Why was that modded up? It doesn't make sense. If you want alternative energy sources, it would really help if you a) conserved oil and spent money on energy efficient products (better insulation, solar heating, wind generators, etc.), b) you invested in alternative-energy companies or c) donated money to funds doing research in this field.
If you honestly think burning more oil benefits humanity in some weird and perverse way, you are stupid and delusional.
I find that asking an advanced factual question about the topic often works.
Such as "How does climate data from Athapaskan and Tlingit oral traditions and Shelley poems correlate with climate data acquired by ice core drilling?" or "What is general circulation model and what percentage of global temperature rise results, according to this model, from sea ice changes in the event of a doubling of atmospheric CO2?"
When the arrogant know-it-all gasps for air in indignation, you have a few seconds to quickly make a point. Suggest to him that a person, who cannot correctly answer such trivial questions is unlikely to be able to correctly answer much more complicated ones, such as whether global warming is happening and why and how.
Don't feel so smug, though, because there is also the Soviet school, where every student in every school takes trig. And no one was harmed by that so far.
No, just like an SUV (or in some countries jeep) is a certain type of car made by any company. Linux doesn't denote a product made by a single company - anyone can make and distribute a Linux OS and so it shouldn't really be a trademark.
What do you mean repaginate for the device? If both printers print on the same format paper (A4), I expect them to produce the same document. I may accept slightly different colours, different resolution, somewhat different fonts, but if the documents paginate differently, the program is not working as it should. In the very least, Word should provide a "Preserve formatting" option (on by default) and save positions for all lines of text. Should be trivial. Also, if Microsoft bundles different fonts with different versions of Windows, I think it has a responsibility to warn its customers that due to that fact Word may fuck up their formatting. I am sure people will be delighted to learn about that "feature".
What you are saying about 10/12 point fonts doesn't make sense. Most people print on A4 (Legal in the US) paper and expect their pages to look the same. In fact, Word has a feature to rescale A4 documents when printing on Legal paper (and vice versa) to preserve pagination. So the behavour you describe is clearly not the preferred one.
Who said a program can't perform two functions? Do you still use one program for writing e-mails and another for sending them? Do you use one program to download files and another to upload them? One program to design presentation slides and another to show them? One program to enter data and another to make calculations with it?
No matter what egotist purists like you think, it's a very real use case. A person needs to write a report, add images, diagrams and print it so that it looks nice. This is what Word is used for, this is an exemplary case.
You probably want that person to work on the text first, then export the result into some Publisher application, add images, format the headers and footers, add cool formatting and stuff and print. But what if one needs to make some changes? Delete some text? Add some text? Shuffle text around? And actually there is no "what if". It happens every fucking time. This is the most typical scenario - prepare the first draft, have your editor/boss make tons of changes, make another draft and so on and so forth. And of course, when your boss reads the document, he wants it to look like it will look to the client, he doesn't want to see just the text. So do you want the author of the document to export the text from Publisher, import it into Word, then repeat this 10 times?
Frankly, that would be idiotic. Creating layout and editing the text are not two separate processes, these are two aspect of one process - making a good looking document.
Nobody cares really what you think about holes and pegs. The market wants a word-processing + page-layout program. Microsoft is trying to answer that need, but doesn't fully succeed. But to say that the customer is wrong is stupid and just shows how little you understand the actual user's needs.
Not really. But building microrobots is a good practice for building microtools that can be used to build nanorobots. It's not that a microrobot should be used to build a nanorobot, it's that parts of a relatively large machine should be made on a micro-scale. And for that we need to solve the problems of power transmission, control, etc.
I'll probably be market redundant for saying this so many times, but WORD IS NOT A PAGE LAYOUT PROGRAM. The problem is three-fold. 1) everyone needed a page layout program, not something else 2) what else is Word if not a page layout program? 3) how long will it take MS to realise that Word is being used as a page layout program and fix it to perform this function well?
How can you have a word-processing software that doesn't make pagination correctly without just marking every damn page break manually? It's like an e-mail program that doesn't send your messages to correct recipients. Or only does it sometimes.
But let's face it. The average requirements and usages of word-processing software have not really changed in five years or more. We hit true WYSIWYG and haven't seen a real change since, but they keep revamping the interfaces and tweaking the DRM and releasing it as "new versions." The requirements have changed tremendously, but developers don't realise it. The next step (that is long overdue) should have been to free-form editing (wikis, random note collecting tools, thinking-editing tools such as mind maps, better outlines) and collaborative tools (wikis, simultaneous editing, integration with IM/IRC-like chats, better sharing). While MS Office has moved a tiny little bit in that direction, they haven't really changed the core functionality of the office productivity software. Which is a pity.
