If Windows 7 is so secure why does it need anti-virus software?
Fooled me once with Vista. Now using Ubuntu as well and not planning on using Windows 7 any time soon.
> where a third party doesn't want them to have access
The biggest constraint on proliferation of Internet technology in Iran in the last 10 years has been the US with its embargo on the so-called axis of evil. Imagine if the Internet were a lot more accessible than it is now. It might actually be useful.
Same story in Syria.
Thank heavens the US now has an intelligent president and the neocon idealogues are on the sidelines. Hopefully America will stop trying to prevent Internet access by citizens of repressive regimes.
The entire tone of your post is 100% consistent with the attitude of the people responsible for the problem: the whole SOMETHING MUST BE DONE panic.
First, this isn't going to happen. It is deeply opposed by many, many influential civil servants. It just is not going to fly. Period. It is a stupid kneejerk overreaction. It would be easily circumvented / rendered pointless and therefore a colossal waste of money.
There is a precedent of sorts already for this kind of surveillance. If you use the London underground you have choice: use an anonymous Oyster (RFID) card (with electronic cash balance) or use a registered one. If you use a registered one you can lose it and then have your balance transfered to a new one. But the price you pay is that all your journeys can be traced. Naturally, anyone with anything to hide will not use a card with a registered name and address.
On average over 3,000 data points are logged for each UK citizen every day. Supermarket purchases. Tube journeys. Credit card purchases. etc. etc.
(today's Sunday Times)
I find it interesting that without exception, as far as I could see, the replies here were all "hell yes, keep the government out of your laptop." One person asked what the photos would be of and didn't receive an answer that I saw.
A few days ago a friend of mine told me that on arriving on a flight from Asia at a European airport the police detained a number of single white men and checked their computers and cameras for child pornography.
How would you feel about helping such people escape detection? Or providing tips to terrorists? Is your data really that confidential? Why? Explain.
If you were to say "I am a European and I fear targeted espionage by the US government for commercial reasons" then your fears would be probably be legitimate if you worked for a large and important company competing with large and important American companies (it's happened before).
If you were to say "I am not white and my middle name is Hussein and I have spent time a muslim country" you might find yourself receiving extra attention from insecure, paranoid, uneducated people.
I have had my laptop contents checked at a European airport about 10 years ago. People were importing laptops and avoiding tax on them at the time, so I took the precaution of taking my purchase receipt with me. It was checked and the laptop was inspected. It was clear to me what happened: the guard checked the dates in the root directory on the C: drive against the invoice. He said nothing and gave it back to me. Had the dates been very different, suggesting a forged receipt I think he'd have taken a closer look and I'd have had to answer some questions.
Yes, it was mildly annoying. On the other hand, the taxes I paid contributed to his salary and he and his fellow workers apprehend drug smugglers, illegal immigrants, fleeing criminals etc. on a daily basis. At that time child pornography was not in the news. Now we find that cheap airtravel, digital cameras and poverty in some countries adds up to a magnet for some people. Thailand and Cambodia are not the only countries they visit.
I don't know about the US constitutional position re encryption but it seems to me that America's customs officials may now subject the poster to a very thorough proctological inspection on each and every occasion.
Your argument is nonsense and depends on all other things being equal, which they are not.
Norway is one of the richest countries in the world, from its hydrocarbon wealth alone. Subtract Norway's oil wealth and see where it comes in the GDP stakes. Ireland has no such resources and uses low tax rates to attract inward investment. There's also the matter of actual and effective rates and the actual amounts collected.
Countries and even cities are competitors. Capital is mobile. Ireland's low taxes were certainly extremely important in the transformation of the Irish economy, and lower taxes increased tax revenues.
Written like a true Irishman, bearing in mind Samuel Johnson's dictum: the Irish are a very fair people, they only speak ill of each other.
Still, it makes a refreshing change from the endless narcisissm of American blowhards who get all bent out of shape if you dare run for office without the flag pinned to your lapel.
As it happens, Ireland's greatest resource is its people. Evidently you've been educated in Ireland. Already you are among the best educated in the world. You have to travel to appreciate this and you couldn't have written this drivel if you'd traveled, so it's clear that you haven't.
For a true perspective on the "nothing going for it" comment, which is inane (sorry, but it's true), you need to spend some time in countries that don't work at all. You have NO IDEA how privileged the Irish are. I suggest you consult the UN Human Development Index (http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/); the Economist Quality of Life Index (http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.PDF) or visit places like the Philippines where Ireland features AHEAD of the US, Australia, Canada and the UK on the adverts for desirable desintations to work.
