer, fax machine, laptop (always plugged in, nearly dead battery), wifi. Then there is the big TV, big stereo, fridge, lights, water pump, window AC units, window fans, furnace, various other electronic stuff.
Let's get some bills out. In the height of summer in Chicago, with AC going, my most expensive month was $68.30 for 817 kWh. In the most temperate period, no AC, no furnace, it was $37.45 for 470 kWh. Those are actual kWh costs, before taxes/fees.
Kyoto is a funny thing... large polluters get a certain amount they can pollute. Developing nations are exempt to a level. So, large polluting nations would assuredly out-source to off-shore sub-contractors as much as possible. Those nations would be exempt, to a point. But, the large polluter, who now pollutes less, can simply sell the credits they have to the now excessively polluting nations, and then when those nations start becoming gross polluters beyond the savior of credits, we can attempt to rein them in... and listen to the screaming. It would be amusing.
Regarding Iraq, the logic is rather simple. There were hostilities, led by the United States and a coalition under the grant of authorization of the United Nations. Once Iraq was driven from Kuwait, those hostilities were voluntarily suspended, and Iraq signed an armistice agreement. Once Iraq met certain requirements, the hostilities would be formally ended. Those requirements were never met, and Iraq ended all pretext of attempting to meet them to the satisfaction of the side which granted the armistice. Note, the hostilities as originally authorized never ended, as demonstrated by the continuing hostilities enforcing the "no-fly" zones. The United States, legally speaking, merely decided that the armistice terms had been violated, and therefore the comprehensive hostilities were begun again. I think that "legally" this all hinges on whether the U.N. ever took the authorization away from the U.S. coalition, as granted back in 1991, to wage war against Iraq. Did the armistice agreement permit the United States to decide whether the armistice terms were being met? My understanding is that the armistice agreement was rather informal, and the U.N. authorization was never withdrawn. I'd *love* to see some documentary evidence attesting to one side or the other on this issue.
But back in the real world... nations have conflicts. We have created a world today where the large majority are allegedly "solved" without violence. But that has created a world averse to the use of violence, in which some naively believe that everybody will play nice in the end when their "viewpoints" are "respected" leading to "consensus." It seems that the first priority is avoid conflict and bloodshed, not to get rid of heinous leaders. Sometimes, negotiations don't work, one side doesn't blink, diplomacy goes nowhere, and a line in the sand has to be drawn, and it has to be enforced. Iraq crossed that line, it was redrawn, they crossed it again, and so on for over a damn decade, because everybody was too timid to actually enforce it. Someday, somebody had to enforce that line, and it happened to be a Republican president who rubs people the wrong way and who pissed off a bunch of Democrats when he got elected in a hotly contested race. But if not him, it would have been somebody. That, or the U.N. would just cave in and demonstrate that its dictates are meaningless. Or, France would get its EU military force and fly in to rescue the day, in their wet dreams.
Or, maybe they'll enact steel tariffs to attempt to protect that strategically important industry... Hmmmm, I wonder what brilliant politician will attempt to do that?
Slashdot Mirror
Fixing the Middle East will not be clean. Fixing the root causes requires structural changes there, changes which will not happen peacefully, and which will not be possible without toppling governments, either with force or other means of intense and disruptive pressure. If we are not willing to use force or other pressures which will cause possible death and suffering, then we will never succeed.
The Muslim civilization used to be the most advanced on the planet, more so than China, and far more so than the Europeans. If things had gone a little better for them, they would have eliminated the Christian societies of Europe, and we'd all be Muslim. Something they once considered inevitable, as the most recent coming of God and the youngest major religion is, in their minds, the truest and superior representation of God's will.
Now look at them. While I've never been in a Muslim Middle Eastern school, I'd be surprised if they weren't taught about their grand history. And those kids grow up and see what has happened to their society, as a result not of evil Americans or Europeans, but because their expansionist society, which they felt was superior to all others, became stagnant, fell behind, and was finally conquered by those they considered the illiterate barbarians. The world has passed them by. Now they are a backwater, a place the world uses to get oil, and would rather not hear much about otherwise. Except maybe to visit as a nice tourism spot, see the ruins of their past glory, buy some cheap goods, let some kid give you a tour for change.
Then look at Israel! Here are some Jews, kicked out thousands of years ago, who came back, bought up undesirable land... and formed a new nation right in their midst, after being driven from Europe and nearly exterminated. What has happened there, despite decades of Muslim armies trying to wipe them out, blockades, refusals to recognize them, so on? Israel became, in fifty years, a modern nation, technologically advanced, politically stable, capable of handily defeating the Muslim nations around them (even before the US started giving them all that aid), armed with nuclear weapons, economically successful. In fifty years.
No wonder they are pissed. Who to focus anger on? On themselves? Their failed society? Their tinpot dicators and oligarchs? Probably lots do. But the ones we notice the most, they focus it on the West. Who is the biggest, baddest, most successful nation of the West? The United States, of course.
