As far as I can see, it's only someone's assumption that this was a temple. Who says that it had to have been religious in nature or even that in those times, religion was distinct in anyway from politics or science? This could have been an art installation, a marker for a trading post or any number of other things. It could have been a marker for a grave for example. A very big one, pyramid style.
I'm pretty certain that Google is storing it on a massive distributed computer system, and serving it to me whenever I request it. I doubt they are doing anything else of significance with it.
I trust them with my email much more than I'd trust my ISP with my email. So why not trust them with some documents?
At the very least, Google probably scans it in order to target ads at you. They may do more - the point is that you [i]don't[/i] know what they do with it which is what I said. They also make your documents available to various US government agencies on request. There are also probably thousands of employees who could look at your stuff as well if they chose. The point of comparison is not your ISP, but the pen drive in your pocket or the computer in your home. These are much more private in most ways and any breaches of privacy that do occur, you likely know about. Whether or not this concerns you is a personal matter, but it's a strong difference between Google Apps and a local system such as MS Word or Open Office.
Open Office kicks seven kinds of Hell out of Google Apps in terms of functionality. Google docs offers online sharing of documents / collaborative working. You know what Open Office is doing with your data (f' all) and you don't know what Google is doing with it. Choose a product according to your requirements. Simple enough.
That gay marriage is an issue that can be considered left-wing or right-wing, rather than a cross-party issue, is indicative of a major problem in the USA, today. That problem is that a few strongly divisive issues are divided between two large parties and then there is no need to do anything other than co-operate and agree on countless other issues such as corporate tax. It's a game that's being played on the American public which limits their ability to vote according to these issues.
I'll reply in the spirit of constructive discussion and I hope it's taken as such rather than the usual/. IAMRIGHT tone.:)
Obviously not, but in the US there is a strong correlation between color and perspective. Surely you don't deny this?
First off, that's a re-phrasing of what I said. I talked about race in general and by narrowing it down to just the US you have already massively changed the sample group. But even within the US, I still take issue with most references to a racial perspective. You mention that you are white, but there are so many different perspectives within this group that it would be meaningless for me to make any sort of comment about what white people think on a subject. To use your own words, surely you don't deny this? Can you think of any but the most contrived examples of something you could say that was representative of a white point of view? Something that would cross all the massively more significant (imo) demographic barriers of wealth, home State, age and gender? If not, I have to wonder why you think black people should be any more narrow in their range of perspectives. Certainly there are cultural groups that are aligned with race and perhaps this is what you meant. You get such groups in black and white and other ethnic groups - a certain gangster image is popular amongst many young black people, a certain emo sort of look is popular primarily amongst white youth. But whilst these are highly visible (due primarily to the media industry trying to create a market) you can't say the common perspectives of such groups (such as there are) represent a racial view. Many black people of the last generation or two abhor the black "gangster" image that is sold by the music industry. Nazism is almost exclusive to white people (at least under that name), but you can't call it a white perspective (well, the Nation of Islam did, but that's another non-representative group). So I guess, really, I do deny what you are saying. There are perspectives, or at least cultural groups, that are represented predominantly amongst certain racial groups, but I deny that (a) these can therefore be taken as race-based perspectives and (b) that any such group is so prevalent in its racial demographic that it is useful to make generalisations. And there are always exceptions. The world's best rapper is white (imo), the world's best golfer defines himself as black (I'm told). If you want to convince me that it's possible to talk about a race having a particular perspective then you're going to have to give me a couple of examples of what "black people think" and see if it's both prevalent enough and well-defined enough to have meaning.
There's no supportable reason a black person can't see things from a white person's perspective and vice versa.
That is true, but only if there is more than superficial interaction. Much of the US is still self-segregated.
