"all the applicants did was change a URL, it's not like they used some root kit to break into Harvard's servers."
NOT TRUE. Check out the EIGHT steps that the original hacker posted [see poweryogi.blogspot.com's blog entry at: http://poweryogi.blogspot.com/2005/03/hbsapplyyour self-admit-status-snafu.html ]. The LAST thing they did was just "change a URL".
Don't get me wrong, after reading the WHOLE thread at/. I still haven't changed my mind: security via obscurity is dumb, irresponsible, and may here be legally actionable; and I think Harvard's reaction is blatantly unfair and further diminishes the institution, as well as in a funny way confirming a view that they are, seemingly, in the continuing traditions of their more storied graduates:-), the unethical party in this matter.
I certainly wouldn't class the 119 as "unethical". However, with the range of "not wise", "lack of judgement", "broke the rules", "unethical", "immoral", or "illegal" in one hand, and a view of the details of the procedure the 119 employed in those EIGHT steps, in the other [and at 8 steps it IS a procedure], I would say the 119 were "unwise" and lacked judgement. Hardly a reason though to eviscerate their futures (if already admitted), though what's sh*t and what's not is never really clear when it's coming down.
After looking at the instructions I myself wouldn't have tried them (and I am pretty curious) - not because I wouldn't be curious, and not because I think having information about yourself and only yourself 'they' have already packaged to send to you is unethical or stronger, but at least because the instructions as published look elaborate enough that one would [should!!] immediately suspect a trace would be left, a journal entry posted, darn it, a mistake made!
At a glance the instructions are sufficiently detailed, exact, and requiring unique personal info (password stuff), that it appears foolish to try to satisfy one's curiosity where, with a moment's thought, the stakes for getting noticed appear so obviously high. (If you're known or seen by Harvard to have asked someone openly and without inducement about whether or not you've been admitted that seems instinctively okay; if you're known or seen by Harvard to follow these 8 steps would you be okay with that?). The other thing I wonder about is if anybody else who has looked at the instructions has noticed something funny??
As someone once observed on coming upon a Mayan temple in the Yucatan jungle, "the odds of a pile of stones having randomly assembled themselves into such a reasoned structure were not so good". The instructions are too intricate and interdependent for anyone to have just "stumbled" upon them, let alone whittled a URL down - okay, so the first guy actually did a soft hack (more like tweaking and rearranging once you understand how the parts of the protocol work together), and then left a detailed recipe. That he did something other than simply mod a URL is plainly obvious once you reach the steps instructing you how to view and modify the web page source. That the 119 did not (could not?) see/feel/intuit that is curious (hence the lack of judgement).
It made me wonder, though, if indeed a different kind of "set up" hasn't occurred, and not just the present story of a disgruntled applicant. Any thoughts?
I pretty much agree, but I don't think the view of cell phones is being taken far enough fast enough. For one, 'cell phones' are going to be around for a long time if by 'cell phone' we mean a wireless device to communicate with. Pretty much everything else about them is going to change.
For instance the latest mid- and high-range Sony Ericcson and Nokia 'cell phones' are fully on the way to being true convergence devices [wirelesss communicator, PDA, megapixel camera, MP3 player etc. where, for example, "etc" already means (this time from Motorola) 'cell phones' with useful walkie-talkie functions].
As more 'cell phones' also support, first Wi-Fi; then WiMAX, followed by UWB [ultra wideband], and beyond, AS WELL AS VOIP, then what we may still be calling a 'cell phone', even in a short while, is going to pack one heck of a wallop. This changing technology package is going to translate (like the article referenced on changing University use discusses) into significant behavioural changes, and subtle but perhaps long reaching architectural ones (In the UK the public phone box is moving in the direction of the Dodo).
In the meantime, the present 'cell phone' operators are going to have to do even more rapidly what the airlines (surviving) did in the mid to late 20th century - which was to redefine their core business from 'flying aircraft and carrying people' to 'travel'. It sounds simple, but it's part of the reason today that, on some days (and quite regularly), I can fly more cheaply from London to San Francisco AND back, than one way from Detroit to L.A. Equally, the commuications equivalent may well involve a similarly radical change from a focus on the technology and infrastructure of communications, to providing the kinds of communication services we really want any-which-way.