Want to cure the ills of the Middle East? How exactly would you lift an arguably failed society up, without first ridding it of the dictatorships, theocratic plutocracies, and other horrid forms of government and oppression? And will those go willingly? Pretty words, policies of accomodation, and putting money through commerce and aid into lining the pockets of the current scumbags and their families and successors will not help. You can't have fundamental changes without some pretty messy methods. Sometimes those work, sometimes they don't. That's the cost of trying.
I think going to Iraq is one of the best things we have done there in a long, long time. It has gotten the ball rolling. Hell, maybe even 9/11 may be a "good" thing in the long run, as bad as that may sound in the short term. The fact that so many people are pissed off means something at least is being done at long last, the Middle East may wind up a better place sooner rather than later. Yes, people got killed, babies smashed beneath concrete, bombs blew off the arms of little kids, so on. People die. Better they die in the midst of some upheaval that has a better than decent chance to make the lives of the people better in the long term, than at the hands of some power-hungry madmen, for no reason.
Larry
Ah, I see. Let us go over some points. You complained that we believe that there is no higher law than our own. That is a fact in our legal system. The only law which binds the citizens of this nation is the law their elected representatives approve. I have also stated that there is no such thing as international law, only treaty obligations. Note the word, obligations. Also note that nowhere did I state that we should renege on our obligations. If we do decide that it is in our interest to no longer abide by terms of a treaty, we need to work within the framework of the treaty to find an alternative, or we should formally give notice and withdraw.
There may be some confusion here as well. I do not know where you reside. But here, treaties are realized in two forms. First is the treaty as agreed among nations. That does not however immediately translate into law binding upon any citizen here. Congress must generally pass legislation, just as any other law, enabling the terms of the treaty as law, and authorizing the President if he needs power beyond his current grant in order to execute the treaty. A treaty is not some end-run around our legislative process.
Regarding the consent of the governed, perhaps we take that a little more seriously than you? Because we consider consent something that can be taken way, not simply given. We hold the power to review, alter or abolish law rather sacred. Hence the prominence of our judiciary, and the ability of a jury to refuse to enforce a law. Law that is outside of that process of review is not generally considered just or legitimate law. (Which, BTW, is why most Americans are rather uncomfortable with the situation in Cuba, myself included. I'm very happy the courts are getting involved.)
Now, this is how our system works. In this little conversation, I have never advocated breaking treaty obligations. I have never stated that we should thumb our nose at our obligations. But I have stated that there is no such thing as international law. This is an attempt to draw the difference between law, something binding upon people, and inter-governmental agreements and obligations. The large majority of Americans are fundamentally opposed to there being some sort of international body capable of making law binding upon us without the involvement of our Congress to approve it or later repeal it, and our courts to review it.
How exactly is that childish? It is childish to demand control over the law which controls our lives? If the people of your nation want to surrender power over their lives to some body outside their control, more power to them. Have fun with that. BTW, how do they feel about the WTO being able to force your nations to import and sell gene-altered and/or irradiated food? I know your viewpoint, based on your prior statement: "... prepared to respect international law as well as try to impose it on others." The people of this nation do not, and likely will never, assent to that. We will not have international "law" imposed on us against our collective will and outside of our legal system. If that is childish position, then children we be.
I re-iterate: if others want the ability to control our lives without providing us the means to assent to and review, alter or abolish that within our own legal framework, fuck 'em.
Oh, and pompous? Which of us is being condescending, and advocating that they know better and that others should alter their legal system to suit their belief? Perhaps you should examine your own position a bit more.
Larry
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Two things to understand about that clause, known as the "Supremacy Clause." First, what it establishes is that the federal constitution, and laws and treaties agreed to under its authority, are supreme over state constitutions and laws. Second, the key phrase is "under the Authority of the United States."
Treaties in the United States take two forms after ratification. One is the treaty which is signed, and which the Senate has authorized. The second form is the enabling legislation, passed by Congress as a body just as any other law, which gives the treaty force domestically. That law is what actually implements the treaty, and that is what sometimes irks other nations, when Congress makes changes to the treaty as agreed, or refuses to implement particular portions. And in some cases, the Congress refuses to pass enabling legislation entirely, making the ratification a moot thing.
The Supreme Court has ruled on these issues. First, Congress can only pass laws exercising powers as authorized by the constitution. A treaty does not grant additional authorization beyond that. Second, a treaty is formally split in those two parts. For relations internationally, the President's implementation of the treaty may be done within the powers available to him, as granted via the constitution and Congress. For domestic enforcement, though, Congress must enable it via specific law, and within the powers it has. The mere act of ratifying a treaty does not suddenly make it law over the citizens of this nation, and does not suddenly give the federal government more power than it had previously. Treaties have, however, been considered by courts to *negate* existing state law, via the supremacy clause, merely by being ratified.
