If you RTFA, you would see that he currently has a job as a Flash game developer, thus freelancing with Fuddruckers would likely be seen as a conflict of interest by his current employer. The best he could do would be to refer Fuddruckers to his current employer, if they were in the market of selling promotional games.
And even then, if he were to send that "polite email", do you really think the webmaster for Fuddruckers would then pay his company for a game when they obviously see nothing wrong with linking to available games for free?
"You make some good arguments. Code signing is not a panacea, but it does add value. saying it sucks because it doesn't solve world hunger is a worthless criticism of a good technology."
Yes, but one could argue that in this case, the technology is misleading. The average user (unlike an experienced hacker who knows not to click the "always trust" box) may wrongly interpret code signing as a panacea, or at least something close to one. This can give them a false sense of security, which can be a huge risk.
Except that "one year anomaly" continued for another quarter century. The Atlantic cycles between times with very heavy hurricane seasons and times with very light hurricane seasons, its been doing that since we started keeping track of such events.
They are causing more damage these days because we have more dense groups of populations in vulnerable areas (like New Orleans). Thats different from the natural conditions being different.
I apologize, I have to go to work during they day and perform other various activites and cannot respond to everything that someone posts on the web. Now please go and get a life.
""We didn't know everything then" is gonna be cold comfort in 50 years when we realize we could have done a wide variety of things, of varying degres of unpleasantness to hedge our bets against climate change."
I never said don't do anything, just don't misrepresent scientific research to pursue a political agenda. Let me give you an example. Would you agree that it is good idea to curb drug use in public schools? If so, do you think we should fund programs to tell kids that if they smoke one joint of pot, they will die a nasty death? No, it merely cheapens the argument.
If you tell people that global warming is going to kill us all, one of two things will happen. Either they won't believe you (for good reason) and will do nothing, or they will jump on some quick fix solution (like Kyoto) which will only do more harm than good. What is wrong with just honestly reporting the risks involved? It should be enough to convince people to conserve energy. Hell even without global warming, there are plenty of reasons to conserve energy.
"As for the argument that it will "destroy" the economy - if a hurricane does a nice job of destroying a local economy, think about what changes an order of magnitude larger geographically and possibly in magnitude can do. And there's no consensus among economists that changes to reduce emissions will be all that bad for the economy. If there's unpredictable risk on either side, how is doing nothing the safe or wise alternative?"
We are not doing nothing, we are investing quite a bit in research to help solve the various problems (and for the record, just because you don't hear about it doesn't mean its not going on). However, any realistic solution will take time, so we need to pursue short term solutions to our energy needs as well (and like it or not, that usually involves oil).
And the idea that Kyoto includes changes to reduce emissions is just false. It merely requires us to pay off countries like Russia because they have much easier targets to reach.
"That means, for example, putting in place fuel efficiency standards that discourage making fuel-inefficient vehicles."
We have those, they are called gas prices.
In addition, the government sets CAFE standards which require automobile manufacturers to adhere to efficiency standards or pay fines. Their track record isn't that great.
"It really depends on who "we" are. If "we" is the majority of the world's scientists, then yes, "we" do know it will happen."
Ok, if you'd prefer to pick up a "magic" crystal ball and claim it is a replacement for the scientific method, and in doing so pretend that scientists agree with you, there is nothing I can do for you.
"Whether you like the man or hate him, you have to admit that he has done more to increase global warming than any other president in the last two decades, maybe even the last half century. He has pushed for more drilling in formerly protected wilderness areas. He has given huge subsidies to the energy industry-- see the latest energy bill for some examples. And whatever his motivation for invading Iraq was (I'm not going to go into that) the effect has certainly been to secure a supply of petroleum for us. These are not the actions of a man who takes climate change seriously."
Well yeah, if it were not for those damn controlled lumber projects, global warming would never happen. And if only the energy companies didn't get any subsidies (which Bush actually opposed, but thats a minor detail that you surely won't concern yourself with), they would somehow be able to invest more into alternative energies, thus making global warming a thing of the past. I'm not going to ask for an explanation as to how all that contributed to global warming (especially since this would probably have been inevitable before Bush even took office), because I know I am not going to get one.
Leave behind the Ralph Nader talking points for a second and go back and read my origional question. Then take a breath and try to answer it. What do you expect Bush to do now?