I suspect this is going to mean for one, VOIP 'cell phones' will become a reality with a twist, where that VOIP 'cell phone' may well be a wireless-talking PDA/convergence device that ALSO supports other communications protocols (:-) - like todays 'cell'-ular technology (CDMA, GSM). With the airlines in mind, it'll take more than a tweak to the present communications business model.
Differently, in Europe, for example, albeit at different rates in different countries, 'cell phone' contract customers are dying in droves as the ease and convenience of pay-as-you-go phones explodes in use. So much so, that ALL of the operators now provide these contract-less services. Indeed, some of the most popular new cell phone operators [e.g. Virgin Mobile - in the UK, and spreading] are network-less operators [i.e. they lease capacity on someone else's network]. So the 'cell phone' evolution increasingly extends to market use business models as well.
First, in Europe, with the advent of 3G services (finally!), a 'cell phone' with a megapixel camera and broadband bandwidth can 'effectively' (hmmm) function as a micro television camera AND as a television screen [CNN is already doing "free" video downloads" on Vodafone]! This means you've got the beginnings of a portable video studio in your hand [now mate that with a 60GB iPod].
In the long run, IMHO, the range of technical and business alternatives will coalesce into strange new forms around the core notions of: "can I get a signal (not how or what kind)?"; "what kind of service does the darn thing provide (not how)?"; and can I have "this" wrapped up in a truly personal and mobile package (service personalization, number portability and payment options, for example).
The only things I'm sure of are that: the signal is going to get faster and quieter (UWB for example promises power levels one thousandth of present handsets), that you're going to be able to get that signal practically anywhere on the face of the planet without having to 'call home'; that your handset will provide functions like a PlayStation 3 (to come) on steroids, and that you'll still call the darn thing a 'cell phone'!
It's not so much about being for or against "removing terrorist dictators from power and bringing freedom to the world", as you distractedly put it. Others elsewhere in this subject have posted on how this was only one of 22 reasons (other than WMD's) given by Bush and Co AS their WMD case weakened and then fell apart.
The 'strange arithmetic' is that you seem to imply the 'trophy' in this war is to have removed a terrorist dictator (as you put it) from power, and that the price paid and being paid was/is worth it (and you quote John F. Kennedy's famous line about "..we shallpay any price, bear any burden,....in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.") to emphasise that.
Well aside from the quibbling point that JFK talked about "survival and success" which seems to me to indicate something is ALREADY alive (liberty), which for sure it was not and is still not in Iraq, {and won't be force-cloned, golemd, or Frankinstein-like brought to life by family-taking JDAM bursts and multi-generation depleted uranium poisoning), I have to wonder about the sanity in thinking the price is worth the trophy.
Strange Arithmetic I:
For instance, the present reckoning (widely discussed, minority dissented) is that over 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died from American/Coalition strikes since the Iraq war begun. More than 50% of those casualties are women and children, according to to the first reliable study of the death toll by Iraqi and US public health experts. (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,133874 9,00.html - The research was led by Les Roberts of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and first reported in the Lancet medical journal).
By contrast, the Vietnam War was the longest military conflict in U.S. history (1959-75 total; 65-73 US). The hostilities in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia claimed the lives of more than 58,000 Americans with another 304,000 were wounded. As Richard Nixon said in 1985 "No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now" so I'm not about to get into it other than the round number of total number of Americans killed.
The comparison point is that it took Saddam some 24 years to kill (attributed) some 300,000 Iraqis (mass grave number confirmations remain today at circa 5,000 - higher numbers are at best guesstimates since no count has presently been done). So in 18 months or so we're halfway to having killed a third as many civilians as Saddam did in 24 years, and, if the figures are to be believed, just shy of killing as many women and children as we lost men in the entire conflict of Vietnam. I don't think removing Saddam is worth that price, either to us, or to those Iraqis so touched.
Sure, those Iraqis that survive us are glad Saddam is gone, but if you had been able (theoretically) to say before hand, look guys it's gonna cost you 50,000+ women and children blown to bits, and environmental poisoning that's going to be around for a few thousand years (does the raging argument about Yucca Mountain ring any bells?), I am not exactly filled with confidence that either us (the American people, not the government), or the Iraqi people would have said "Come on down!"