The Irish fear of pauperisation is nothing but a folk memory and a laughable one at that. The fact is that with a post-industrial economy the Irish have the highest per capita income in the EU except for Luxembourg. Luxembourg is ahead only by not counting workers who enter the country on a daily basis. It is the EU's little emirate and completely inconsequential non-entity.
(Name one famous person from Luxembourg)
Ireland's per capita income is well ahead of the UK and the US and the gap is increasing (check the World Bank statistics).
What would Ireland look like if it had something going for it?
You seem to forget that the Irish workforce adds value. Intel and many others came for cheap labour and stayed for the quality of the workforce and the quality of life.
Incidentally, I voted with my feet the day Charles Haughey -- the greatest cretin ever to hold public office in Ireland -- was re-elected. And were I American I'd do the same if Ms.Palin got anywhere near the oval office. There are limits.
When I left Ireland there was no such thing as green beer. It was invention of Americans and despised in Ireland. If the Irish are now drinking green beer in Ireland the country really has gone to the dogs. Will you proclaim now that you are also eating corned beef and cabbage? (Every American thinks this)
Infrastructure: You're wet behind the ears kid. When I left Ireland the waiting in Dublin for a telpehone was 7 years. I went to the US and the waiting list was 3 days and people were hopping mad about it.
Can you spell Ryanair? Get off your backside and see a bit of the world and realize the size of the silver spoon in your overprivileged gob.
I'm typing this on the best keyboard I've ever used: a Microsoft Office RT9450.
Unfortunately, they decided not to support it with Vista even though it was still being sold when Vista was launched.
I'm not the only fed up with Microsoft's ecological irresponisbility:
http://wombatdiet.net/2007/03/22/computers-are-the-worlds-greatest-timewasters/
> So to be reasonably sure that you won't lose your entire array you need to get at least TWO of these expensive devices and keep them synchronized. This is tantamount to failure in my book.
Nonsense. The device can can do this, of course, with rsync. It can also backup to an external USB drive either on schedule or at the push of a button. If you use a cheap USB drive and it dies, your data is gone. If you use a ReadyNAS it will survive the death of a drive without missing a beat. If the whole box dies... you've got a backup on USB.
Try doing something very simple: relocate your folders to another drive (to facilitate backup). You will now not be able to add to your favorites when using a web browser.
There's LOTS more. Really LOTS. My advice is to do what I'm doing and start running Ubuntu in parallel. The moment Microsoft sues any Linux vendor is the moment I go cold turkey. Which is to say, giving up Microsoft instantly. The temperature of the cold turkey that I might have to endure is increasing all the time.
Microsoft knows this, so Windows XP SP3 will be an attempt to buy a little more time. Strategically, however, Microsoft is manufacturing valves after the invention of the transistor.
> marketing at its finest
As someone who has employed hackers to break into a network I can assure you that the term "ethical" is not marketing nor is it redundant. In common usage hacking includes unauthorised breaking into systems. You know this perfectly well. Or you should do.
If you are a manager you have a dashboard in place, whether it's a print out on your desk, a web page that your check or --worst case-- a report from one of your staff that gives you an overnight update on key parameters for your operations: backups, storage, traffic, viruses, infrastructure integrity etc. If you are responsible and competent you know how to check everything yourself and you are ANAL about backups, backup integrity and backup media management and you review your disaster recovery plan continually.
> someone who's watching that stuff will tell me
Depends on where you are. In some cultures telling the boss bad news is a problem and it doesn't happen until things are ready to explode or have already. "Nobody told me" is not a good enough alibi when something hits the fan.
Not everybody hates Mr.Gates. I find his diction a little annoying and his periodic claims to be "super exicted" a little tiresome but I also admire him for his success and his ability to compete. I resent his company's shabby treatment of not-for-profit organizations that have tried to get a break on pricing, especially outside the US, and its appalling discriminatory pricing in some markets. Microsoft must be the most rapacious and nastiest organization in business. Perhaps this is one reason it makes a lot of money.
On the other hand, Mr.Gates and his wife have given away more than all of their critics put together. Billions upon billions, and they have inspired further contributions, not only from Warren Buffet. So Gates has, in effect, imposed a tax on development and given the money to worthy causes. He may turn out to be the greatest Robin Hood figure doing something for social justice who has ever lived.
