Is any antivirus program included in the FIAT package or that's a separate deal any FIAT dealer will throw in to entice? Do I get to download my own choice? Do I get a discount for that?
I'm telling you all these questions again and all this uncertainty so early in the morning...
Where is my coffee... aaahh here it is... I feel better now...
As Crosbie said, "as fewer and fewer people read print publications and (more) make the switch to online, the Times" -- and its competitors -- are "going to have to figure out a way to make more money on the Web."
I know it will sound abhorringly naive but shouldn't The New York Times have as a prime interest independent and objective journalism instead of profit driven opinion-articles passed as objective journalism?
Didn't they have to
appologize for participating in the national hype (that means acting as a propaganda instrument) for the war against Iraq?
A newspaper acting as a propaganda instrument is something very alarming to happen in a democratic country. That's what happens in fascist, communist and oppresive regimes in general. No wonder Michael Moore's movie/documentary is so wildly accepted. The people want the truth but the number of them that trusts US corporate media anymore decreases by the day.
I figured that in 10 years time 50GB DVDs will be the norm and perhaps as much as 200GB DVDs will be readily available.
IMHO the only reason DVD technology will render obsolete is for limited performance. What would you do a 200GB DVD if in order to read/write on it you need 40 hours? Not even worth for backup purposes!
I am not sure if the optical (laser) read/write technology can match the magnetic read/write technology when it comes to speed, efficiency and durablity. You can backup your entire HD in a removable HD, put it in the closet and 10 years later take it out and nothing will be lost. That's not necessarily the case with DVD/CDs.
Hardest part of installation in brand new desktop/laptop will be inserting the CD in CD drive.
Hardest part of repairing will be inserting the CD in CD drive and click "Repair Linux".
All hardware will be fully supported and "plug'n'play"ed.
Update distribution center for given distro will resolve dependencies and fetch everything necessary for proper package installation (not compilation!).
Command prompt will be optional. (Yes I know how superior you command-prompters feel to the click-click crowd).
Everybody will be able to login, use the internet, mail, listen to music, write documents and so on and so forth without even knowing what an.rpm or an.mp3 or a.wav file is or what package compilation or even worse kernel compilation are all about.
Let's face it I don't have to be a car mechanic to drive a car for my convenience so I don't have to be a CS graduate in order to be able to use my computer. Most people (the VAST majority of the MS crowd) don't care! That's right, they don't care about CS, about linux, about MS, about IE about anything. Why should they care? When was the last time a car dealer sold you a car on the condition that you'll take car-mechanic classes or crash-courses or enlist to online support forums? People buy a computer to use it for their job or convenience right out of the box. The rest is intellectual wars from people that are personally involved in IT or CS or Tech Science in general and assume some sort of importance by declaring their preferences.
What MS created and keeps creating is an OS that even that last computer illiterate can use with no problem. It has gone a long way that way but now it is time for them to reverse a bit and patch up the security holes they user-friendly OS architecture created.
Linux on the other hand started from the other end by creating a robust system on a solid architecture and slowly crawling to user-friendliness. The year Linux will meet with MS midway will be the year of the Linux.
... I new the bad guys were winning but I had no idea to what extend!
Good evening my fellow Americans. Today is a grave day for our nation. I had to order a military curfew for all major cities in our great country. Intelligence information indicated that terrorists are planning to attack our freedom. Our nation is at war. We have to defend freedom and democacy from all evildoers that hate our values and our civilization. This is a time of grief but we will prevail. God bless America...
1) Bad guy committs atrocious act of violence/injustice to some innocent/good guys close/related to the main Hero/Good guy.
2) Hero/Good guy suffers immensely throughout this, reaching deeper and deeper levels of self criticism/blame suffocating in a moral/psychological decadence.
3) Hero/Good guy eventually rebounds and starts chasing Bad guy.
4) Hero/Good guy gets a chance to fight Bad guy.
5) Bad guy dies (generally multiple times) a horrible and violent death.
