I'm curious. Who do you think has killed more Iraq people? The Bush Regime Or Sadaam's Regime?
I'm going with Saddam's regime. The Iraq-centric conflict in the Gulf can arguably be said to have started in 1980, when Saddam launched a more-or-less surpise attack against its neighbor, Iran. In that conflict, at least 300,000 of Saddam's Iraqi citizens were killed, most of whom were conscripted foot soldiers. Probably a million people died in that bit of Saddam's aggession, including the substantial Iranian casualties. You can bone up on his attempt to expand his territory into Iran here, if you want.
Of course, that became a grinding war of attrition, and Saddam failed to get any traction. Next stop: his attempt to take over Kuwait by force. In reversing that invasion and pushing Saddam's troops back out of Kuwait, another 20,000 or so Iraqis were killed, sacrificed again by Saddam to his expansionist ambitions.
Of course, while busy trying to gobble up neighbors, Saddam's ruling clan oversaw horrendous mass killings within his own country. Those mass graves that have already been excavated show mass killings of at the very least, 400,000 people. Thousands of corpses, lined up, many with hands lashed together, with bullet holes in the back of their heads. Lots of them, women and children, too.
Then, how do you count the people that Saddam starved or medically neglected as he syphoned off the money - explicitly targeted for that use by the (ridiculously corrupt) United Nations - and instead continued to build palaces, and bolster his private Republican Guard and tribal relatives in Tikrit. Then there's the 50,000-100,000 Kurds that he killed while trying to crush their movement for freedom from minority Sunni rule.
How are we doing so far? I'm guessing that you'll now back up the implication of your comment, and enumerate how the United States has killed over a million Iraqis? Get busy. And just for comparison, be sure to mention the millions that recently got to vote, for the first time ever, for their own elected officials.
The Soviet Union did worse things than those you mention to its own people but no one contested its sovereignity.
Surely you jest! The entire Cold War was a one giant contest over the legitimacy of the Soviet Union - and, of course, it wasn't (legitimate), as shown by the many "client" nations that couldn't wait to get out from under their thumb.
But, is there any authority in Iraq that can handle this?
Just because Iraq can't handle every detail of everything they're tackling, and need a lot of international support, doesn't mean they shouldn't be assigned the authority to do so. For example - USAID is helping their Ministry of Communications with an enormous task: getting the local telecom infrastructure up to date. That seems like a natural channel through which to tackle domain admin, even if it's with some help for a while. For some comments on how much fiber and whatnot they've been stringing up, see here, just as an example.
it will be full of similar incorrect assumptions and rhetoric
Ah, well, we wouldn't want to use any "incorrect assumptions" or "rhetoric" while blaming problems on people from a particular area of a country, now, would we? So glad that you're above all of that! How could you find the time, anyway, when you're so busy oppressing the Irish or making up for the trouble caused by ignorant Geordies? What? Those are pointless, nonsensical generalizations? Huh.
No, Iraq was run by a murderous thug and his tribal minority that killed the previous regime, and killed everyone, ever since, that raised any sort of political opposition. People making a comment just like yours were the ones that got pushed through a woodchipper while your family watched. That's your idea of a sovereign nation?
Or was the sovereign part the period when Saddam tried to forcibly annex Kuwait, and started lobbing missiles into Israel and burning oil wells when he was being run back out? Or was it the part when the multinational patrol flights watching the no-fly zones over the areas in Iraq where he had been slaughtering more people came under weekly and even daily fire? Or was it the part when he completely faked up documents to show what exactly he did with the tons and tons of things like VX gas that had been in plain site during previous visits by surrender-treaty-empowered inspectors?
for absolutely nothing
I'd love to see you stand in the living room of a family in Baghdad that had, for the first time in their lives, just voted for a representative of their own choosing, and tell them that.
These days it's just young American kids from the southern states, rather than Iraqis, torturing the innocent.
From the "north" are you? Not a chance that any National Guardsmen from north of the Mason-Dixon Line were ever jackasses, not trained enough for a particular task, of supervised by someone who turns out to be a PHB? I live in Maryland. people from the South think I'm from the North, and people from the North think I'm from the South. I get to see the asses on both sides, but it seems that I get to see a lot more condescension, patronizing, and ill-informed elitist psuedo-intellectualism from the North than the other way around.
I've had plenty of bones to pick with the Bible Belt, but I think sometimes the idiocy in that region is come by more honestly, if you will, than the hypocritical blatherings that I frequently hear from the North (specifically, the Northeast and Northwest). The Upper Midwest is not without its failings, but the people there seem to be a lot more level-headed, honest with themselves, and just more polite than the rest (not counting the South, where - despite what you seem to be suggesting - there are places you'll encounter more decency per capita than in many a New England suburb or Seattle coffee bar).
