Probably because having to FILL OUT the fields was a PITA. I think what the parent post had in mind was more like a series of checkboxes.
Speaking from bitter experience, you wouldn't believe the lengths some users will go to buck "the system". They see even simple checkboxes and drop-down menus as a gross infringement of their god-given right to create a useless mess. The same finger muscles that these people think with to make "New Document 1", "New Document 2" etc. get used to learn a series of rapid spacebar-and-tab clicks to make the bad metadata box go away. The result is all their documents get tagged as a single type. It takes good auditing (and a stern papal decree from management) in a large corporation to keep this to a manageable minimum. OTOH, in small groups,where everyone can see who does what, it's harder to hide this kind of laziness. Newdocms looks very promising for workgroups.
Well, the NatWest ATM on Piccadilly that ate my card a few weeks back was running Win2K, as I found out when it crashed and rebooted...
The Lloyds-TSB machine that I used a few weeks back in Oxford High St. was running OS/2, and it had the good grace to spit my card back before it crashed and rebooted. I'm going to miss that superior OS/2 reliability.
It's not a University, it's a technical college. Universities are for getting an education, technical colleges are for training.
I despair when I read posts here saying "That's my kind of education, none of that history bullshit I'll never use again." There's nothing wrong with pursuing a specialist technical career, but there's everything wrong with believing you have the right to vote in utter ignorance of history, politics and culture.
It's not the Washington Post, it's a right-wing scandal sheet run by the Unification Church, aka The Moonies. Take what they say with a hefty pinch of salt.
It's easy to fall into the Malthusian trap of thinking that overpopulation is the problem. I suggest you read Bookchin's classic essay Which Way for the Ecology Movement?, which lucidly and rationally debunks this idea.
In fact, the most recent estimatesthat I would consider objective are that post-2050, population numbers will decline significantly.
We need to stop blaming world population growth for climate change, when in fact the more static populations in the west are responsible for far more man-made pollution per capita. The focus needs to be on the real problems of pollution and climate change.
Here's a small Wisdom McNugget from my congressman, Rep. Adam Smith. Yes, it's Redmond's good old "Burger and Fries Metaphor(tm) again. Some time back, Slashdot noted that MS had a congressional spam-o-matic page about the DoJ lawsuit, placed in a section where they knew only MS religionists would be bothering to read. Slashdot responded by posting up an article saying "Use this MS page to write your Congressman. Give our side of the story, politely." So I did, politely. By way of reply, Rep. Smith placed me on his spam list, with monthly doses of more or less the same marketing horseshit as in the above McNugget, with no means of removal. Emails to the congressional sysadmin went unanswered, naturally, so I had to phone up Smith's office, and explain to some hapless young secretary at length how to remove my name from the mailing list.
It's worth noting that Rep. Smith and Agent Smith have never been seen together in the same photo. They are almost certainly the same person.
No, it's just a silly, in-jokey reference to René Magritte, the late Belgian artist whose work I love. I'd guess Electric Theatre were making a similar reference, but I haven't seen the play.
More on da man Magritte here: http://www.magritte.com/ http://www.asta.u ni-sb.de/~lynx/magritte/
There are many good reasons to visit Belgium, but Magritte and the beer are my two favourites.
> Could someone please enlighten me with a grammatical explanation of the "off of" > construct above?
I suppose you mean:
Could someone please enlighten me with a grammatical explanation of the above-mentioned construct "off of"?
But while you're ending your sentences with prepositions while whining about perceived Crimes Of Grammar on a a tech blog, why not amuse yourself with this joke:
A Southerner stopped a stranger on the Harvard campus and asked, "Could you please tell me where the library is at?" The stranger responded, "Educated people never end their sentences with a preposition." The Southerner replied, "Could you please tell me where the library is at, asshole?"
If like me you took your RHCE exam on version 6.x, then this is the last version on which your certification remains valid, according to the RHCE FAQ.
Ah well. It's got a better shelf-life than some other certs, and only one of my many employers has ever bothered to check it.
Here in the UK we have both satellite digital and "terrestrial broadcast" digital, the latter being digital that you can receive through an ordinary antenna with a set-top box on your plain old analogue TV. The terrestrial broadcast network, ITV Digital, tried to squeeze 48 channels into the available bandwidth, and the result was famously shite quality.
It wasn't even the tolerable sort of poor quality that you get on analogue: fuzz, crackle, etc. Instead, it's blocks of non-motion on your screen, or even the entire screen freezing up, while the video buffer struggles to refill. Just what you want when you're watching a crucial sports match. No thank you.
ITV Digital have recently gone bust, and a consortium including the BBC and Murdoch have stepped in to take it over. They are planning to reduce the channel count to 24, and to introduce other improvements in the transmitter network, so maybe the quality will improve. But they are no longer asking people to pay a monthly subscription: it will be for free-to-air channels only. Seems sensible to me: why pay for what we can already get it for free?
I also expected that my new digital cordless phone's quality would be better than my old analogue cordless. No, just like the digital TV, the intereference is no longer crackle-and-fuzz, it's random cut-outs when I get more than 20 yards from the base station. A friend of mine has had similar problems with his new digital cordless in the US.
So I don't expect that TV reception quality will improve simply because "It's digital!" You can implement bad quality transmission in any medium.