For those who believe that a treaty is a magic document, able to bypass the will of the people and grant new powers to or strip powers from the federal government, that is nonsensical. To believe that a positive constitution such as the United States', which expressly grants enumerated, limited powers in a finite numbered list, which requires any changes to the constitution to obtain a super-majority of the individual state's assent, would then include a backdoor to make that elaborate system totally moot and permit the federal government to obtain any power it wishes merely by getting another government to grant it and the Senate to agree, is, well, moronic. Thankfully, the Supremes have always concurred.
It is interesting how the original framers of the US constitutional system approached this, and how we have perverted it. We formally recognize in this nation that all powers rest with the people. Governments only exist with the consent of the people. Therefore, it is not possible for a government to "grant" a right to the people. (please note the distinction: people have rights; governments only have powers) Our legal system originally recognized this by explicitly creating a limited government, given only limited and specific powers. Then, over protest, that was perverted with a "bill of rights" approaching the problem from the totally opposite direction with explicit enumeration of rights. As foreseen, that has since been foolishly construed to be some sort of limited grant of rights to the people and an absolute grant of power to the government to restrict rights in non-reserved areas, an absurd concept. With the result that courts search and search within the magic words of the "bill of rights" for our rights.
:-) In Europe, it appears that they have taken that concept farther than here, but we are well on the way. I am sure that there are jurisdictions in the US which do require refunds.
And what does this have to do with evil corporations taking away our rights? Well, one of those rights was long seen as the right to contract. We have no obligation to contract with somebody on terms we dislike. Hence, the government tends to remain neutral in cases like this. If a business decides to offer lower prices but supports that with a no-returns policy, then that is the right of the two parties, given prior disclosure of course! Problem is, we now have a system where rights are not absolute. Contract rights are no longer absolute. The reasoning is that people are, fundamentally, unable to fight on an equal footing for their rights with others (and sadly that may be right... who reads the fine print?). So the law must limit rights to protect those rights. Sort of like killing the village to save the village.
Larry
Heh. As my paternal grandmother said, our ancestors were criminals and religious whackos. We came over in the 1600s. For a time, some ancestors had a slave-trading company. Several fought in the revolution, kick the King out. :-) I'm sure a good number were involved in persecuting the native Americans, the slaves, and lots of others.
Something I learned in college was the concept of presentism. Somebody wise once said "the past is a different country. They do things differently there." When you study history, you lose the ability to learn when you judge the actions of the past by the standards of today. Those here who also wish to judge the people of yesterday by the standards of today are blinded by their judgementalism. The world was a very different place long ago. People have "stolen" land from others from time immemorial. My particular focus was on ancient history, so I can speak of the Etruscans conquering the Italians, the Romans conquering Europe, the Greeks their area, the Persians theirs, the Egyptians theirs, the Chinese theirs. Enslaving, abusing, persecuting. Then later tyrants, Popes, kings, emperors, French Republics, British Empires and so on.
The fact that we in the last couple centuries have learned that it is better to relate with one another differently should not be used to condemn thousands of years of human history and its progeny. Because if that is the standard we will apply, basically every last person on this planet is guilty of gross attrocity. The past is a different place. You weren't there. Learn from it, but don't judge it.
Larry
Yes, yes... terrible rogues we are.
First thing: there is no such thing as international "law." There are only treaty obligations among sovereign nations.
Where do you believe law originates? We believe it originates from the consent of the people, formally known as the sovereigns. We further believe that the people being governed have the ultimate right to abolish or alter that law as they see fit. This is a fundamental tenet of the American legal system.
My countrymen who do believe that they should be subject to "law" made not with their consent and beyond their power to review, alter, or abolish, are most welcome to it. They can move to some other nation. But the United States will never, ever, permit the people of this nation to be subject to such "law."
If believing that law is subject to the consent, both initially and continually, of the governed is a hallmark of a rogue nation, then by god yes, we are proudly rogues. If other nations disagree, well, fuck 'em.
Larry
Uh, the only law higher than Congress is our federal constitution and the court system of review organized under it. International treaties are only legal insofar as they implement powers already authorized under the constitution. There is no higher law, certainly nothing UN related.
Something "you boys" may not realize is how strong our legal tradition is when it comes to these things. In our legal system, it is formally recognized that *all* power lies with the people. The people grant portions of that power to our governments, through written constitutions. Our governments exercise powers only as granted through that mechanism. It doesn't matter what papers a President signs, the only body that determines what is and is not legal here is the Congress and the courts in review. While this system has been weakened throughout the 20th century, it remains a fundamental tenet of our legal system.
So, in fact, there is no higher law than Congress when it comes to the United States. We fundamentally reject the notion that any body other than our elected representatives, subject to review by our courts, have any legitimate power whatsoever to regulate us. This all goes back to the fact that we really do believe in self-government, in the sense that only the people of the nation have the right to govern the people. Treaty obligations (what some refer to as international "law") are only legitimate and operative within that context.