Private American citizens are the ones who pollute. They are the ones who leave the lights on when they go to work and who drive cars much larger than are needed. And like it or not, we do not live in a state where the government can force private citizens to act in a certain way.
Uh, Charley and Frances were category 4s. And while at one point it was a 5, by the time Ivan hit the US it was a 3. Jeanne never got above a category 3 rating.
Yeah, it would be ridiculous that a year like 1933 with its 10 hurricanes (thats twice the number the previous poster was worried about) could possibly exist. Everyone knows we went straight from 1932 to 1934.
Actually 1932 was pretty bad as well. That skip must have started in 1931.
" You link this hurricane to global warming and I'll do a backflip
Start doing backflips sonny. This particular hurricane cannot of course be specifically blamed on global warning..."
Dang, I was hoping to see some backflips.
"When you start getting one in a decade hurricanes several times a decade, or you get 4 or 5 hurricanes per season, you should consider yourself put on notice."
We are seeing that now; in 2004 we had Alex, Charely, Danielle, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne, Karl, and Lisa. We have also seen that in the past, such as during the 40's and 50's. We constantly cycle between decades with heavy hurricane seasons and decades with light ones.
Nope. Antartica (which is home to 90% of the world's ice) has been growing recently, and most recent models suggest that greenhouse gas induced climate change will actually encourage this by bringing mroe precipitation to the usually dry area. Even a worst case scenario wouldn't do much to warm our southern friend, where temperatures as low as -89.4C have been recorded.
"I can see it now, given the remarkable anti-intellectualism sweeping the nation (and Slashdot recently) we are going to be seeing comments here like "Awww, them dang scientists. What do they know?"
How about instead we say "Awww, them dang/. writers. What do they know?"
Seriously, the title of this story posted on/. is "Ice-Free Summers Coming To Artic". The first sentence is "CNET reports that researchers from the University of Arizona and other universities have concluded that the Arctic will likely see ice-free summers within a century due to the increasing rate of global warming". Already, one may note the fairly radical change of tone from the attention grabbing headline stating with some certainty that something is going to happen to the summary which states its only "likely". But then for the very few of us who actually go on to RTFA, we see that it contains neither of those sentiments. It does not say this is certain to happen, or even that it is "likely". What it says is a more cautious "Ice-free summers--a phenomenon that hasn't occurred in the Arctic in a million years--could become a reality in a century because of warming trends, researchers said".
For some reason I cannot understand, people like you want to reduce the argument to a "We know it will happen" vs. "We know it won't happen" argument. Unfortunately, neither is true. We don't know what will happen in the next hundred years or so, we know what might happen. The Earth's climate depends on a number of factors, CO2 is only one of many.
"So, the evidence is mounting to the point where even the Bush administration is having to acknowledge that global warming is a reality."
Lets put aside for the moment that he did, I know it pains you to not be able to bash Bush on something.
Why? What do you expect him to do, make sure he remembers to turn off the lights to the Oval Office? Launch a giant mirror into orbit to reflect sunlight? If you were to actually RTFA, if their calculations are right at this point these changes are inevitable. Buying hybrid cars that get maybe ten more miles to the gallon won't do squat. Hell we were probably doomed by the 70's.
Ok, indirectly Google's success could hurt MS. However, it is not about MS's potential loss of intellectual property with him not under their payroll as implied by the origional poster.
"Here, we have a company suing over potential losses in intellectual property which might result an employee leaving their job."
Actually its over a breach of contract. And its not about his old employer's potential losses, its about his new employer's potential gains. And its not over him leaving his job, its from him taking a similar job with another company in which knowledge of his old employer's confidential information would, according to Microsoft, would influence him in his new job.
What about the other 44% of the population of computer users? They already can use an alternative operating system for their normal computer use, and they still by a wide margin use Windows.
Application availability is only a small factor in determining what system someone uses.
Re:Google hasn't peaked.
on
Has Google Peaked?
·
· Score: 4, Informative
"Google has a lot of project in the works, including Gmail, Gtalk, Google Desktop, etc. These projects are anything but mainstream and have a LOT of room for growth. Hell, there's still even room for growth in their primary market, the search engine. Though they are huge, they are far from owning that market."