Note that I said "a" person. I'm saying that there is no supportable reason why someone must belong to the same ethnic group as someone else to share their perspective (and interests). I think you'd agree with me on that. What you're saying (as I understand it) is that there is still a great deal of segregation between ethnic groups in the USA and that this inhibits seeing each others point of view. This I would kind of agree with, but I think the dividing line is not race, but affluence. That brings us onto another point which I'll address at the same time:
This is demonstrably false. Black people of all backgrounds were partying hard last night - almost universally happy. Even before this election, about 90% of the black vote would consistently go to the democrats. There is less cohesion among whites.
I don't know enough of the people of the USA to comment on the veracity of whether black people of all backgrounds were partying la
Entire racial groups have a perspective now? When I lived in the USA, I met a Morrocan student who told me the most annoying thing in the USA were all the people who told him that they were "African." They all had more in common with their white countrymen than they did with him. There's no supportable reason a black person can't see things from a white person's perspective and vice versa. But the black person can't see things from white people's perspective and a white person can't see things from black people's perspective, because there is no such united view. There isn't even enough cultural unity to talk in generalities. If you were white, would it make sense for someone to ask you what white people thought of a particular topic. Outside of the most contrived examples, it would not.
What we should be discussing here is Obama's policies and intentions. Not pages and pages of discussion about his ethnicity. The fact that we are not is the clearest sign of a problem to me, although I think it is one that is being worked out.
(This is where someone says they don't like the BBC because they have a British slant.)
Actually, I live in Britain and have seen the BBC's impartiality take some serious damage over the last few years. Ever since the Hutton report and the subsequent purge of the upper ranks by the Labour government, it's been much less aggressive in its coverage. The Independent is good as a paper generally, but seem to have admitted a quite blatant bias toward the Democrats in the last few days. If you want real truth in your news (or at least as close as you'll get), you have to go those journalistic services that target the financial sector, e.g. paid services such as Stratfor. The public might get fed a line, but business leaders like to get told the truth.
Well then for the sake of ending racism, I hope you will all join me in not giving a shit what colour he is. The rhetoric that's been spewing out of some people's mouths when they can't talk for more than a minute about his actual stated policies is really starting to get nauseating. Some people are going to get one Hell of a shock from this.
Seconded. I have managed to play Blu-Ray discs on my Linux box, but it has been one Hell of a struggle. If this moves things closer to the ubiquity of breaking CSS, then hearty congratulations to these heroes!:D
But can someone just clarify seeing as that is rather a lot of posts to read though... does this mean we don't need keys, a la the way we can break CSS? If so, that's very impressive, but how did they do it? Not by breaking the encryption but by finding some way around this, presumably? And equally importantly, is this a permanent fix or can it be superceded by updates from the supplier, like when keys are revoked? Explanations and implications, please?:)
Look, the evidence was collected and investigated after the invasion of Afghanistan because it took months to track everything down and Al-Qaeda didn't publish some of the audio and video recordings until after the invasion had occurred (and some of the materials were captured during the invasion and were obviously not intended for public distribution).
So your position has now shifted from saying the Taliban were not sincere in offering to negotiate if the US presented the evidence they said they had, to it being unreasonable to demand evidence from the USA when it turned out they didn't get it until after the invasion began (in some cases a few years after the invasion).
If the Taliban wanted to cooperate then they should have said so immediately, if only to assuage American anger over the then fresh 9/11 attacks.
Well first off, the Taliban said they were willing to negotiate if the US showed them why it thought Bin Laden, so they did indeed do what you suggest, but you were arguing earlier that the US should ignore any offers to co-operate from the Taliban (which they did). So which is it? Complain that the Taliban wouldn't co-operate or insist that offers to co-operate should be ignored as stalling tactics. As to assuaging American anger over the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban might rightly ask why they were considered responsible by the US public when in fact they were not. Considering the US government itself to was responsible for this misconception, it seems unreasonable to use it as an argument why the US was obliged to invade.
Your shifting arguments give every appearance of looking to justify the US invasion of Afghanistan, rather than looking at evidence first and drawing conclusions afterwards.