Ironsides, I honestly and truly do not have anything personal against you. But what you say is idiotic. A general suggestion that may help you in life - when someone calls you stupid or says that a particular point you made is idiotic, please go to Google or another search engine and try to find additional information on this topic. Chances are, you really don't know something and googling may help.
There are several points wrong with what you say, but it's your responsibility to find this out. You shouldn't expect your partner in discussion to explain every mistake you make.
1) Seoul is just 30 miles from the DMZ. 2) Even though I do not say that the nukes are pointed into NK (because it's a military secret), that would be a logical thing. 3) Nuking West Germany was not the planned strategy for most of the time, even though it may have been considered at some point. 4) People may tend to use the same tactics, but nuclear wars are not planned by ordinary people, but by military planners. And military planners tend to use the best tactics for any situation.
Point 4 refers to my comment that "you drag in West Germany, which is completely unrelated". Points 1 and 2 refer to my comment that "you invent some unsubstantiated fantasy about nukes being pointed at the DMZ".
I hate this post-modernist and anti-rationalist disdain for truth. People don't care about finding the truth at all, they form an opinion so easily and then clutch at it so strongly, even though that opinion is not really backed with any facts. That's so sad.
Do you want to win a debate on Slashdot or do you want to get help in finding out the truth? If it's the former, you are pathetic.:) But let's hope not. I am not on a payroll of North Korean government, I have no hidden agenda. I am just willing to share what I learned with others.
I already said (in my first sentence) that the timeline is misleading because of how it represents the facts. It doesn't mention the delays, the broken promises, etc. Yes, there was some progress, but if you watch Nuclear Nightmare or read other sources, you will hear US officials admit that they didn't keep their promises. Which explains why the nuclear program was restarted.
As for the nukes, please don't try to win some debate, just think a bit. What you are saying doesn't make sense - you are being irrational. First, you drag in West Germany, which is completely unrelated. Then you invent some unsubstantiated fantasy about nukes being pointed at the DMZ. Who told you that? Please don't make up bullshit arguments in order to score some "points". Let's respect logic.
Think, don't just attack your opponent. I don't know about other cases, but right now I am not trying to "defeat" you, make you look bad or anything, I am just trying to share what I learned, that's all.
But is it unreasonable to assume that a large percentage of those listed by the Memorial Society were unjustly killed by Stalin's apparatus?
Yes, it's unreasonable. The security apparatus served an important function - to protect the Soviet Union. It did it job as well as it could. Yes, sometimes it went too far, that was admitted and the guilty were punished properly afterwards. But 1) the number of victims is nowhere near what crazy anti-communists claim 2) many were not victims, but guilty criminals 3) overall the system is justified, because the other possible outcome is worse.
In fact, it is not unreasonable to assume such. The MVD estimates prepared for the 20th Party Congress of the CPSU reported that around 681,692 people were executed during 1937 and 1938 alone. I like this precision. "around 681,692". I also like unsourced estimates. They are so easy to refute with "The MVD estimates that 178 people were executed during 1937 and 1938". Eat that.
In any case, it is estimated that Stalin's purges made up only 10% of those who were killed under his regime. Fuck you with your estimates. I estimate that 10% of your female relatives are syphilitic whores. How is that for an estimate?
They are estimates based upon the work of historians and scholars far more respectable than lunatics like yourself. You wish, moron. The historians who talk about 100 million, are mostly on the payroll of CIA. Lies such as "The Black Book of Communism" are treated by the real historians as baseless lies. The historians who talk about 100 millions dead deserve no more respect than Holocaust deniers.
That entire populations of people disappeared during the time of Stalin is fact. Stalin, for example, deported most of the population of Estonia to the camps. When they were sent back to Estonia, there were considerably fewer Estonians. Repeat for Belarusan and Ukrainian Poles, Crimean Tatars, etc. You are a lunatic, not me. This is a baseless idiotic lie. I can counter this with saying that you fuck your sister. You don't know jack shit about Soviet history and are just parroting lies that your masters tell you. Moron.
And if you think you talked with Estonians more than I did, you are wrong... moron. My greatgrandmother was Estonian, my great aunt was Belarussian, I worked in Estonia and I talked with Estonians enough. And I also read history a bit more than you, moron. I know what really happened with Crimean Tatars and everyone else, but you don't. Because you only listen to what your TV tells you.
