US Congress didn't declare war, what they did was that they gave authorization for Bush to use armed forces in defense of USA and for enforcing UN policies. Thus Giving Bush under conditions, the right to send America into war.
Now heres where things get interesting. Firstly with Iraq, you were not at peace, you simply had a cease-fire arrangement. Peace was never officially declared after the Gulf war in 1990. Thus by UN standards, USA never started a war, they simply resumed the Gulf war many years later. Thus they were in compliance with UN requirements
As we know, Saddam broke many un policies, including allowing UN weapon inspection teams.
Because of the refusal in compliance to UN policies, and the authorization from congress a year earlier in defense of UN policies, Bush had legal entitlement to used armed forces.
Thus we find that by legal UN loopholing, and by a no balls/brains congress, Bush legally sent USA into war.
What i also find interesting, is that the USA are still at war with N. Korea, since they never made peace there either, its still a cease-fire arrangement after several decades... I guess Bush just had his hands too full with Iraq during his terms in office.
let's see what the human body can do when pumped up on steroids and fitted with the finest bionics money can buy Although such an event would be interesting, the lives that would be destroyed would be horrendous.
To get a line position in racing, they give all the contestants a single lap, the fastest lap time getting front position
The interesting thing is that the drivers drive their cars past their limits attempting this, after the single lap is over, the gearbox needs to be replaced because they didn't bother with things like a clutch, heavens knows how their engine is.
But that doesn't matter to them, their budget is simply so big they can afford to throw away/repair their cars between races.
Thats what would happen in these "anything goes" races. You'd have athletes who's entire career would be for 1 game. After that their bones, brains, organs would be so shot that they wouldn't be usable, and their nations would just discard them.
Now thats just not a sport I'd want to support. I want to support a game where with a bit of talent and hard training, you'll be able to best the world.
Well you didn't say just or fair, but the way you said it was from an iraq judge, from an iraq court, i feel is at best, leaving too much out of the picture, or at worst, bending the truth.
A lot of uninformed people will read your post and think justice happened.
I wrote my reply to give a better picture of the proceedings that happened in that case
While I really hope that we'll see the writing on the wall and our leaders will realize granting themselves and their big business buddies ever more increasing powers over our lives is a dead end road, You seem to misunderstand, its quite profitable for them. The phrase the rich get richer comes to mind.
What you really should be hoping, and also trying to improve, is the awareness of how politics works, and try putting your vote to the best use.
If people were more informed when they voted, and if there were more choices to choose from, a greater good could be achieved, rather then a more selective good which seems to be the case.
But that would require people study politics and do research into what their candidates stand, and stood for, alas for that to happen in USA i believe would require some political reform unheard of except in times of great depressions...
Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by an Iraqi judge in an Iraqi court, and executed by the Iraqi government. The US supported this government... Perhaps you'd like to read this article about the trial http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3762
I'll give you an extract
The Chief Judge that presided in the early part of the proceedings resigned in protest against the blatant interference by the Iraqi regime installed by the occupying power. He was replaced by a judge who had no qualms in disregarding all established principles of fair trial and was willing to hand down a judgment inconsistent with the evidence adduced.
Then we have the illegal detention of suddam, and how his charges were created in court, during trial, and not before the actual trial. (Illegal in Iraq) http://loc.gov/law//help/hussein/comments.html
And who's jurisdiction was the court under. It couldn't be the international courts, he was being tried for actions committed before it existed and thus outside of its jurisdiction
If it was Iraq's jurisdiction, then by Iraq law, Saddam was still president and thus had immunity from prosecution.
The summery of this post is. The court that sentenced Saddam to death had no jurisdiction over him, was highly influenced by the controlling forces (The Iraq government, and probably the US), and freely broke the law to deliver the guilty verdict
Saddam did a lot of evil things I'm sure, and if its all true, he did deserve death in my books. But to suggest that his trial was just and fair is a bold lie, committed either through ignorance or unbridled emotion.
Perceived security is a lot easier to sell and profit from then actual security.
Unless their clients are nerds themselves, they are not going to understand, let alone trust what PGP does.
Every client understands how much harder it is to listen in on a face to face talk. They appreciate that, and that kind of appreciation is also billable.
Thats a poorly implemented encryption if it was cracked so easily, and its not obfuscation.
There are plenty of ways to do encryption, ultimately you'd need some form of DRM to make it work. Because at some point, it'd need to be decrypted into memory on the client's machine, and without DRM, there is nothing to stop a 3rd party app from retrieving it from memory.
Obfuscation however could work pretty well, because if they patched not just the exploit, but shuffled everything around in the process, they couldn't just do a diff to find out what they changed, as everything would of changed.
They'd need to create a tool to unobfuscate the differences, and highlight what has been patched.
The problem being it becomes an arms race in the same way DRM is an arms race. Microsoft would have to keep inventing new obfuscating logarithms, and the crackers would have to keep working out how the current logarithm obfuscates.
Not to mention, the potential for obfuscation to introduce bugs could be very problematic.
Chances are Apple will allow GPLv2 aps, if not You could easily use BSD to make a program with a shim of BSD code that you dont release to link to the API, thus being safe from NDAs. The BSD does not ensure the freedom of the code. You can modify and then distbute only the binary.
At that point, its not even open source software, let alone "free" software.