Larry
Um, no. We'd be in a successful nation just like today, as we have the spirit and the brains to innovate and create here, and find resources elsewhere. Whereas those in the Middle East, utterly dependant on the happenstance of having a lot of dead vegetation from millions of years ago beneath their otherwise rather arid land, would likely still be bickering and fighting amongst themselves today over which sect of that third religion is best and which petty tyrant should oppress them. Though the Jews, with their ingenuity and incredible perseverance and determination to succeed and prosper, would likely rule all of the Middle East instead of just their little toe-hold, as those Arab pseudo-nations wouldn't have had the windfall of oil to fund their pathetic militaries.
Remember Xenophon? 10,000 Greeks kicking the ass of the *huge* Persian military (if you call it that) at the height of its power? Remember Rome turning back a "mighty" Arab army with nothing but a consul and some bodyguards? Ever since the west encountered the Arab world, it's been kicking its pathetic ass. I'd think you people would be used to it by now.
No. You edited out the SA step. Basically all mail tagged by SA is discarded, except that which is questionable, which is set aside. Everything that makes it past SA is then sent through TMDA. TMDA sends out the challenges, yes. But as the SA step has already weeded it down, we are now talking about a couple thousand a month.
Most of those are to non-existent mailboxes. Thankfully, most sites are now checking recipients before accepting email. Those do not generate a bounce from the other MTA. Rather, they generate a failed SMTP session (message 550) causing the *local* MTA to generate the bounce. That generates extra traffic, yes, but it doesn't use WAN bandwidth, only gigE LAN if not on the same server, and no disk space, as it is automatically discarded.
Note also that all this happens after Postfix has already done checks on the sender, the sender domain, and against blacklists. There certainly are some people who get the TMDA challenge whose account was spoofed. But from the stats I have on the number of challenges sent out, and the number of immediate bounces discarded due to those being illegal addresses, it doesn't seem to be many. And I have yet to get one complaint (which has surprised me) in two months since going to TMDA in the final step before local delivery.
Larry
Do you realize how much spam costs? The structure is entirely backwards. I help run a small ISP, since 1994. Today, at least 75% of mail coming in is spam. That's at least half a million messages a day. Customers are clamoring for ways to delete it. That means that of the resources deployed to handle email (disk space, servers, bandwidth, people's time) 75% of that is wasted on mail that nobody wants. That costs customers, because those costs are not just eaten.
Marketing email which is honest, which people can stop if they want, I have no problem whatsoever with. It is the email that isn't wanted, is delivered fraudulently, and which cannot be stopped except through a constant battle of filters, that is the problem. It costs real people real money and time, and costs the senders almost nothing. That model is just wrong.
Regulate commercial email. Make it illegal, punishable by prison time and sizeable fines, to ever send a single bit via email promoting a commercial product, which is not 100% easily traceable to its source, and extremely simple to stop within a very short timeframe. Then the guys trying to make a living can do it, legimately.
But always understand this: our network is *our* network. No traffic has any right whatsoever to ever cross it. Ralsky states that he thought it was unfair that he has to identify himself, and ISPs can still delete his email, but much easier now. Tell him what. If he wants to become a *paying customer* of ours, we'll grant him the right to transit our network, for which our customers pay real money to support. Otherwise, we will continue to provide the means to delete all his and other's unwanted email, sight unseen.
Larry
Indeed. I receive around 70,000 spam messages to my account monthly. That's around one every thirty seconds, all day, every day. With filters and Spam Assassin, I was able to tag and delete the large majority of that automatically. But still, thousands got past, to my mailbox. I now use TMDA, no more spam, period. Though now that they legally have to use real addresses, I imagine TMDA will become less effective.
And to put this another way: I receive that many because I help run an ISP. I have a front-line view of the effect of spam. I can say with confidence that AT LEAST 75% of the email received here is spam. We don't have precise stats, but a conservative guess is around half a million PER DAY come through our servers. Those messages take processing power, disk space, electricity, so on to handle. Messages our customers agree to recieve, we have no problem with. But messages that our customers do not want, and cannot stop, and we cannot stop, we consider theft of our resources, our customer's money, and everybody's time. You as an individual user may think "big deal, I just press delete." But when there are tens of thousands of users at an ISP doing that, it really does add up, and really is a serious issue. And you as an individual user are paying for it, don't think you aren't.
Larry
Why doesn't the computer boot in seconds? Well, my latest Windows PC gets past the BIOS in a couple seconds. It then starts loading the OS. With Windows, the hard drive grinds and grinds and grinds, and then grinds some more, as it loads who knows what. It takes much, much longer to get Windows into memory and operating than the BIOS. Seems Windows might be the candidate for the complete re-write if fast bootup is your goal.
What I would like to see in the default standard PC BIOS is remote control via ethernet. Be able to reboot a machine remotely and get console access from the moment the machine powers up, without an add-in board.
Larry
Precisely! It will permit India to become even more competitive as a labor source for western corporations. That money will go into the Indian economy, and through taxes and investment be used to improve the infrastructure of India. Better transport, telecom, education, all will make India better able to compete for labor in the global market. However, the difference between their standard of living and ours is so great (in cost) that it will be to our disadvantage, as their costs will not rise quickly enough to offset the effect of that vast inexpensive labor pool on our standard of living. Same for China, another huge, huge pool of potential labor. The Western world is in for a ride.