6) Hero/Good guy gets the girl/money/both and lives happily ever after.
7) (Potentially) Curse at yourself for paying money to see this again?
Well how much can you push this to make money out of it? It's happening more than 3 decades now, eventually it will collapse or mutate. No wonder Blockbuster has expanded the foreign film section to a whole isle!
The most interesting thing of all is how people have a hard time watching their beliefs capsize and collapse in front of their eyes.
In the process to defend them they contradict themselves so badly!
An example was an article in a local newspaper on how Michael Moore is just another capitalist and while people watch his documentary he is making a fortune and blah blah blah...
Since when capitalism became such a bad thing?
Fox news, ABC, CNN etc etc etc are charitable institutions?
Why is it so hard to accept Michael Moore's news while "Live on CNN" is welcomed with a gaping mouth?
I guess I know now! Interesting, very interesting!
Yeah, getting kids interested in other planets so they study science is a worthless endevor.
Right on! They should be interested in Guns and Explosions and Patriotic Excercises!
How to show your patriotism in 12 simple steps:
1) Believe whatever the president says.
2) Believe whatever the vicePresident says.
3) Never talk to liberals/lefties/hippies/openSource community freaks.
4) Always believe the President.
5) Always buy american.
6) Always believe the President.
7) Enlist in the national guard.
8) Always believe the President.
9) Do your WinXP updates regularly.
10) Never download/share music.
11) Never share anything.
12) Always charge whenever possible in US currency.
The shuttle incident really caused problems in space explorations
Actually it wasn't the shuttle incident that killed Hubble. It was the "War on TerrrrrrrAr" and the need to send a Man on Mars for the glory of the Greatest Nation of the Galaxy (and that's about it!)...
I am too lazy to provide the necessary links for that, it's still early in the morning...
I've got XP Pro on my laptop, and it has never crashed
That's great (really) but I don't know what you are doing with XP, what are you using it for? Typing essays, playing games? What?
I have WinXP Home on my dual boot laptop and there is always a reason to crash. Admittedly sometimes it's my fault, but some other times it is not. Like this time that the audio driver just crashed completely after watching a movie for example. I didn't even get the blue screen of death it just rebooted!
Let's not talk about games now and how I got those unexplainable freezes. You might argue that it might be related to the video card but who knows?
On the other hand I am doing solid computational work (matlab, maple and some C code for my thesis that pushes G4 to top performance) on the other side of the boot (RedHat9) and it has never never crashed, never misbehaved.
And the good part: Even if it ever crashes it will just gracefully exit from User Space. It won't take the system down with it!
Now XP have gotten alot better about it as well but I don't quite think that a crashed game or application leaves the XP system in the same clean state the linux kernel leaves its own.
The only way that MS can convince me using their search engine is if they donate money for each search that I make to some NGO fighting hunger or cancer or social injustice or...
Let the charity wars commence!
(If you can't beat them appeal to their good hearts!)
Well I am slowly getting drawn into an argument that I didn't wish to engage into. But here we go
Find iexplore.exe and delete it.
You must be joking! But I see what "uninstall" you are talking about. Sure I can uninstall anything from Windows like that.
Yes it's been a long time since I've published any free software but at least I've contributed instead of sitting on Slashdot and paying lip service
Well, again I don't want to present myself as unfaithful but I don't have the time to... link the links back to you. If this is truely your contribution then that's great. Keep up the good work.
I was just making the point that free software has the same problems that closed source software has
Right, software will always have bugs, so according to previous post what will it be? The free or the proprietary? You chose proprietary, good for you!
I don't (good for me). I think free software has better chances of evolving and becoming much more stable than closed source proprietary software will ever dream of. That's very simple to see why. There is nothing that can stop that. I think that's great for everybody! As hard as I try I can't find a permanent negative aspect about it.
you make it very clear that the "truth" is that Linux is better than Microsoft
I don't quite recollect making that statement. It can't be mine since I would never have used vague terms like "better than" trying to describe an operating system. You are defending yourself against windmills here. I am not a Linux zealot either. I just find odd the fact that while you use FreeBSD I didn't find any possitive comments about it, while there are ample comments about Windows(TM) (not only about the desktop experience mind you!).