The USA Patriot Act violates the First Amendment freedom of speech guarantee, the provision allowing the right to peaceably assemble, and the provision allowing the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, including by the following new powers:
- Minimal judicial supervision of expanded telephone wiretaps and internet surveillance. One way is through new powers of Internet Monitoring. Monitoring an individual's communications normally would require law enforcement to demonstrate probable cause of criminal activity to a judge. The counter-terrorism law, however, dramatically lowers the surveillance standard with respect to certain aspects of the Internet by requiring only that law enforcement personnel certify that the surveillance is relevant to a criminal investigation. The court must accept the certification, even if the court believes that law enforcement is on a fishing expedition. Such a provision falls far short of active judicial oversight. The counter-terrorism law states that surveillance does not apply to the "content" of Internet communications; however, the law does not define "content" and clearly does apply to such information as e-mail addresses and recipients. Another was is through "roving wiretaps": Under prior law, a wiretap was restricted to a particular telephone device. While the law needed updating to take into account the use of multiple cell phones, the USA PATRIOT Act goes too far. Instead of including a reasonable balancing of individuals' privacy interests, the new law now establishes what amounts to a "no privacy zone" which follows a target of surveillance. If a surveillance target enters your home, your telephone comes within a "no privacy zone" and can be tapped. Under these circumstances, it will be more difficult to ensure that innocent people aren't subject to wiretaps.
- Expanded ability of the federal government to conduct secret searches
- Power to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations and to deport any non-citizen who belongs to those groups: The Act established a new crime of domestic terrorism, with a definition so broad as to include certain acts of political protest involving threats or dangers to human life. When political protest harms property or individuals, those particular harmful acts already are punishable under various criminal laws. Sometimes domestic political protest activity inadvertently escalates to clashes with police and other types of violence. To allow such incidents to be treated as terrorism could have a stifling effect on dissent.
- Large-scale investigations of US citizens for "intelligence purposes." Have you ever heard of COINTELPRO? It's all happened before in the US, FBI and CIA et al got slapped down for it, it's well documented. Now those powers are back, in order to "fight terrorism". Do you really think that's all they'll be used for?
- FBI monitoring of libraries and booksellers: the Act contains provisions that make it easier for the FBI to search a bookstore's business records, including the titles of the books purchased by customers. And under the new amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), booksellers may not have the chance to resist subpoenas. Depending on the wording of the order, the bookseller may be required to immediately turn over the records that are being sought
It violates the Fourth Amendment guarantee of probable cause in astonishingly major and repeated ways. It now allows the police, at any time and for any reason, to enter and search your house. Under prior law, if the primary purpose of a search was to obtain "foreign intelligence information", the FBI could obtain a secret warrant through the court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA Court) to conduct a physical search or wiretap without notifying the target of the search. The counter-terrorism law lowers the standard to permit the FBI to conduct a secret search or wiretap if intelligence surveillance is a significant purpose. Thus, under the new law, surveillance for the primary purpose of investigating criminal activity, with the auxiliary significant purpose of intelligence surveillance could circumvent the 4th Amendment's probable cause requirement for obtaining a search warrant.
- Reduction of Attorny-Client privilege: Attorney General Ashcroft announced that the Justice Department would selectively monitor conversations between selected detainees and their attorneys, including people who have been detained but not charged with any crime. This order is a profound violation of fundamental legal and constitutional principles at the very core of our justice system. Such monitoring of conversations will not meet the high constitutional standards generally in place for other government surveillance - a finding of probable cause and judicial oversight. Instead, monitoring of attorney-client communications will be based on the attorney general's unilateral mere belief "that reasonable suspicion exists" that detainees may "use communications with attorneys or their agents to facilitate acts of terrorism."
It violates the Fifth Amendment by allowing for indefinite incarceration without trial for those deemed by the Attorney General to be threats to national security. On October 29, several civil rights organizations filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking disclosure of government documents concerning more than 1,000 individuals arrested and detained in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Justice Department officials announced on November 8 that they no longer would provide a running tally of the total number of people being detained across the country in conjunction with federal anti-terrorist investigations. Instead, officials said they would release revised numbers that omit the largest group of detainees, which includes people being held on some grounds not directly related to September 11. In late November, the Justice Department released fragmentary information regarding some of the detainees, but fell far short of making a full accounting. On December 5, PFAWF and others filed suit in federal district court seeking expedited processing and immediate release by the Justice Department of the information requested under FOIA.
It is widely claimed by many independent organisations that as many as 200,000 were killed and "disappeared" by govt troops. You ask for evidence, I cite several sources, you don't like them, well, sorry.
The "history" you keep threatening to cite is most probably from your favorite authors, right wing, pro-US-govt sources. Mine is from left-wing sources. You rely on yours being endorsed by the US govt for them to be taken as gospel. You're clearly surprised that I don't agree. It's like arguing the case for religious pluralism with Mullah Omar.
You ask me to look at "any history of the period". I have looked at many, they all disagree with you, apart from the ones by avowed right wingers like yourself. Surprise.
As for Pinochet, to repeat, I am not defending him, but you cannot deny that he held democratic elections, and stepped down when his party lost.
Sounds an awful lot like defense of him to me. And yes, I deny it, and so do most non-govt historians. You present his actions as if he did them to be democratic. He did not. He was pressured to hold elections, and there was no longer any threat to him from holding them. Castro would do the same if he could.
This stands in sharp contrast to Mr. Allende, who suspended democracy in Chile.
No, his own army turned against him, and therefore it was the army that suspended democracy, not Allende. He then reacted in kind. This is not the act of a totalitarian, though you clearly would like to think so, if only to feel better about what Kissinger, perhaps the most evil man alive, did to that poor miserable country. Even Bush thinks it's OK to suspend certain US citizens' rights in wartime. The US also had no problem helping the Venezuelan army tearing up the Venezuelan constitution last month, and ateempting to install some oil consultant in place of the democratically elected President Chavez. But they clearly screwed up, and forgot to make sure the whole army was with them this time around. They may yet succeed on a later attempt.
I note that you also credit the US with pressuring Mr. Pinochet to do so -- so what, exactly, is your complaint about US action?
Under most circumstances, I would be glad of this kind of pressure. But since it was the US that put Pinochet in power int he first place, and since it's the US that has trained up dictators and their henchmen in the fine arts of torture and suppression of internal dissent for decades at the School Of The Americas at Fort Benning, you'll forgive me if I don't weep for joy when the US decides it's time for one of its tame dictators to take a hike. The same could be said about US support for Noriega. While it suited the US, they supported him, and winked at his drug trade. As soon as he was no longer useful, the US gave him the heave-ho. Should we applaud this? Should we be grateful? No thank you.
