Even better, they apparently hired him to write Perl scripts, when he didn't know Perl at all.
Whatta stellar business plan!
Me, I'm gonna hire rubbies outta the back alleys, and go for an IPO. I figure they'll work for aftershave, so I won't even have to give away stock options!
But it is something to worry about: once again, corrupt politicos are selling out on the people they are supposed to represent.
It's time to demand reforms to the political contribution system. The public interest has quite clearly become secondary to the almighty buck. Hell, it's probably already too late to get things changed... we've been bought and sold down the river.
...conventional phones (ie. land-line phones) are already obsolete.
Cell phone technology in North America (USA and Canada) is primitive compared to what Europe has, and what Europe has will be considered primitive in China, once that country gets its shit together. All part of the advantage of bypassing several stages of development...
Just a guy who's attempting to be well-informed, and attempting to help others choose opinions and actions that target a long-term solution instead of exacerbating it.
I'm a guy who tries to be a basically "nice" guy: pleasant, polite, helpful. I believe that if more people were to make more effort to be kind, we could develop a much better world. I get frustrated -- overly so -- with people who act selfishly, inconsiderately, or who remain willfully ignorant. And, yes, I fuck up sometimes.
Finally, I'm a guy that wants people to think. There are a lot of people operating out of raw emotion, and that's not appropriate to the situation. Grieve and be angry, yes, but don't act out in those emotions.
(The brain develops in several layers, with our convoluted cerebellum being a thin veneer over our ancient animal history. Our emotions are lizard reactions to stimulus, and while they serve us well in dealing with immediate threats to our safety, they aren't much use for long-term planning.)
Seems this is an appropriate place to toss out a couple of new attack-related sites.
First, Jane's Security has some ideas about who may be behind this attack... and it ain't bin Laden.
Second, Political Cartoons, a collection of attack-related cartoons. Some are worth a second look: you can draw opposing interpretations from them.
The Dalai Lama's letter to Bush. Worth reading twice: it's short, and important.
Bush's Language: why calling this a "crusade" is rather foolish.
Also, I'd like to apologize for a previous post in which I used the word "accident" in lieu of "attack." My mind was somewhere else, and I think it was trying to fool itself about the atrocity of the attack.
This can be a sick and cruel world, or a world of joy and life. I encourage you to encourage others to choose the latter. Let's stop the hatred within our own communities, as we try to stop the hatred between nations.
Seatbelt laws do nothing to resolve the root cause of the tragedy of traffic deaths in this country.
The root cause is that as long as you're breathing when you apply for a license, you get a license. You do not have to be skilled, alert, trained, or competent. You just have to be breathing.
If the government(s) wanted to save tens of thousands of lives, they'd make accreditted driver training mandatory, set a high skill requirements level for the driving test, and require re-testing every 'x' years.
But this would be far more risky a move than creating wanking laws about encryption.
Disclaimer: I am not denying that the WTC attack is a tragedy, I am not denying that something needs to be done. I am merely presenting some facts that may place things into a bit better perspective.
WTC death toll: ~5200
US weekly deaths attributable to smoking: ~9000
US weekly deaths attributable to traffic accidents: ~3400
US weekly deaths attributable to drinking: ~2300
Five thousand dead in a single accident is, indeed, highly tragic and morally outrageous: our anger is justified.
We have far, FAR more people dying of smoking, including a lot of deaths caused by second-hand smoke. Yet the government is doing nothing to protect the victims -- often children in a smoking household -- from this attack on their right to life.
We have far, far more people dying in traffic accidents, and it's very likely that nearly half those deaths are victims of another driver's idiocy. Yet the government is doing nothing to protect us from those drivers, even though the solution is as simple as instituting mandatory driver training and a higher quality of testing.
We also have too many people dying because of alcohol. Yet the government isn't serious about cracking down on, say, drinking drivers; nor does it get tough on violence that's been exacerbated by drinking.
My point? There are plenty of tragedies happening every day. But this time it's got people panicked, so it's far easier to get draconian laws in place.