By personally attacking me, you won't change my opinion about this matter. You don't know me. You just have a vague idea about me.:-)
I don't know you either but I can draw conclusions from your stance and history. It doesn't cut down to the average independent user like everybody else. I haven't found any single occasion of any user being exposed to open source and not liking at least some part of it.
Well nevertheless have a nice day! I have to earn my living!:-)
Can I uninstall IE for example? (Please don't tell me about the "uncheck IE" box in add/remove components)
if I buy a copy of RedHat Enterprise that I'm effectively paying for software with bugs and security holes
You must be joking! You complain about the security holes of Red Hat Enterprise and enthusiastically embrace Microsoft software? That is very interesting!:-)
(I) have written and published my own free software
Well not that I am an unfaithful person, but could I have a link to that free software?
I still believe that the Windows desktop is superior to the Linux desktop
Well that's great. Keep using it and make sure you do your updates. That's what I like about open source. Nobody forces you to do anything you don't like. Open source will eventually win you over when you will be tired of the MS superior security holes... then again it might not!
Gee, maybe YOU'RE a RedHat plant because you praise Linux and bash Microsoft
Where exactly did I praise RedHat and bashed Microsoft? I am simply stating simple truths. Of course today, truth is a very relative principle, but complaining about RedHat's security holes and bugs, while praising Windows(TM) as superior and secure software, that is a whole new dimension to truth!
For the record, I keep two FreeBSD boxes at home
Right! And why haven't you installed the Superior Software to them as well?
Here we go again. No, GNOME and KDE are not linux. Linux is just a kernel and yes you can customize GNOME and KDE to any degree you want. That in not true in MS software unless I pay (more) money for a third party software to do this for me (possibly) without braking anything.
I hope you're not implying that dereferncing NULL pointers is something that happens exclusively at Microsoft. But either way, this happens frequently enough with free software. Check.
What happens even more often enough is these bugs get corrected in free software while perpetuating in proprietary software. So let's see I have a choice to get free software with maybe a few bugs and buy software with a few bugs (and security holes). Hmmm what will it be?
Is ssh good enough for you? Check
Major security holes in ssh didn't lead to the Microsoft related worm/virus/trojan "funfare". They never had and never will.
Well, we can argue for eternity whether a genocide was taking place or a "genocide" similar to the Saddam's WMDs was taking place. So let's pick a stronger case:
It was Bill Clinton who ordered the bombing of a pharmaceutical factory of Suddan in broad daylight that led to unknown numbers of dead and wounded and later on acknowledged the mistake but blocked an independent UN investigation on the matter. The accusation was that the factory had been manufacturing chemical weapons, but the truth was that it had been producing cheap drugs for the impoverished African people (pissing off American Pharmaceutical companies).
I don't have the time to search and provide links, hopefully if you are interested you'll do your own independent research. There is no such thing as a benevolent government built on humanitarian principles. Bill Clinton's government was less cinical and outright than George Bush's. He was smart enough to be more inclusive in the... spoils.
Admittedly I haven't read the articles (I am pretty sure there are lots of them) but I don't expect an article to tell me what is moral and what is not.
There is always going to be an article justifying the worst attrocities in the history of human civilization.
The similarity in the bombing campaigns is primarily in the will to exploit the vast resources of the countries. In the Iraq case it's oil and the vast contract opportunities, and in the Yugoslavian case, besides the rich Kosovo mineral resources, the forceful opening up of the Yugoslavian economy. An economy that wasn't doing bad at all and was ferociously resisting WTO and the World Bank.
Practically Yugoslavia was a self-sustaining economy, a very dangerous economic example for other third world coutries to follow.