Yet more of your ad-hominem attacks are duly noted. What is an ad-hominem attack? That he was an informer? Go ask his best friend, who hid "Gulag Archipelago" for him from the KGB. That he was an anti-semite? Go read his books about Jews. That he was a fucking scum? Well, it kinda follows from everything else.
_The Gulag Archipilago_ is not "labeled as fiction". Ask the people who were in camps with Solzhenitsyn. They certainly do not share your view.
How scholarly of you. I am not trying to be scholarly, pig.
Rumell's work has not been "sanctioned" by any government, for obvious reasons. Not so obvious to me. Care to elaborate?
All famines and mass-starvations of the 20th century occurred in places either destroyed by war, or firmly under the control of people like yourself who have violently suppressed private property rights in the means of production; Ukraine under Stalin, Mengistu's Ethiopia, North Korea, etc. You fucking idiot.
Total bullshit. People do not die from easily preventable diseases and the lack of clean drinking water in any reasonably capitalist nation. The only places we see such human suffering are, again, in countries destroyed by either war or socialism. You retarded piece of shit. This human suffering is in countries destroyed by exploitation by MNCs and by globalisation. Which are both direct results of capitalism. Neither socialism,
Sure. See this timeline for example. Much more interesting, though, is what this timeline doesn't directly mention. See for example, 1990. Surprise-surprise! Turns out the United States has nuclear weapons (where are they aimed, what do you think?) right next to the North Korean border (in nuclear terms). That is supposedly fine and dandy, according to US double standard.
Then the timeline details (some of) the promises, concentrating mainly on the promised nuclear reactors. An important thing to understand is that North Korea has few other energy options, it needs nuclear power to run the economy, not just to make plutonium. But these promises haven't been followed up on very well. You can also see from the timeline very clearly that North Korea has repeatedly made steps towards compromise, peace, etc.
I also suggest that you watch a "Nuclear Nightmare - Understanding North Korea" documentary, it has a lot of interesting footage and, though it's also biased a bit, overall it shows a very interesting picture of where North Korea really stands.
I don't beleive everything Condi says. But there aren't many well-known American public figures talking with North Korean leaders, so I can't be too picky about whom to listen to.
As for how Kim runs the country, have you been there? Have you talked with people who have been there? Or is your image of North Korea entirely based on officially-sanctioned anti-communist propaganda in the US media? You would be surprised to learn that life in North Korea is actually OK - for the resources that North Korea has people live amazingly well. And thanks to the socialist regime and the equality it fosters, there is much less poverty than a comparably poor country elsewhere in Asia, Africa or South America.
And last time I checked your post had no point in it.
What exactly would North Korea gain from nuking Japan? You may be surprised to know, but the main reason North Korea has nukes, a huge conventional army and tens of thousands of guns aimed at Seul is to protect North Korea from a possible (likely?) US invasion.
If you learn a bit about the history of relations between North Korea and the US, you would realise that it's the US that is crazy, lying, twisted and unreliable, not North Korea.
Every time he met with American Secretaries of State and other officials. Read the account by Condi "shoes-buying" Rice. "Calm, rational, reasonable man" is almost exactly how she described him. He also stopped North Korean nuclear program several times, only to resume it again, when the US didn't follow on its promises.
Actually, nuking Mecca would enormously strengthen Islam. You see, neither Jews, nor Christians have a Holy Church. Jews had one, but it was, ahem, lost. Christians never had one. That's one of the reasons why they can operate all over the world. Muslims, on the other hand, need to go to hadj, need to turn to Mecca every time they pray, etc. This complicates things a lot. Destroy the Mecca and they will invent a portable holy symbol, such as a crucifix (or even simplier - cross) for Christians.
And with that portable symbol they will conquer the whole world.
You assume that every person has absolute free will and is not influenced by outside factors. That assumption is not true. People in the USA are manipulated by the media and the average person cannot resist this manipulation any more than he can turn off TV and read a book. The majority of the USA citizens (and people elsewhere on the planet) are mindless zombies, who by some strange twist of fate have voting rights. Democracy wouldn't work on Haiti, because of the voodoo. The US has its own voodoo called "mass-media".