I pay my Microsoft taxes with pleasure and I'll do so for as long as it seems to me that Microsoft software is better than open source. For now I have a foot in both camps. I use Vista (3 out of 4 computers running MS OSes at home) and Ubuntu (2 PCs). I will not use open source because some ideologists want me to. Nor will the market.
Biographies of Gates, including critical ones, all make it pretty clear that he dropped out of Harvard precisely because of his vision of the future of computing -- in the form of the Altair -- having arrived and of there being no time to lose.
If you have a different version of history why not share it?
Name ONE European govt that stores massive amounts of private information on people. You can't because there isn't one. There isn't a single govt. in Europe that has at its fingertips unified access to all of the information it holds about its citizens, just as the US doesn't. Do you usually invent such things?
Credit reference agencies like Experian operate legally in Europe as do many other services that provide information about people. All operate subject to laws about what they can and cannot do. They are subject to much fewer restrictions in the US.
Your comment "You think that the continent that spawned Imperialism, Fascism, and Communism would have learned not to trust the government by now." is sophomoric. You forget that these movements were popularly supported. One of their characteristics was idiotic characterisation of others followed by their oppression. Continents don't learn. People do, unless they uneducated, credulous, speak only one language, have never traveled outside their home country and perhaps, have a habit of just inventing what they want to believe. If which case they are people who would have no credible claim to say that would resist the next moron ideology.
Furthermore, it is precisely the European experience of war that has driven the creation of the EU or "European Project" and EU wide standards, including EU directives on privacy. The Europeans have discovered that cooperation is a good basis for peace, justice and prosperity.
Europe has learned some lessons the US has yet to learn.
Yes, I remember Cybersmith. I used to visit whenever I visited Palo Alto. Too bad it closed. It was a nice place. Stacey's and Cybersmith and a Chinese restaurant (which I suspect is still there) were fixtures for me whenever I visited PA. And, Fry's of course. Enjoyed your post about it, which I have just seen. I used to visit from Europe.
You can find a list of UN achievements here: http://www.un.org/aboutun/achieve.htm
The UN is not perfect by any means but its achievements are not small.
For those interested in the UN commentaries such as this one http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3417 will be more credible than the kind of wild-eyed, foaming at the mouth guff that is all too often heard from people
1. without passports
2. who have never traveled in the developing world
3. who left school early
4. who believe the UN is a cover for the "illuminati" and who subscribe to other paranoid, millenialist nonsense (world govt. conspiracy theories etc.)
5. who come from countries that think they can dispense with the rule of international law
6. who have ludicrous fantasies about the cost of the UN compared with the cost of war or who have fantasies about their own nation's generosity
In terms of per capita contributions to international development the US is the meanest rich country in the world, by a large margin. You should be aware that Iraq was sucessfully disarmed by the UN and that it was completely unnecessary for the United States govt to lie to the American people about links with Al Qaeda, about weapons of mass destruction and to invade that country.
As has been pointed out, your attack on the UN has nothing to do with scientific question of whether climate change is real or not. Have you considered flaming the US Supreme Court?
Either way, your style is unattractive, even though I agree with the proposition that climate change presents a challenge and opportunity for social justice. We all have to live with the consequences of deforestation, conflict and competition for resources.
Irish coffee was invented by an Irishman in Ireland who subsequently went, taking it with him, to the US (meanwhile it continued being served at Foynes and later, to tens of thousands of international travellers, at Shannon Airport). For you to write "Unfortunately, Ireland has begun to retcon history to make this drink their own" is nonsense.
One of the most interesting lectures I attended as a graduate student (at Ohio U.) was by a visiting MD from Harvard. Larry Weed was his name. His basic thesis was that the medical profession couldn't keep adding new "ologies" (immunology, embryology, etc.) to the curriculum indefinitely and that at some point it would be necessary to a) teach people how manage information better and b) provide them with computer based tools which could allow them to work with probabilities and the underlying literature. For example, if abc then the odds are 85% and here's why (links to primary literature). Weed developed the idea of the "problem oriented medical record," spoke about online access to epidemiological data that would allow more rapid detection of drug interactions and the like. What was most interesting was the reaction of the audience: deeply skeptical. At one point Weed reeled off a some symptoms of a sick child and challenged the audience to reason what was wrong. The very cocksure medical students needed reminding at one point "this is not a multiple choice quiz, a child's life is at stake." Weed made his points well. Even then (mid 80s), long before Google, one could hardly doubt that he was onto something.