The reason were using Linux instead of Hurd... I find that laughable that you can so freely summarize the history of linux vs hurd in 1 sentence and be so inaccurate. Do a little research before making such a blanket sentence. In the words of wikipedia "Citation Needed"
The Total FUD: It only affects SOME Free liscences. Even if the APIs are confidential, this does NOT stop BSD code, but only viral liscences like GPL. There is free as in beer, and free as in speech.
When they are talking about you can't alter it and then use it, their talking about how the software isn't free of restriction. They are not talking about its price.
The largest purpose of Habeas Corpus is the fact that it prevents you from being detained without a legal reason. The whole idea of Habeas Corpus is that both you and the court are to be held accountable to one another.
What good is it if you can be detained without accountability indefinitely.
The biggest cases of Habeas Corpus have been cases where the victims have gone without trial, or even known what they were being charged with for years at a time.
Ok. Check this out. The USA has a -long- tradition of temporary suspensions of some civil liberties during war time. Last time I checked, the USA is in a war. You are correct that it has been suspended in the past. Those times however, it was acceptable due to the public safety, the condition required to suspend Habeus Corpus
I'll quote the constitution again. "...Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it"
The public safety was always considered in jeopardy in previous suspensions, but this wasn't the case in iraq. Its very nature conflicts with the constitution.
As much as the left wing bashes Bush for, honestly, going after Padilla, whose just a stupid muslim gangsta anyway, they've neglected that Lincoln not only suspended Habeus Corpus in the civil war in general, but he flat out executed a shitpot of confederate spies - no trial. Just whacked them. Then, in World War II, you had Roosevelt go and throw all the Japs into camps. What was their crime? And this guy has his head stamped on every US dime. I don't see what this point is about. Are you suggesting that because past presidents have abused the system, that its acceptable to let the current president's abuse slide uncontested?
The general direction of your post is along the lines of "The ends justify the means". This is problematic because without supervision, the potential for abuse is unparalleled. The Writ of Habeas Corpus is the most fundamental building block of justice and without it, the only thing gained is a new level of injustice.
Funny, I cannot find one instance he suspended it on American soil or for Americans. Heres an excerpt from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Padilla_(alleged_terrorist)
Jose Padilla... is a United States citizen convicted of aiding terrorists. Padilla was arrested in Chicago on May 8, 2002, and was detained as a material witness until June 9, 2002, when President Bush designated him an illegal enemy combatant and transferred him to a military prison, arguing that he was thereby not entitled to trial in civilian courts. Padilla was held for three-and-a-half years as an "enemy combatant" after his arrest in 2002 on suspicion of plotting a radioactive "dirty bomb" attack. That charge was dropped and his case was moved to a civilian court after pressure from civil liberties groups. US Citizen, in the US, kept for 3.5 years without trial, because the president prevented both the trial while denying his freedom.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 simply expands the scope. Where as before the act, only the president could authorize detention without cause. Now the president can authorize other people and even departments with such powers. It also removes in its entirety the right of the Writ of Habeas Corpus, where as before the president's authority to detain could be challenged.
So there we already have a precedent of a US citizen being detained without cause, on US soil.
Getting concerned yet? You should be.
I won't even bother to point out that you'd have to be a selfish bastard, as well as ignorant to think only American's have the right to Habeas Corpus.
How about this Bush suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus.
Its written in your very constitution that "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
Yet he suspended it with the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Regardless of what you may think about this act, its a matter of fact that it was signed into law specifically against the constitution. I also hope no one is silly enough to think that if thats the case, they can just appeal to something about its unconstitutionally, because without the right of the Writ of Habeas Corpus, you have no rights to justice until the time of your trial, whenever that may (or may not) be.
Under that same logic, you are saying that the government has no right to enforce building codes, since buildings are privately owned. 1. As far as I'm aware, the government only enforces building codes on NEW buildings. It doesn't enforce them retroactively on old buildings, as they have with pubs an no-smoking rules.
If we were to take the same stance with your metaphor, it would allow all the old pubs continue to remain smoker friendly, but prevent any new pubs being constructed without no-smoking areas.
2. Building codes are there to ensure that the product delivered is up to expectations. That there are no hidden surprises, that your not being scammed, and to help ensure the safety of other peoples property, like your neighbors house (although thats your responsibility and not the governments).
The same thing is in effect with smoking, the government regulates what can be put in to a cigarette. Obviously you can't build a house using asbestos, just like you can't make a cigarette with cocaine.
Obviously people who enter a smoking pub are well aware of the health concerns, and for those that are not, enforcing a sign stating the problems of smoking bars would be an acceptable compromise.
Additionally, what right does the government have to say who can and who can't drink alcohol, I mean, they're drinking in a bar and the bar is privately owned, right? It has no right. I think we are agreed there. What you seem to be confusing however, is the fact that they place restrictions on the SALE of alcohol, not the consumption.
Its perfectly legal to give alcohol to a child, just not legal to sell it to them. At least here in New Zealand, once your considered an adult, your entitled to vote and to purchase drinks. Its America that seems to think that voting is a lesser responsibility then drinking.
You can argue that it should should be your legal right to sell whatever you want to any responsible adult if you wish, and if your American, i think that might actually be enshrined in your constitution. But thats getting off topic from the original debate, being why pubs shouldn't be forced to have no-smoking areas.