It's not very hard to see the similarities. There is no such thing as a humanitarian State or Government, especially when it comes to the most powerful nation of the world. That's just for the masses to digest and believe in. Money and power are spinning the wheel of Fortune. That's what we are taught (indirectly) in highschool history classes anyway.
So when I hear about the humanitarian need to bomb somewhere, or invade somewhere, or embargoo somewhere else, all that I can think of is "here we go again, the Wheel is spinning..."
What is sad about Micaels's Moore movie is that it tries to complement the heavily missing work of the "new's media" in US.
A guy has to make a movie in order for the americans to be informed what the rest of the world already knows... about America!
Another point that doesn't settle right is that somehow if Bush and Co. doesn't get reelected everything will be just fine!
Excuse me but it was Bill Clinton that ordered a similar bombing campaign against Yugoslavia some years ago. The same international laws were broken then as well. Only many more nations had interests at stake then, so the joyfully backed up that endeavor.
The truth can be only one and most of the times it is very painful. I am amazed how people focus on the details (whether Moore makes money or not, if he is biased, if he twists the truth) when it comes to an action out of the norm (making a documentary about a current political situation), when they completely surrender to the corporate bias for example of Fox News or The NY Times.
Never understood that, I guess never will.
I watched the movie and kept a close ear to the reaction of the fellow people around me. This is the first time after the Vietnam War that the American public gets an exposure of its true self, the aggrandazing bubble of benevolence was almost shattered when that Iraqi woman was wailing on camera!
Powerful pictures, powerful reactions. It is so sad and unfortunate that only the loss of a dear one (your serving son) can be a potent wake-up call to the reality around you...
Gee! A little respect! These are hard working patriots, protecting the american public from multiple threats and dangers of all sorts!
Ts ts ts ts ts!
They enlist themselves and their kids to fight wars on terrors(TM) and defend democracy and freedom and the Values of Western Civilization(TM), at least we could show some respect to that Saintly Sacrifice!
Do you think it's easy to torture Iraqi people in order to liberate them?
Seriously now, this is kind of scary. If Open Source ever "dominates" in the governmental sector, the impact it will have on the Open Source community will not be a trivial matter to consider.
The worst thing that happend to socialism for example is that they actually got elected for government.
New forces will be created in the Open Source community once it becomes mainstream and the temptation to "bend" GPL for more and more profit might be there. Of course you might argue that this will automatically exclude anybody that does it from the Open Source community but I am just wondering how the future might look 40 years from now...
No, what I'm trying to say is that the world power balance fights back and redistributes the power more uniformly. This can happen as a natural process (decadence of an Empire) or be forced through a war (WWI, WWII for the German Empire for example).
So in the USA case 50 or 100 years from now historians will be talking about Vietnam War for example in a totally different light, since they will have the whole picture at hand.
Just like the march of Napoleon for example was seen completely different for a historian already aware of Waterloo...
There is no such thing as an unlimited power expansion for a nation. Any nation.
The Roman Empire was defeated although it reached disproportionate economic and military expansion for its era. Same thing for every single Empire (including Dr.Evil's) through history.
So I'm sorry to break this to my american fellow geeks but the greatest nation of the world can produce as many railguns as it can/wants, the second law of thermodynamics has predicted its downfall upon its conception 300 years ago.
That is alright though, that is quite alright! See how the Germans, French, British have progressed since they abandoned their nationalistic bubble of delusion about Grandieur and Fanifested Destinies and such... (well I don't know about the British, it appears sometimes they haven't gone passed WWII)
The world will be a much safer place, and international peace and cooperation well founded, once USA realizes that there is nothing special about USA after all. It's just a passing moment of history that led to this economic and military growth, that's all.
Slashdot Mirror
... Ducati bikers?
Sheeeeeeeesh fellas when do you actually plan to get over adolescence?
By the way Dr. Freud has an answer to the above question but many of the uR-so-lame-Im-so-c()()L crowd will not like it...
Is any antivirus program included in the FIAT package or that's a separate deal any FIAT dealer will throw in to entice? Do I get to download my own choice? Do I get a discount for that?