There's quite a lot there and I don't have a great deal of time at the moment, so you'll have to excuse me if I just cover some of the things that leapt out at me. But to summarise my response to your post, I asked if you had any evidence that the Taliban's stated willingness to negotiate the handover of Osama Bin Laden to the US was utterly a lie (i.e. they never would under any circumstances) to justify your confident assertion that this was the case. Your reply is in large part merely repetition and more forceful restating that you yourself believe this. That is not evidence and does not convince me. It is clear to me that a country does not sacrifice numerous lives and spend enormous sums to invade another country just to capture a single individual when there is a possibility of that person being handed over willingly (and realistically, probably not even if there wasn't). The possibility that the Taliban would hand Osama Bin Laden over undermined the US justification for war. Logically, one way of dealing with this problem (assuming a pre-existing desire to go to war) is to try to convince people that such a willingness is a lie. So I see two parties, one of which has a strong motivation to cast the other as unwilling to negotiate and therefore wont attempt it, and the other saying that they wish to negotiate. I also know that the cost in both life and wealth of a failure to negotiate is enormous and that negotiation costs nothing. My logical inclination is therefore to distrust the party that says they will not negotiate as they are acting against the principle of low-cost for great potential gain. Not saying that this is the case, but saying that I require evidence from the party that says negotiation is futile. It would have to be some pretty strong evidence to justify walking away from the possibility of avoiding so much bloodshed, cost and animosity when the price would have been so little.
Regarding your specific points (what I have time for):
You assume that all countries are willing to be reasonable.
No - I avoid assuming that some countries are not willing to negotiate which is a great difference. In fact, it's more than an assumption since the country in question was actively asking to negotiate. It would have to be an assertion that the country is lying for which I require evidence, which you are not providing. Do you see why when there is a war depending on it, it is reasonable for me to ask for evidence that the US refusing to entertain negotiations to avoid the war was justifiable? Evidence that the US knew there was no possibility that the Taliban might be willing to negotiate? Please don't misrepresent what I am saying.
I had and have ZERO confidence that the Taliban would honor any agreement made with, to use their words, "infidels" if doing so would in the least way inconvenience them or not work in their favor. They would only have assisted the United States if they thought that doing so was going to gain them more than they lost by having to swallow their disgust over even speaking with us.
You seem to be implying that negotiating the hand over of Osama Bin Laden would not be in their favour. As it would have in theory avoided the invasion of their country and overthrow, it is demonstrably in their favour to negotiate. As to their being too disgusted to even talk to representatives of the USA, I again have to ask you why you think that is the case. It was, after all, the USA that refused to talk to the other party and this is precisely what we are discussing.
I have no reason to trust them.
As stated, your reason is that talking to them may avoid the USA a costly war. That would be reason enough, one would think.
Why trust them when we can crush them and nobody will come to their defense? Why take a chance? It is much better for us if the Taliban are all dead or disbanded.
Actually, I think it's pretty reasonable for a country to ask for evidence of the crime before handing someone over to another country. I certainly hope mine would ask for evidence. You seem very confident and certain that you know the minds of the leaders of the Taliban. Too confident, imo. Certainly the controlling factions of the US government had motivations for wanting a war with Afghanistan, so how can you trust their propounded view that negotiation was not possible? All we know is that one party was offering to talk and the other party was saying there was nothing to discuss. And certainly the Taliban had reasons not to want war with the USA. But we do know that in their situation, simply bowing down to the US demands would put them in an untenable situation which the US government surely realised. The US claims it has evidence that Osama Bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks but we have not seen this evidence. What is your evidence that the US government's word is the more trustworthy in this situation? Furthermore, what is your evidence that even if the US assessment of the possibility of negotiation is sincere, that it is also accurate? Invading a country that is publically asking merely for evidence of a crime before handing someone over, evidence that it is claimed there is, does not incline one to believe the US side of things quite frankly. All of your argument so far, is mere confidence. I require some evidence or citations as to why you believe such things to convince me. I do maintain an open mind, but so far, you haven't supplied anything to support your views.
The Taliban would never have agreed to hand him over to any foreign court, no matter how neutral (not even ICC).