Well, the history provides us with a very simple solution and the evil terrorist countries (like France, China and the like) with a simple defence. Make your own!:)
North Korea is as safe as it ever was from American nukes, because 4 minutes after the the first missile is spotted, Seul sinks into the ocean just like New Orleans. Only the ocean is made of fire instead of water.
Nuclear arms race is a great news for any country that might be attacked by the US, but it's bad news for the world overall. The only thing that Iran needs now is some nukes (can get them from either Pakistan or from India), some rockets and some US ally nearby. However, if I were the leader of Iran, I would just take over the fucking US embassy, castrate everyone there, cauterize the wounds, then move everyone to some deep-deep cave and hold them hostages for indefinite period.
That would essentially make airborne computer viruses possible!
A virus infects one computer in an office installs spyware, listens to typing in the office, generate a dictionary of likely passwords and then attempts to attack nearby computers (just scan the subnet/workgroup) by using overheard passwords.
I should have spoken clearer, I actually meant openness and willingness to discuss difficult topics, not actually being 100% honest. Although a politician refusing to have unscripted interviews is probably less likely to be honest.
Nor was there any news reporting in the same sense as in the US. What do you mean there was no news reporting? What were the newspapers printing then? Winning lottery tickets? Pick any news story in a reputable US newspaper and I guarantee that similar stories were printed in Soviet newspapers too. Go ahead, challenge me.
Please provide evidence in support of this. The newspapers were free to print what the editors/journalists wanted. Yes, some topics were considered improper or even taboo. Some topics were considered unpopular among the population. Some topics were considered state secrets. But all this is normal and is happening in every country in almost every newspaper. Official statements and transcripts of speeches were printed in many newspapers, but it's certainly not an infrigement of freedom of press and it's a good thing anyway (providing people with access to the original source, not a bastardised dumbed-down retelling).
Yes, chief editors of major newspapers were appointed through the nomenclature mechanism, so in a sense they were appointed by the Party, but this is not different from how they are appointed by the Board of Directors of some huge media corporation in capitalist countries. Or by the Parliament in the UK (in case of BBC, IIRC).
Overall, there is simply no evidence to prove that freedom of press didn't exist in Soviet Union and sorry, I can't prove the negative more conclusively.
Of course, the judgement of the journalists and editors was heavily shaded by the attitudes of the Kremlin - no need for detailed instruction. You won't find articles praising Solzhenitsyn for example - or of many other authors, artists, etc... etc... How many articles were there in the US media condemning or criticizing Solzhenitsin or Sakharov? What? You can't find a single one, can you?
Do you honestly believe that there is a country where journalist function in a vacuum and are not influenced by anyone? Of course, not. But Soviet journalists had integrity just like their colleagues in the West. It's just that it's difficult to notice the discussion, the differences from the outside. You don't know much about controversies in the French press, do you? In most cases Soviet journalists wrote/printed what they wanted to. In those cases when they did something inappropriate, they were honestly and directly informed of that by appropriate authorities. There was no manipulation, no lies, the fact that there is some small degree of rarely used control over journalists was well-known. Contrast that with the Fox-Monsanto story (google for it). There is no absolute freedom in the US either, there is always some influence. It's just it was more honest and open and less manipulative in the Soviet Union.
Sure - if you consider articles praising the heroic action of workers in meeting their quota as 'coverage'. You should actually go to the library (if you can find Soviet papers in your library) and read some of them. Then you won't have to make up ridiculous fantasies.
(But you won't find articles questioning whether that quota was reasonable, not will the articles mention how quality drops late in the month to meet quota.) You certainly would find these articles in "Economic newspaper", for example.
Another popular topic was how workers 'volunteered' to help bring in the harvest. (But no articles on the system failed to produce enough tractors/etc to bring in the harvest, or how even the 'heroic' efforts failed to produce enough food to feed the country.) So many misconceptions... First, it wasn't a popular topic, because no one ever said that all workers volunteered, they were usually sent to help, although in many cases people actually did volunteer, because it was quite fun, you could change your office work for some physical labour, you could get some fresh fruits/vegetables for your family and why not? Second, do Western newspapers talk about every single failure of the economic system? Do they often c
It's amazing how far capitalism will go to make lives of normal people miserable. If I was told 20 years ago that in 2005 people will be discussing a global do-not-call list to protect people from marketers, I would have filed it right next to all the distopian sci-fi. And yet, it's 2005 and I just read this...
Slashdot Mirror
Why was that modded up? It doesn't make sense. If you want alternative energy sources, it would really help if you a) conserved oil and spent money on energy efficient products (better insulation, solar heating, wind generators, etc.), b) you invested in alternative-energy companies or c) donated money to funds doing research in this field.