Trust the government? No. It doesn't act rationally.
You look back, and you can clearly see that the US and other governments were heading this direction.
It's little surprise, then, that they are taking advantage of this opportunity to achieve their goals much, much faster, with far, far less trouble from the masses.
We'll soon have a passively numb population who have no expectation of privacy, no desire to become informed, and no passion for influencing the direction of government.
Baa! Baa! Baa!
Sheep are good. They buy consumer products without questioning their value, quality, or necessity. They pay their taxes without questioning where the money goes. They go to work and meekly accept lousy pay and lousy conditions. They don't challenge the laws. They don't cause trouble.
That's what the corporations want. That's what the governments want. And that's what we're going to get.
Why would I refer to it? I don't have issue with that bit. I don't think it's an adequate explanation, but I don't care to argue it.
I suspect that if the West pulls out -- which means removing the Western-owned/run businesses, troops, etc, but leaving those who work for Arabs in Arab businesses -- that he'd be very much pacified. Yes, the Western guests in his country would have to toe the Islamic line, but that's how it works when you go to any country.
As for "note etc," yes, so? It's not a Western country, so I hardly expect it to hold Western values. Over time, it will develop more freedoms, just as our own culture has.
I don't see any point in storming in and demanding that they change overnight: it won't succeed, because cultural change is a slow, evolutionary process. When you try to force it, you get things like airplanes flying into buildings.
Anyway, I'll cut this short. I don't think these details are hugely important, and don't care to argue.
To govern Afghanistan successfully, we'd have to give them what they want: first, safety. Second, food and shelter. Third, hope for the future.
Safetywise, the governing power would have to be every bit as cruel as the Taliban: criminal acts punished immediately and severely.
Food and shelter: humanitarian aid would be a starter, but the ultimate goal must be to help them develop better farming methods. Shelter is easy: mud houses are acceptable.
And then one must begin helping them build a future: train students for medical and engineering and farming. Start hiring bodies to build roads -- by hand, not by machine: the need is for make-work and pay, not efficiency -- and houses and markets. And, lastly, help them develop a self-governing structure that works for them, which is to say that it may not be a democratic structure, but a tribal structure.
All of this would take time, skill, and patience. I doubt the world leaders care for this: they want action, now, even if it will ultimately be ineffective.
bin Laden is not about Afghanistan: he's about Saudi Arabia, where there are McD's, where the chador is going out of fashion, where Western cultural imperialism is stomping out eons-old traditions and faith.
Re:About time they invented a new kind of war!
on
A New Kind of War
·
· Score: 2
Or on the other hand, the West could choose to not infiltrate the mid-East.
Why the fuck is it necessary to have a shit-serving McDonalds in every nation on earth?
Why must the mid-East culture be destroyed and replaced with a clone of American culture?
I always thought the main argument of biologists, software developers, satellite television, and more was "variety is good." So why, then, is a variety of cultures considered not good?
Re:Different enemy, different approach (long)
on
A New Kind of War
·
· Score: 2
I think one point needs to be emphasised from your post:
The allied nations are not interested in putting a halt to all terrorism: they just want terrorism to "stay at home."
There has been absolutely no sign that the USA has even remotely considered assisting Britain in ridding itself of the IRA/Orange terrorists, nor the New Yorkers who fund them. That's because the IRA/Orange are good little terrorists: they don't leave the borders of the nation.
Nor is anyone talking about getting rid of the Basque freedom fighters, Tamil Tigers, or any other of the documented terror groups.
The clear message I'm getting: If you're a terrorist organization, you can continue killing people, as long as you keep doing it within your own nation.
I'm not entirely sure that he's upset that we "set foot" in his homeland, but that the Western culture is destroying the mid-East culture.
My gut instinct is that if we were to let the Arabian countries keep their culture -- which means that McDonalds and Coca-Cola would just have to admit defeat in at least one nation in this world -- there'd be a lot of peace gained.
re: foreign aid -- how much of that do you really think made it to the millions of starving civilians, and wasn't diverted by gangs?