I've honestly seen little about liberation of Tibet from the internet. Perhaps its just the sights you visit that are pro-Tibet Its a non-issue for me personally, and this article on Slashdot isn't pro-Tibet, its anti-censorship.
A war over Tibet war is something of interest and thus, discussion on the internet, its something that's going to be talked about, and get more "energy" from people.
The issues with Australian aborigines pales in comparison if you take into account the fact that the Australian government recently and officially apologized for their actions and progress is [b]probably[/b] being made. It doesn't make what they've done ok, but its a step towards peacefully resolving it.
The issues with New Zealand and their semi-native Maori population is a thorny, but our government is listening and trying to rectify past grievances they have suffered. Again, this is a peaceful resolution. As for being democratic, they can either vote as a normal New Zealander, or they can vote using a Maori vote. They effectively get to choose which rule they will play with. So in a way, they have more political clout per vote non-Maori.
The other countries i know too little about to comment on.
Of the 3 issues i talked about, only one of them has the possibility of a war. The other two are simply civil matters and are being slowly resolved or improved.
Hope that explains why Tibet is an interesting topic, and why little fuss is applied to the internal matters of some countries.
The bar is not your property, what gives you the right to enforce your no smoking rules on something that doesn't belong to you? You have the right to go elsewhere if you don't like it, just as bars should have the right to allow smoking
You seem to agree that circumcision performed at birth is ineffective at preventing STDs, however seem to suggest that when performed as an adult it lowers the chance of infection.
Since there is no difference medically in circumcision as an adult or child, i can only assume that the effect is caused by social or mental changes. An indirect and physically unrelated result from circumcision. I'm unaware of how their social system works in Africa, so I'm skeptical if such actions taken in a first world nation would have any repeatable effect, epically when performed in a country where the women take it for granted.
Moving onto actual medical studies, reading from the CIRP, it suggests backed up with multiple reports, that those without foreskin suffered higher rates of STD and other various infections. The reason provided being that the skin removed coats the penis in an enzyme that attacks and destroys the cell walls of bacteria.
Another thing they talk about is how circumcised males have a more risky behavior, including lower usage of condoms (possibly due to the fact that they would have reduced penal sensitivity being further reduced by a jacket)...
TLDR: The part they cut off helps keep the penis healthy and better protected, while circumcised men tend to take larger risks in their sexual activities including lower condom usage.
There was also the pilot film that he paid a few million himself to make, and sent off to the studios as a proof of concept thing.
He got the ball rolling, and kept it rolling. He basically nursed his project from nothing from his own funds, to the 6.5 billion revenue earning project it became.
Iraq was not a threat to America. It did not have the offensive capability when it was invaded. Saddam could be Satan himself, roasting iraq childen on a spit, and that fact would not change.
Iraq was not America's war. By invading Iraq, you were either "policing the world", or warmongering. I'll let you choose.
Was the world "policed" when Japan's territory and resource grab
That was a war you were directly involved in. Don't mistake wars that are unavoidable, and wars that are though policing.
If you think that's policing, but the result is a country like modern Japan, or today's Germany, then sure, let's use that word. Since the results speak for themselves, no matter how you mis-use the word.
Germany was both a 1st world nation and a democracy before WW2, although the American's helped rebuild it, they did not forge it. Japan was a success in transforming the country to a democracy. Although i am uncertain on how the reform came about, I'm certain that a large degree came from the populace wanting change away from their emperor due to the tragic outcome of the war, started by their emperor.
Its debatable if an democracy can be forcefully installed if the populace isn't willing. Also for the success they had in Japan, we can also take a look at Afghanistan to see thei potential failures. There is also the fact that the attempt in Iraq has only fragmented the country into 3 "factions", and is an unstable government. The outcome of the efforts in iraq are yet to be determined, and if another civil war is to occur.
So to call that the results justify the means, when you've had 1 success, 1 failure, and 1 undesided is pretty gun-ho, and perhaps irresponsible.
How is a guy like Saddam, who repeatedly made attempts to expand - through violence, extortion, mass murder, terrorist-funding, etc - his influence and control throughout a part of the world that's important to the entire world's economy harmless to anyone?
I said harmless to AMERICA. Oh wait, its harmful to America's economy, i see what you mean, well thats different. Obviously if a foreign country wants to control their oil, thats a moral reason to invade them.
Just like the intel depts of every other country that has a facility to determine that. Not like it was mysterious, of course, since he was making and testing long range missiles, and was known to have very large stockpiles of chemical weapons (what part of that is so hard to follow, exactly, anyway?).
What a load of crap. America and Bush went ON AND ON AND ON AND ON about how they had definitive proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But ALL of it was too secret to reveal to anyone. For weeks they went on about it, spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt into the peoples minds about Iraq.
What on earth do other nations intel have to do with anything. Your goverment said that they had definitive proof, so why should what other nations think matter, and how could other nations disprove that which they couldn't, and you wouldn't talk about. And where were these WoMD anyway? You did have definitive proof didn't you? I sure hope America didn't didn't just spread FUD to the populace so you could invade a nation with minimal internal resistance... On an election year no less.
They were not authorized to invade to protect the Sunnis.