By the way, what `freedoms' are you alleging are being `handed over left and right'? Would you care to elaborate?
Allow me to quote Paris. "If you've really read it and still don't see it, then allow me to spell it out for you because it's all too clear to me that the Patriot Act violates so much more than just the 4th Amendment. Its signing has effectively nullified at least six amendments of the Bill of Rights addendum to the U.S. Constitution. As a result of this, America has become nothing short of a Police State. The Patriot Act is, in fact, a massive violation of the Constitution it purports to uphold and improve. Among other things, it mandates that judges give police search warrants when they ask for them, for any reason. In fact, judges can't deny these warrants to police, because police don't need a stated reason to ask for them.
The Bill of Rights is the cornerstone of American freedom. During the debates on the adoption of the Constitution in the 1790s, its opponents repeatedly charged that the Constitution as drafted would open the way to tyranny by the central government. Many states would not have signed the original Constitution without knowing that these amendments would be added. These amendments became known as the Bill of Rights, which Americans have cherished, protected and fought for for over 200 years.
The Patriot Act rushed through Congress and signed by President George W. Bush is a major step toward a totalitarian state in which individual liberty is crushed by the whim of police and corporate demagogues masquerading as patriots.
The Patriot Act: http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162 .html
* Violates the First Amendment freedom of speech guarantee, the provision allowing the right to peaceably assemble, and the provision allowing the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.
* Violates the Fourth Amendment guarantee of probable cause in astonishingly major and repeated ways. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution reads: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons of things to be seized." The Patriot Act, now passed and the law of the land, has revoked the necessity for probable cause, and now allows the police, at any time and for any reason, to enter and search your house. Under the act they are not required to even tell you why.
* Violates the Fifth Amendment by allowing for indefinite incarceration without trial for those deemed by the Attorney General to be threats to national security. The Fifth Amendment guarantees that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, and the Patriot Act does away with due process. It even allows people to be kept in prison for life without even a trial.
* Violates the Sixth Amendment guarantee of the right to a speedy and public trial. Now you may get no trial at all, ever.
* Violates the Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual punishment).
* Violates the 13th Amendment (punishment without conviction).
From the ACLU's objections:
* It minimizes judicial supervision of telephone and Internet surveillance by law enforcement authorities in anti-terrorism investigations and in routine criminal investigations unrelated to terrorism. (Unrelated to terrorism? WTF? That means anything. Maybe surveillance of those expressing political dissent? Ya think?)
* It expands the ability of the government to conduct secret searches in anti-terrorism investigations and in routine criminal investigations unrelated to terrorism. (Again - unrelated to terrorism? That means anything. If you disagree with the government's policies publically then this applies to you).
* It gives the Attorney General and the Secretary of State the power to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations and block any non-citizen who belongs to them from entering the country. Under this provision the payment of membership dues is a deportable offense. (That means, among other things, that Bush and Ashcroft can decide that even obviously peaceful organizations are terrorists, and under this law, can put them in jail).
* It grants the FBI broad access to sensitive medical, financial, mental health, and educational records about individuals without having to show evidence of a crime and without a court order. (I can't help you if you don't see the danger in this).
* It could lead to large-scale investigations of American citizens for "intelligence" purposes and use of intelligence authorities to bypass probable cause requirements in criminal cases. (This could apply to anyone).
* It puts the CIA and other intelligence agencies back in the business of spying on Americans by giving the Director of Central Intelligence the authority to identify priority targets for intelligence surveillance in the United States.
* It allows searches of highly personal financial records without notice and without judicial review based on a very low standard that does not require probable cause of a crime or even relevancy to an ongoing terrorism investigation. (They can do any of this without any reason whatsoever. This is the kind of freedom fascists have always wanted - freedom to put everyone who disagrees with them in jail).
* It creates a broad new definition of "domestic terrorism" that could sweep in people who engage in acts of political protest and subject them to wiretapping and enhanced penalties. (This means they can jail anyone who disagrees with them, and keep them in jail for life without a trial)."
So 200,000 could not possibly have been killed and disappeared in Guatemala over a period of years, because that's 2% of the present population? How does that follow? A third of East Timor's population was wiped out by the Indonesian army, againw ith US and British assistance. You think 200,000 Guatemalans is so very unbelievable?
http://www.converge.org.nz/lac/articles/news9903 22 a.htm http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0327/p08s01-w oam.htm l http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/tunion/1998 /gu atem.htm
Likewise, you keep repeating that Allende was elected democratically, as if this made it okay that he suspended Chile's democracy and called in foreign troops to help suppress his rivals.
Pardon? What foreign troops?
You offer various theories as to why Pinochet created democracy, but you cannot deny that he did.
I never offered any theories about Pinochet "creating democracy". He was asked to leave by the White House, so he did. The Chilean people themselves created any democracy there, despite our and Pinochet's best efforts. Good luck to them: they deserve a decent life after what we put them through. Why do you continue to act as an apologist for a brutal dictator without a democratic bone in his body?
And you repeat the claim that the CIA was behind Pinochet's coup, even though you yourself posted documents earlier in this thread denying that.
You appear to be confusing me with some other person rebutting your right-wing claptrap: I did no such thing. May I see the link to documents I posted denying the CIA was behind Pinochet's coup please?
We'll leave aside the books you suggest -- I've read two of them, and they are standard lefty drivel, full of undocumented claims, wild conspiracy theories, and improbable anecdotes.
"Standard lefty drivel", that's rather imprecise. Kindly name some "undocumented claims" from any of the three books I suggested, and I will document them for you.