And that's just what has become public
Yeah, yeah. And police in New York all shoot immigrants 40 times (I saw it on TV once, so I'm sure we can extrapolate to the entire NYPD, and all of the citizens that live there, right?). And Howard Dean didn't appoint any African Americans to his administration, so Vermont residents are all racist, right? Get a grip.
Things haven't changed
You're right, of course. The US is busy, right now, looking for replacements for Saddam's two genius sons so that we'll still have someone to put political opponents through industrial shredders while their families watch, to torture the Iraqi national soccer team when they lose games, and a whole new crew of heavy equipment operators to dig mass graves for the ethnic cleansing of Kurdish villages that we're so busy carrying out.
So, should we de-register any New Orleans city-related domains until that mayor and his state's governor can figure which of them works for who under what authority? That seems to be a somewhat contested issue at the moment. You could also say that the Sudan, or Lebannon don't deserve their own TLDs. Or how about the "stans" that operate essentially without any meaningful constitutional democracy. For that matter, what about China? Would you consider that oppressive, totalitarian regime the ideal owner of an enormously busy hunk of the internet's address space?
How did that government get authority without the country having a constitution?
By having representatives of a range of regional and ethnic groups get together and approve a provisional foundation under which they would operate. You do realize it took years for the US to draft and ratify its own constitution, right?
Hope against evidence that the price of gas will actually go down with the increase in available crude (actual crude price increase in past year 66%, gasoline price increase over same period 132%, source BBC)
Well, you will lose that gamble, because the problem isn't the price or availability of crude (though of course it's a factor). The problem is the lack of our own refining capacity. 4 of the 8 big refineries that were taken offline by Katrina are already back in action (hence the reversal in the gas prices already), but the other 4 are still being checked out. And, of course, all of the gulf coast people that work in those refineries have to live somewhere, and a lot of their houses just got flushed. And their local grocery store is going to have to be gutted and rebuilt. All of that stuff is way down stream from the crude supply/price.
Combine all of that with the fact that we haven't built a new refinery in 20 years, and can't seem to find a locale in the US that will tolerate a new one... well, you get the idea.
Is it really abnormal? Or is it just another as-yet-unheard-of natural phenomena? Or is it just another glitch in computers running Micro$oft crap?
Wow. You're really having to work to get in that gratuitous dig at MS, aren't you? At least now your day is complete: you've managed to sound like an idiot while feeling great about yourself.
Oh, and that whole "M$" thing - dang, that's hysterical! I mean, who else could have thought of such a funny use of the dollar sign! Of course, I'm sure you use it when you type out My$QL, too, since they also charge for their products. And of course, you probably really hate Clothing $tores, and evil people who charge you money when you order $ushi from them. To say nothing of ga$oline, mu$ic, and film$.
I just wish I'd thought of that first, though. You're just so smart! Try not to get upset, though, when other people that aren't nearly as creative and witty as you copy your joke while trying to look cool. I mean, you'll know they're just losers copying your joke, but other people may not, and won't give you credit for your entertainment genius.
Or is it just another as-yet-unheard-of natural phenomena?
Maybe you could take 15 seconds to RTFA before shooting your mouth off? They've been watching and measuring it for a long time now, and generally know what's behind it. You know, by using expensive scientific instruments, which they had to buy from $cientific equipment manufacturers.
Tim basically just states that since we're using his baby in ways he coldn't have foreseen, that certainly all the new stuff we'll see in the next 10 years will come as a surprise, too.
Well, Tim... duh! But I actually have a bone to pick with the way the post spins his comment. The web isn't going to make kids more creative. Perhaps it will allow natively creative kids to draw on more information and savor the exposure to a wider world... but that's only useful if creativity, as a hardwired personality trait, and as a parent-nurtured habit/way-of-life is actually present.
It's more likely that some creative children will leverage all of this great connectivity to grow up and make cool things happen, and that many more other children will leverage all of this great connectivity by sitting on their couches passively consuming that which the first group creates. Is there anything about humanity's adoption of any evolving communication medium that suggests otherwise? The availability of printing presses didn't turn everyone into authors, and the availability of cheap home video gear didn't turn everyone into creative filmmakers. And the availability of low-brow blogging and site authoring tools sure as hell hasn't made most kids any more creative - just noisier.
I am looking forward to how really creative people continue to push the technology in unexpected directions. But I know better than to think that the creative/potato ratio will change in any meaningful way, Semantic Web or not, Tim.
You won't find a government of any significant size willing to promote such technology due to such business relationships between politicians and energy interests.