Well a spokesperson for them said they were willing to discuss it if the US showed evidence that Osama was behind the attacks, but we'll never know how genuine their offer was (and I don't see why you can be certain it wasn't possible) as the US said they would not present evidence and there was nothing to discuss.
I'm genuinely interested in what you think the certain outcome is? I'm not just asking so I can challenge it, though I'll say outright that I suspect we'll be in disagreement on it. Things look far from certain to me at the moment.
The proper response, given the SMALL number of people who died, was to mourn the losses and then get back to living.
I get what you're saying, but just to pull you back from going to far, the proper response should probably have been a good long look at why the US was being attacked by these people, following through the investigation to its real origins (weren't most of the bombers Saudi and funded by Saudi sources?) and possibly agreeing to Afghanistan's terms for a fair trial of Osama Bin Laden so that they would be willing to hand him over to a neutral court. This last one I'm not sure if it would have been possible and it's not been shown afaik that they actually had him for definite, but an offer was made which was rejected by the USA.
9/11 was a tragedy that required a response. Just not the one it got by power-hungy people.
Because human society has primarily developed over its history the seldom questioned concept that one person is in charge and another person does work for them. As soon as you reach such a level of work that specialist knowledge or ability which can only be obtained by doing the job is required, then this inevitably implies the person in charge hasn't got that level of knowledge or ability.
For you to have the people who are actually doing the work in charge of the work, you have to reverse millenia of king -> Serf cultural accumulation.
Yeah, now that you point it out, it doesn't sound quite as good. Though I'm sure a 10% increase is no mean feat. Anyway, consider your analogy "borrowed.":)
Codeweavers are nice. They do the cross-over office product which is built on WINE but smooths out any install issues amongst other things and they're a really friendly company (when my trial product expired, it told me a joke about men in black coming to inspect my PC). I think they contribute a fair bit back as well. And I don't mind the odd marketing ploy if it's as amusing as this one sounds. Sadly can't tell as I can't get onto the site, either.
Trouble is, the DMCA is two laws rolled into one. On the one hand you have the way hosting sites such as Youtube are not held responsible for copyright violations of user-uploaded content so long as they immediately withdraw material on allegation of infringement. This is what the article is saying is responsible for current sites such as Youtube, MySpace and others. This is a supportable argument (i.e. you may or may not agree with it, but there is certainly a case to be argued). On the other hand, you have the restrictions on circumvention technology. An entirely distinct law that most people here would probably agree is far less supportable from the viewpoint of social good. Yet these two very different things have been rolled into one, probably to increase the chances of getting the latter part passed. This has the effect of making it much harder to evaluate or debate the DMCA law in the USA.
And I don't know if anyone told you this, but Brown wasn't Prime Minister at the time that Britain went to war. You might try, maybe, thinking things through before you criticise.
Slashdot Mirror
As far as I can see, it's only someone's assumption that this was a temple. Who says that it had to have been religious in nature or even that in those times, religion was distinct in anyway from politics or science? This could have been an art installation, a marker for a trading post or any number of other things. It could have been a marker for a grave for example. A very big one, pyramid style.
At the very least, Google probably scans it in order to target ads at you. They may do more - the point is that you [i]don't[/i] know what they do with it which is what I said. They also make your documents available to various US government agencies on request. There are also probably thousands of employees who could look at your stuff as well if they chose. The point of comparison is not your ISP, but the pen drive in your pocket or the computer in your home. These are much more private in most ways and any breaches of privacy that do occur, you likely know about. Whether or not this concerns you is a personal matter, but it's a strong difference between Google Apps and a local system such as MS Word or Open Office.
Open Office kicks seven kinds of Hell out of Google Apps in terms of functionality. Google docs offers online sharing of documents / collaborative working. You know what Open Office is doing with your data (f' all) and you don't know what Google is doing with it. Choose a product according to your requirements. Simple enough.