Nor does Kerala make a good example -- it may or may not call itself communist (I am not convinced that it does)
You're not? Well, what would convince you? It has on and off since 1957 been ruled by a majority of elected Communist Party members. What else would you call it?
Your other examples are equally flawed, from Guatemala, where for all your complaining the people you name did establish a democracy which is free and strong to this day,
The right-wing junta was finally wound up once it was no longer necessary to suppress the popular left-wing movement. They "went legit", like mafias eventually do everywhere. No-one has answered for the terrible mass murders commited by the right-wing government there, the over 200,000 dead and disappeared. But this is beside the point. A peacful democratic Communist movement was brutally suppressed by right-wing totalitarians, rebutting your contention that "every single government which has described itself as communist has been murderous and totalitarian. Every single one." Perhaps you would like to qualify that statement, now that you are faced with evidence to the contary?
to Pinochet, who stepped down peacably when voted out of office in elections he had called --
Repsonding to pressure from the Reagan administration, which was embarrassed by all the bad publicity, and no longer had any significant left-wing opposition remaining to worry about in Chile. Pinochet had become a liability, so the US asked him to step down. Pinochet made sure to pass a law granting himself and all his torturing, murdering pals immunity before stepping down, of course. They're still fighting that battle now in the courts. But once again, this is beside the point. The Marxist Allende govenrment was democratically elected, and the right-wing Pinochet tore the elected government down in a coup, supported by the US. Your original statement, that "every single government which has described itself as communist has been murderous and totalitarian. Every single one." is once again proven demonstrably false.
Now you, and others, keep claiming this, but the fact remains that every single government which has described itself as communist has been murderous and totalitarian. Every single one. And every single one has said, as you say, that `what went before was not really communism. We are the true communism.'
So, while you may say `trust us, we'll be different this time, we mean it', you'll have to forgive us if we're not willing to take that chance.
The fact is that there have been many attempts at democratic socialist and communist states, e.g. Kerala state in India, Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, and they have been mostly been stamped down hard by murderous, totalitarian right-wing regimes, usually assisted by the United States gov't. I'm talking about murderous, totalitarian right-wing regimes like Indonesia, Peru, Chile and Colombia, with murderous totalitarian dictators like Batista in Cuba, Pinochet in Chile, Stroessner in Paraguay, Somoza in El Salvador, the Shah of Iran, etc. President Reagan once described Gen. Efrain Rios-Montt, the butcher of Guatemala, as "totally dedicated to democracy", and complained that he'd had a "bum rap" on human rights.
For that matter, the US is happy enough to support China, which is about as "Communist" today as it has ever been, to the point of extending them Most Favored Nation trading status, regardless of their brutal totalitarian practices. It's not the ideology that the US objects to you, you see, it's the money. So long as the money flows, so long as there's oil, or chromium, or bauxite, or new markets for Nike and Microsoft, or whatever else the US govt is after that week, "Communist" or "Capitalist", it makes no difference.
I was raised to believe the same right-wing propaganda as you were, pal. It never occurred to me that my teachers and parents could have got it so completely wrong. Go read the history for yourself, and decide for yourself whether ideology has any connection with totalitarianism.
For the same reasons that the Euro was floated at a rate to settle very near 1 Euro = 1 Dollar, I predict the new dollar colours will be matched to Euro colours.
Then they can merge the two currencies with ease, when the EU merges with NAFTA.
Slashdot Mirror
Probably because having to FILL OUT the fields was a PITA. I think what the parent post had in mind was more like a series of checkboxes.
Speaking from bitter experience, you wouldn't believe the lengths some users will go to buck "the system". They see even simple checkboxes and drop-down menus as a gross infringement of their god-given right to create a useless mess. The same finger muscles that these people think with to make "New Document 1", "New Document 2" etc. get used to learn a series of rapid spacebar-and-tab clicks to make the bad metadata box go away. The result is all their documents get tagged as a single type. It takes good auditing (and a stern papal decree from management) in a large corporation to keep this to a manageable minimum.
OTOH, in small groups,where everyone can see who does what, it's harder to hide this kind of laziness. Newdocms looks very promising for workgroups.
Well, the NatWest ATM on Piccadilly that ate my card a few weeks back was running Win2K, as I found out when it crashed and rebooted...
The Lloyds-TSB machine that I used a few weeks back in Oxford High St. was running OS/2, and it had the good grace to spit my card back before it crashed and rebooted. I'm going to miss that superior OS/2 reliability.
And DTML, in case you were wondering, is the old, deprecated markup language of Zope, now largely replaced by TAL, TALES and METAL.
It's not a University, it's a technical college. Universities are for getting an education, technical colleges are for training.
I despair when I read posts here saying "That's my kind of education, none of that history bullshit I'll never use again." There's nothing wrong with pursuing a specialist technical career, but there's everything wrong with believing you have the right to vote in utter ignorance of history, politics and culture.
It's not the Washington Post, it's a right-wing scandal sheet run by the Unification Church, aka The Moonies. Take what they say with a hefty pinch of salt.
It's easy to fall into the Malthusian trap of thinking that overpopulation is the problem. I suggest you read Bookchin's classic essay Which Way for the Ecology Movement?, which lucidly and rationally debunks this idea.
In fact, the most recent estimates that I would consider objective are that post-2050, population numbers will decline significantly.
We need to stop blaming world population growth for climate change, when in fact the more static populations in the west are responsible for far more man-made pollution per capita. The focus needs to be on the real problems of pollution and climate change.
Here's a small Wisdom McNugget from my congressman, Rep. Adam Smith. Yes, it's Redmond's good old "Burger and Fries Metaphor(tm) again.
Some time back, Slashdot noted that MS had a congressional spam-o-matic page about the DoJ lawsuit, placed in a section where they knew only MS religionists would be bothering to read. Slashdot responded by posting up an article saying "Use this MS page to write your Congressman. Give our side of the story, politely." So I did, politely.