Yes, but out of all their many products, they have only one major source of income, Adsense. Their entire business model is based on advertising. Remember how the dot-com boom in the late 90's turned out? And how many of their products work well with Adsense? While I occasionally find the ads coming off of search results useful, I've never seen anything in gmail that was remotely helpful.
"As for me, I'm convinced that if anyone will ever knock off Microsoft, it will be an OS that gets game developers behind them. I've said for years that as weird as it sounds, gamers drive the market. Not many people use computers at home or school for productive uses, most people use them for playing games."
I know these are somewhat old numbers, but according to the census bureau in '01:
55.9% of computer uers play games (though that probably counts games like solitare and freecell as well as City of Heroes and Warcraft).
58.1% use it for word processing.
83.5% use it for email.
89.5% use it for the Internet.
So there are more popular uses.
"If City of Heroes ran on Linux, I would probably go ahead to switch to a Linux-only system, if for no other reason than it's free and I don't have to buy a new version every few years."
Try Cedega, I've heard it works fine with that particular game. Not so sure about plain old wine though.
"Viewing is a whole hell of a lot different from recording, archiving and cataloging."
Archiving information is different from searching. So you are not arguing that this is an "unreasonable search", but that the government should not store this information. There is a clear difference between searching and storing information, and while one was limited by the Bill of Rights, the other is mandated (though in a much more limited form) by Article 1, Section 2.
"
In either case, the US government is not encouraging business relationships with those groups, while they are just as gung-ho as ever to support domestic business relationships with the Saudis."
Well neither group generally engages in "business relationships", though certainly there are many members of the US government who encourage ties to each group. And I believe both have tax-exempt status, so the government does provide incentives to give money to each (if you count that as a business transaction). But this line of argument is a red herring, the origional accusation was that the Saudi's must be guilty because they share ideology and through an indirect means funds with terrorists. Using that logic, PETA members and the Catholic Church must be guilty of terrorism as well.
"
No clairvoyance required, the CIA can read public news articles and analysis just as well as I can."
Now that I think of it, the CIA probably would want someone who can distinguish between facts and conjectures.
Ok, feel free to insert a CIA joke relating to that last statement here.
Is the owner a technical person, or a business person? Most likely it's the latter. In that case, complaining that you boss is "uneducated" because he is not a whiz with computers probably won't be great for your career. He won't see the situation as an incompetent manager with a skilled staff; he will see it as a decent manager with a bunch of jack-ass nerd employees who feel they are superior to everyone who thinks a RAID is used for killing roaches. Guess who he will blame if problems arise in your department?
And misusing the word "ignorant" like the author of the original question won't make you look good either.
"You greatly exaggerate my point in order to build up a strawman. I never said a thing about "freedom to be invisible" but I will say that these networked cameras are an unreasonable search. When the bill of rights was drafted, no one could have even conceived of such tools backed by databases and networks in the hands of the state. Thus, while it may not be popular opinion with the courts, I feel confident in believing that the authors of the bill of rights would consider them a direct violation our right to be secure in our person from unreasonable searches."
Your opinion of the viewpoints of people you never met notwithstanding, the courts have determined that viewing something in plain sight in a public place is not an unreasonable search. Guess whose opinion ends up mattering.
"
Hardly. Furthermore, in both or your examples they are a) not a government and b) not directly funding terrorist groups."
a) The Vatican set aside, so what? Are governments the only ones who can be held accountable for terrorist actions?
b) Want to make a bet? PETA has certainly donated money to ELF, which the FBI considers a domestic terrorist group. And you mentioned an indirect funding of terrorism by the Saudis (Saudi government -> Salafi organizations -> terrorists), not direct. Its very possible if you were to dig deep enough in the Catholic Church you would see the same thing. Its even possible you have donated money indirectly to violent groups. Each time you make a financial transaction, what do you do to verify that money does not get used for violent purposes?
That point put aside for a second, the post I was responding to only mentioned money as an afterthought. Its primary concern was the beliefs of the members of the Saudi government, the implication being that they should have been considered guilty of 9-11 because they believe in a radical form of Islam. Feel free to refine your statement if you see fit, just understand the error of that post.
"In many cases, this support is intended to redirect the blame they desevere for their part in the state of the middle-east squarely onto the shoulders of the west."