If you honestly think burning more oil benefits humanity in some weird and perverse way, you are stupid and delusional.
I find that asking an advanced factual question about the topic often works.
Such as "How does climate data from Athapaskan and Tlingit oral traditions and Shelley poems correlate with climate data acquired by ice core drilling?" or "What is general circulation model and what percentage of global temperature rise results, according to this model, from sea ice changes in the event of a doubling of atmospheric CO2?"
When the arrogant know-it-all gasps for air in indignation, you have a few seconds to quickly make a point. Suggest to him that a person, who cannot correctly answer such trivial questions is unlikely to be able to correctly answer much more complicated ones, such as whether global warming is happening and why and how.
I thought the Cluetrain has arrived a few years ago...
Don't feel so smug, though, because there is also the Soviet school, where every student in every school takes trig. And no one was harmed by that so far.
No, just like an SUV (or in some countries jeep) is a certain type of car made by any company. Linux doesn't denote a product made by a single company - anyone can make and distribute a Linux OS and so it shouldn't really be a trademark.
What do you mean repaginate for the device? If both printers print on the same format paper (A4), I expect them to produce the same document. I may accept slightly different colours, different resolution, somewhat different fonts, but if the documents paginate differently, the program is not working as it should. In the very least, Word should provide a "Preserve formatting" option (on by default) and save positions for all lines of text. Should be trivial. Also, if Microsoft bundles different fonts with different versions of Windows, I think it has a responsibility to warn its customers that due to that fact Word may fuck up their formatting. I am sure people will be delighted to learn about that "feature".
What you are saying about 10/12 point fonts doesn't make sense. Most people print on A4 (Legal in the US) paper and expect their pages to look the same. In fact, Word has a feature to rescale A4 documents when printing on Legal paper (and vice versa) to preserve pagination. So the behavour you describe is clearly not the preferred one.
Who said a program can't perform two functions? Do you still use one program for writing e-mails and another for sending them? Do you use one program to download files and another to upload them? One program to design presentation slides and another to show them? One program to enter data and another to make calculations with it?
No matter what egotist purists like you think, it's a very real use case. A person needs to write a report, add images, diagrams and print it so that it looks nice. This is what Word is used for, this is an exemplary case.
You probably want that person to work on the text first, then export the result into some Publisher application, add images, format the headers and footers, add cool formatting and stuff and print. But what if one needs to make some changes? Delete some text? Add some text? Shuffle text around? And actually there is no "what if". It happens every fucking time. This is the most typical scenario - prepare the first draft, have your editor/boss make tons of changes, make another draft and so on and so forth. And of course, when your boss reads the document, he wants it to look like it will look to the client, he doesn't want to see just the text. So do you want the author of the document to export the text from Publisher, import it into Word, then repeat this 10 times?
Frankly, that would be idiotic. Creating layout and editing the text are not two separate processes, these are two aspect of one process - making a good looking document.
Nobody cares really what you think about holes and pegs. The market wants a word-processing + page-layout program. Microsoft is trying to answer that need, but doesn't fully succeed. But to say that the customer is wrong is stupid and just shows how little you understand the actual user's needs.
Not really. But building microrobots is a good practice for building microtools that can be used to build nanorobots. It's not that a microrobot should be used to build a nanorobot, it's that parts of a relatively large machine should be made on a micro-scale. And for that we need to solve the problems of power transmission, control, etc.
I'll probably be market redundant for saying this so many times, but WORD IS NOT A PAGE LAYOUT PROGRAM.
The problem is three-fold.
1) everyone needed a page layout program, not something else
2) what else is Word if not a page layout program?
3) how long will it take MS to realise that Word is being used as a page layout program and fix it to perform this function well?
How can you have a word-processing software that doesn't make pagination correctly without just marking every damn page break manually? It's like an e-mail program that doesn't send your messages to correct recipients. Or only does it sometimes.
But let's face it. The average requirements and usages of word-processing software have not really changed in five years or more. We hit true WYSIWYG and haven't seen a real change since, but they keep revamping the interfaces and tweaking the DRM and releasing it as "new versions."
The requirements have changed tremendously, but developers don't realise it. The next step (that is long overdue) should have been to free-form editing (wikis, random note collecting tools, thinking-editing tools such as mind maps, better outlines) and collaborative tools (wikis, simultaneous editing, integration with IM/IRC-like chats, better sharing). While MS Office has moved a tiny little bit in that direction, they haven't really changed the core functionality of the office productivity software. Which is a pity.