By way of reply, Rep. Smith placed me on his spam list, with monthly doses of more or less the same marketing horseshit as in the above McNugget, with no means of removal. Emails to the congressional sysadmin went unanswered, naturally, so I had to phone up Smith's office, and explain to some hapless young secretary at length how to remove my name from the mailing list.
It's worth noting that Rep. Smith and Agent Smith have never been seen together in the same photo. They are almost certainly the same person.
No, it's just a silly, in-jokey reference to René Magritte, the late Belgian artist whose work I love. I'd guess Electric Theatre were making a similar reference, but I haven't seen the play.
u ni-sb.de/~lynx/magritte/
More on da man Magritte here:
http://www.magritte.com/
http://www.asta.
There are many good reasons to visit Belgium, but Magritte and the beer are my two favourites.
> Could someone please enlighten me with a grammatical explanation of the "off of"
> construct above?
I suppose you mean:
Could someone please enlighten me with a grammatical explanation of the above-mentioned construct "off of"?
But while you're ending your sentences with prepositions while whining about perceived Crimes Of Grammar on a a tech blog, why not amuse yourself with this joke:
A Southerner stopped a stranger on the Harvard campus and asked, "Could you please tell me where the library is at?" The stranger responded, "Educated people never end their sentences with a preposition." The Southerner replied, "Could you please tell me where the library is at, asshole?"
If like me you took your RHCE exam on version 6.x, then this is the last version on which your certification remains valid, according to the RHCE FAQ.
Ah well. It's got a better shelf-life than some other certs, and only one of my many employers has ever bothered to check it.
Here in the UK we have both satellite digital and "terrestrial broadcast" digital, the latter being digital that you can receive through an ordinary antenna with a set-top box on your plain old analogue TV. The terrestrial broadcast network, ITV Digital, tried to squeeze 48 channels into the available bandwidth, and the result was famously shite quality.
It wasn't even the tolerable sort of poor quality that you get on analogue: fuzz, crackle, etc. Instead, it's blocks of non-motion on your screen, or even the entire screen freezing up, while the video buffer struggles to refill.
Just what you want when you're watching a crucial sports match.
No thank you.
ITV Digital have recently gone bust, and a consortium including the BBC and Murdoch have stepped in to take it over. They are planning to reduce the channel count to 24, and to introduce other improvements in the transmitter network, so maybe the quality will improve. But they are no longer asking people to pay a monthly subscription: it will be for free-to-air channels only. Seems sensible to me: why pay for what we can already get it for free?
I also expected that my new digital cordless phone's quality would be better than my old analogue cordless. No, just like the digital TV, the intereference is no longer crackle-and-fuzz, it's random cut-outs when I get more than 20 yards from the base station. A friend of mine has had similar problems with his new digital cordless in the US.
So I don't expect that TV reception quality will improve simply because "It's digital!" You can implement bad quality transmission in any medium.
Funny thing is Allende's Doctor was the first one there after he died, and has repeatadly stated that Allende commited suicide.
So it has been often claimed, by many right-wing apologists for Pinochet. The truth is somewhat more complicated.
The story above attempts to link to OSCON, but in fact simply links back to itself.
/. front page summary's link just links back to itself.
And the
Both should link (I presume) to the OSCON site.
Thanks for fixing.
It's getting very late on this side of the planet, and I'm tired. Here's a good analysis of what's unconsitutional about the USA PATRIOT Act and some subsequent presidential exceutive orders.
16 pages: enjoy. I'll be back in the morning to see what you have to say about it. Nighty-night.
The USA Patriot Act violates the First Amendment freedom of speech guarantee, the provision allowing the right to peaceably assemble, and the provision allowing the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, including by the following new powers:
- Minimal judicial supervision of expanded telephone wiretaps and internet surveillance. One way is through new powers of Internet Monitoring. Monitoring an individual's communications normally would require law enforcement to demonstrate probable cause of criminal activity to a judge. The counter-terrorism law, however, dramatically lowers the surveillance standard with respect to certain aspects of the Internet by requiring only that law enforcement personnel certify that the surveillance is relevant to a criminal investigation. The court must accept the certification, even if the court believes that law enforcement is on a fishing expedition. Such a provision falls far short of active judicial oversight. The counter-terrorism law states that surveillance does not apply to the "content" of Internet communications; however, the law does not define "content" and clearly does apply to such information as e-mail addresses and recipients.
Another was is through "roving wiretaps": Under prior law, a wiretap was restricted to a particular telephone device. While the law needed updating to take into account the use of multiple cell phones, the USA PATRIOT Act goes too far. Instead of including a reasonable balancing of individuals' privacy interests, the new law now establishes what amounts to a "no privacy zone" which follows a target of surveillance. If a surveillance target enters your home, your telephone comes within a "no privacy zone" and can be tapped. Under these circumstances, it will be more difficult to ensure that innocent people aren't subject to wiretaps.
- Expanded ability of the federal government to conduct secret searches
- Power to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations and to deport any non-citizen who belongs to those groups: The Act established a new crime of domestic terrorism, with a definition so broad as to include certain acts of political protest involving threats or dangers to human life. When political protest harms property or individuals, those particular harmful acts already are punishable under various criminal laws. Sometimes domestic political protest activity inadvertently escalates to clashes with police and other types of violence. To allow such incidents to be treated as terrorism could have a stifling effect on dissent.
- Large-scale investigations of US citizens for "intelligence purposes." Have you ever heard of COINTELPRO? It's all happened before in the US, FBI and CIA et al got slapped down for it, it's well documented. Now those powers are back, in order to "fight terrorism". Do you really think that's all they'll be used for?