Are you telling me you know the intentions of leaders of foreign governments? I hope you work for the CIA, that clairvoyance will come in handy in preventing the next terrorist attack.
"The price isn't just $200 million. The price is a significant chunk of our freedom."
I hate to break it to you, but the freedom to be invisible in a public place (such as the NYC subways) is long gone. In fact, it never existed in the first place. These security cameras are not the telescreens from 1984.
"Saudi Arabia is by large the primary source of Salafism, a branch of Sunni Islam that is just a hairsbreadth away from readily justifying terrrorist attacks. Almost all government officials (aka members of the house of Saud) are Salafi themselves. There is a direct connection between Salafiyyah as exported (with state dollars) by Saudi Arabia and islamic terrorism in the west."
You could make the same connections between PETA and ALF/ELF or the Catholic Church and the guys who bomb abortion clinics. Does that mean we should round up all PETA members next time a drug research lab is bombed or all practicing Catholics next time an abortion doctor is killed? I find it ironic that you think surveillence cameras are an intolerable breach of our human rights, but that people should be considered guilty of a crime just because they have similar viewpoints of the actual perpetrators.
In case you are interested in real history, bin Laden and the Saudi government are not on good terms. He is still pissed at them for choosing the Americans instead of him to protect them back in '91.
"What terrorists? How would you "find and capture" them? Especially if they are dead in the attack? Suppose they don't want to bother the trains, and instead, oh, blow up the water pipelines? Can you place cameras everywhere? If you can, how will you answer the first two questions?"
Not all terrorist attacks are suicide attacks. Maybe you havn't been paying attention to the news lately, but not too long ago the London subways were bombed and surveillance cameras helped police determine their identities. No, this won't stop every possible type of terrorist attack, but it will help prevent a specific type of attack. If we had a two hundred million solution to all terrorist attacks, I would be pissed off that it hadn't already been implemented.
"Most terrorist plots busted up in the US are hatched by white men. Fact. How would this stop them? Or is this just a war on funny looking brown people, ignoring the crazy white men who are actually arming and plotting?"
Believe it or not, white people aren't like vampires. We will show up on video just as well as Arabs. And the fact that we are busting terrorist plots hatched by white guys is evidence they are not being ignored.
"Amazingly enough, the terrorists from the 9-11 attack were mostly Saudi Arabians -- and we haven't even said boo to the Saudis."
And amazingly people like you think that just because someone is from Saudi Arabia means they are agents of the Saudi government.
" From the article, on a lab in Britain after WWII:
they were concerned the government did not fully appreciate that science
in peace was as vital as science in war."
Well then its a good thing that the government considers the fight against terrorism a war.
Let me see if I get this guy's argument. Bush is against science, specifically in his words, "not just on global warming and stem cells, currently in the news, but on a whole range of issues - lead and mercury poisoning in children, women's health, birth control, safety standards for drinking water, forest management, air pollution and on and on". So as a result, again in his words, "young Americans are opting for better paid law and medicine over science and engineering (jobs)...". Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most of those areas of science have more to do medicine than engineering? If all young Americans were just following this guy's perception of Bush's views on science, then shouldn't we be seeing a decline in the number of Americans studying medicine and an increase in the number of Americans studying engineering to go work for defense contractors?
Isn't a more plausible explanation that the rest of the world is catching up in science and engineering and that American's are free to disagree with their president?
"The stated result of Patent Reform Act of 2005, HR 2795 is supposed to make the system work 'more efficiently' and be 'less prone to litigation.'"
Well lets see, the current system takes years for a patent to get a rubber stamp from the USPTO. Then it is up to the courts to determine whether or not it is a legit patent if, sorry, when someone challenges it.
At least Congress is now setting reachable goals...
"The American media is run by big business, so its intrinsic purpose is NOT to report news like in some places, or be a mouthpiece for the government in some other places. Its purpose is to make money, like all big businesses do, and they do it by reporting news and generating ad revenue."
Are you trying to imply that non-"big business" media outlets (like for instance/.) never sensationalize news?
Slashdot Mirror
And even then, if he were to send that "polite email", do you really think the webmaster for Fuddruckers would then pay his company for a game when they obviously see nothing wrong with linking to available games for free?