However, I googled him recently out of curiosity to see what had happened to him and his ideas, 20+ years on. I have to say that the results were remarkably disappointing. It seems that Larry Weed was too far ahead of his time and may still be. Check out his company at http://www.pkc.com./ One rather dramatic quote of his: if physicians ran airports they wouldn't have radar, just lots of intensive care units around the periphery.
Slashdot Mirror
If Windows 7 is so secure why does it need anti-virus software? Fooled me once with Vista. Now using Ubuntu as well and not planning on using Windows 7 any time soon.
> where a third party doesn't want them to have access The biggest constraint on proliferation of Internet technology in Iran in the last 10 years has been the US with its embargo on the so-called axis of evil. Imagine if the Internet were a lot more accessible than it is now. It might actually be useful. Same story in Syria. Thank heavens the US now has an intelligent president and the neocon idealogues are on the sidelines. Hopefully America will stop trying to prevent Internet access by citizens of repressive regimes.
See http://wombatdiet.net/2008/09/10/its-the-author-stupid/ for another comment on Doctorow's self-importance.
The entire tone of your post is 100% consistent with the attitude of the people responsible for the problem: the whole SOMETHING MUST BE DONE panic.
First, this isn't going to happen. It is deeply opposed by many, many influential civil servants. It just is not going to fly. Period. It is a stupid kneejerk overreaction. It would be easily circumvented / rendered pointless and therefore a colossal waste of money.
There is a precedent of sorts already for this kind of surveillance. If you use the London underground you have choice: use an anonymous Oyster (RFID) card (with electronic cash balance) or use a registered one. If you use a registered one you can lose it and then have your balance transfered to a new one. But the price you pay is that all your journeys can be traced. Naturally, anyone with anything to hide will not use a card with a registered name and address.
On average over 3,000 data points are logged for each UK citizen every day. Supermarket purchases. Tube journeys. Credit card purchases. etc. etc. (today's Sunday Times)
I find it interesting that without exception, as far as I could see, the replies here were all "hell yes, keep the government out of your laptop." One person asked what the photos would be of and didn't receive an answer that I saw.
A few days ago a friend of mine told me that on arriving on a flight from Asia at a European airport the police detained a number of single white men and checked their computers and cameras for child pornography.
How would you feel about helping such people escape detection? Or providing tips to terrorists? Is your data really that confidential? Why? Explain.
If you were to say "I am a European and I fear targeted espionage by the US government for commercial reasons" then your fears would be probably be legitimate if you worked for a large and important company competing with large and important American companies (it's happened before).
If you were to say "I am not white and my middle name is Hussein and I have spent time a muslim country" you might find yourself receiving extra attention from insecure, paranoid, uneducated people.
I have had my laptop contents checked at a European airport about 10 years ago. People were importing laptops and avoiding tax on them at the time, so I took the precaution of taking my purchase receipt with me. It was checked and the laptop was inspected. It was clear to me what happened: the guard checked the dates in the root directory on the C: drive against the invoice. He said nothing and gave it back to me. Had the dates been very different, suggesting a forged receipt I think he'd have taken a closer look and I'd have had to answer some questions.
Yes, it was mildly annoying. On the other hand, the taxes I paid contributed to his salary and he and his fellow workers apprehend drug smugglers, illegal immigrants, fleeing criminals etc. on a daily basis. At that time child pornography was not in the news. Now we find that cheap airtravel, digital cameras and poverty in some countries adds up to a magnet for some people. Thailand and Cambodia are not the only countries they visit.
I don't know about the US constitutional position re encryption but it seems to me that America's customs officials may now subject the poster to a very thorough proctological inspection on each and every occasion.
Your argument is nonsense and depends on all other things being equal, which they are not.
Norway is one of the richest countries in the world, from its hydrocarbon wealth alone. Subtract Norway's oil wealth and see where it comes in the GDP stakes. Ireland has no such resources and uses low tax rates to attract inward investment. There's also the matter of actual and effective rates and the actual amounts collected.
Countries and even cities are competitors. Capital is mobile. Ireland's low taxes were certainly extremely important in the transformation of the Irish economy, and lower taxes increased tax revenues.
Written like a true Irishman, bearing in mind Samuel Johnson's dictum: the Irish are a very fair people, they only speak ill of each other.
Still, it makes a refreshing change from the endless narcisissm of American blowhards who get all bent out of shape if you dare run for office without the flag pinned to your lapel.