Sunnis, whatever, America was not authorized by congress to protect the civilians by military means, restating their plight over and over doesn't change the legality of invading Iraq, it only gives a contradiction in their actions over why America isn't doing anything about other nations plights
Anyway, i don't particularity care to continue this debate. You believe that policing the world is both smart, morally correct, and even affordable. The fact remains that history is yet to prove you right on any of those matters. Iraq
If western Europe and its allies (the US) had acted before Germany had become the threat that it did (following WWI), there would have been millions of lives spared. Likewise with Japan. But back to your comment: what policy of attacking third world countries are you referring to?
I'm not talking about Afghanistan when i talk about 3rd world nations. I'm referring to Iraq. And what looks like a growing cause for Iran too.
Heres a little historic background, just so you know one of the first causes of WW2.
In the beginning of 1923 the French invaded Germany, occupied the Ruhr district and seized several German towns in the Rhineland. This was a flagrant breach of international law and was protested against by every section of British political opinion at that time. The Germans could not effectively defend themselves, as they had been already disarmed under the provisions of the Versailles Treaty. To make the situation more fraught with disaster for Germany, and therefore more appalling in its prospect, the French carried on an intensive propaganda for the separation of the Rhineland from the German Republic and the establishment of an independent Rhenania. Money was poured out lavishly to bribe agitators to carry on this work, and some of the most insidious elements of the German population became active in the pay of the invader. At the same time a vigorous movement was being carried on in Bavaria for the secession of that country and the establishment of an independent Catholic monarchy there, under vassalage to France, as Napoleon had done when he made Maximilian the first King of Bavaria in 1805.
There was a reason why Germany armed itself. Before you start pointing the finger at them, calling them evil, and proclaiming that if we snuffed them out again, that justice would of been served, you should take a look towards the French for their actions. The Germans arming themselves in reaction to their flagrant violations of international law seems quite justified.
And even more of Asia would look like North Korea, right now. Is that your preference? Since you're just plain wildly speculating
I am wildly speculating, i thought I'd try and match you with your opinions on how the world would of turned out if it was policed...
Even while other countries fail to contribute what they've agreed to contribute in peace keeping missions. Who is it you're complaining about, exactly?
I'm complaining about the budget. I don't care what other nations have agreed to, this is about America. Wars have a financial cost involved with them, Afghanistan and Iraq are bankrupting the country.
But unlike his WWII counterparts, he never honored the terms of his surrender, and they had to be enforced the hard way.
Unlike the French, which invaded Germany Lets not forget the Treaty of Versailles ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles#Treaty_violations ) Or then theres also the Washington Naval Treaty, which i believe the French, British, Americans, as well as Germany and Japan might of broken pre WW2. (hard to dig up solid facts on that one)
But lets not get history in the way of modern events
You have a very strange definition of "harmless." Do you suppose that the ditches filled with the people that regime wiped out would consider that to be harmless? The millions killed in the regional wars started by the Baathists? When the UN established no-fly zones over the northern and southern parts of that country to prevent him from continuing to slaughter more people basedon their tribal affiliation, would you consider that regime harmless for continually trying to shoot down the aircraft flying to enforce those UN sanctions? Or, do you only consider "harmless to Sunnis, especially from his own village" to be how you define "harmless?"
So, armies of people spamming message boards with context-less, frequently illiterate support for Ron Paul is... what? It comes across like a lot of people trying to shout someone into office, since actually looking closely at his positions guarantees that he'll never make it. Don't knock the the internet just because of a few retards. There is plenty of information on the internet to gather facts about every candidate in the race. Just because there are a lot of ron paul supporters doesn't mean the internet is bad.
I however cannot say the same about corporate media. The information you can gather from it is quite limited, often biased, and very hard to verify.
Moving on, i also find it amusing how you can dictate world policy in just 1 sentence. But i'll point a few things out from what you said
Disengaging from those issues, as Ron Paul would us do, would just repeat the setup for conflict that we saw before WWII. 1. Please explain how America's policy of attacking 3rd world nations have anything to do with stopping Germany in WW2. Germany was a 1st world nation that managed to occupy most of Europe in a matter of months. Germany and the Axis alliance isn't Iraq. Saying that your military policy would of stopped it is little more then wishful speculation.
2. If Ron Paul was president, perhaps you would of avoided Vietnam. There are pros and cons both ways.
3. America is bankrupting itself. It can't afford to keep up its military operations. Your already put yourselves into so much debt over this war that it'll be at least 2 generations before you can pay it off. Thats could be my daughter and my grandson, paying off a war that they weren't even alive in. 70 years of repayments, just so that we could snuff out a nation's government that was harmless.
In the meantime the government is printing off paper devaluing the USD. The USD itself has no value, so if there is a run on the bank over the USD, the economy will collapse. America is slowly heading the way of the USSR. Thats what Russia USED to be called before it collapsed. I wonder what USA will be called if it continues...
Believe what you will, one fact remains true, America needs to change its policies before the debt collectors are called in.
What you say is interesting, but i have a few issues with your source and post.
First up, the post says "where people hardly knew how to read, propaganda had no effect". I doubt that. To say it had no effect is a very absolute statement, one that isn't given any citation.
I would expect that being unable to read, they could only hear propaganda, and its a lot harder to distribute a message by human voice then it is by text. So i believe that they simply had a reduced effect where they were unable to read.