I'm telling you all these questions again and all this uncertainty so early in the morning...
Where is my coffee... aaahh here it is... I feel better now...
I know it will sound abhorringly naive but shouldn't The New York Times have as a prime interest independent and objective journalism instead of profit driven opinion-articles passed as objective journalism? Didn't they have to appologize for participating in the national hype (that means acting as a propaganda instrument) for the war against Iraq?
A newspaper acting as a propaganda instrument is something very alarming to happen in a democratic country. That's what happens in fascist, communist and oppresive regimes in general. No wonder Michael Moore's movie/documentary is so wildly accepted. The people want the truth but the number of them that trusts US corporate media anymore decreases by the day.
IMHO the only reason DVD technology will render obsolete is for limited performance. What would you do a 200GB DVD if in order to read/write on it you need 40 hours? Not even worth for backup purposes!
I am not sure if the optical (laser) read/write technology can match the magnetic read/write technology when it comes to speed, efficiency and durablity. You can backup your entire HD in a removable HD, put it in the closet and 10 years later take it out and nothing will be lost. That's not necessarily the case with DVD/CDs.
Let's face it I don't have to be a car mechanic to drive a car for my convenience so I don't have to be a CS graduate in order to be able to use my computer. Most people (the VAST majority of the MS crowd) don't care! That's right, they don't care about CS, about linux, about MS, about IE about anything. Why should they care? When was the last time a car dealer sold you a car on the condition that you'll take car-mechanic classes or crash-courses or enlist to online support forums? People buy a computer to use it for their job or convenience right out of the box. The rest is intellectual wars from people that are personally involved in IT or CS or Tech Science in general and assume some sort of importance by declaring their preferences.
What MS created and keeps creating is an OS that even that last computer illiterate can use with no problem. It has gone a long way that way but now it is time for them to reverse a bit and patch up the security holes they user-friendly OS architecture created.
Linux on the other hand started from the other end by creating a robust system on a solid architecture and slowly crawling to user-friendliness. The year Linux will meet with MS midway will be the year of the Linux.
... I new the bad guys were winning but I had no idea to what extend!
Good evening my fellow Americans. Today is a grave day for our nation. I had to order a military curfew for all major cities in our great country. Intelligence information indicated that terrorists are planning to attack our freedom. Our nation is at war. We have to defend freedom and democacy from all evildoers that hate our values and our civilization. This is a time of grief but we will prevail. God bless America...
Hmm let's see. Typical American Movie scenario:
1) Bad guy committs atrocious act of violence/injustice to some innocent/good guys close/related to the main Hero/Good guy.
2) Hero/Good guy suffers immensely throughout this, reaching deeper and deeper levels of self criticism/blame suffocating in a moral/psychological decadence.
3) Hero/Good guy eventually rebounds and starts chasing Bad guy.
4) Hero/Good guy gets a chance to fight Bad guy.
5) Bad guy dies (generally multiple times) a horrible and violent death.
6) Hero/Good guy gets the girl/money/both and lives happily ever after.
7) (Potentially) Curse at yourself for paying money to see this again?
Well how much can you push this to make money out of it? It's happening more than 3 decades now, eventually it will collapse or mutate. No wonder Blockbuster has expanded the foreign film section to a whole isle!
The most interesting thing of all is how people have a hard time watching their beliefs capsize and collapse in front of their eyes.
In the process to defend them they contradict themselves so badly!
An example was an article in a local newspaper on how Michael Moore is just another capitalist and while people watch his documentary he is making a fortune and blah blah blah...
Since when capitalism became such a bad thing?
Fox news, ABC, CNN etc etc etc are charitable institutions?
Why is it so hard to accept Michael Moore's news while "Live on CNN" is welcomed with a gaping mouth?
I guess I know now! Interesting, very interesting!
Everybody can we please all form a line? Stop clicking on the site!
/.ed. No mam we don't know how long it will take.
Yes, mam the site is currently
Please can we all form a line and click in consecutive order?