It's the same big deal as Napster: the digital age allows far greater abuse of rights than ever previously.
Used to be that if someone ("Big Brother") wanted to watch your every move, he'd have to assign a full-time agent to follow you. It was expensive and obvious, with limited opportunity for exploitation.
But with the wonders of technology, your every freakin' move can be tracked throughout the day: cheaply, subtlely, and with great opportunities for data-mining abuse.
(The Napster abuse, for those that need it spelled out: endless generation of audio-perfect copies, shared with an unlimited public.)
"In some cases, like the Gulf War, the interests of the West happened to align with the interests of moderate Islamic states like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia."
Yes. So much so that, two days before Hussein invaded Kuwait, the US government (I forget who the representative was) had met with him and, on hearing that he planned to take Kuwait back, nodded and said that the USA had no special interest in Kuwait, and didn't much care what he did.
I have no recollection of the Canary Wharf incident. Please tell more about it -- I rather suspect that we in North America weren't ever informed by our media...
(OTOH, I could have been disgusted with our media at the time, and had given up watching/reading it...)
I didn't get into railing against the US government's support of terrorists -- and it has supported *a lot* of terrorists over the years -- because some blindly patriotic retard who refuses to acknowledge facts would have modded the message down.
Those who aren't blinded will understand that the US government needs to be bitchslapped for supporting terrorists.
Slashdot Mirror
Even better, they apparently hired him to write Perl scripts, when he didn't know Perl at all.
Whatta stellar business plan!
Me, I'm gonna hire rubbies outta the back alleys, and go for an IPO. I figure they'll work for aftershave, so I won't even have to give away stock options!
But it is something to worry about: once again, corrupt politicos are selling out on the people they are supposed to represent.
It's time to demand reforms to the political contribution system. The public interest has quite clearly become secondary to the almighty buck. Hell, it's probably already too late to get things changed... we've been bought and sold down the river.
...conventional phones (ie. land-line phones) are already obsolete.
Cell phone technology in North America (USA and Canada) is primitive compared to what Europe has, and what Europe has will be considered primitive in China, once that country gets its shit together. All part of the advantage of bypassing several stages of development...
Isn't anger an emotional state that primes one's body for a fight? Isn't sympathy an emotional state that supports pack survival?
It's a useful concept: it can help you analyse your impulsive behaviour, and decide whether it will be beneficial or harmful in the long run.
As with all reductionist concepts, it isn't the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That doesn't deny its usefulness.
I think I'll always remember the Batman sound-bite: "we will rid the world of evil-doers!"
But what need of speech have we, when we have live video feeds providing us with visual memories?
Just a guy who's attempting to be well-informed, and attempting to help others choose opinions and actions that target a long-term solution instead of exacerbating it.
I'm a guy who tries to be a basically "nice" guy: pleasant, polite, helpful. I believe that if more people were to make more effort to be kind, we could develop a much better world. I get frustrated -- overly so -- with people who act selfishly, inconsiderately, or who remain willfully ignorant. And, yes, I fuck up sometimes.
Finally, I'm a guy that wants people to think. There are a lot of people operating out of raw emotion, and that's not appropriate to the situation. Grieve and be angry, yes, but don't act out in those emotions.
(The brain develops in several layers, with our convoluted cerebellum being a thin veneer over our ancient animal history. Our emotions are lizard reactions to stimulus, and while they serve us well in dealing with immediate threats to our safety, they aren't much use for long-term planning.)
Seems this is an appropriate place to toss out a couple of new attack-related sites.
First, Jane's Security has some ideas about who may be behind this attack... and it ain't bin Laden.
Second, Political Cartoons, a collection of attack-related cartoons. Some are worth a second look: you can draw opposing interpretations from them.
The Dalai Lama's letter to Bush. Worth reading twice: it's short, and important.
Bush's Language: why calling this a "crusade" is rather foolish.
Also, I'd like to apologize for a previous post in which I used the word "accident" in lieu of "attack." My mind was somewhere else, and I think it was trying to fool itself about the atrocity of the attack.