That gay marriage is an issue that can be considered left-wing or right-wing, rather than a cross-party issue, is indicative of a major problem in the USA, today. That problem is that a few strongly divisive issues are divided between two large parties and then there is no need to do anything other than co-operate and agree on countless other issues such as corporate tax. It's a game that's being played on the American public which limits their ability to vote according to these issues.
I'll reply in the spirit of constructive discussion and I hope it's taken as such rather than the usual
First off, that's a re-phrasing of what I said. I talked about race in general and by narrowing it down to just the US you have already massively changed the sample group. But even within the US, I still take issue with most references to a racial perspective. You mention that you are white, but there are so many different perspectives within this group that it would be meaningless for me to make any sort of comment about what white people think on a subject. To use your own words, surely you don't deny this? Can you think of any but the most contrived examples of something you could say that was representative of a white point of view? Something that would cross all the massively more significant (imo) demographic barriers of wealth, home State, age and gender? If not, I have to wonder why you think black people should be any more narrow in their range of perspectives. Certainly there are cultural groups that are aligned with race and perhaps this is what you meant. You get such groups in black and white and other ethnic groups - a certain gangster image is popular amongst many young black people, a certain emo sort of look is popular primarily amongst white youth. But whilst these are highly visible (due primarily to the media industry trying to create a market) you can't say the common perspectives of such groups (such as there are) represent a racial view. Many black people of the last generation or two abhor the black "gangster" image that is sold by the music industry. Nazism is almost exclusive to white people (at least under that name), but you can't call it a white perspective (well, the Nation of Islam did, but that's another non-representative group). So I guess, really, I do deny what you are saying. There are perspectives, or at least cultural groups, that are represented predominantly amongst certain racial groups, but I deny that (a) these can therefore be taken as race-based perspectives and (b) that any such group is so prevalent in its racial demographic that it is useful to make generalisations. And there are always exceptions. The world's best rapper is white (imo), the world's best golfer defines himself as black (I'm told). If you want to convince me that it's possible to talk about a race having a particular perspective then you're going to have to give me a couple of examples of what "black people think" and see if it's both prevalent enough and well-defined enough to have meaning.
Note that I said "a" person. I'm saying that there is no supportable reason why someone must belong to the same ethnic group as someone else to share their perspective (and interests). I think you'd agree with me on that. What you're saying (as I understand it) is that there is still a great deal of segregation between ethnic groups in the USA and that this inhibits seeing each others point of view. This I would kind of agree with, but I think the dividing line is not race, but affluence. That brings us onto another point which I'll address at the same time:
I don't know enough of the people of the USA to comment on the veracity of whether black people of all backgrounds were partying la
Entire racial groups have a perspective now? When I lived in the USA, I met a Morrocan student who told me the most annoying thing in the USA were all the people who told him that they were "African." They all had more in common with their white countrymen than they did with him. There's no supportable reason a black person can't see things from a white person's perspective and vice versa. But the black person can't see things from white people's perspective and a white person can't see things from black people's perspective, because there is no such united view. There isn't even enough cultural unity to talk in generalities. If you were white, would it make sense for someone to ask you what white people thought of a particular topic. Outside of the most contrived examples, it would not.
What we should be discussing here is Obama's policies and intentions. Not pages and pages of discussion about his ethnicity. The fact that we are not is the clearest sign of a problem to me, although I think it is one that is being worked out.
Actually, I live in Britain and have seen the BBC's impartiality take some serious damage over the last few years. Ever since the Hutton report and the subsequent purge of the upper ranks by the Labour government, it's been much less aggressive in its coverage. The Independent is good as a paper generally, but seem to have admitted a quite blatant bias toward the Democrats in the last few days. If you want real truth in your news (or at least as close as you'll get), you have to go those journalistic services that target the financial sector, e.g. paid services such as Stratfor. The public might get fed a line, but business leaders like to get told the truth.
Well then for the sake of ending racism, I hope you will all join me in not giving a shit what colour he is. The rhetoric that's been spewing out of some people's mouths when they can't talk for more than a minute about his actual stated policies is really starting to get nauseating. Some people are going to get one Hell of a shock from this.