Strange Arithmetic II
We're just shy of having lost forever more than 1,500, mostly, young men and women who are never coming home from a war whose premise (WMDs) never existed, and was known not to exist before it began. From ALL the published formal and informal polls such as have been done and released about the inclination of the Iraqi people (Sunni and Shiites, though not the Kurds), they say (who knows what will be done) that they're intent is to form a representative Islamic government (Sharia law and other elements in some way to be included).
So here's strange arithmetic II: We pay the price and bear the burden of the lives of 1500 of our best (and the suppressed stories of the legion of our wounded, disabled
While the topic started out 'cold', this reply, in response to Simon's post about consequences and Montana has turned 'hot'!.
Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming) sits on a high plateau supported by a hot mantle plume. This so-called hotspot has been the site of three caldera-forming eruptions in the last two million years. The last eruption, ~630,000 years ago, generated ~1000 km3 of pyroclastic sheet flows and airfall tephra which fell as far away as Louisiana.
In contrast, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 was a volcanic sneeze. Scientists are saying that America will one day again experience another Yellowstone eruption. Sooner or later, geologists warn, the "supervolcano" beneath Yellowstone, will strike. The eruption of pent-up energy will cover half the United States in ash, in some places up to 3 feet (1 meter) deep. Earth will be plunged into a perpetual winter that would last years. Some plant and animal species will disappear forever. Even humans could be pushed to the edge of extinction, and anthropologists suggest it won't be the first time.
Simply put, anyone living within 600 miles of Yellowstone could be sitting in a modern day Pompeii (?Montana?).
In addition, for those living outside this area and West of the Mississippi River, there could be grievous consequences as well, because systemic processes are now building beneath Yellowstone that paint a very clear picture of a major eruption event in its early stages." In 2003 Yellowstone National Park (National Park Service) posted the following notice which is still in effect.
Temporary Closure Notice
Last summer, approximately 4,800 feet of trail was closed. In October 2003, all but 1,000 feet of that closure was lifted. Approximately a 1,000-foot segment of trail in the Back Basin of Norris is still closed. The closure begins at Green Dragon and continues to near Pearl Geyser. The closure is clearly marked. The foot trail itself is at boiling temperatures and the potential for a steam explosion is considered to be very high. While predictions can be made for volcanic explosions, steam explosions cannot be predicted. Steamboat and Echinus Geysers and all of Porcelain Basin remain open to the public.
Just south of Norris basin is a bulge in the earth about 28 miles across and 7 miles deep that has pushed the ground up more than 5 inches since 1996, according to research by Chuck Wicks, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California... In the summer of 2003 there were already signs that the caldera remains wide awake. Norris Geyser Basin, the hottest thermal area in Yellowstone, sprouted new mud pots. Ground temperature on the trail soared to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, too hot to touch. Porkchop Geyser, dormant since 1989, erupted on July 16. Park officials responded by barring access to half of the 2 miles of Norris Geyser trails." [Ibid.] These two "mud pots" are approximately 70 feet high and 2,300 feet long!
Yellowstone's other hibernating danger
Geologists have long known that the 10,000 hot springs and geysers in Yellowstone National Park are evidence of magma, hot molten rock below the surface. And they know that long ago the region experienced colossal eruptions on a scale never seen in recorded history. But an important question has evolved in recent years: Is Yellowstone dying or just hibernating?
In the July 2001 issue of the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, University of Wisconsin geologists Ilya Bindeman and John Valley report new evidence indicating "a high probability of a future catastrophic eruption sometime within the next million years, and possibly within the next hundred thousand years." Analyzing minerals that serve as time capsules of past catastrophes, Bindeman and Valley have found support for other studies suggesting Yellowstone goes nuts every few hundred thousand years. They also propose a reason why: An epic hot spot.
Hot magma welling up from below acts like a burner, the researchers
Let me see, design, sales and marketing done in the US; IT and customer support done in India; manufacturing, assembly and systems done in Taiwan and CHINA! Now, some $35BN in US and European capital investments in China in 2004, with everybody and his brother building factories and shipping expertise and jobs there like there's no tomorrow (ha ha!) as in the huge sucking sound of outsourced jobs.