Larry
The thing that is different now is how transparent borders have become. In the past, the cost of moving an industry abroad guaranteed that it had an incubation period, perhaps a lengthy one, in the U.S. However, from now on, that incubation period may be terribly short. When a new industry comes along, it will very rapidly take advantage of the telecommunications systems we have, the low cost of transport, and the rising ability of offshore providers to quickly ramp up and produce. The fact that India and China have huge populations, attending better schools, becoming better educated, means that when these new, presumably knowledge-related (whether bio or whatever) industries come about, they can have a ready pool of educated labor immediately. Those foreign nations currently getting the benefit of our off-shoring will use that money to improve their infrastructure, airports, transport systems, telecommunications, education and so on, and thus be much more able to compete with us than in the past.
I believe that we in the western world, not just the United States, are going to experience a painful period of global re-adjustment. For centuries, our better educational systems, liberal social systems, open legal systems, superior technology and such have given us the ability to dominate the world. However, we have been busily exporting those benefits in the hope of gaining trading partners for our goods. The reality is though that world out-numbers us, and as they become more on-par with us and able to compete for our jobs at a far lower cost, it will be only natural that our standards of living fall while theirs rise.
I'm just glad I didn't buy a stupid-expensive house with a stupid-expensive monthly mortgage commitment a few years ago... people paying $3000 a month for an urban home better hope their industry doesn't feel the global pricing pressures too soon.
Larry
I watched some scenes for a reality TV show being filmed at my yacht club. I'd gone there to use the free wifi and have lunch... as I walked up to the entrance, there was a cab letting three women out. There was a guy with a camera, and a woman with a sound boom and satchel, recording. I waited for them to finish and went in. I asked at the desk what was going on, and they said they were filming scenes for a TV show where three divorced guy date some guy who is supposedly rich. They borrowed a member's big-ass power yacht for the show. The crew for this filming was literally those two people. Just two. And the "actors." Even if they paid a decent amount to rent the yacht and for club access, they still are making it soooo cheaply. The annoying thing was the the camera was wireless, probably recording to the satchel the woman wore. Every time they filmed, my wifi died.
Larry
Oh, get real. The rise of the Imperial Presidency in the 20th century has led to this myth about how powerful the man is and how much effect he has. But it is a myth largely. The vast, vast, vast majority of spending in this country is fixed. For a Congress to make any substantive changes in spending would require *large* cuts in programs outside of mandatory spending, be far too controversial for some vocal interest group, and far too politically dangerous. The President has no line-item veto. Sure, he could impound funds (refuse to spend it), but none has the guts to do that and set the precedent for a following president of the opposing party. So the reality is that the President must work with Congress. Congress must make a majority of 535 people, each with their own constituencies, happy. This is not a formula for fiscal constraint. And it is not something to be blamed on one person or one party. It is systemic.
The *only* thing that would prevent overspending is a) restriction on income and b) a hard, legal, unbreakable limit on debt. Our government is a reflection of *US*. *WE* (the American people as a whole) spend every cent we earn. We have tons of debt to gratify our desires. And, we let our government do the exact same thing. Whoever happens sits in the white house at the moment did not create that cultural fact.
The only thing that Republicans have proven by taking over control of the federal government is that they are just as bad as the democrats at spending our money. The only thing that made Clinton look good fiscally was that he was lucky, yes, lucky, enough to be in office during a *global* economic boom.
Until people recognize that tax is a necessary evil, with the emphasis on evil, thus minimizing taxation, and that public debt is an evil, rarely necessary, thus combining to restrict public spending to that which is truly NECESSARY for us, we will have bloated government which runs deficits when the winds of economic prosperity change. But this will never happen. One big reason is that we have foolishly destroyed one of the pillars of our constitutional system as designed by our founders: GEOGRAPHIC separation of powers. We have concentrated so much power into the hands of so few people (536) in this nation, by making everything we possibly can a federal issue, that everybody with any pet issue or peeve knows exactly where to go for a one-stop-solution: Washington, District of Columbia. That will never change either.
Larry
Didn't I expressly say that I was not insulting them? I have no fury. They are using the computer to do what they like. Perfectly respectable. No issue whatsoever. My clients are people like that, every day, using their computer as a tool to do their job. I'm quite comfortable with them.
I was referring to those who use Windows and do consider themselves power users, who do consider themselves to be extremely proficient, who are then confronted with another environment in which their seeming expertise and proficiency is utterly useless. Some would see that situation as an opportunity to learn some more and expand their skills. Others, of course, just keep walking and pay no mind. Some, though, have a personality such that they see it as a threat to their concept of themself as a "expert" and then seek to belittle the other.