As it happens, Ireland's greatest resource is its people. Evidently you've been educated in Ireland. Already you are among the best educated in the world. You have to travel to appreciate this and you couldn't have written this drivel if you'd traveled, so it's clear that you haven't.
For a true perspective on the "nothing going for it" comment, which is inane (sorry, but it's true), you need to spend some time in countries that don't work at all. You have NO IDEA how privileged the Irish are. I suggest you consult the UN Human Development Index (http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/); the Economist Quality of Life Index (http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.PDF) or visit places like the Philippines where Ireland features AHEAD of the US, Australia, Canada and the UK on the adverts for desirable desintations to work.
The Irish fear of pauperisation is nothing but a folk memory and a laughable one at that. The fact is that with a post-industrial economy the Irish have the highest per capita income in the EU except for Luxembourg. Luxembourg is ahead only by not counting workers who enter the country on a daily basis. It is the EU's little emirate and completely inconsequential non-entity.
(Name one famous person from Luxembourg)
Ireland's per capita income is well ahead of the UK and the US and the gap is increasing (check the World Bank statistics).
What would Ireland look like if it had something going for it?
You seem to forget that the Irish workforce adds value. Intel and many others came for cheap labour and stayed for the quality of the workforce and the quality of life.
Incidentally, I voted with my feet the day Charles Haughey -- the greatest cretin ever to hold public office in Ireland -- was re-elected. And were I American I'd do the same if Ms.Palin got anywhere near the oval office. There are limits.
When I left Ireland there was no such thing as green beer. It was invention of Americans and despised in Ireland. If the Irish are now drinking green beer in Ireland the country really has gone to the dogs. Will you proclaim now that you are also eating corned beef and cabbage? (Every American thinks this)
Infrastructure: You're wet behind the ears kid. When I left Ireland the waiting in Dublin for a telpehone was 7 years. I went to the US and the waiting list was 3 days and people were hopping mad about it.
Can you spell Ryanair? Get off your backside and see a bit of the world and realize the size of the silver spoon in your overprivileged gob.
Exactly. Stop your email interrupting you. Let Twitter do it instead.
I'm typing this on the best keyboard I've ever used: a Microsoft Office RT9450. Unfortunately, they decided not to support it with Vista even though it was still being sold when Vista was launched. I'm not the only fed up with Microsoft's ecological irresponisbility: http://wombatdiet.net/2007/03/22/computers-are-the-worlds-greatest-timewasters/
One of the best comments I've seen on Slashdot, perhaps because I agree totally
> So to be reasonably sure that you won't lose your entire array you need to get at least TWO of these expensive devices and keep them synchronized. This is tantamount to failure in my book.
Nonsense. The device can can do this, of course, with rsync. It can also backup to an external USB drive either on schedule or at the push of a button. If you use a cheap USB drive and it dies, your data is gone. If you use a ReadyNAS it will survive the death of a drive without missing a beat. If the whole box dies... you've got a backup on USB.
nothing to see here
Try doing something very simple: relocate your folders to another drive (to facilitate backup). You will now not be able to add to your favorites when using a web browser. There's LOTS more. Really LOTS. My advice is to do what I'm doing and start running Ubuntu in parallel. The moment Microsoft sues any Linux vendor is the moment I go cold turkey. Which is to say, giving up Microsoft instantly. The temperature of the cold turkey that I might have to endure is increasing all the time. Microsoft knows this, so Windows XP SP3 will be an attempt to buy a little more time. Strategically, however, Microsoft is manufacturing valves after the invention of the transistor.
> marketing at its finest As someone who has employed hackers to break into a network I can assure you that the term "ethical" is not marketing nor is it redundant. In common usage hacking includes unauthorised breaking into systems. You know this perfectly well. Or you should do.
If you are a manager you have a dashboard in place, whether it's a print out on your desk, a web page that your check or --worst case-- a report from one of your staff that gives you an overnight update on key parameters for your operations: backups, storage, traffic, viruses, infrastructure integrity etc. If you are responsible and competent you know how to check everything yourself and you are ANAL about backups, backup integrity and backup media management and you review your disaster recovery plan continually.
> someone who's watching that stuff will tell me
Depends on where you are. In some cultures telling the boss bad news is a problem and it doesn't happen until things are ready to explode or have already. "Nobody told me" is not a good enough alibi when something hits the fan.
On the other hand, Mr.Gates and his wife have given away more than all of their critics put together. Billions upon billions, and they have inspired further contributions, not only from Warren Buffet. So Gates has, in effect, imposed a tax on development and given the money to worthy causes. He may turn out to be the greatest Robin Hood figure doing something for social justice who has ever lived.