It's the decent LSD that's harder to get hold of.
Seconded. I have managed to play Blu-Ray discs on my Linux box, but it has been one Hell of a struggle. If this moves things closer to the ubiquity of breaking CSS, then hearty congratulations to these heroes!
But can someone just clarify seeing as that is rather a lot of posts to read though... does this mean we don't need keys, a la the way we can break CSS? If so, that's very impressive, but how did they do it? Not by breaking the encryption but by finding some way around this, presumably? And equally importantly, is this a permanent fix or can it be superceded by updates from the supplier, like when keys are revoked? Explanations and implications, please?
So your position has now shifted from saying the Taliban were not sincere in offering to negotiate if the US presented the evidence they said they had, to it being unreasonable to demand evidence from the USA when it turned out they didn't get it until after the invasion began (in some cases a few years after the invasion).
Well first off, the Taliban said they were willing to negotiate if the US showed them why it thought Bin Laden, so they did indeed do what you suggest, but you were arguing earlier that the US should ignore any offers to co-operate from the Taliban (which they did). So which is it? Complain that the Taliban wouldn't co-operate or insist that offers to co-operate should be ignored as stalling tactics. As to assuaging American anger over the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban might rightly ask why they were considered responsible by the US public when in fact they were not. Considering the US government itself to was responsible for this misconception, it seems unreasonable to use it as an argument why the US was obliged to invade.
Your shifting arguments give every appearance of looking to justify the US invasion of Afghanistan, rather than looking at evidence first and drawing conclusions afterwards.
There's quite a lot there and I don't have a great deal of time at the moment, so you'll have to excuse me if I just cover some of the things that leapt out at me. But to summarise my response to your post, I asked if you had any evidence that the Taliban's stated willingness to negotiate the handover of Osama Bin Laden to the US was utterly a lie (i.e. they never would under any circumstances) to justify your confident assertion that this was the case. Your reply is in large part merely repetition and more forceful restating that you yourself believe this. That is not evidence and does not convince me. It is clear to me that a country does not sacrifice numerous lives and spend enormous sums to invade another country just to capture a single individual when there is a possibility of that person being handed over willingly (and realistically, probably not even if there wasn't). The possibility that the Taliban would hand Osama Bin Laden over undermined the US justification for war. Logically, one way of dealing with this problem (assuming a pre-existing desire to go to war) is to try to convince people that such a willingness is a lie. So I see two parties, one of which has a strong motivation to cast the other as unwilling to negotiate and therefore wont attempt it, and the other saying that they wish to negotiate. I also know that the cost in both life and wealth of a failure to negotiate is enormous and that negotiation costs nothing. My logical inclination is therefore to distrust the party that says they will not negotiate as they are acting against the principle of low-cost for great potential gain. Not saying that this is the case, but saying that I require evidence from the party that says negotiation is futile. It would have to be some pretty strong evidence to justify walking away from the possibility of avoiding so much bloodshed, cost and animosity when the price would have been so little.
Regarding your specific points (what I have time for):
No - I avoid assuming that some countries are not willing to negotiate which is a great difference. In fact, it's more than an assumption since the country in question was actively asking to negotiate. It would have to be an assertion that the country is lying for which I require evidence, which you are not providing. Do you see why when there is a war depending on it, it is reasonable for me to ask for evidence that the US refusing to entertain negotiations to avoid the war was justifiable? Evidence that the US knew there was no possibility that the Taliban might be willing to negotiate? Please don't misrepresent what I am saying.
You seem to be implying that negotiating the hand over of Osama Bin Laden would not be in their favour. As it would have in theory avoided the invasion of their country and overthrow, it is demonstrably in their favour to negotiate. As to their being too disgusted to even talk to representatives of the USA, I again have to ask you why you think that is the case. It was, after all, the USA that refused to talk to the other party and this is precisely what we are discussing.
As stated, your reason is that talking to them may avoid the USA a costly war. That would be reason enough, one would think.