- FBI monitoring of libraries and booksellers: the Act contains provisions that make it easier for the FBI to search a bookstore's business records, including the titles of the books purchased by customers. And under the new amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), booksellers may not have the chance to resist subpoenas. Depending on the wording of the order, the bookseller may be required to immediately turn over the records that are being sought
It violates the Fourth Amendment guarantee of probable cause in astonishingly major and repeated ways. It now allows the police, at any time and for any reason, to enter and search your house. Under prior law, if the primary purpose of a search was to obtain "foreign intelligence information", the FBI could obtain a secret warrant through the court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA Court) to conduct a physical search or wiretap without notifying the target of the search. The counter-terrorism law lowers the standard to permit the FBI to conduct a secret search or wiretap if intelligence surveillance is a significant purpose. Thus, under the new law, surveillance for the primary purpose of investigating criminal activity, with the auxiliary significant purpose of intelligence surveillance could circumvent the 4th Amendment's probable cause requirement for obtaining a search warrant.
- Reduction of Attorny-Client privilege:
Attorney General Ashcroft announced that the Justice Department would selectively monitor conversations between selected detainees and their attorneys, including people who have been detained but not charged with any crime. This order is a profound violation of fundamental legal and constitutional principles at the very core of our justice system. Such monitoring of conversations will not meet the high constitutional standards generally in place for other government surveillance - a finding of probable cause and judicial oversight. Instead, monitoring of attorney-client communications will be based on the attorney general's unilateral mere belief "that reasonable suspicion exists" that detainees may "use communications with attorneys or their agents to facilitate acts of terrorism."
It violates the Fifth Amendment by allowing for indefinite incarceration without trial for those deemed by the Attorney General to be threats to national security. On October 29, several civil rights organizations filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking disclosure of government documents concerning more than 1,000 individuals arrested and detained in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Justice Department officials announced on November 8 that they no longer would provide a running tally of the total number of people being detained across the country in conjunction with federal anti-terrorist investigations. Instead, officials said they would release revised numbers that omit the largest group of detainees, which includes people being held on some grounds not directly related to September 11. In late November, the Justice Department released fragmentary information regarding some of the detainees, but fell far short of making a full accounting. On December 5, PFAWF and others filed suit in federal district court seeking expedited processing and immediate release by the Justice Department of the information requested under FOIA.
It is widely claimed by many independent organisations that as many as 200,000 were killed and "disappeared" by govt troops. You ask for evidence, I cite several sources, you don't like them, well, sorry.
The "history" you keep threatening to cite is most probably from your favorite authors, right wing, pro-US-govt sources. Mine is from left-wing sources. You rely on yours being endorsed by the US govt for them to be taken as gospel. You're clearly surprised that I don't agree. It's like arguing the case for religious pluralism with Mullah Omar.
You ask me to look at "any history of the period". I have looked at many, they all disagree with you, apart from the ones by avowed right wingers like yourself. Surprise.
As for Pinochet, to repeat, I am not defending him, but you cannot deny that he held democratic elections, and stepped down when his party lost.
Sounds an awful lot like defense of him to me. And yes, I deny it, and so do most non-govt historians. You present his actions as if he did them to be democratic. He did not. He was pressured to hold elections, and there was no longer any threat to him from holding them. Castro would do the same if he could.
This stands in sharp contrast to Mr. Allende, who suspended democracy in Chile.
No, his own army turned against him, and therefore it was the army that suspended democracy, not Allende. He then reacted in kind. This is not the act of a totalitarian, though you clearly would like to think so, if only to feel better about what Kissinger, perhaps the most evil man alive, did to that poor miserable country. Even Bush thinks it's OK to suspend certain US citizens' rights in wartime. The US also had no problem helping the Venezuelan army tearing up the Venezuelan constitution last month, and ateempting to install some oil consultant in place of the democratically elected President Chavez. But they clearly screwed up, and forgot to make sure the whole army was with them this time around. They may yet succeed on a later attempt.
I note that you also credit the US with pressuring Mr. Pinochet to do so -- so what, exactly, is your complaint about US action?
Under most circumstances, I would be glad of this kind of pressure. But since it was the US that put Pinochet in power int he first place, and since it's the US that has trained up dictators and their henchmen in the fine arts of torture and suppression of internal dissent for decades at the School Of The Americas at Fort Benning, you'll forgive me if I don't weep for joy when the US decides it's time for one of its tame dictators to take a hike. The same could be said about US support for Noriega. While it suited the US, they supported him, and winked at his drug trade. As soon as he was no longer useful, the US gave him the heave-ho. Should we applaud this? Should we be grateful? No thank you.
By the way, what `freedoms' are you alleging are being `handed over left and right'? Would you care to elaborate?
2 .html
Allow me to quote Paris.
"If you've really read it and still don't see it, then allow me to spell it out for you because it's all too clear to me that the Patriot Act violates so much more than just the 4th Amendment. Its signing has effectively nullified at least six amendments of the Bill of Rights addendum to the U.S. Constitution. As a result of this, America has become nothing short of a Police State. The Patriot Act is, in fact, a massive violation of the Constitution it purports to uphold and improve. Among other things, it mandates that judges give police search warrants when they ask for them, for any reason. In fact, judges can't deny these warrants to police, because police don't need a stated reason to ask for them.
The Bill of Rights is the cornerstone of American freedom. During the debates on the adoption of the Constitution in the 1790s, its opponents repeatedly charged that the Constitution as drafted would open the way to tyranny by the central government. Many states would not have signed the original Constitution without knowing that these amendments would be added. These amendments became known as the Bill of Rights, which Americans have cherished, protected and fought for for over 200 years.
The Patriot Act rushed through Congress and signed by President George W. Bush is a major step toward a totalitarian state in which individual liberty is crushed by the whim of police and corporate demagogues masquerading as patriots.
The Patriot Act:
http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr316
* Violates the First Amendment freedom of speech guarantee, the provision allowing the right to peaceably assemble, and the provision allowing the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.
* Violates the Fourth Amendment guarantee of probable cause in astonishingly major and repeated ways. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution reads: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons of things to be seized." The Patriot Act, now passed and the law of the land, has revoked the necessity for probable cause, and now allows the police, at any time and for any reason, to enter and search your house. Under the act they are not required to even tell you why.