Ironsides, I honestly and truly do not have anything personal against you. But what you say is idiotic. A general suggestion that may help you in life - when someone calls you stupid or says that a particular point you made is idiotic, please go to Google or another search engine and try to find additional information on this topic. Chances are, you really don't know something and googling may help.
There are several points wrong with what you say, but it's your responsibility to find this out. You shouldn't expect your partner in discussion to explain every mistake you make.
1) Seoul is just 30 miles from the DMZ.
2) Even though I do not say that the nukes are pointed into NK (because it's a military secret), that would be a logical thing.
3) Nuking West Germany was not the planned strategy for most of the time, even though it may have been considered at some point.
4) People may tend to use the same tactics, but nuclear wars are not planned by ordinary people, but by military planners. And military planners tend to use the best tactics for any situation.
Point 4 refers to my comment that "you drag in West Germany, which is completely unrelated". Points 1 and 2 refer to my comment that "you invent some unsubstantiated fantasy about nukes being pointed at the DMZ".
I hate this post-modernist and anti-rationalist disdain for truth. People don't care about finding the truth at all, they form an opinion so easily and then clutch at it so strongly, even though that opinion is not really backed with any facts. That's so sad.
Do you want to win a debate on Slashdot or do you want to get help in finding out the truth? If it's the former, you are pathetic. :) But let's hope not. I am not on a payroll of North Korean government, I have no hidden agenda. I am just willing to share what I learned with others.
I already said (in my first sentence) that the timeline is misleading because of how it represents the facts. It doesn't mention the delays, the broken promises, etc. Yes, there was some progress, but if you watch Nuclear Nightmare or read other sources, you will hear US officials admit that they didn't keep their promises. Which explains why the nuclear program was restarted.
As for the nukes, please don't try to win some debate, just think a bit. What you are saying doesn't make sense - you are being irrational. First, you drag in West Germany, which is completely unrelated. Then you invent some unsubstantiated fantasy about nukes being pointed at the DMZ. Who told you that? Please don't make up bullshit arguments in order to score some "points". Let's respect logic.
Think, don't just attack your opponent. I don't know about other cases, but right now I am not trying to "defeat" you, make you look bad or anything, I am just trying to share what I learned, that's all.
But is it unreasonable to assume that a large percentage of those listed by the Memorial Society were unjustly killed by Stalin's apparatus?
Yes, it's unreasonable. The security apparatus served an important function - to protect the Soviet Union. It did it job as well as it could. Yes, sometimes it went too far, that was admitted and the guilty were punished properly afterwards. But 1) the number of victims is nowhere near what crazy anti-communists claim 2) many were not victims, but guilty criminals 3) overall the system is justified, because the other possible outcome is worse.
In fact, it is not unreasonable to assume such. The MVD estimates prepared for the 20th Party Congress of the CPSU reported that around 681,692 people were executed during 1937 and 1938 alone.
I like this precision. "around 681,692". I also like unsourced estimates. They are so easy to refute with "The MVD estimates that 178 people were executed during 1937 and 1938". Eat that.
In any case, it is estimated that Stalin's purges made up only 10% of those who were killed under his regime.
Fuck you with your estimates. I estimate that 10% of your female relatives are syphilitic whores. How is that for an estimate?
They are estimates based upon the work of historians and scholars far more respectable than lunatics like yourself.
You wish, moron. The historians who talk about 100 million, are mostly on the payroll of CIA. Lies such as "The Black Book of Communism" are treated by the real historians as baseless lies. The historians who talk about 100 millions dead deserve no more respect than Holocaust deniers.
That entire populations of people disappeared during the time of Stalin is fact. Stalin, for example, deported most of the population of Estonia to the camps. When they were sent back to Estonia, there were considerably fewer Estonians. Repeat for Belarusan and Ukrainian Poles, Crimean Tatars, etc.
You are a lunatic, not me. This is a baseless idiotic lie. I can counter this with saying that you fuck your sister. You don't know jack shit about Soviet history and are just parroting lies that your masters tell you. Moron.
And if you think you talked with Estonians more than I did, you are wrong... moron. My greatgrandmother was Estonian, my great aunt was Belarussian, I worked in Estonia and I talked with Estonians enough. And I also read history a bit more than you, moron. I know what really happened with Crimean Tatars and everyone else, but you don't. Because you only listen to what your TV tells you.