Hey you, I heard you! You clicked before you time! Stop it!
Here we go! Number 54? 54 in the house? 54 can click now! OK! 53? 53?
Yeah, getting kids interested in other planets so they study science is a worthless endevor.
Right on! They should be interested in Guns and Explosions and Patriotic Excercises!
How to show your patriotism in 12 simple steps:
1) Believe whatever the president says.
2) Believe whatever the vicePresident says.
3) Never talk to liberals/lefties/hippies/openSource community freaks.
4) Always believe the President.
5) Always buy american.
6) Always believe the President.
7) Enlist in the national guard.
8) Always believe the President.
9) Do your WinXP updates regularly.
10) Never download/share music.
11) Never share anything.
12) Always charge whenever possible in US currency.
You can be a patriot today!
The shuttle incident really caused problems in space explorations
Actually it wasn't the shuttle incident that killed Hubble. It was the "War on TerrrrrrrAr" and the need to send a Man on Mars for the glory of the Greatest Nation of the Galaxy (and that's about it!)...
I am too lazy to provide the necessary links for that, it's still early in the morning...
I've got XP Pro on my laptop, and it has never crashed
That's great (really) but I don't know what you are doing with XP, what are you using it for? Typing essays, playing games? What?
I have WinXP Home on my dual boot laptop and there is always a reason to crash. Admittedly sometimes it's my fault, but some other times it is not. Like this time that the audio driver just crashed completely after watching a movie for example. I didn't even get the blue screen of death it just rebooted!
Let's not talk about games now and how I got those unexplainable freezes. You might argue that it might be related to the video card but who knows?
On the other hand I am doing solid computational work (matlab, maple and some C code for my thesis that pushes G4 to top performance) on the other side of the boot (RedHat9) and it has never never crashed, never misbehaved.
And the good part: Even if it ever crashes it will just gracefully exit from User Space. It won't take the system down with it!
Now XP have gotten alot better about it as well but I don't quite think that a crashed game or application leaves the XP system in the same clean state the linux kernel leaves its own.
The only way that MS can convince me using their search engine is if they donate money for each search that I make to some NGO fighting hunger or cancer or social injustice or...
Let the charity wars commence!
(If you can't beat them appeal to their good hearts!)
Well I am slowly getting drawn into an argument that I didn't wish to engage into. But here we go
:-)
:-)
Find iexplore.exe and delete it.
You must be joking! But I see what "uninstall" you are talking about. Sure I can uninstall anything from Windows like that.
Yes it's been a long time since I've published any free software but at least I've contributed instead of sitting on Slashdot and paying lip service
Well, again I don't want to present myself as unfaithful but I don't have the time to... link the links back to you. If this is truely your contribution then that's great. Keep up the good work.
I was just making the point that free software has the same problems that closed source software has
Right, software will always have bugs, so according to previous post what will it be? The free or the proprietary? You chose proprietary, good for you!
I don't (good for me). I think free software has better chances of evolving and becoming much more stable than closed source proprietary software will ever dream of. That's very simple to see why. There is nothing that can stop that. I think that's great for everybody! As hard as I try I can't find a permanent negative aspect about it.
you make it very clear that the "truth" is that Linux is better than Microsoft
I don't quite recollect making that statement. It can't be mine since I would never have used vague terms like "better than" trying to describe an operating system. You are defending yourself against windmills here. I am not a Linux zealot either. I just find odd the fact that while you use FreeBSD I didn't find any possitive comments about it, while there are ample comments about Windows(TM) (not only about the desktop experience mind you!).
By personally attacking me, you won't change my opinion about this matter. You don't know me. You just have a vague idea about me.
I don't know you either but I can draw conclusions from your stance and history. It doesn't cut down to the average independent user like everybody else. I haven't found any single occasion of any user being exposed to open source and not liking at least some part of it.
Well nevertheless have a nice day! I have to earn my living!