Yes, but one could argue that in this case, the technology is misleading. The average user (unlike an experienced hacker who knows not to click the "always trust" box) may wrongly interpret code signing as a panacea, or at least something close to one. This can give them a false sense of security, which can be a huge risk.
They are causing more damage these days because we have more dense groups of populations in vulnerable areas (like New Orleans). Thats different from the natural conditions being different.
I apologize, I have to go to work during they day and perform other various activites and cannot respond to everything that someone posts on the web. Now please go and get a life.
I never said don't do anything, just don't misrepresent scientific research to pursue a political agenda. Let me give you an example. Would you agree that it is good idea to curb drug use in public schools? If so, do you think we should fund programs to tell kids that if they smoke one joint of pot, they will die a nasty death? No, it merely cheapens the argument.
If you tell people that global warming is going to kill us all, one of two things will happen. Either they won't believe you (for good reason) and will do nothing, or they will jump on some quick fix solution (like Kyoto) which will only do more harm than good. What is wrong with just honestly reporting the risks involved? It should be enough to convince people to conserve energy. Hell even without global warming, there are plenty of reasons to conserve energy.
"As for the argument that it will "destroy" the economy - if a hurricane does a nice job of destroying a local economy, think about what changes an order of magnitude larger geographically and possibly in magnitude can do. And there's no consensus among economists that changes to reduce emissions will be all that bad for the economy. If there's unpredictable risk on either side, how is doing nothing the safe or wise alternative?"
We are not doing nothing, we are investing quite a bit in research to help solve the various problems (and for the record, just because you don't hear about it doesn't mean its not going on). However, any realistic solution will take time, so we need to pursue short term solutions to our energy needs as well (and like it or not, that usually involves oil).
And the idea that Kyoto includes changes to reduce emissions is just false. It merely requires us to pay off countries like Russia because they have much easier targets to reach.
"That means, for example, putting in place fuel efficiency standards that discourage making fuel-inefficient vehicles."
We have those, they are called gas prices.
In addition, the government sets CAFE standards which require automobile manufacturers to adhere to efficiency standards or pay fines. Their track record isn't that great.
Ok, if you'd prefer to pick up a "magic" crystal ball and claim it is a replacement for the scientific method, and in doing so pretend that scientists agree with you, there is nothing I can do for you.
"Whether you like the man or hate him, you have to admit that he has done more to increase global warming than any other president in the last two decades, maybe even the last half century. He has pushed for more drilling in formerly protected wilderness areas. He has given huge subsidies to the energy industry-- see the latest energy bill for some examples. And whatever his motivation for invading Iraq was (I'm not going to go into that) the effect has certainly been to secure a supply of petroleum for us. These are not the actions of a man who takes climate change seriously."
Well yeah, if it were not for those damn controlled lumber projects, global warming would never happen. And if only the energy companies didn't get any subsidies (which Bush actually opposed, but thats a minor detail that you surely won't concern yourself with), they would somehow be able to invest more into alternative energies, thus making global warming a thing of the past. I'm not going to ask for an explanation as to how all that contributed to global warming (especially since this would probably have been inevitable before Bush even took office), because I know I am not going to get one.
Leave behind the Ralph Nader talking points for a second and go back and read my origional question. Then take a breath and try to answer it. What do you expect Bush to do now?
Private American citizens are the ones who pollute. They are the ones who leave the lights on when they go to work and who drive cars much larger than are needed. And like it or not, we do not live in a state where the government can force private citizens to act in a certain way.
But don't let the real facts confuse you.
Actually 1932 was pretty bad as well. That skip must have started in 1931.
Dang, I was hoping to see some backflips.
"When you start getting one in a decade hurricanes several times a decade, or you get 4 or 5 hurricanes per season, you should consider yourself put on notice."
We are seeing that now; in 2004 we had Alex, Charely, Danielle, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne, Karl, and Lisa. We have also seen that in the past, such as during the 40's and 50's. We constantly cycle between decades with heavy hurricane seasons and decades with light ones.
Nope. Antartica (which is home to 90% of the world's ice) has been growing recently, and most recent models suggest that greenhouse gas induced climate change will actually encourage this by bringing mroe precipitation to the usually dry area. Even a worst case scenario wouldn't do much to warm our southern friend, where temperatures as low as -89.4C have been recorded.
How about instead we say "Awww, them dang /. writers. What do they know?"