Hmmm. Maybe soon to have the largest blue water navy in the world, already equipped with carrier-busting 'Russian mach 2.9 SUNBURN' cruise missiles flying just 22' above the water whew! (we ain't got anything like it), just formed a collaboration pact with India, Brazil (soon to be on the UN security council) and Russia, and recently cut a deal with Venezuela for 'our' crude (how rude).
Hmmmm, I think I get your last point, they're not yet a threat, but by the time you reckon so I don't think it's going to matter a whole lot.
Whoa! Before you tar me with feathers or think I've drunk deeply of 'there was no holocaust' brew re-read the post headline. The emphasis is on SNEAK as in "we" (the US) were surprised by the attack on this day at this hour. Some very definitely were, but according to material recently released under FOI (Freedom Of Information) actions, our head of state, FDR himself, wasn't one of them. In fact (as the FOI record presents) he worked very hard to make it LOOK like a sneak attack. Here (below) is a partial from recently released transcripts:
The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor by John T. Flynn
The thesis of the following article was endorsed by many of the top-ranking U.S. Military commanders in the Pacific at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. The evidence is clear that Roosevelt did everything he could to goad the Japanese to attack American forces as a back door into the war in Europe. At the same time he adopted this policy, Roosevelt did everything he could to weaken the ability of America to be warned of the attack and repulse it. A large body of evidence indicates Roosevelt actually had prior warning of the attack, but did nothing to prevent it so the ensuing catastrophe would galvanize America for war.
October 1945 On Wednesday, August 29, 1945, President Truman gave out the reports of the Army and Navy Boards directed by Congress to investigate the responsibility for the great disaster of December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor. These Boards had filed their reports nine months ago. Under the pretext that issuance of them would disclose important military secrets President Roosevelt suppressed them. But President Truman has not by any means given out the whole story. Portions of it are still suppressed. He says they will never be given out. And that is the simple truth. They will never be given out by this government until Congress compels the government to release all the information which it is hiding from the people and which it hopes to hide from history.
The Roberts Report ? which was also doctored before being released ? blamed Admiral [Husband] Kimmel and General [Walter] Short for the defeat. Now the two Army and Navy reports expand the guilt to cover General Marshall, Admiral Stark and former Secretary of State Hull. Marshall and Stark were the Army and Navy chiefs in December. 1941. All the top commanders have now been blamed, plus various lesser commanders. But the greatest commander of all is left out ? the Commander-in-Chief. In the 150,000 words of these findings and comments the name of Franklin D. Roosevelt stands out in almost monumental conspicuousness by its absence. The Army and Navy chiefs, the former Secretary of State and Congress have been blamed and the President of the United States has added to the culprits the 130,000,000 people of the United States. The only person not blamed is Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was running the whole show. However, in spite of all the suppressions, the story of Pearl Harbor is known. And here I propose to tell it. Put in plain terms the tragedy of Pearl Harbor was the dark fruit of three incredible blunders. First in importance was the manner in which the crisis was managed. The second blunder was the bottling of the fleet in Pearl Harbor. The third was the stripping of the defenses of Pearl Harbor. It was Roosevelt who personally managed the whole crisis. It was Roosevelt who bottled the fleet in Pearl Harbor. It was Roosevelt who stripped the base of its defenses. First then, let us look at the crisis as it developed in Washington. Let us see it now in the light of the facts which this government has hidden and which I will now reveal publicly for the first time.
We shall have to look at two battlefields. One was the Pacific, where Kimmel and Short brooded week after week over their deplorable condition, begging for more weapons, fighting against the inroads made on what they had and living almost completely in the dark as to what was happening in that vast, mysterious Pacific world in which they found themselves. We
Is it just me or isn't there an infrastructure discontinuity coming to life in 2005 with the advent of UWB (ultra-wideband)? Intel is building it into their chipsets, has demo'd 40Mbits/sec and published a roadmap up to 500 Mbits/sec. It seems to me that Fibre-to-the-home will be supplanted by some smart start-ups delivering (wireless as it is) UWB and/or WiMax solutions for that last mile/100 yards. Fibre-to-the-home is now all about control and corporate profitability, not raw or consumer capability.