If you consider the example, that was before tv was invented, all they would of had would of been the radio and newspapers. Newspapers and community signs being the primary source of information. In that case, it is to be expected that reading is very important for propaganda since the media is far more readily available in that format.
If you work of that assumption, then its not a case of being smart enough to read or not, its simply how badly saturated in propaganda you are that affects how biased you become.
If reading propaganda in newspapers is enough to bias you, then surly one can agree the next logical step is that viewing propaganda on television is also enough to bias you.
You mentioned in the start that "the conscience and awareness of the "uneducated" masses is actually more resistant to propaganda than the intellectuals", but thats probably simply because they are deaf/blind to it, not because they have a resistance to it.
Now that is out of the way, I'll point out that just as text can bias people so can the corporate media through tv.
People that inform themselves on matters can become biased, but the alternative of making uninformed decisions is consideribly worse off then avoiding decisions that might be biased.
Slashdot Mirror
I've done this argument before many times.
US Congress didn't declare war, what they did was that they gave authorization for Bush to use armed forces in defense of USA and for enforcing UN policies. Thus Giving Bush under conditions, the right to send America into war.
Now heres where things get interesting.
Firstly with Iraq, you were not at peace, you simply had a cease-fire arrangement. Peace was never officially declared after the Gulf war in 1990.
Thus by UN standards, USA never started a war, they simply resumed the Gulf war many years later. Thus they were in compliance with UN requirements
As we know, Saddam broke many un policies, including allowing UN weapon inspection teams.
Because of the refusal in compliance to UN policies, and the authorization from congress a year earlier in defense of UN policies, Bush had legal entitlement to used armed forces.
Thus we find that by legal UN loopholing, and by a no balls/brains congress, Bush legally sent USA into war.
What i also find interesting, is that the USA are still at war with N. Korea, since they never made peace there either, its still a cease-fire arrangement after several decades...
I guess Bush just had his hands too full with Iraq during his terms in office.
To get a line position in racing, they give all the contestants a single lap, the fastest lap time getting front position
The interesting thing is that the drivers drive their cars past their limits attempting this, after the single lap is over, the gearbox needs to be replaced because they didn't bother with things like a clutch, heavens knows how their engine is.
But that doesn't matter to them, their budget is simply so big they can afford to throw away/repair their cars between races.
Thats what would happen in these "anything goes" races.
You'd have athletes who's entire career would be for 1 game. After that their bones, brains, organs would be so shot that they wouldn't be usable, and their nations would just discard them.
Now thats just not a sport I'd want to support.
I want to support a game where with a bit of talent and hard training, you'll be able to best the world.
Well you didn't say just or fair, but the way you said it was from an iraq judge, from an iraq court, i feel is at best, leaving too much out of the picture, or at worst, bending the truth.
A lot of uninformed people will read your post and think justice happened.
I wrote my reply to give a better picture of the proceedings that happened in that case
What you really should be hoping, and also trying to improve, is the awareness of how politics works, and try putting your vote to the best use.
If people were more informed when they voted, and if there were more choices to choose from, a greater good could be achieved, rather then a more selective good which seems to be the case.
But that would require people study politics and do research into what their candidates stand, and stood for, alas for that to happen in USA i believe would require some political reform unheard of except in times of great depressions...
One should be more concerned as to why your files are becoming corrupted.
I'd say its a safe bet that the files from apple.com are in perfect condition.
Which means it either became corrupted in transit to, or on arrival to your machine.
Which leads the question, is your memory defective
run memtest86 to check your memory.
http://www.memtest86.com/
Check if your Harddrives have SMART and are reporting anything. A disk checker would also be a good idea.
The other idea that springs to mind is if your behind some proxy with the above problems, although i doubt anyone would want to proxy a 1.5gig file.
Fact is, if files are being corrupted on your disk, its just a matter of time before something more important is hit by corruption.
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3762
I'll give you an extract
Then we have the illegal detention of suddam, and how his charges were created in court, during trial, and not before the actual trial. (Illegal in Iraq)
http://loc.gov/law//help/hussein/comments.html
And who's jurisdiction was the court under. It couldn't be the international courts, he was being tried for actions committed before it existed and thus outside of its jurisdiction
If it was Iraq's jurisdiction, then by Iraq law, Saddam was still president and thus had immunity from prosecution.
The summery of this post is.
The court that sentenced Saddam to death had no jurisdiction over him, was highly influenced by the controlling forces (The Iraq government, and probably the US), and freely broke the law to deliver the guilty verdict
Saddam did a lot of evil things I'm sure, and if its all true, he did deserve death in my books. But to suggest that his trial was just and fair is a bold lie, committed either through ignorance or unbridled emotion.
Nobody wants anything to do with AOL...
Something I've learnt a bit from business.
Perceived security is a lot easier to sell and profit from then actual security.
Unless their clients are nerds themselves, they are not going to understand, let alone trust what PGP does.
Every client understands how much harder it is to listen in on a face to face talk. They appreciate that, and that kind of appreciation is also billable.
Thats a poorly implemented encryption if it was cracked so easily, and its not obfuscation.
There are plenty of ways to do encryption, ultimately you'd need some form of DRM to make it work. Because at some point, it'd need to be decrypted into memory on the client's machine, and without DRM, there is nothing to stop a 3rd party app from retrieving it from memory.
Obfuscation however could work pretty well, because if they patched not just the exploit, but shuffled everything around in the process, they couldn't just do a diff to find out what they changed, as everything would of changed.