This can be a sick and cruel world, or a world of joy and life. I encourage you to encourage others to choose the latter. Let's stop the hatred within our own communities, as we try to stop the hatred between nations.
Oops. A cut-n-paste typo: that should have read "monthly." My bad.
Seatbelt laws do nothing to resolve the root cause of the tragedy of traffic deaths in this country.
The root cause is that as long as you're breathing when you apply for a license, you get a license. You do not have to be skilled, alert, trained, or competent. You just have to be breathing.
If the government(s) wanted to save tens of thousands of lives, they'd make accreditted driver training mandatory, set a high skill requirements level for the driving test, and require re-testing every 'x' years.
But this would be far more risky a move than creating wanking laws about encryption.
Disclaimer: I am not denying that the WTC attack is a tragedy, I am not denying that something needs to be done. I am merely presenting some facts that may place things into a bit better perspective.
WTC death toll: ~5200
US weekly deaths attributable to smoking: ~9000
US weekly deaths attributable to traffic accidents: ~3400
US weekly deaths attributable to drinking: ~2300
Five thousand dead in a single accident is, indeed, highly tragic and morally outrageous: our anger is justified.
We have far, FAR more people dying of smoking, including a lot of deaths caused by second-hand smoke. Yet the government is doing nothing to protect the victims -- often children in a smoking household -- from this attack on their right to life.
We have far, far more people dying in traffic accidents, and it's very likely that nearly half those deaths are victims of another driver's idiocy. Yet the government is doing nothing to protect us from those drivers, even though the solution is as simple as instituting mandatory driver training and a higher quality of testing.
We also have too many people dying because of alcohol. Yet the government isn't serious about cracking down on, say, drinking drivers; nor does it get tough on violence that's been exacerbated by drinking.
My point? There are plenty of tragedies happening every day. But this time it's got people panicked, so it's far easier to get draconian laws in place.
Trust the government? No. It doesn't act rationally.
[Sources: US CDC, NHTSA]
Hindsight is 20-20.
You look back, and you can clearly see that the US and other governments were heading this direction.
It's little surprise, then, that they are taking advantage of this opportunity to achieve their goals much, much faster, with far, far less trouble from the masses.
We'll soon have a passively numb population who have no expectation of privacy, no desire to become informed, and no passion for influencing the direction of government.
Baa! Baa! Baa!
Sheep are good. They buy consumer products without questioning their value, quality, or necessity. They pay their taxes without questioning where the money goes. They go to work and meekly accept lousy pay and lousy conditions. They don't challenge the laws. They don't cause trouble.
That's what the corporations want. That's what the governments want. And that's what we're going to get.
Why would I refer to it? I don't have issue with that bit. I don't think it's an adequate explanation, but I don't care to argue it.
I suspect that if the West pulls out -- which means removing the Western-owned/run businesses, troops, etc, but leaving those who work for Arabs in Arab businesses -- that he'd be very much pacified. Yes, the Western guests in his country would have to toe the Islamic line, but that's how it works when you go to any country.
As for "note etc," yes, so? It's not a Western country, so I hardly expect it to hold Western values. Over time, it will develop more freedoms, just as our own culture has.
I don't see any point in storming in and demanding that they change overnight: it won't succeed, because cultural change is a slow, evolutionary process. When you try to force it, you get things like airplanes flying into buildings.
Anyway, I'll cut this short. I don't think these details are hugely important, and don't care to argue.
Afghanistan is primarily an agrarian country. It has never made the leap to industrialized status. And, perhaps, it doesn't need to.
Read this article on Afghanistan. Yes, it's long and difficult, but it is extremely insightful.
To govern Afghanistan successfully, we'd have to give them what they want: first, safety. Second, food and shelter. Third, hope for the future.
Safetywise, the governing power would have to be every bit as cruel as the Taliban: criminal acts punished immediately and severely.
Food and shelter: humanitarian aid would be a starter, but the ultimate goal must be to help them develop better farming methods. Shelter is easy: mud houses are acceptable.