Slashdot Mirror
"all the applicants did was change a URL, it's not like they used some root kit to break into Harvard's servers."
r self-admit-status-snafu.html ]. The LAST thing they did was just "change a URL".
/. I still haven't changed my mind: security via obscurity is dumb, irresponsible, and may here be legally actionable; and I think Harvard's reaction is blatantly unfair and further diminishes the institution, as well as in a funny way confirming a view that they are, seemingly, in the continuing traditions of their more storied graduates :-), the unethical party in this matter.
NOT TRUE. Check out the EIGHT steps that the original hacker posted [see poweryogi.blogspot.com's blog entry at: http://poweryogi.blogspot.com/2005/03/hbsapplyyou
Don't get me wrong, after reading the WHOLE thread at
I certainly wouldn't class the 119 as "unethical". However, with the range of "not wise", "lack of judgement", "broke the rules", "unethical", "immoral", or "illegal" in one hand, and a view of the details of the procedure the 119 employed in those EIGHT steps, in the other [and at 8 steps it IS a procedure], I would say the 119 were "unwise" and lacked judgement. Hardly a reason though to eviscerate their futures (if already admitted), though what's sh*t and what's not is never really clear when it's coming down.
After looking at the instructions I myself wouldn't have tried them (and I am pretty curious) - not because I wouldn't be curious, and not because I think having information about yourself and only yourself 'they' have already packaged to send to you is unethical or stronger, but at least because the instructions as published look elaborate enough that one would [should!!] immediately suspect a trace would be left, a journal entry posted, darn it, a mistake made!
At a glance the instructions are sufficiently detailed, exact, and requiring unique personal info (password stuff), that it appears foolish to try to satisfy one's curiosity where, with a moment's thought, the stakes for getting noticed appear so obviously high. (If you're known or seen by Harvard to have asked someone openly and without inducement about whether or not you've been admitted that seems instinctively okay; if you're known or seen by Harvard to follow these 8 steps would you be okay with that?). The other thing I wonder about is if anybody else who has looked at the instructions has noticed something funny??
As someone once observed on coming upon a Mayan temple in the Yucatan jungle, "the odds of a pile of stones having randomly assembled themselves into such a reasoned structure were not so good". The instructions are too intricate and interdependent for anyone to have just "stumbled" upon them, let alone whittled a URL down - okay, so the first guy actually did a soft hack (more like tweaking and rearranging once you understand how the parts of the protocol work together), and then left a detailed recipe. That he did something other than simply mod a URL is plainly obvious once you reach the steps instructing you how to view and modify the web page source. That the 119 did not (could not?) see/feel/intuit that is curious (hence the lack of judgement).
It made me wonder, though, if indeed a different kind of "set up" hasn't occurred, and not just the present story of a disgruntled applicant. Any thoughts?
I pretty much agree, but I don't think the view of cell phones is being taken far enough fast enough. For one, 'cell phones' are going to be around for a long time if by 'cell phone' we mean a wireless device to communicate with. Pretty much everything else about them is going to change.
For instance the latest mid- and high-range Sony Ericcson and Nokia 'cell phones' are fully on the way to being true convergence devices [wirelesss communicator, PDA, megapixel camera, MP3 player etc. where, for example, "etc" already means (this time from Motorola) 'cell phones' with useful walkie-talkie functions].
As more 'cell phones' also support, first Wi-Fi; then WiMAX, followed by UWB [ultra wideband], and beyond, AS WELL AS VOIP, then what we may still be calling a 'cell phone', even in a short while, is going to pack one heck of a wallop. This changing technology package is going to translate (like the article referenced on changing University use discusses) into significant behavioural changes, and subtle but perhaps long reaching architectural ones (In the UK the public phone box is moving in the direction of the Dodo).
In the meantime, the present 'cell phone' operators are going to have to do even more rapidly what the airlines (surviving) did in the mid to late 20th century - which was to redefine their core business from 'flying aircraft and carrying people' to 'travel'. It sounds simple, but it's part of the reason today that, on some days (and quite regularly), I can fly more cheaply from London to San Francisco AND back, than one way from Detroit to L.A. Equally, the commuications equivalent may well involve a similarly radical change from a focus on the technology and infrastructure of communications, to providing the kinds of communication services we really want any-which-way.