They'd need to create a tool to unobfuscate the differences, and highlight what has been patched.
The problem being it becomes an arms race in the same way DRM is an arms race. Microsoft would have to keep inventing new obfuscating logarithms, and the crackers would have to keep working out how the current logarithm obfuscates.
Not to mention, the potential for obfuscation to introduce bugs could be very problematic.
You can modify and then distbute only the binary.
At that point, its not even open source software, let alone "free" software. The reason were using Linux instead of Hurd... I find that laughable that you can so freely summarize the history of linux vs hurd in 1 sentence and be so inaccurate.
Do a little research before making such a blanket sentence. In the words of wikipedia
"Citation Needed"
When they are talking about you can't alter it and then use it, their talking about how the software isn't free of restriction. They are not talking about its price.
The largest purpose of Habeas Corpus is the fact that it prevents you from being detained without a legal reason. The whole idea of Habeas Corpus is that both you and the court are to be held accountable to one another.
What good is it if you can be detained without accountability indefinitely.
The biggest cases of Habeas Corpus have been cases where the victims have gone without trial, or even known what they were being charged with for years at a time.
I'll quote the constitution again.
"...Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it"
The public safety was always considered in jeopardy in previous suspensions, but this wasn't the case in iraq. Its very nature conflicts with the constitution. As much as the left wing bashes Bush for, honestly, going after Padilla, whose just a stupid muslim gangsta anyway, they've neglected that Lincoln not only suspended Habeus Corpus in the civil war in general, but he flat out executed a shitpot of confederate spies - no trial. Just whacked them. Then, in World War II, you had Roosevelt go and throw all the Japs into camps. What was their crime? And this guy has his head stamped on every US dime. I don't see what this point is about. Are you suggesting that because past presidents have abused the system, that its acceptable to let the current president's abuse slide uncontested?
The general direction of your post is along the lines of "The ends justify the means". This is problematic because without supervision, the potential for abuse is unparalleled. The Writ of Habeas Corpus is the most fundamental building block of justice and without it, the only thing gained is a new level of injustice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Padilla_(alleged_terrorist) Jose Padilla
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 simply expands the scope. Where as before the act, only the president could authorize detention without cause. Now the president can authorize other people and even departments with such powers. It also removes in its entirety the right of the Writ of Habeas Corpus, where as before the president's authority to detain could be challenged.
So there we already have a precedent of a US citizen being detained without cause, on US soil.
Getting concerned yet? You should be.
I won't even bother to point out that you'd have to be a selfish bastard, as well as ignorant to think only American's have the right to Habeas Corpus.
How about this
Bush suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus.
Its written in your very constitution that
"The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
Yet he suspended it with the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Regardless of what you may think about this act, its a matter of fact that it was signed into law specifically against the constitution.
I also hope no one is silly enough to think that if thats the case, they can just appeal to something about its unconstitutionally, because without the right of the Writ of Habeas Corpus, you have no rights to justice until the time of your trial, whenever that may (or may not) be.
A little insight as to what it can and eventually will mean:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf4W8F5HpiQ
If we were to take the same stance with your metaphor, it would allow all the old pubs continue to remain smoker friendly, but prevent any new pubs being constructed without no-smoking areas.
2. Building codes are there to ensure that the product delivered is up to expectations. That there are no hidden surprises, that your not being scammed, and to help ensure the safety of other peoples property, like your neighbors house (although thats your responsibility and not the governments).
The same thing is in effect with smoking, the government regulates what can be put in to a cigarette.
Obviously you can't build a house using asbestos, just like you can't make a cigarette with cocaine.
Obviously people who enter a smoking pub are well aware of the health concerns, and for those that are not, enforcing a sign stating the problems of smoking bars would be an acceptable compromise. Additionally, what right does the government have to say who can and who can't drink alcohol, I mean, they're drinking in a bar and the bar is privately owned, right? It has no right. I think we are agreed there.
What you seem to be confusing however, is the fact that they place restrictions on the SALE of alcohol, not the consumption.
Its perfectly legal to give alcohol to a child, just not legal to sell it to them. At least here in New Zealand, once your considered an adult, your entitled to vote and to purchase drinks.
Its America that seems to think that voting is a lesser responsibility then drinking.
You can argue that it should should be your legal right to sell whatever you want to any responsible adult if you wish, and if your American, i think that might actually be enshrined in your constitution. But thats getting off topic from the original debate, being why pubs shouldn't be forced to have no-smoking areas.
I've honestly seen little about liberation of Tibet from the internet. Perhaps its just the sights you visit that are pro-Tibet
Its a non-issue for me personally, and this article on Slashdot isn't pro-Tibet, its anti-censorship.
A war over Tibet war is something of interest and thus, discussion on the internet, its something that's going to be talked about, and get more "energy" from people.
The issues with Australian aborigines pales in comparison if you take into account the fact that the Australian government recently and officially apologized for their actions and progress is [b]probably[/b] being made. It doesn't make what they've done ok, but its a step towards peacefully resolving it.
The issues with New Zealand and their semi-native Maori population is a thorny, but our government is listening and trying to rectify past grievances they have suffered. Again, this is a peaceful resolution. As for being democratic, they can either vote as a normal New Zealander, or they can vote using a Maori vote. They effectively get to choose which rule they will play with. So in a way, they have more political clout per vote non-Maori.