I pay my Microsoft taxes with pleasure and I'll do so for as long as it seems to me that Microsoft software is better than open source. For now I have a foot in both camps. I use Vista (3 out of 4 computers running MS OSes at home) and Ubuntu (2 PCs). I will not use open source because some ideologists want me to. Nor will the market.
Biographies of Gates, including critical ones, all make it pretty clear that he dropped out of Harvard precisely because of his vision of the future of computing -- in the form of the Altair -- having arrived and of there being no time to lose.
If you have a different version of history why not share it?
Name ONE European govt that stores massive amounts of private information on people. You can't because there isn't one. There isn't a single govt. in Europe that has at its fingertips unified access to all of the information it holds about its citizens, just as the US doesn't. Do you usually invent such things? Credit reference agencies like Experian operate legally in Europe as do many other services that provide information about people. All operate subject to laws about what they can and cannot do. They are subject to much fewer restrictions in the US. Your comment "You think that the continent that spawned Imperialism, Fascism, and Communism would have learned not to trust the government by now." is sophomoric. You forget that these movements were popularly supported. One of their characteristics was idiotic characterisation of others followed by their oppression. Continents don't learn. People do, unless they uneducated, credulous, speak only one language, have never traveled outside their home country and perhaps, have a habit of just inventing what they want to believe. If which case they are people who would have no credible claim to say that would resist the next moron ideology. Furthermore, it is precisely the European experience of war that has driven the creation of the EU or "European Project" and EU wide standards, including EU directives on privacy. The Europeans have discovered that cooperation is a good basis for peace, justice and prosperity. Europe has learned some lessons the US has yet to learn.
Another use for the badger button? http://wombatdiet.net/2007/05/07/google-university -on-the-phone/
This badger says everybody will have a a BadgerMe/Don't BadgerMe button on their phone: http://wombatdiet.net/2007/05/07/google-university -on-the-phone/
A badger paw would be a good icon for this button!
Yes, I remember Cybersmith. I used to visit whenever I visited Palo Alto. Too bad it closed. It was a nice place. Stacey's and Cybersmith and a Chinese restaurant (which I suspect is still there) were fixtures for me whenever I visited PA. And, Fry's of course. Enjoyed your post about it, which I have just seen. I used to visit from Europe.
You can find a list of UN achievements here: http://www.un.org/aboutun/achieve.htm The UN is not perfect by any means but its achievements are not small. For those interested in the UN commentaries such as this one http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3417 will be more credible than the kind of wild-eyed, foaming at the mouth guff that is all too often heard from people 1. without passports 2. who have never traveled in the developing world 3. who left school early 4. who believe the UN is a cover for the "illuminati" and who subscribe to other paranoid, millenialist nonsense (world govt. conspiracy theories etc.) 5. who come from countries that think they can dispense with the rule of international law 6. who have ludicrous fantasies about the cost of the UN compared with the cost of war or who have fantasies about their own nation's generosity In terms of per capita contributions to international development the US is the meanest rich country in the world, by a large margin. You should be aware that Iraq was sucessfully disarmed by the UN and that it was completely unnecessary for the United States govt to lie to the American people about links with Al Qaeda, about weapons of mass destruction and to invade that country. As has been pointed out, your attack on the UN has nothing to do with scientific question of whether climate change is real or not. Have you considered flaming the US Supreme Court? Either way, your style is unattractive, even though I agree with the proposition that climate change presents a challenge and opportunity for social justice. We all have to live with the consequences of deforestation, conflict and competition for resources.
Irish coffee was invented by an Irishman in Ireland who subsequently went, taking it with him, to the US (meanwhile it continued being served at Foynes and later, to tens of thousands of international travellers, at Shannon Airport). For you to write "Unfortunately, Ireland has begun to retcon history to make this drink their own" is nonsense.
Why not get your facts straight? You can find the history of Irish coffee here http://www.inj.or.jp/seanachai/ireland/05irishcoff ee_e.html. It is NOT an American invention.
However, I googled him recently out of curiosity to see what had happened to him and his ideas, 20+ years on. I have to say that the results were remarkably disappointing. It seems that Larry Weed was too far ahead of his time and may still be. Check out his company at http://www.pkc.com./ One rather dramatic quote of his: if physicians ran airports they wouldn't have radar, just lots of intensive care units around the periphery.