I suspect this is going to mean for one, VOIP 'cell phones' will become a reality with a twist, where that VOIP 'cell phone' may well be a wireless-talking PDA/convergence device that ALSO supports other communications protocols (:-) - like todays 'cell'-ular technology (CDMA, GSM). With the airlines in mind, it'll take more than a tweak to the present communications business model.
Differently, in Europe, for example, albeit at different rates in different countries, 'cell phone' contract customers are dying in droves as the ease and convenience of pay-as-you-go phones explodes in use. So much so, that ALL of the operators now provide these contract-less services. Indeed, some of the most popular new cell phone operators [e.g. Virgin Mobile - in the UK, and spreading] are network-less operators [i.e. they lease capacity on someone else's network]. So the 'cell phone' evolution increasingly extends to market use business models as well.
First, in Europe, with the advent of 3G services (finally!), a 'cell phone' with a megapixel camera and broadband bandwidth can 'effectively' (hmmm) function as a micro television camera AND as a television screen [CNN is already doing "free" video downloads" on Vodafone]! This means you've got the beginnings of a portable video studio in your hand [now mate that with a 60GB iPod].
In the long run, IMHO, the range of technical and business alternatives will coalesce into strange new forms around the core notions of: "can I get a signal (not how or what kind)?"; "what kind of service does the darn thing provide (not how)?"; and can I have "this" wrapped up in a truly personal and mobile package (service personalization, number portability and payment options, for example).
The only things I'm sure of are that: the signal is going to get faster and quieter (UWB for example promises power levels one thousandth of present handsets), that you're going to be able to get that signal practically anywhere on the face of the planet without having to 'call home'; that your handset will provide functions like a PlayStation 3 (to come) on steroids, and that you'll still call the darn thing a 'cell phone'!
It's not so much about being for or against "removing terrorist dictators from power and bringing freedom to the world", as you distractedly put it. Others elsewhere in this subject have posted on how this was only one of 22 reasons (other than WMD's) given by Bush and Co AS their WMD case weakened and then fell apart.
The 'strange arithmetic' is that you seem to imply the 'trophy' in this war is to have removed a terrorist dictator (as you put it) from power, and that the price paid and being paid was/is worth it (and you quote John F. Kennedy's famous line about "..we shallpay any price, bear any burden,....in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.") to emphasise that.
Well aside from the quibbling point that JFK talked about "survival and success" which seems to me to indicate something is ALREADY alive (liberty), which for sure it was not and is still not in Iraq, {and won't be force-cloned, golemd, or Frankinstein-like brought to life by family-taking JDAM bursts and multi-generation depleted uranium poisoning), I have to wonder about the sanity in thinking the price is worth the trophy.
Strange Arithmetic I:
For instance, the present reckoning (widely discussed, minority dissented) is that over 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died from American/Coalition strikes since the Iraq war begun. More than 50% of those casualties are women and children, according to to the first reliable study of the death toll by Iraqi and US public health experts. (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,133874 9,00.html - The research was led by Les Roberts of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and first reported in the Lancet medical journal).
By contrast, the Vietnam War was the longest military conflict in U.S. history (1959-75 total; 65-73 US). The hostilities in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia claimed the lives of more than 58,000 Americans with another 304,000 were wounded. As Richard Nixon said in 1985 "No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now" so I'm not about to get into it other than the round number of total number of Americans killed.
The comparison point is that it took Saddam some 24 years to kill (attributed) some 300,000 Iraqis (mass grave number confirmations remain today at circa 5,000 - higher numbers are at best guesstimates since no count has presently been done). So in 18 months or so we're halfway to having killed a third as many civilians as Saddam did in 24 years, and, if the figures are to be believed, just shy of killing as many women and children as we lost men in the entire conflict of Vietnam. I don't think removing Saddam is worth that price, either to us, or to those Iraqis so touched.
Sure, those Iraqis that survive us are glad Saddam is gone, but if you had been able (theoretically) to say before hand, look guys it's gonna cost you 50,000+ women and children blown to bits, and environmental poisoning that's going to be around for a few thousand years (does the raging argument about Yucca Mountain ring any bells?), I am not exactly filled with confidence that either us (the American people, not the government), or the Iraqi people would have said "Come on down!"