I guess you don't consider the US government to be of "significant size?"
At least spend one minute using Google before you make such ridiculous comments.
The main thing to consider is the economics. More to the point, how will the existing oil/energy companies financially benefit from such technology? For if they don't have an interest in this product, it will never come to fruition, regardless of its technical merit.
Yes, yes. Sort of like VOIP will never happen because the old-school phone companies won't like it. Or DVD players are just a fad, because theater owners don't like them. Etc.
I'm always astounded by the imaginary power that people assign to particular industries, even as we watch the market tap-dance right around them, to the tune of that old favorite, demand.
Energy companies distribute energy in ways that are useful to the people who are willing to pay for it. If there is anything like a useful price point for technology such as this (though I think it will require a huge number of nuclear power plants to provide enough juice to pull that much hydrogen out of enough water to replace oil, per se), then companies will be there to provide that service. Whether its BP, or Exxon, or whether it's Uncle Jimmy's Hydrogen Shoppes, it'll happen. If there's fundamentally no way to make the math work, then it won't work.
Otherwise, saying that the (currently, mostly) oil companies are going to use their secret cabal super powers to stop this sort of thing is like saying that Detroit and Big Oil aren't going to let hybrid cars find a way to the market (a commonly enough heard argument, which plainly turns out to be nonsense).
this time around Canadian support was turned away by the US government
The US government isn't "turning away" help, it's trying to make use of that help which best compliments the huge resources already in play. I'm doubting that Canada could have had entire helicopter teams (pilots, flight crews, equipment, maintenance vehicles, fuel) in place any more quickly than the US Coast Guard and guard units did. It's part of the US's structure and custom that organizations like the Red Cross do a lot of the personal caring for people displaced in disasters, so just plain cash donated to organizations like that is a huge help (and such donations have indeed been coming in from all over the world, including Canada, and are part of what will help the individual people impacted by this storm rebuild their lives). But we don't appear to have any lack of doctors, medicine, food, water, police, or much of anything else - there are only so many ways, though, that we can use giant pumps to drain a flooded city - and I don't know how Canada, or anyone else, is going to be able to accelerate what we're already doing on that front.
As for the Cuban government's control over its own people: yes, I imagine that they do regularly move people away from vulnerable coastal villages - they get big hurricanes all the time, and they also have a ruthless centralized government running an entire country that's very small, relative to, say, the impacted Gulf Coast area. People in Cuba generally do what they're told (or get in serious trouble for not), partly because that's what it's like to live in a totalitarian regime. People in Louisiana are a lot more their own people, foolishly or otherwise. I guarantee that if you told everyone in Toronto to evacuate, you'd have a lot of hold outs there, too. You don't live that far north without a certain amount of rugged individualism - at least in part of the population. And people like that chafe at being told to leave their homes. People in New Orleans did the same, in many cases - partly out of stupidity, partly out of difficulty, and partly out of a fear of abandoning their houses to looters. New Orleans has a long-standing crime problem that its elected city government can't seem to do anything about, and the people there know it - and it doesn't take much of an imagination to wonder what will happen to everything valuable in your house when you leave it for a few days amid that sort of chaos.
Should the city have chosen to build bigger levies? Perhaps. It's sort of a losing proposition, regardless. They weren't designed to handle what hit them, and even if more maintenance money, as has been discussed, had been poured into them, the fundamental design would not have changed enough to handle a Category 4+ storm this time, or the next time, or the next time. An island like Cuba, which is basically the top of a small mountain range sticking out of the water, has a totally different set of issues than a swampy river delta with walls around it. Personally? I think it's crazy to have kept a city there where the French put one 300 years ago. Hopefully people will be re-thinking that whole issue, now.
But more importantly - we can hope that people who live there will pay attention to the warnings they get, and fill up a couple jugs with drinking water next time they are being told, for days straight, that a giant storm is coming. A culture that comes to depend too much on anything other than its individuals to take care of themselves, at least for a couple of days, is going to hear a lot of grief when trouble happens. I'm hoping this is a wake up call for a more self-sufficient population - or at least for more people making a couple of advance purchases from the snack bar industry.
Given that there was a few days notice of Katrina, there seems to be no excuse for the way in which it has been dealt with by the richest nation on the planet.
So, let's see. If this were something that happened to a less wealthy nation, what would have happened? In matter of some weeks, there would be some pale shadow of the amount of support that was moving into the Gulf Coast area within hours. There has been significant destruction over 90,000 square miles, with people cut off from utilities and communication throughout that area.