Seriously, the title of this story posted on /. is "Ice-Free Summers Coming To Artic". The first sentence is "CNET reports that researchers from the University of Arizona and other universities have concluded that the Arctic will likely see ice-free summers within a century due to the increasing rate of global warming". Already, one may note the fairly radical change of tone from the attention grabbing headline stating with some certainty that something is going to happen to the summary which states its only "likely". But then for the very few of us who actually go on to RTFA, we see that it contains neither of those sentiments. It does not say this is certain to happen, or even that it is "likely". What it says is a more cautious "Ice-free summers--a phenomenon that hasn't occurred in the Arctic in a million years--could become a reality in a century because of warming trends, researchers said".
For some reason I cannot understand, people like you want to reduce the argument to a "We know it will happen" vs. "We know it won't happen" argument. Unfortunately, neither is true. We don't know what will happen in the next hundred years or so, we know what might happen. The Earth's climate depends on a number of factors, CO2 is only one of many.
"So, the evidence is mounting to the point where even the Bush administration is having to acknowledge that global warming is a reality."
Lets put aside for the moment that he did, I know it pains you to not be able to bash Bush on something.
Why? What do you expect him to do, make sure he remembers to turn off the lights to the Oval Office? Launch a giant mirror into orbit to reflect sunlight? If you were to actually RTFA, if their calculations are right at this point these changes are inevitable. Buying hybrid cars that get maybe ten more miles to the gallon won't do squat. Hell we were probably doomed by the 70's.
Ok, indirectly Google's success could hurt MS. However, it is not about MS's potential loss of intellectual property with him not under their payroll as implied by the origional poster.
Actually its over a breach of contract. And its not about his old employer's potential losses, its about his new employer's potential gains. And its not over him leaving his job, its from him taking a similar job with another company in which knowledge of his old employer's confidential information would, according to Microsoft, would influence him in his new job.
So they are nothing alike.
Wait until SCO sues Linux for ripping off their name Unix.
Application availability is only a small factor in determining what system someone uses.
Yes, but out of all their many products, they have only one major source of income, Adsense. Their entire business model is based on advertising. Remember how the dot-com boom in the late 90's turned out? And how many of their products work well with Adsense? While I occasionally find the ads coming off of search results useful, I've never seen anything in gmail that was remotely helpful.
"As for me, I'm convinced that if anyone will ever knock off Microsoft, it will be an OS that gets game developers behind them. I've said for years that as weird as it sounds, gamers drive the market. Not many people use computers at home or school for productive uses, most people use them for playing games."
I know these are somewhat old numbers, but according to the census bureau in '01:
So there are more popular uses.
"If City of Heroes ran on Linux, I would probably go ahead to switch to a Linux-only system, if for no other reason than it's free and I don't have to buy a new version every few years."
Try Cedega, I've heard it works fine with that particular game. Not so sure about plain old wine though.
Archiving information is different from searching. So you are not arguing that this is an "unreasonable search", but that the government should not store this information. There is a clear difference between searching and storing information, and while one was limited by the Bill of Rights, the other is mandated (though in a much more limited form) by Article 1, Section 2.
" In either case, the US government is not encouraging business relationships with those groups, while they are just as gung-ho as ever to support domestic business relationships with the Saudis."
Well neither group generally engages in "business relationships", though certainly there are many members of the US government who encourage ties to each group. And I believe both have tax-exempt status, so the government does provide incentives to give money to each (if you count that as a business transaction). But this line of argument is a red herring, the origional accusation was that the Saudi's must be guilty because they share ideology and through an indirect means funds with terrorists. Using that logic, PETA members and the Catholic Church must be guilty of terrorism as well.
" No clairvoyance required, the CIA can read public news articles and analysis just as well as I can."
Now that I think of it, the CIA probably would want someone who can distinguish between facts and conjectures.
Ok, feel free to insert a CIA joke relating to that last statement here.
And misusing the word "ignorant" like the author of the original question won't make you look good either.
Your opinion of the viewpoints of people you never met notwithstanding, the courts have determined that viewing something in plain sight in a public place is not an unreasonable search. Guess whose opinion ends up mattering.