Strange Arithmetic II
We're just shy of having lost forever more than 1,500, mostly, young men and women who are never coming home from a war whose premise (WMDs) never existed, and was known not to exist before it began. From ALL the published formal and informal polls such as have been done and released about the inclination of the Iraqi people (Sunni and Shiites, though not the Kurds), they say (who knows what will be done) that they're intent is to form a representative Islamic government (Sharia law and other elements in some way to be included).
So here's strange arithmetic II: We pay the price and bear the burden of the lives of 1500 of our best (and the suppressed stories of the legion of our wounded, disabled
While the topic started out 'cold', this reply, in response to Simon's post about consequences and Montana has turned 'hot'!.
... In the summer of 2003 there were already signs that the caldera remains wide awake. Norris Geyser Basin, the hottest thermal area in Yellowstone, sprouted new mud pots. Ground temperature on the trail soared to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, too hot to touch. Porkchop Geyser, dormant since 1989, erupted on July 16. Park officials responded by barring access to half of the 2 miles of Norris Geyser trails." [Ibid.] These two "mud pots" are approximately 70 feet high and 2,300 feet long!
Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming) sits on a high plateau supported by a hot mantle plume. This so-called hotspot has been the site of three caldera-forming eruptions in the last two million years. The last eruption, ~630,000 years ago, generated ~1000 km3 of pyroclastic sheet flows and airfall tephra which fell as far away as Louisiana.
In contrast, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 was a volcanic sneeze. Scientists are saying that America will one day again experience another Yellowstone eruption. Sooner or later, geologists warn, the "supervolcano" beneath Yellowstone, will strike. The eruption of pent-up energy will cover half the United States in ash, in some places up to 3 feet (1 meter) deep. Earth will be plunged into a perpetual winter that would last years. Some plant and animal species will disappear forever. Even humans could be pushed to the edge of extinction, and anthropologists suggest it won't be the first time.
Simply put, anyone living within 600 miles of Yellowstone could be sitting in a modern day Pompeii (?Montana?).
In addition, for those living outside this area and West of the Mississippi River, there could be grievous consequences as well, because systemic processes are now building beneath Yellowstone that paint a very clear picture of a major eruption event in its early stages." In 2003 Yellowstone National Park (National Park Service) posted the following notice which is still in effect.
Temporary Closure Notice
Last summer, approximately 4,800 feet of trail was closed. In October 2003, all but 1,000 feet of that closure was lifted. Approximately a 1,000-foot segment of trail in the Back Basin of Norris is still closed. The closure begins at Green Dragon and continues to near Pearl Geyser. The closure is clearly marked. The foot trail itself is at boiling temperatures and the potential for a steam explosion is considered to be very high. While predictions can be made for volcanic explosions, steam explosions cannot be predicted. Steamboat and Echinus Geysers and all of Porcelain Basin remain open to the public.
Just south of Norris basin is a bulge in the earth about 28 miles across and 7 miles deep that has pushed the ground up more than 5 inches since 1996, according to research by Chuck Wicks, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California
Yellowstone's other hibernating danger
Geologists have long known that the 10,000 hot springs and geysers in Yellowstone National Park are evidence of magma, hot molten rock below the surface. And they know that long ago the region experienced colossal eruptions on a scale never seen in recorded history. But an important question has evolved in recent years: Is Yellowstone dying or just hibernating?
In the July 2001 issue of the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, University of Wisconsin geologists Ilya Bindeman and John Valley report new evidence indicating "a high probability of a future catastrophic eruption sometime within the next million years, and possibly within the next hundred thousand years." Analyzing minerals that serve as time capsules of past catastrophes, Bindeman and Valley have found support for other studies suggesting Yellowstone goes nuts every few hundred thousand years. They also propose a reason why: An epic hot spot.
Hot magma welling up from below acts like a burner, the researchers
First rule of government spending: Why build one when you can two for twice the price (at least)!