The other countries i know too little about to comment on.
Of the 3 issues i talked about, only one of them has the possibility of a war. The other two are simply civil matters and are being slowly resolved or improved.
Hope that explains why Tibet is an interesting topic, and why little fuss is applied to the internal matters of some countries.
Because the bars are privately owned.
The bar is not your property, what gives you the right to enforce your no smoking rules on something that doesn't belong to you?
You have the right to go elsewhere if you don't like it, just as bars should have the right to allow smoking
What reboot, this exploit, judging by the code, doesn't need to reboot anything.
It can even unlock locked sessions on the fly.
A few points if i may.
You seem to agree that circumcision performed at birth is ineffective at preventing STDs, however seem to suggest that when performed as an adult it lowers the chance of infection.
Since there is no difference medically in circumcision as an adult or child, i can only assume that the effect is caused by social or mental changes. An indirect and physically unrelated result from circumcision. I'm unaware of how their social system works in Africa, so I'm skeptical if such actions taken in a first world nation would have any repeatable effect, epically when performed in a country where the women take it for granted.
Moving onto actual medical studies, reading from the CIRP, it suggests backed up with multiple reports, that those without foreskin suffered higher rates of STD and other various infections. The reason provided being that the skin removed coats the penis in an enzyme that attacks and destroys the cell walls of bacteria.
Another thing they talk about is how circumcised males have a more risky behavior, including lower usage of condoms (possibly due to the fact that they would have reduced penal sensitivity being further reduced by a jacket)...
It all sounds biased against circumcision, but regardless I'd suggest you take a read yourself:
http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/STD/
TLDR: The part they cut off helps keep the penis healthy and better protected, while circumcised men tend to take larger risks in their sexual activities including lower condom usage.
There was also the pilot film that he paid a few million himself to make, and sent off to the studios as a proof of concept thing.
He got the ball rolling, and kept it rolling.
He basically nursed his project from nothing from his own funds, to the 6.5 billion revenue earning project it became.
Lets not forget, hes a great actor in LotR too!
Iraq was not a threat to America. It did not have the offensive capability when it was invaded.
Saddam could be Satan himself, roasting iraq childen on a spit, and that fact would not change.
Iraq was not America's war.
By invading Iraq, you were either "policing the world", or warmongering. I'll let you choose.
Was the world "policed" when Japan's territory and resource grab
That was a war you were directly involved in. Don't mistake wars that are unavoidable, and wars that are though policing.
If you think that's policing, but the result is a country like modern Japan, or today's Germany, then sure, let's use that word. Since the results speak for themselves, no matter how you mis-use the word.
Germany was both a 1st world nation and a democracy before WW2, although the American's helped rebuild it, they did not forge it.
Japan was a success in transforming the country to a democracy. Although i am uncertain on how the reform came about, I'm certain that a large degree came from the populace wanting change away from their emperor due to the tragic outcome of the war, started by their emperor.
Its debatable if an democracy can be forcefully installed if the populace isn't willing. Also for the success they had in Japan, we can also take a look at Afghanistan to see thei potential failures.
There is also the fact that the attempt in Iraq has only fragmented the country into 3 "factions", and is an unstable government. The outcome of the efforts in iraq are yet to be determined, and if another civil war is to occur.
So to call that the results justify the means, when you've had 1 success, 1 failure, and 1 undesided is pretty gun-ho, and perhaps irresponsible.
How is a guy like Saddam, who repeatedly made attempts to expand - through violence, extortion, mass murder, terrorist-funding, etc - his influence and control throughout a part of the world that's important to the entire world's economy harmless to anyone?
I said harmless to AMERICA. Oh wait, its harmful to America's economy, i see what you mean, well thats different. Obviously if a foreign country wants to control their oil, thats a moral reason to invade them.
Just like the intel depts of every other country that has a facility to determine that. Not like it was mysterious, of course, since he was making and testing long range missiles, and was known to have very large stockpiles of chemical weapons (what part of that is so hard to follow, exactly, anyway?).
What a load of crap.
America and Bush went ON AND ON AND ON AND ON about how they had definitive proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But ALL of it was too secret to reveal to anyone. For weeks they went on about it, spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt into the peoples minds about Iraq.
What on earth do other nations intel have to do with anything. Your goverment said that they had definitive proof, so why should what other nations think matter, and how could other nations disprove that which they couldn't, and you wouldn't talk about.
And where were these WoMD anyway? You did have definitive proof didn't you?
I sure hope America didn't didn't just spread FUD to the populace so you could invade a nation with minimal internal resistance... On an election year no less.
They were not authorized to invade to protect the Sunnis.
Sunnis, whatever, America was not authorized by congress to protect the civilians by military means, restating their plight over and over doesn't change the legality of invading Iraq, it only gives a contradiction in their actions over why America isn't doing anything about other nations plights
Anyway, i don't particularity care to continue this debate. You believe that policing the world is both smart, morally correct, and even affordable.
The fact remains that history is yet to prove you right on any of those matters. Iraq
If western Europe and its allies (the US) had acted before Germany had become the threat that it did (following WWI), there would have been millions of lives spared. Likewise with Japan. But back to your comment: what policy of attacking third world countries are you referring to?