There are profound differences between the world of *nix and the world of Windows. I'll use myself as an example. I learned computers back in the 80s. A soldering iron was something you used sometimes. I learned to program 8-bit machines with 4k of RAM. I went to college, and graduated in computer science (at a school where it was still a science). I have written operating systems, compilers, programming languages, database systems, so on. For me, the *nix world is like water is to a fish. The *nix world still revolves around people like me. Specifically, people interested in the science of computing, and who see the computer and the operating system as a tool to learn about that science and expand their skills.
The Windows world, however, revolves around customers in a consumer model, using products to solve problems, such as writing a letter or whatever else. A Windows user can become an "expert" in their own mind quite easily, without any truly technical understanding of the operating system, how it works, and other fundamentals. They merely install some products, learn how to tweak some of them in the ways permitted by the vendor, perhaps troubleshoot and solve some issues which your average Windows user could never do. That is a rather low bar technically, but as a Windows user is truly a *user,* it is the bar.
That is not traditionally true in the *nix world. In the *nix world, to be considered an expert by your peers requires a great deal more understanding of fundamentals, more ability to troubleshoot and solve issues than available to the Windows user, some programming skills (whether scripted or compiled), and so on.
The hobbyist Windows expert confronting the Linux expert is generally a very lopsided match. And as I stated before, some personalities see that as a threat and react as such.
I have no intent whatsoever to denigrate the users of Windows. Each to their own. Whatever floats your boat. Now, on the other hand, I do find Windows to be wanting in many ways. But if a Windows user finds thoughtful criticism of their OS to be a personal insult, then they have issues. Ditto for Linux users in the same situation.
Larry
Where I once worked, all the developers worked in UNIX. HP-UX to be exact. All had either X-terminals to a server, or preferably Linux boxes on their desks. We all also had Windows boxes, because the business used Exchange/Outlook for email. Many of the developers NEVER used the Windows PC for anything other than email. We therefore decided to see about handling our email under Linux or HP-UX, and getting rid of the useless, space-wasting, heat-generating other computer and monitor.
We could receive the email, no problem. Exchange did IMAP (sort of). But we had issues sending email, as we needed to do SMTP. We spoke with our email system admin, Dan. His official title was something along those lines. Dan knew nothing whatsoever about SMTP. Basically didn't know what it was. He was a Windows person, 100%. So we attempted to educate him a bit. That was a mistake. See, Dan was like a lot of Windows people. Windows and Microsoft enabled him to do his job, without having to know a lot technically. He was, to management, the email expert. We learned that by showing that he is not the expert (only to him and us even, initially), we endangered his view of himself as the email expert, and his role in the organization I suppose. We then became the enemies, because we presented him with something we needed, which he should have been able to provide, but was unable to due to his ignorance.
Windows has done this for a lot of people, such as the parent's author. It has enabled them. They are able to buy a PC, install software, learn how to click here and there, play games, do all the other cool stuff that comes pre-packaged for them. But when they are confronted by other users, ostensibly the same as them, who are able and willing to use a technically more challenging system such as Linux or other *nix systems, they see that as a challenge to their own view of themselves as a knowledgeable "power user." When the other users then heap scorn on the tool which has empowered them to use a modern computer, they see that in a less than rational way. They see it as a threat. And they respond as the author did. Or as Dan did. Or as countless other users of technology who don't really understand that technology, yet believe they do.
Sure, there are tons of Linux users who bait the Windows users and make stupid inflamatory comments. And sure, there lots of Windows users who do really understand Windows and computers deeply. But in general, a Linux user is a far more technically proficient person than a Windows user, by necessity, and that is a threat to the Windows "power user" who sees himself as a technically elite person, when he really isn't. And if you are going to bring up exceptions, remember: the exception proves the rule.
Larry
And that is back to the original point. The *nix culture is about technically proficient users being able to interact with the system in a technically rewarding manner. Meaning, with knowledge comes power.
The Windows culture was traditionally about empowering end-users to be able to use a technically complex device (a general purpose computer) without having to acquire technical proficiency beyond what was needed to complete the task at hand. As Windows has moved beyond that role, and is used by technically proficient users (technical professionals, in server environments, so on) it has adopted more complicated and powerful features, but always strives to hide them. And at the core, it hides everything, either through black-box interfaces/methods, or an incredibly cryptic registry.
You are not a technically proficient user, in the sense that you don't know too much about how a computer works, and you don't want to. That's not an insult, that's just who you are, along with the vast, vast, vast majority of other people. For you, certainly, Windows is better, because it hides the complexities and makes you feel good about yourself being able to harness the computer to do what you want.
For me, I very often despise Windows, because I find it so difficult to control the computer when it is designed from the start as a black-box. I've written optimizing compilers, operating systems, shells, memory-management systems, in-memory data normalization for data warehouses, parsers, my own languages, so on, and administered various *nix systems since the late 80s. I know how computers work, fundamentally. And yet, Windows frustrates me to no end at times.
With Unix, it most definitely takes a lot more techical proficiency, but I am confident that I can control the system, and fix most any problem, with the minimal loss of my data or time. Sometimes Windows just blows up, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, you can do to save the system other than completely re-install the OS, and then have to completely re-install every last application due to the registry.