Yet more of your ad-hominem attacks are duly noted.
What is an ad-hominem attack? That he was an informer? Go ask his best friend, who hid "Gulag Archipelago" for him from the KGB. That he was an anti-semite? Go read his books about Jews. That he was a fucking scum? Well, it kinda follows from everything else.
_The Gulag Archipilago_ is not "labeled as fiction".
Ask the people who were in camps with Solzhenitsyn. They certainly do not share your view.
How scholarly of you.
I am not trying to be scholarly, pig.
Rumell's work has not been "sanctioned" by any government, for obvious reasons.
Not so obvious to me. Care to elaborate?
All famines and mass-starvations of the 20th century occurred in places either destroyed by war, or firmly under the control of people like yourself who have violently suppressed private property rights in the means of production; Ukraine under Stalin, Mengistu's Ethiopia, North Korea, etc.
You fucking idiot.
Total bullshit. People do not die from easily preventable diseases and the lack of clean drinking water in any reasonably capitalist nation. The only places we see such human suffering are, again, in countries destroyed by either war or socialism.
You retarded piece of shit. This human suffering is in countries destroyed by exploitation by MNCs and by globalisation. Which are both direct results of capitalism. Neither socialism,
Sure. See this timeline for example. Much more interesting, though, is what this timeline doesn't directly mention. See for example, 1990. Surprise-surprise! Turns out the United States has nuclear weapons (where are they aimed, what do you think?) right next to the North Korean border (in nuclear terms). That is supposedly fine and dandy, according to US double standard.
Then the timeline details (some of) the promises, concentrating mainly on the promised nuclear reactors. An important thing to understand is that North Korea has few other energy options, it needs nuclear power to run the economy, not just to make plutonium. But these promises haven't been followed up on very well. You can also see from the timeline very clearly that North Korea has repeatedly made steps towards compromise, peace, etc.
I also suggest that you watch a "Nuclear Nightmare - Understanding North Korea" documentary, it has a lot of interesting footage and, though it's also biased a bit, overall it shows a very interesting picture of where North Korea really stands.
I don't beleive everything Condi says. But there aren't many well-known American public figures talking with North Korean leaders, so I can't be too picky about whom to listen to.
As for how Kim runs the country, have you been there? Have you talked with people who have been there? Or is your image of North Korea entirely based on officially-sanctioned anti-communist propaganda in the US media? You would be surprised to learn that life in North Korea is actually OK - for the resources that North Korea has people live amazingly well. And thanks to the socialist regime and the equality it fosters, there is much less poverty than a comparably poor country elsewhere in Asia, Africa or South America.
There is no entity called gravity lurking in the shadows, forcing apples to fall to the ground.
Capitalism is not an entity, but it's a system that leads to certain things happening.
And last time I checked your post had no point in it.
What exactly would North Korea gain from nuking Japan? You may be surprised to know, but the main reason North Korea has nukes, a huge conventional army and tens of thousands of guns aimed at Seul is to protect North Korea from a possible (likely?) US invasion.
If you learn a bit about the history of relations between North Korea and the US, you would realise that it's the US that is crazy, lying, twisted and unreliable, not North Korea.
Every time he met with American Secretaries of State and other officials. Read the account by Condi "shoes-buying" Rice. "Calm, rational, reasonable man" is almost exactly how she described him. He also stopped North Korean nuclear program several times, only to resume it again, when the US didn't follow on its promises.
Actually, nuking Mecca would enormously strengthen Islam. You see, neither Jews, nor Christians have a Holy Church. Jews had one, but it was, ahem, lost. Christians never had one. That's one of the reasons why they can operate all over the world. Muslims, on the other hand, need to go to hadj, need to turn to Mecca every time they pray, etc. This complicates things a lot. Destroy the Mecca and they will invent a portable holy symbol, such as a crucifix (or even simplier - cross) for Christians.
And with that portable symbol they will conquer the whole world.
You assume that every person has absolute free will and is not influenced by outside factors. That assumption is not true. People in the USA are manipulated by the media and the average person cannot resist this manipulation any more than he can turn off TV and read a book. The majority of the USA citizens (and people elsewhere on the planet) are mindless zombies, who by some strange twist of fate have voting rights. Democracy wouldn't work on Haiti, because of the voodoo. The US has its own voodoo called "mass-media".