I'm not talking about Afghanistan when i talk about 3rd world nations. I'm referring to Iraq. And what looks like a growing cause for Iran too.
Heres a little historic background, just so you know one of the first causes of WW2.
In the beginning of 1923 the French invaded Germany, occupied the Ruhr
district and seized several German towns in the Rhineland. This was a
flagrant breach of international law and was protested against by every
section of British political opinion at that time. The Germans could not
effectively defend themselves, as they had been already disarmed under
the provisions of the Versailles Treaty. To make the situation more
fraught with disaster for Germany, and therefore more appalling in its
prospect, the French carried on an intensive propaganda for the
separation of the Rhineland from the German Republic and the
establishment of an independent Rhenania. Money was poured out lavishly
to bribe agitators to carry on this work, and some of the most insidious
elements of the German population became active in the pay of the
invader. At the same time a vigorous movement was being carried on in
Bavaria for the secession of that country and the establishment of an
independent Catholic monarchy there, under vassalage to France, as
Napoleon had done when he made Maximilian the first King of Bavaria in
1805.
There was a reason why Germany armed itself. Before you start pointing the finger at them, calling them evil, and proclaiming that if we snuffed them out again, that justice would of been served, you should take a look towards the French for their actions. The Germans arming themselves in reaction to their flagrant violations of international law seems quite justified.
And even more of Asia would look like North Korea, right now. Is that your preference? Since you're just plain wildly speculating
I am wildly speculating, i thought I'd try and match you with your opinions on how the world would of turned out if it was policed...
Even while other countries fail to contribute what they've agreed to contribute in peace keeping missions. Who is it you're complaining about, exactly?
I'm complaining about the budget. I don't care what other nations have agreed to, this is about America. Wars have a financial cost involved with them, Afghanistan and Iraq are bankrupting the country.
But unlike his WWII counterparts, he never honored the terms of his surrender, and they had to be enforced the hard way.
Unlike the French, which invaded Germany
Lets not forget the Treaty of Versailles ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles#Treaty_violations )
Or then theres also the Washington Naval Treaty, which i believe the French, British, Americans, as well as Germany and Japan might of broken pre WW2. (hard to dig up solid facts on that one)
But lets not get history in the way of modern events
You have a very strange definition of "harmless." Do you suppose that the ditches filled with the people that regime wiped out would consider that to be harmless? The millions killed in the regional wars started by the Baathists? When the UN established no-fly zones over the northern and southern parts of that country to prevent him from continuing to slaughter more people basedon their tribal affiliation, would you consider that regime harmless for continually trying to shoot down the aircraft flying to enforce those UN sanctions? Or, do you only consider "harmless to Sunnis, especially from his own village" to be how you define "harmless?"
I however cannot say the same about corporate media. The information you can gather from it is quite limited, often biased, and very hard to verify.
Moving on, i also find it amusing how you can dictate world policy in just 1 sentence. But i'll point a few things out from what you said Disengaging from those issues, as Ron Paul would us do, would just repeat the setup for conflict that we saw before WWII. 1. Please explain how America's policy of attacking 3rd world nations have anything to do with stopping Germany in WW2. Germany was a 1st world nation that managed to occupy most of Europe in a matter of months. Germany and the Axis alliance isn't Iraq. Saying that your military policy would of stopped it is little more then wishful speculation.
2. If Ron Paul was president, perhaps you would of avoided Vietnam. There are pros and cons both ways.
3. America is bankrupting itself. It can't afford to keep up its military operations. Your already put yourselves into so much debt over this war that it'll be at least 2 generations before you can pay it off. Thats could be my daughter and my grandson, paying off a war that they weren't even alive in. 70 years of repayments, just so that we could snuff out a nation's government that was harmless.
In the meantime the government is printing off paper devaluing the USD. The USD itself has no value, so if there is a run on the bank over the USD, the economy will collapse. America is slowly heading the way of the USSR. Thats what Russia USED to be called before it collapsed. I wonder what USA will be called if it continues...
Believe what you will, one fact remains true, America needs to change its policies before the debt collectors are called in.
What you say is interesting, but i have a few issues with your source and post.
First up, the post says "where people hardly knew how to read, propaganda had no effect". I doubt that. To say it had no effect is a very absolute statement, one that isn't given any citation.
I would expect that being unable to read, they could only hear propaganda, and its a lot harder to distribute a message by human voice then it is by text. So i believe that they simply had a reduced effect where they were unable to read.
If you consider the example, that was before tv was invented, all they would of had would of been the radio and newspapers. Newspapers and community signs being the primary source of information. In that case, it is to be expected that reading is very important for propaganda since the media is far more readily available in that format.
If you work of that assumption, then its not a case of being smart enough to read or not, its simply how badly saturated in propaganda you are that affects how biased you become.
If reading propaganda in newspapers is enough to bias you, then surly one can agree the next logical step is that viewing propaganda on television is also enough to bias you.
You mentioned in the start that "the conscience and awareness of the "uneducated" masses is actually more resistant to propaganda than the intellectuals", but thats probably simply because they are deaf/blind to it, not because they have a resistance to it.
Now that is out of the way, I'll point out that just as text can bias people so can the corporate media through tv.
People that inform themselves on matters can become biased, but the alternative of making uninformed decisions is consideribly worse off then avoiding decisions that might be biased.