A catastrophic failure in a Unix system generally presents me with the opportunity to attack the problem in numerous ways and through technical means save the system. A failure in a Windows system all too often means I get to put a CD-ROM in the drive and click some buttons while it happily wipes away the system (and that incredibly idiotic damn single-point-of-failure registry). And then more CD-ROMs, and more clicking, for a long time. I find that to be incredibly dis-empowering and frustrating personally.
Larry
I didn't say it would work. I said that is why we attacked. Those are two different topics. As for the occupation and transformation of Iraq being a failure, time will tell. Not less than a year. To argue otherwise merely shows your political viewpoints.
As for the casulty numbers, whatever. Most Americans are not as risk-averse as Europeans. We do not see the number of soldiers being killed as some great bloodbath. Yes, it is terrible. Yes, we wish it wouldn't happen. But our soldiers are not like your soldiers. They are actually expected to fight and perhaps die. That is something that happens when you fight. More people die here from car accidents going out to get damn groceries. A few hundred soldiers being killed in an attempt to pacify a large, somewhat hostile country is nothing. Except of course to their families.
Americans are far, far more concerned with having a policy and strategy that leads to eventual downdrawl (we know there will be no withdrawl for a long time), and if we believe that policy and strategy is rational, we will accept bodybags coming back for a while. The fact that the Bush administration has altered its policy and strategy to adapt to the realities there is something most Americans see as good leadership. Only the political opponents of the administration expected them to have prescience and a perfect strategy before even setting foot in Iraq.
Financial ties in Iraq? You get real. Indeed, we armed and trained Iraq against Iran. But the "modern" Iraq army was built largely of Russian and French equipment. In case you forgot, those were MiGs being buried by Iraq, and Russian and Chinese tanks being blown up. It is a fact that France and Russia and others are owed huge sums of money primarily for military and energy equipment, and they don't want to forgive it. If you're denying that, there's no hope for you. If you think Russia and France and China opposed the war against Iraq because they cared a tiny bit even for the people of Iraq, you are foolish. Those nations wouldn't put a strain on their relations with the United States unless they saw it as being in *their* interests. And *their* interests are financial and political.
As for you, I too am bored with you people. Post WWII, you Europeans developed a strong, strong aversion to nationalism. You have been socially trained that nationalism, patriotism, and such lead to conflicts such as WWII. You have been trained that to avoid conflict is paramount, and that everything can be solved through discussion, consensus, and maybe some sanctions if push comes to shove. You devolve more and more control over your allegedly sovereign nations to inter-national governing and regulating bodies, creating those ties that bind.
And that is all fine, your choice, more power to you. But, you then translate your political structural changes in the last century as being the right and proper way to do things for everybody. You collectively denigrate the U.S. because we do not buy into your mindset, which you have decided is the *right* mindset. Sound a little familiar?
Well, we do not buy into the idea of allowing anyone other than our elected officials to hold the power to make policy and political decisions for us, in particular issues of national security. We do not see fealty to our nation as a problem. And we still believe that sometimes force is required. We don't want to resort to it as a first means, but we won't shy away from using it.
And finally, which of us in this little discussion is being judgemental? Look in the mirror sometime.
Larry
Uh, there is no such thing as the Internet as we know it today. ARPAnet is long gone. The Internet simply doesn't exist as an entity you could point to and control. It isn't owned by anybody. What we call the Internet is merely the interconnection of privately owned networks speaking common protocols. Of course, you probably know that.
I happen to co-operate a small regional ISP (about 8000 users). The only control ICANN has is name registration and DNS standards. They don't even own the DNS servers. They don't assign IP space. See ARIN for that. I am curious as to what exactly the U.N. wants to control? What do they think they can do?
When you speak of this ownership and control, what exactly do you mean? Do you know what you mean? Do you know how all this works? What US interests are there that need to be challenged? Because all I know is that as a small part of the Internet, there is basically no control exerted whatsoever over our operations by any of the bodies the U.N. may want to co-opt. Is the big plan of the U.N. to do what, have more DNS root servers? Put them all in New York in the basement of the U.N. headquarters? Or maybe take over ARIN, and force the big classful IP allocations back into the pool and give out CIDR space? Oooh, how revolutionary. Or maybe take over IETF and make the U.N. vote on all RFCs? Start mucking with some core protocols?
I mean, what is there to control, and what can be done with that control? Anyone?
Larry
The reason we invaded Iraq was simple. It had nothing to do with WMD. It had nothing to do with liberating the poor suffering people of Iraq. It had nothing to do with mass graves, with sanction violations.
Those things were merely pretexts. The whole idea of a "illegal" war is a wet dream of the "international law" fantasy believers, and thus the logic of using violations of an armistice to speak their language.
The truth of the matter is, Bush had no interest in going to war in Iraq before 9/11. His advisors may have wanted to, but he didn't, despite all the grand conspiracy theories.