Let me see, design, sales and marketing done in the US; IT and customer support done in India; manufacturing, assembly and systems done in Taiwan and CHINA! Now, some $35BN in US and European capital investments in China in 2004, with everybody and his brother building factories and shipping expertise and jobs there like there's no tomorrow (ha ha!) as in the huge sucking sound of outsourced jobs. Hmmm. Maybe soon to have the largest blue water navy in the world, already equipped with carrier-busting 'Russian mach 2.9 SUNBURN' cruise missiles flying just 22' above the water whew! (we ain't got anything like it), just formed a collaboration pact with India, Brazil (soon to be on the UN security council) and Russia, and recently cut a deal with Venezuela for 'our' crude (how rude). Hmmmm, I think I get your last point, they're not yet a threat, but by the time you reckon so I don't think it's going to matter a whole lot.
Whoa! Before you tar me with feathers or think I've drunk deeply of 'there was no holocaust' brew re-read the post headline. The emphasis is on SNEAK as in "we" (the US) were surprised by the attack on this day at this hour. Some very definitely were, but according to material recently released under FOI (Freedom Of Information) actions, our head of state, FDR himself, wasn't one of them. In fact (as the FOI record presents) he worked very hard to make it LOOK like a sneak attack. Here (below) is a partial from recently released transcripts:
The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor by John T. Flynn
The thesis of the following article was endorsed by many of the top-ranking U.S. Military commanders in the Pacific at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. The evidence is clear that Roosevelt did everything he could to goad the Japanese to attack American forces as a back door into the war in Europe. At the same time he adopted this policy, Roosevelt did everything he could to weaken the ability of America to be warned of the attack and repulse it. A large body of evidence indicates Roosevelt actually had prior warning of the attack, but did nothing to prevent it so the ensuing catastrophe would galvanize America for war.
October 1945
On Wednesday, August 29, 1945, President Truman gave out the reports of the Army and Navy Boards directed by Congress to investigate the responsibility for the great disaster of December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor. These Boards had filed their reports nine months ago. Under the pretext that issuance of them would disclose important military secrets President Roosevelt suppressed them. But President Truman has not by any means given out the whole story. Portions of it are still suppressed. He says they will never be given out. And that is the simple truth. They will never be given out by this government until Congress compels the government to release all the information which it is hiding from the people and which it hopes to hide from history.
The Roberts Report ? which was also doctored before being released ? blamed Admiral [Husband] Kimmel and General [Walter] Short for the defeat. Now the two Army and Navy reports expand the guilt to cover General Marshall, Admiral Stark and former Secretary of State Hull. Marshall and Stark were the Army and Navy chiefs in December. 1941. All the top commanders have now been blamed, plus various lesser commanders. But the greatest commander of all is left out ? the Commander-in-Chief. In the 150,000 words of these findings and comments the name of Franklin D. Roosevelt stands out in almost monumental conspicuousness by its absence. The Army and Navy chiefs, the former Secretary of State and Congress have been blamed and the President of the United States has added to the culprits the 130,000,000 people of the United States. The only person not blamed is Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was running the whole show. However, in spite of all the suppressions, the story of Pearl Harbor is known. And here I propose to tell it. Put in plain terms the tragedy of Pearl Harbor was the dark fruit of three incredible blunders. First in importance was the manner in which the crisis was managed. The second blunder was the bottling of the fleet in Pearl Harbor. The third was the stripping of the defenses of Pearl Harbor. It was Roosevelt who personally managed the whole crisis. It was Roosevelt who bottled the fleet in Pearl Harbor. It was Roosevelt who stripped the base of its defenses. First then, let us look at the crisis as it developed in Washington. Let us see it now in the light of the facts which this government has hidden and which I will now reveal publicly for the first time.
We shall have to look at two battlefields. One was the Pacific, where Kimmel and Short brooded week after week over their deplorable condition, begging for more weapons, fighting against the inroads made on what they had and living almost completely in the dark as to what was happening in that vast, mysterious Pacific world in which they found themselves. We
Is it just me or isn't there an infrastructure discontinuity coming to life in 2005 with the advent of UWB (ultra-wideband)? Intel is building it into their chipsets, has demo'd 40Mbits/sec and published a roadmap up to 500 Mbits/sec. It seems to me that Fibre-to-the-home will be supplanted by some smart start-ups delivering (wireless as it is) UWB and/or WiMax solutions for that last mile/100 yards. Fibre-to-the-home is now all about control and corporate profitability, not raw or consumer capability.