* Violates the Fifth Amendment by allowing for indefinite incarceration without trial for those deemed by the Attorney General to be threats to national security. The Fifth Amendment guarantees that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, and the Patriot Act does away with due process. It even allows people to be kept in prison for life without even a trial.
* Violates the Sixth Amendment guarantee of the right to a speedy and public trial. Now you may get no trial at all, ever.
* Violates the Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual punishment).
* Violates the 13th Amendment (punishment without conviction).
From the ACLU's objections:
* It minimizes judicial supervision of telephone and Internet surveillance by law enforcement authorities in anti-terrorism investigations and in routine criminal investigations unrelated to terrorism. (Unrelated to terrorism? WTF? That means anything. Maybe surveillance of those expressing political dissent? Ya think?)
* It expands the ability of the government to conduct secret searches in anti-terrorism investigations and in routine criminal investigations unrelated to terrorism. (Again - unrelated to terrorism? That means anything. If you disagree with the government's policies publically then this applies to you).
* It gives the Attorney General and the Secretary of State the power to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations and block any non-citizen who belongs to them from entering the country. Under this provision the payment of membership dues is a deportable offense. (That means, among other things, that Bush and Ashcroft can decide that even obviously peaceful organizations are terrorists, and under this law, can put them in jail).
* It grants the FBI broad access to sensitive medical, financial, mental health, and educational records about individuals without having to show evidence of a crime and without a court order. (I can't help you if you don't see the danger in this).
* It could lead to large-scale investigations of American citizens for "intelligence" purposes and use of intelligence authorities to bypass probable cause requirements in criminal cases. (This could apply to anyone).
* It puts the CIA and other intelligence agencies back in the business of spying on Americans by giving the Director of Central Intelligence the authority to identify priority targets for intelligence surveillance in the United States.
* It allows searches of highly personal financial records without notice and without judicial review based on a very low standard that does not require probable cause of a crime or even relevancy to an ongoing terrorism investigation. (They can do any of this without any reason whatsoever. This is the kind of freedom fascists have always wanted - freedom to put everyone who disagrees with them in jail).
* It creates a broad new definition of "domestic terrorism" that could sweep in people who engage in acts of political protest and subject them to wiretapping and enhanced penalties. (This means they can jail anyone who disagrees with them, and keep them in jail for life without a trial)."
Will that do for a start?
So 200,000 could not possibly have been killed and disappeared in Guatemala over a period of years, because that's 2% of the present population? How does that follow? A third of East Timor's population was wiped out by the Indonesian army, againw ith US and British assistance. You think 200,000 Guatemalans is so very unbelievable?
3 22 a.htmw oam.htm l8 /gu atem.htm
http://www.converge.org.nz/lac/articles/news990
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0327/p08s01-
http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/tunion/199
Likewise, you keep repeating that Allende was elected democratically, as if this made it okay that he suspended Chile's democracy and called in foreign troops to help suppress his rivals.
Pardon? What foreign troops?
You offer various theories as to why Pinochet created democracy, but you cannot deny that he did.
I never offered any theories about Pinochet "creating democracy". He was asked to leave by the White House, so he did. The Chilean people themselves created any democracy there, despite our and Pinochet's best efforts. Good luck to them: they deserve a decent life after what we put them through. Why do you continue to act as an apologist for a brutal dictator without a democratic bone in his body?
And you repeat the claim that the CIA was behind Pinochet's coup, even though you yourself posted documents earlier in this thread denying that.
You appear to be confusing me with some other person rebutting your right-wing claptrap: I did no such thing. May I see the link to documents I posted denying the CIA was behind Pinochet's coup please?
We'll leave aside the books you suggest -- I've read two of them, and they are standard lefty drivel, full of undocumented claims, wild conspiracy theories, and improbable anecdotes.
"Standard lefty drivel", that's rather imprecise. Kindly name some "undocumented claims" from any of the three books I suggested, and I will document them for you.
Nor does Kerala make a good example -- it may or may not call itself communist (I am not convinced that it does)
You're not? Well, what would convince you? It has on and off since 1957 been ruled by a majority of elected Communist Party members. What else would you call it?
Your other examples are equally flawed, from Guatemala, where for all your complaining the people you name did establish a democracy which is free and strong to this day,
The right-wing junta was finally wound up once it was no longer necessary to suppress the popular left-wing movement. They "went legit", like mafias eventually do everywhere. No-one has answered for the terrible mass murders commited by the right-wing government there, the over 200,000 dead and disappeared. But this is beside the point. A peacful democratic Communist movement was brutally suppressed by right-wing totalitarians, rebutting your contention that "every single government which has described itself as communist has been murderous and totalitarian. Every single one." Perhaps you would like to qualify that statement, now that you are faced with evidence to the contary?
to Pinochet, who stepped down peacably when voted out of office in elections he had called --
Repsonding to pressure from the Reagan administration, which was embarrassed by all the bad publicity, and no longer had any significant left-wing opposition remaining to worry about in Chile. Pinochet had become a liability, so the US asked him to step down. Pinochet made sure to pass a law granting himself and all his torturing, murdering pals immunity before stepping down, of course. They're still fighting that battle now in the courts. But once again, this is beside the point. The Marxist Allende govenrment was democratically elected, and the right-wing Pinochet tore the elected government down in a coup, supported by the US. Your original statement, that "every single government which has described itself as communist has been murderous and totalitarian. Every single one." is once again proven demonstrably false.
Will you be revising that earlier statement then?
Now you, and others, keep claiming this, but the fact remains that every single government which has described itself as communist has been murderous and totalitarian. Every single one. And every single one has said, as you say, that `what went before was not really communism. We are the true communism.'
So, while you may say `trust us, we'll be different this time, we mean it', you'll have to forgive us if we're not willing to take that chance.