Depends what you mean by "customize"
:-)
Can I uninstall IE for example? (Please don't tell me about the "uncheck IE" box in add/remove components)
if I buy a copy of RedHat Enterprise that I'm effectively paying for software with bugs and security holes
You must be joking! You complain about the security holes of Red Hat Enterprise and enthusiastically embrace Microsoft software? That is very interesting!
(I) have written and published my own free software
Well not that I am an unfaithful person, but could I have a link to that free software?
I still believe that the Windows desktop is superior to the Linux desktop
Well that's great. Keep using it and make sure you do your updates. That's what I like about open source. Nobody forces you to do anything you don't like. Open source will eventually win you over when you will be tired of the MS superior security holes... then again it might not!
Gee, maybe YOU'RE a RedHat plant because you praise Linux and bash Microsoft
Where exactly did I praise RedHat and bashed Microsoft? I am simply stating simple truths. Of course today, truth is a very relative principle, but complaining about RedHat's security holes and bugs, while praising Windows(TM) as superior and secure software, that is a whole new dimension to truth!
For the record, I keep two FreeBSD boxes at home
Right! And why haven't you installed the Superior Software to them as well?
GNOME and KDE. Check.
/.
:-)
Here we go again. No, GNOME and KDE are not linux. Linux is just a kernel and yes you can customize GNOME and KDE to any degree you want. That in not true in MS software unless I pay (more) money for a third party software to do this for me (possibly) without braking anything.
I hope you're not implying that dereferncing NULL pointers is something that happens exclusively at Microsoft. But either way, this happens frequently enough with free software. Check.
What happens even more often enough is these bugs get corrected in free software while perpetuating in proprietary software. So let's see I have a choice to get free software with maybe a few bugs and buy software with a few bugs (and security holes). Hmmm what will it be?
Is ssh good enough for you? Check
Major security holes in ssh didn't lead to the Microsoft related worm/virus/trojan "funfare". They never had and never will.
Now let's have a look at your history in
Send Bill my regards!
Well, we can argue for eternity whether a genocide was taking place or a "genocide" similar to the Saddam's WMDs was taking place. So let's pick a stronger case:
It was Bill Clinton who ordered the bombing of a pharmaceutical factory of Suddan in broad daylight that led to unknown numbers of dead and wounded and later on acknowledged the mistake but blocked an independent UN investigation on the matter. The accusation was that the factory had been manufacturing chemical weapons, but the truth was that it had been producing cheap drugs for the impoverished African people (pissing off American Pharmaceutical companies).
I don't have the time to search and provide links, hopefully if you are interested you'll do your own independent research. There is no such thing as a benevolent government built on humanitarian principles. Bill Clinton's government was less cinical and outright than George Bush's. He was smart enough to be more inclusive in the... spoils.
Admittedly I haven't read the articles (I am pretty sure there are lots of them) but I don't expect an article to tell me what is moral and what is not.
There is always going to be an article justifying the worst attrocities in the history of human civilization.
The similarity in the bombing campaigns is primarily in the will to exploit the vast resources of the countries. In the Iraq case it's oil and the vast contract opportunities, and in the Yugoslavian case, besides the rich Kosovo mineral resources, the forceful opening up of the Yugoslavian economy. An economy that wasn't doing bad at all and was ferociously resisting WTO and the World Bank.
Practically Yugoslavia was a self-sustaining economy, a very dangerous economic example for other third world coutries to follow.
It's not very hard to see the similarities. There is no such thing as a humanitarian State or Government, especially when it comes to the most powerful nation of the world. That's just for the masses to digest and believe in. Money and power are spinning the wheel of Fortune. That's what we are taught (indirectly) in highschool history classes anyway.
So when I hear about the humanitarian need to bomb somewhere, or invade somewhere, or embargoo somewhere else, all that I can think of is "here we go again, the Wheel is spinning..."
Interests ? In Kosovo ?
Search under "Mineral resources in Kosovo". That should get you started or at least suspicious.
Serbia was not invaded by anyone
Amazing statement! I wonder how would you feel if you were one of the serbs that got hit for example in the civilian train while crossing a bridge?