Why did we attack Iraq? As an object lesson. Read Friedman: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/06/04/nyt.friedman/ Smart guy.
It is the same reason we fire-bombed Dresden, melted the city, and killed all those people in a hellish inferno. Dresden was an object lesson to the Russians. Iraq was an object lesson to the nations that would harbor/aid terrorists. Do as we wish, or face the consequences. Not consequences of words, sanctions, meaningless UN resolutions. Consequences of the US war machine in a hot war, taking your government down. That's why we attacked Iraq. And that is the real world, not some fantasy land of "proving Saddam a danger to world peace blah blah blah."
And back in the real world, those who think Russia and France opposed us due to some moral issues, due to caring for the people of Iraq, due to a belief in international law and "peace through consensus" bullshit are children. Russia and France armed Iraq, and are owed billions and billions. They engaged in commerce despite the sanctions, and had numerous very valuable contracts pending. And, they had a chance to gang up on the new top dog of the world. Mix that all together, and it was no surprise, only disappointing. That is called realpolitik. As for Germany, they went along because they want to have a buddy-buddy relationship with their neighbor France in dominating the EU. Remember France, the nation that said "we should all respect the opinions of our allies and friends," telling the Eastern European nations to just shut up and toe the line vis-a-vis France's wisdom? France dearly wants the EU to take on a role in the world, led by France of course, as a co-equal competitor to the US in both commerce and political fealty. Not even to mention France's demographics: aging population, low birth rate, high social costs. Their salvation (other than enlarging the EU and spreading the burden around)? Immigration from largely Muslim nations, and their growing Muslim population, and sensitivities to that growing domestic political bloc.
In the real world, Iraq and Saddam are insignificant. The real picture is much bigger. The geo-political structures of the post Cold War world are sitting on some major fault lines, and Iraq just highlighted that. It didn't create the fault lines. We live in interesting times.
Larry
In my place, I have at least four machines running 24x7. Sometimes more. Also one each monitor, UPS, HP5N printer, fax machine, laptop (always plugged in, nearly dead battery), wifi. Then there is the big TV, big stereo, fridge, lights, water pump, window AC units, window fans, furnace, various other electronic stuff.
Let's get some bills out. In the height of summer in Chicago, with AC going, my most expensive month was $68.30 for 817 kWh. In the most temperate period, no AC, no furnace, it was $37.45 for 470 kWh. Those are actual kWh costs, before taxes/fees.
Larry
Kyoto is a funny thing... large polluters get a certain amount they can pollute. Developing nations are exempt to a level. So, large polluting nations would assuredly out-source to off-shore sub-contractors as much as possible. Those nations would be exempt, to a point. But, the large polluter, who now pollutes less, can simply sell the credits they have to the now excessively polluting nations, and then when those nations start becoming gross polluters beyond the savior of credits, we can attempt to rein them in... and listen to the screaming. It would be amusing.
Regarding Iraq, the logic is rather simple. There were hostilities, led by the United States and a coalition under the grant of authorization of the United Nations. Once Iraq was driven from Kuwait, those hostilities were voluntarily suspended, and Iraq signed an armistice agreement. Once Iraq met certain requirements, the hostilities would be formally ended. Those requirements were never met, and Iraq ended all pretext of attempting to meet them to the satisfaction of the side which granted the armistice. Note, the hostilities as originally authorized never ended, as demonstrated by the continuing hostilities enforcing the "no-fly" zones. The United States, legally speaking, merely decided that the armistice terms had been violated, and therefore the comprehensive hostilities were begun again. I think that "legally" this all hinges on whether the U.N. ever took the authorization away from the U.S. coalition, as granted back in 1991, to wage war against Iraq. Did the armistice agreement permit the United States to decide whether the armistice terms were being met? My understanding is that the armistice agreement was rather informal, and the U.N. authorization was never withdrawn. I'd *love* to see some documentary evidence attesting to one side or the other on this issue.
But back in the real world... nations have conflicts. We have created a world today where the large majority are allegedly "solved" without violence. But that has created a world averse to the use of violence, in which some naively believe that everybody will play nice in the end when their "viewpoints" are "respected" leading to "consensus." It seems that the first priority is avoid conflict and bloodshed, not to get rid of heinous leaders. Sometimes, negotiations don't work, one side doesn't blink, diplomacy goes nowhere, and a line in the sand has to be drawn, and it has to be enforced. Iraq crossed that line, it was redrawn, they crossed it again, and so on for over a damn decade, because everybody was too timid to actually enforce it. Someday, somebody had to enforce that line, and it happened to be a Republican president who rubs people the wrong way and who pissed off a bunch of Democrats when he got elected in a hotly contested race. But if not him, it would have been somebody. That, or the U.N. would just cave in and demonstrate that its dictates are meaningless. Or, France would get its EU military force and fly in to rescue the day, in their wet dreams.
Larry
Or, maybe they'll enact steel tariffs to attempt to protect that strategically important industry... Hmmmm, I wonder what brilliant politician will attempt to do that?
Larry