But as it tu
Actually, I think it's pretty reasonable for a country to ask for evidence of the crime before handing someone over to another country. I certainly hope mine would ask for evidence. You seem very confident and certain that you know the minds of the leaders of the Taliban. Too confident, imo. Certainly the controlling factions of the US government had motivations for wanting a war with Afghanistan, so how can you trust their propounded view that negotiation was not possible? All we know is that one party was offering to talk and the other party was saying there was nothing to discuss. And certainly the Taliban had reasons not to want war with the USA. But we do know that in their situation, simply bowing down to the US demands would put them in an untenable situation which the US government surely realised. The US claims it has evidence that Osama Bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks but we have not seen this evidence. What is your evidence that the US government's word is the more trustworthy in this situation? Furthermore, what is your evidence that even if the US assessment of the possibility of negotiation is sincere, that it is also accurate? Invading a country that is publically asking merely for evidence of a crime before handing someone over, evidence that it is claimed there is, does not incline one to believe the US side of things quite frankly. All of your argument so far, is mere confidence. I require some evidence or citations as to why you believe such things to convince me. I do maintain an open mind, but so far, you haven't supplied anything to support your views.
Well a spokesperson for them said they were willing to discuss it if the US showed evidence that Osama was behind the attacks, but we'll never know how genuine their offer was (and I don't see why you can be certain it wasn't possible) as the US said they would not present evidence and there was nothing to discuss.
I'm genuinely interested in what you think the certain outcome is? I'm not just asking so I can challenge it, though I'll say outright that I suspect we'll be in disagreement on it. Things look far from certain to me at the moment.
I get what you're saying, but just to pull you back from going to far, the proper response should probably have been a good long look at why the US was being attacked by these people, following through the investigation to its real origins (weren't most of the bombers Saudi and funded by Saudi sources?) and possibly agreeing to Afghanistan's terms for a fair trial of Osama Bin Laden so that they would be willing to hand him over to a neutral court. This last one I'm not sure if it would have been possible and it's not been shown afaik that they actually had him for definite, but an offer was made which was rejected by the USA.
9/11 was a tragedy that required a response. Just not the one it got by power-hungy people.
Nicely put.
Heh! Now that one gets saved to my quotes file.
How did you get past the
Because human society has primarily developed over its history the seldom questioned concept that one person is in charge and another person does work for them. As soon as you reach such a level of work that specialist knowledge or ability which can only be obtained by doing the job is required, then this inevitably implies the person in charge hasn't got that level of knowledge or ability.
For you to have the people who are actually doing the work in charge of the work, you have to reverse millenia of king -> Serf cultural accumulation.
Fingerprints are yesterday's tech. These days it's all about DNA. And they can have fun extracting that!
Or rather, I can.
Yeah, now that you point it out, it doesn't sound quite as good. Though I'm sure a 10% increase is no mean feat. Anyway, consider your analogy "borrowed."
Codeweavers are nice. They do the cross-over office product which is built on WINE but smooths out any install issues amongst other things and they're a really friendly company (when my trial product expired, it told me a joke about men in black coming to inspect my PC). I think they contribute a fair bit back as well. And I don't mind the odd marketing ploy if it's as amusing as this one sounds. Sadly can't tell as I can't get onto the site, either.
Trouble is, the DMCA is two laws rolled into one. On the one hand you have the way hosting sites such as Youtube are not held responsible for copyright violations of user-uploaded content so long as they immediately withdraw material on allegation of infringement. This is what the article is saying is responsible for current sites such as Youtube, MySpace and others. This is a supportable argument (i.e. you may or may not agree with it, but there is certainly a case to be argued). On the other hand, you have the restrictions on circumvention technology. An entirely distinct law that most people here would probably agree is far less supportable from the viewpoint of social good. Yet these two very different things have been rolled into one, probably to increase the chances of getting the latter part passed. This has the effect of making it much harder to evaluate or debate the DMCA law in the USA.
And I don't know if anyone told you this, but Brown wasn't Prime Minister at the time that Britain went to war. You might try, maybe, thinking things through before you criticise.