That's what I was talking about. As sad as it is only the loss of a dear one can mobilize our compassion towards other people.
What is sad about Micaels's Moore movie is that it tries to complement the heavily missing work of the "new's media" in US.
A guy has to make a movie in order for the americans to be informed what the rest of the world already knows... about America!
Another point that doesn't settle right is that somehow if Bush and Co. doesn't get reelected everything will be just fine!
Excuse me but it was Bill Clinton that ordered a similar bombing campaign against Yugoslavia some years ago. The same international laws were broken then as well. Only many more nations had interests at stake then, so the joyfully backed up that endeavor.
The truth can be only one and most of the times it is very painful. I am amazed how people focus on the details (whether Moore makes money or not, if he is biased, if he twists the truth) when it comes to an action out of the norm (making a documentary about a current political situation), when they completely surrender to the corporate bias for example of Fox News or The NY Times.
Never understood that, I guess never will. I watched the movie and kept a close ear to the reaction of the fellow people around me. This is the first time after the Vietnam War that the American public gets an exposure of its true self, the aggrandazing bubble of benevolence was almost shattered when that Iraqi woman was wailing on camera!
Powerful pictures, powerful reactions. It is so sad and unfortunate that only the loss of a dear one (your serving son) can be a potent wake-up call to the reality around you...
national guard monkeys
Gee! A little respect! These are hard working patriots, protecting the american public from multiple threats and dangers of all sorts!
Ts ts ts ts ts!
They enlist themselves and their kids to fight wars on terrors(TM) and defend democracy and freedom and the Values of Western Civilization(TM), at least we could show some respect to that Saintly Sacrifice!
Do you think it's easy to torture Iraqi people in order to liberate them?
Why do you want open source to die?
Seriously now, this is kind of scary. If Open Source ever "dominates" in the governmental sector, the impact it will have on the Open Source community will not be a trivial matter to consider.
The worst thing that happend to socialism for example is that they actually got elected for government.
New forces will be created in the Open Source community once it becomes mainstream and the temptation to "bend" GPL for more and more profit might be there. Of course you might argue that this will automatically exclude anybody that does it from the Open Source community but I am just wondering how the future might look 40 years from now...
I can see the future:
Ladies and Gentlmen welcome to Bagdad Olympics 2044 were all sorts of mutants will compete for the gold medal.
For the 300m sprint we have Rabbit-Man with a third leg from LegBotics(TM) with the capability to run(TM) and jump(PATENT PENDING) as high as 4m.
Next to him we have MuscleMan(TM) with genetically engineered MuscleSoft(TM) muscles that can boost performance to all time records.
We hope(TM) you enjoy(TM) the games! Here are a few messages for you...
No, what I'm trying to say is that the world power balance fights back and redistributes the power more uniformly. This can happen as a natural process (decadence of an Empire) or be forced through a war (WWI, WWII for the German Empire for example).
So in the USA case 50 or 100 years from now historians will be talking about Vietnam War for example in a totally different light, since they will have the whole picture at hand.
Just like the march of Napoleon for example was seen completely different for a historian already aware of Waterloo...
There is no such thing as an unlimited power expansion for a nation. Any nation.
The Roman Empire was defeated although it reached disproportionate economic and military expansion for its era. Same thing for every single Empire (including Dr.Evil's) through history.
So I'm sorry to break this to my american fellow geeks but the greatest nation of the world can produce as many railguns as it can/wants, the second law of thermodynamics has predicted its downfall upon its conception 300 years ago.
That is alright though, that is quite alright! See how the Germans, French, British have progressed since they abandoned their nationalistic bubble of delusion about Grandieur and Fanifested Destinies and such... (well I don't know about the British, it appears sometimes they haven't gone passed WWII)
The world will be a much safer place, and international peace and cooperation well founded, once USA realizes that there is nothing special about USA after all. It's just a passing moment of history that led to this economic and military growth, that's all.