" Hardly. Furthermore, in both or your examples they are a) not a government and b) not directly funding terrorist groups."
a) The Vatican set aside, so what? Are governments the only ones who can be held accountable for terrorist actions?
b) Want to make a bet? PETA has certainly donated money to ELF, which the FBI considers a domestic terrorist group. And you mentioned an indirect funding of terrorism by the Saudis (Saudi government -> Salafi organizations -> terrorists), not direct. Its very possible if you were to dig deep enough in the Catholic Church you would see the same thing. Its even possible you have donated money indirectly to violent groups. Each time you make a financial transaction, what do you do to verify that money does not get used for violent purposes?
That point put aside for a second, the post I was responding to only mentioned money as an afterthought. Its primary concern was the beliefs of the members of the Saudi government, the implication being that they should have been considered guilty of 9-11 because they believe in a radical form of Islam. Feel free to refine your statement if you see fit, just understand the error of that post.
"In many cases, this support is intended to redirect the blame they desevere for their part in the state of the middle-east squarely onto the shoulders of the west."
Are you telling me you know the intentions of leaders of foreign governments? I hope you work for the CIA, that clairvoyance will come in handy in preventing the next terrorist attack.
This has been their policy for years, all the way back to the days when "high speed Internet" referred to a 33.6 kbit/s modem and AOL was booming.
I hate to break it to you, but the freedom to be invisible in a public place (such as the NYC subways) is long gone. In fact, it never existed in the first place. These security cameras are not the telescreens from 1984.
"Saudi Arabia is by large the primary source of Salafism, a branch of Sunni Islam that is just a hairsbreadth away from readily justifying terrrorist attacks. Almost all government officials (aka members of the house of Saud) are Salafi themselves. There is a direct connection between Salafiyyah as exported (with state dollars) by Saudi Arabia and islamic terrorism in the west."
You could make the same connections between PETA and ALF/ELF or the Catholic Church and the guys who bomb abortion clinics. Does that mean we should round up all PETA members next time a drug research lab is bombed or all practicing Catholics next time an abortion doctor is killed? I find it ironic that you think surveillence cameras are an intolerable breach of our human rights, but that people should be considered guilty of a crime just because they have similar viewpoints of the actual perpetrators.
In case you are interested in real history, bin Laden and the Saudi government are not on good terms. He is still pissed at them for choosing the Americans instead of him to protect them back in '91.
Not all terrorist attacks are suicide attacks. Maybe you havn't been paying attention to the news lately, but not too long ago the London subways were bombed and surveillance cameras helped police determine their identities. No, this won't stop every possible type of terrorist attack, but it will help prevent a specific type of attack. If we had a two hundred million solution to all terrorist attacks, I would be pissed off that it hadn't already been implemented.
"Most terrorist plots busted up in the US are hatched by white men. Fact. How would this stop them? Or is this just a war on funny looking brown people, ignoring the crazy white men who are actually arming and plotting?"
Believe it or not, white people aren't like vampires. We will show up on video just as well as Arabs. And the fact that we are busting terrorist plots hatched by white guys is evidence they are not being ignored.
"Amazingly enough, the terrorists from the 9-11 attack were mostly Saudi Arabians -- and we haven't even said boo to the Saudis."
And amazingly people like you think that just because someone is from Saudi Arabia means they are agents of the Saudi government.
Well then its a good thing that the government considers the fight against terrorism a war.
Let me see if I get this guy's argument. Bush is against science, specifically in his words, "not just on global warming and stem cells, currently in the news, but on a whole range of issues - lead and mercury poisoning in children, women's health, birth control, safety standards for drinking water, forest management, air pollution and on and on". So as a result, again in his words, "young Americans are opting for better paid law and medicine over science and engineering (jobs)...". Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most of those areas of science have more to do medicine than engineering? If all young Americans were just following this guy's perception of Bush's views on science, then shouldn't we be seeing a decline in the number of Americans studying medicine and an increase in the number of Americans studying engineering to go work for defense contractors?
Isn't a more plausible explanation that the rest of the world is catching up in science and engineering and that American's are free to disagree with their president?
Well lets see, the current system takes years for a patent to get a rubber stamp from the USPTO. Then it is up to the courts to determine whether or not it is a legit patent if, sorry, when someone challenges it.
At least Congress is now setting reachable goals...
Are you trying to imply that non-"big business" media outlets (like for instance /.) never sensationalize news?