Well, the history provides us with a very simple solution and the evil terrorist countries (like France, China and the like) with a simple defence. Make your own! :)
North Korea is as safe as it ever was from American nukes, because 4 minutes after the the first missile is spotted, Seul sinks into the ocean just like New Orleans. Only the ocean is made of fire instead of water.
Nuclear arms race is a great news for any country that might be attacked by the US, but it's bad news for the world overall. The only thing that Iran needs now is some nukes (can get them from either Pakistan or from India), some rockets and some US ally nearby. However, if I were the leader of Iran, I would just take over the fucking US embassy, castrate everyone there, cauterize the wounds, then move everyone to some deep-deep cave and hold them hostages for indefinite period.
That would essentially make airborne computer viruses possible!
A virus infects one computer in an office installs spyware, listens to typing in the office, generate a dictionary of likely passwords and then attempts to attack nearby computers (just scan the subnet/workgroup) by using overheard passwords.
Stupid me, talking of honest politicians. ;)
I should have spoken clearer, I actually meant openness and willingness to discuss difficult topics, not actually being 100% honest. Although a politician refusing to have unscripted interviews is probably less likely to be honest.
Nor was there any news reporting in the same sense as in the US.
What do you mean there was no news reporting? What were the newspapers printing then? Winning lottery tickets? Pick any news story in a reputable US newspaper and I guarantee that similar stories were printed in Soviet newspapers too. Go ahead, challenge me.
Please provide evidence in support of this.
The newspapers were free to print what the editors/journalists wanted. Yes, some topics were considered improper or even taboo. Some topics were considered unpopular among the population. Some topics were considered state secrets. But all this is normal and is happening in every country in almost every newspaper. Official statements and transcripts of speeches were printed in many newspapers, but it's certainly not an infrigement of freedom of press and it's a good thing anyway (providing people with access to the original source, not a bastardised dumbed-down retelling).
Yes, chief editors of major newspapers were appointed through the nomenclature mechanism, so in a sense they were appointed by the Party, but this is not different from how they are appointed by the Board of Directors of some huge media corporation in capitalist countries. Or by the Parliament in the UK (in case of BBC, IIRC).
Overall, there is simply no evidence to prove that freedom of press didn't exist in Soviet Union and sorry, I can't prove the negative more conclusively.
Of course, the judgement of the journalists and editors was heavily shaded by the attitudes of the Kremlin - no need for detailed instruction. You won't find articles praising Solzhenitsyn for example - or of many other authors, artists, etc... etc...
How many articles were there in the US media condemning or criticizing Solzhenitsin or Sakharov? What? You can't find a single one, can you?
Do you honestly believe that there is a country where journalist function in a vacuum and are not influenced by anyone? Of course, not. But Soviet journalists had integrity just like their colleagues in the West. It's just that it's difficult to notice the discussion, the differences from the outside. You don't know much about controversies in the French press, do you? In most cases Soviet journalists wrote/printed what they wanted to. In those cases when they did something inappropriate, they were honestly and directly informed of that by appropriate authorities. There was no manipulation, no lies, the fact that there is some small degree of rarely used control over journalists was well-known. Contrast that with the Fox-Monsanto story (google for it). There is no absolute freedom in the US either, there is always some influence. It's just it was more honest and open and less manipulative in the Soviet Union.
Sure - if you consider articles praising the heroic action of workers in meeting their quota as 'coverage'.
You should actually go to the library (if you can find Soviet papers in your library) and read some of them. Then you won't have to make up ridiculous fantasies.
(But you won't find articles questioning whether that quota was reasonable, not will the articles mention how quality drops late in the month to meet quota.)
You certainly would find these articles in "Economic newspaper", for example.
Another popular topic was how workers 'volunteered' to help bring in the harvest. (But no articles on the system failed to produce enough tractors/etc to bring in the harvest, or how even the 'heroic' efforts failed to produce enough food to feed the country.)
So many misconceptions... First, it wasn't a popular topic, because no one ever said that all workers volunteered, they were usually sent to help, although in many cases people actually did volunteer, because it was quite fun, you could change your office work for some physical labour, you could get some fresh fruits/vegetables for your family and why not? Second, do Western newspapers talk about every single failure of the economic system? Do they often c
It's amazing how far capitalism will go to make lives of normal people miserable. If I was told 20 years ago that in 2005 people will be discussing a global do-not-call list to protect people from marketers, I would have filed it right next to all the distopian sci-fi. And yet, it's 2005 and I just read this...