You believe that because you've only read the history that tells you about the totalitarian ones. Read "Rogue State" by Philip Blum. When you've finished that, try "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, and "Heroes" by John Pilger.
The fact is that there have been many attempts at democratic socialist and communist states, e.g. Kerala state in India, Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, and they have been mostly been stamped down hard by murderous, totalitarian right-wing regimes, usually assisted by the United States gov't. I'm talking about murderous, totalitarian right-wing regimes like Indonesia, Peru, Chile and Colombia, with murderous totalitarian dictators like Batista in Cuba, Pinochet in Chile, Stroessner in Paraguay, Somoza in El Salvador, the Shah of Iran, etc. President Reagan once described Gen. Efrain Rios-Montt, the butcher of Guatemala, as "totally dedicated to democracy", and complained that he'd had a "bum rap" on human rights.
For that matter, the US is happy enough to support China, which is about as "Communist" today as it has ever been, to the point of extending them Most Favored Nation trading status, regardless of their brutal totalitarian practices. It's not the ideology that the US objects to you, you see, it's the money. So long as the money flows, so long as there's oil, or chromium, or bauxite, or new markets for Nike and Microsoft, or whatever else the US govt is after that week, "Communist" or "Capitalist", it makes no difference.
I was raised to believe the same right-wing propaganda as you were, pal. It never occurred to me that my teachers and parents could have got it so completely wrong. Go read the history for yourself, and decide for yourself whether ideology has any connection with totalitarianism.
For the same reasons that the Euro was floated at a rate to settle very near 1 Euro = 1 Dollar, I predict the new dollar colours will be matched to Euro colours.
Then they can merge the two currencies with ease, when the EU merges with NAFTA.
Read a capsule summary of his views here, if you want to know where the man himself stood.
Oops, sorry, there appear to be some broken links on that last mirror list, should've checked them all I guess.g es/OpenOffice/ (de, fr)p enoffice.org/ (de, fr)n esia FTP ftp://sapi.vlsm.org/openoffice/win32split/c e.org/
Here's what looks like a more authoritative list, from Google's cache of the 641d build page:
Australia FTP/HTTP - http://planetmirror.com/pub/openoffice/
Austria HTTP - http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/office/openoffice/ (de, fr)
Austria FTP - ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/office/openoffice/ (de, fr)
Belgium FTP - ftp://openoffice.vosberg.be (de, nl)
Belgium HTTP http://www.edumail.be/index.php/static/openoffice (de, nl)
China P.R. HTTP http://office.qkaka.com/ (All listed localizations)
Denmark HTTP http://mirrors.sunsite.dk/openoffice/(da)
Denmark FTP ftp://sunsite.dk/mirrors/openoffice/ (da)
Finland HTTP http://www.kongogroup.com/openoffice/oo.asp (fi-only?)
Germany FTP ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/misc/openoffice/ (de)
Germany HTTP http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/misc/openoffice/ (de)
Germany FTP ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/packa
Germany FTP ftp://openoffice.tu-bs.de/OpenOffice.org/641c/ (de, fr)
Germany FTP ftp://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/ftp.o
Germany FTP ftp://ftp.stardiv.de/pub/OpenOffice.org/ (de, fr, es, sv, pt, zh-cn, zh-tw)
Hungary FTP/HTTP http://office.fsf.hu/letoltes.html (hu)
Iceland FTP ftp://ftp.rhnet.is/pub/OpenOffice
Iceland HTTP http://ftp.rhnet.is/pub/OpenOffice
Indonesia HTTP http://sapi.vlsm.org/openoffice/win32split/
Indo
Italy FTP/HTTP http://openoffice.e4a.it/ (it)
Mexico FTP ftp://mirrors.unam.mx/pub/OpenOffice/
Netherlands FTP ftp://borft.student.utwente.nl (nl)
Netherlands HTTP http://borft.student.utwente.nl/openoffice/ (nl)
Netherlands HTTP http://niihau.student.utwente.nl/openoffice/ (nl)
Poland FTP ftp://ftp.openoffice.pl/ (pl; NOTE: please use an FTP client program if your browser doesn't download the files)
Spain FTP ftp://ftp.cyberfenix.net/pub/openoffice(ca, es)
Spain HTTP http://ftp.cyberfenix.net (ca, es)
Spain HTTP http://ftp.rediris.es/ftp/mirror/openoffice.org/ (ca, es)
Spain FTP ftp://ftp.rediris.es/mirror/openoffice.org (ca, es)
Sweden FTP http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Office/OpenOffice.org/ (sv)
Switzerland FTP ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror/OpenOffice/ (de, fr)
U.K. HTTP http://www.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ny1.mirror.openoffi
U.S.A. FTP ftp://ftp.mn-linux.org/linux/openoffice(Linux only)
Courtesy of good ol' Google:
Sunsite.dk HTTP, Denmark -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Qkaka HTTP, China P.R. -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Utwente HTTP/FTP, Netherlands -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Planet Mirror HTTP, Australia -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
VLSM HTTP/FTP, Indonesia -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
E4A HTTP, Italy -
English and italian binaries.
Edumail HTTP, Belgium -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Giganet HTTP, Hungary -
Mirror with sources, binaries.
GD TU Wien HTTP/FTP, Austria -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Stud FHT-Esslingen FTP, Germany -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
3Way FTP, Hong Kong, China P.R. -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
RWTH-Aachen FTP, Germany -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files (german, french, english).
PWR Wroc FTP, Poland -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Sunsite Cnlab-Switch FTP, Switzerland -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files (german, french, english).
CHG FTP, Russia -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Mirror AC HTTP, United Kingdom -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Unam FTP, Mexico -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Stardiv FTP, Germany -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files (german, french, english).
Thanks OpenOffice team!
That must be the San Francisco-based subsidiary of Rogue Wave, right?