And then one must begin helping them build a future: train students for medical and engineering and farming. Start hiring bodies to build roads -- by hand, not by machine: the need is for make-work and pay, not efficiency -- and houses and markets. And, lastly, help them develop a self-governing structure that works for them, which is to say that it may not be a democratic structure, but a tribal structure.
All of this would take time, skill, and patience. I doubt the world leaders care for this: they want action, now, even if it will ultimately be ineffective.
bin Laden is not about Afghanistan: he's about Saudi Arabia, where there are McD's, where the chador is going out of fashion, where Western cultural imperialism is stomping out eons-old traditions and faith.
Or on the other hand, the West could choose to not infiltrate the mid-East.
Why the fuck is it necessary to have a shit-serving McDonalds in every nation on earth?
Why must the mid-East culture be destroyed and replaced with a clone of American culture?
I always thought the main argument of biologists, software developers, satellite television, and more was "variety is good." So why, then, is a variety of cultures considered not good?
I think one point needs to be emphasised from your post:
The allied nations are not interested in putting a halt to all terrorism: they just want terrorism to "stay at home."
There has been absolutely no sign that the USA has even remotely considered assisting Britain in ridding itself of the IRA/Orange terrorists, nor the New Yorkers who fund them. That's because the IRA/Orange are good little terrorists: they don't leave the borders of the nation.
Nor is anyone talking about getting rid of the Basque freedom fighters, Tamil Tigers, or any other of the documented terror groups .
The clear message I'm getting: If you're a terrorist organization, you can continue killing people, as long as you keep doing it within your own nation.
I'm not entirely sure that he's upset that we "set foot" in his homeland, but that the Western culture is destroying the mid-East culture.
My gut instinct is that if we were to let the Arabian countries keep their culture -- which means that McDonalds and Coca-Cola would just have to admit defeat in at least one nation in this world -- there'd be a lot of peace gained.
re: foreign aid -- how much of that do you really think made it to the millions of starving civilians, and wasn't diverted by gangs?
Amazing how as ol' Joe becomes older, he goes further and further to the right...
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7891/s addam_glaspie.html
l .h tml
2 2. html
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE5/apri
http://www.security-policy.org/papers/1991/91-P
Enjoy.
It's the same big deal as Napster: the digital age allows far greater abuse of rights than ever previously.
Used to be that if someone ("Big Brother") wanted to watch your every move, he'd have to assign a full-time agent to follow you. It was expensive and obvious, with limited opportunity for exploitation.
But with the wonders of technology, your every freakin' move can be tracked throughout the day: cheaply, subtlely, and with great opportunities for data-mining abuse.
(The Napster abuse, for those that need it spelled out: endless generation of audio-perfect copies, shared with an unlimited public.)
Keep your head in the sand like that, and you'll probably end up with a jetliner ramming up your ass. Again.
This is *great* need to fundamentally change *many* things. This event didn't happen in a vacuum.
Either things change, or history will repeat itself.
Question: If Israel can't survive as a state without massive US intervention... why continue to support it?
Seriously, is there *ANY* other country that exists only because it's kept on life-support by the US?
Move Israel to Florida, and be done with it.
"In some cases, like the Gulf War, the interests of the West happened to align with the interests of moderate Islamic states like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia."
Yes. So much so that, two days before Hussein invaded Kuwait, the US government (I forget who the representative was) had met with him and, on hearing that he planned to take Kuwait back, nodded and said that the USA had no special interest in Kuwait, and didn't much care what he did.
Now, why do you suppose she set him up like that?
I have no recollection of the Canary Wharf incident. Please tell more about it -- I rather suspect that we in North America weren't ever informed by our media...
(OTOH, I could have been disgusted with our media at the time, and had given up watching/reading it...)
No, the irony is very funny.
I didn't get into railing against the US government's support of terrorists -- and it has supported *a lot* of terrorists over the years -- because some blindly patriotic retard who refuses to acknowledge facts would have modded the message down.
Those who aren't blinded will understand that the US government needs to be bitchslapped for supporting terrorists.