The National Guard has been been running non-stop relief flights and convoys into that entire area - and this is important, because those remote rural areas are the least able to connect to support. The people living in urban areas are easier to support, given their density, once you've got transportation lined up. That it only took from Tuesday until early Thursday for that to work, despite the huge problems, is actually pretty amazing. That doesn't sound so nice to the people that didn't get out of town, but it's worth mentioning that the town's mayor - who knows exactly where emergency support starts (locally) - explicitly told his local citizens that if they were to gather in the central stadium area, they were to bring their own food and water because there would be none immediately available.
the richest nation on the planet
Being the richest nation on the planet doesn't allow us to change the laws of physics (in terms of moving supplies, equipment, and people). But it's also worth talking about one of the key foundational aspects of US culture - and part of what allows the US economy to maintain its level of productivity and high employment. Specifically, the country has a long tradition of self sufficiency and localized culture. This extends all the way through how emergency services are planned (or not).
Had it been an unforseen terrorist attack, Dubwa would be blaming it all on terrorists
And, who would you blame for a terrorist attack, other than the terrorists that commit the attack? If you're in the "victims deserve the attacks they get" camp, then there's really no point continuing a discussion. Otherwise, that sort of leaves the attackers culpable. But since you're trying to draw some sort of connection between the aftermath of a colossal storm that impacted an area the size of many entire other countries, and think that somehow the president is in a position to stop it, or to tell the governer of Louisiana when and how to ask for help... well, you're missing the point. Come to think of it, why did the governor of Louisiana wait until Wednesday to authorize her state's guards to use private sector transportation to actually provide relief for her people? She'll have to answer to the local people that elected her. But I guarantee that if the federal government, in non-crisis circumstances, told the state governors that they were going to permanently muscle in and run the local preparation for things like storms, then there would be a huge mess, politically at the very least.
this just goes to show that the USA is too arrogant to defend itself against anything
Not quite sure how that follows - but I don't think, being a Brit, you're quite understanding the nature of a federal republic, or the strong powers (and responsibilities) that are given to the 50 states that make up the union. That has its strengths and weaknesses - and a state, like Louisiana, that is notorious for its local government corruption and weakness, is (quite literally, now, alas) stewing in its own juices. There are mechanisms in place for the federal government to displace the local governor's authority, but the constitution actually calls for findings of "insurrection" at the local level before we bypass the important responsibilities and powers that are reserved by the states.
You may or may not have noticed the substantial response that New York's
We seem to have a real problem building infrastructure in this country when it's not needed on an everyday basis
Hell, even when it is needed on an everyday basis. Living in the DC area, I can tell you that people who have to sit in an hour of traffic each morning to commute 12 miles into town are not at all optimistic that those same roads would be anything other than a (probably murderous) parking lot in the event of disaster.
It's like living paycheck to paycheck - no room for disaster. The discipline and politically unpopular solutions (more roads, less development) are nearly impossible to put through when everything's fealing "normal."
PayPal charges exuberant percentages to small transactions
Yes, because it costs them a LOT on small transactions, to interact with Banks, card processors, and the like. They have to leave a permanent accounting trail for every one of those transactions, hold up to audits and the scrutiny that any publicly held company must be able to support. But the whole point of the article in question is that they (eBay's PayPal unit) are looking at ways to specifically support micro-sized payments in a way that won't put such a burden on them or the other two participants in the transaction.
and has a history of "locking funds" randomly with no explanation.
Actually, the people who complain the most loudly about this are usually the people who (shockingly!) are getting complaints from their own customers, or are having charges disputed. Doesn't matter, because it's a tiny, tiny percentage of the millions and millions of transacitons they handle. The rate of charge-backs and fees charged by "normal" credit cart processing companies is as high or higher, and most people that use PayPal when they put up an auction on eBay, etc., would never qualify as a card-taking merchant, and if they did, would be in the high-risk category, and lose an even higher percentage of their transactions to the banks that float the money for them.
are, for all piratical purposes, a monopoly.
Well, that's just not true. There are hundreds of other auction and 1-to-1 online selling sites and systems out there (you know, tiny little outfits like Yahoo, Amazon). eBay is successful because they had a good idea early on, and spent a fortune investing in it. Are you thinking they should be hated for being successful? What leverage does eBay have over you, or what choices do they keep you from making, and how is it that they are keeping you from launching your own auction system? And of course, there's absolutely no reason two people wrapping up a transaction on eBay have to use PayPal - but no one else has managed to stay profitable trying to run something similar, so they fail. In the meantime, a merchant using eBay is welcome to charge cards through any of thousands of other channels, or take a check or wire transfer, or even use a third party escrow service. PayPal is simply convenient and well integrated into eBay's process... as well it should be for what they've spent on it.
God forbid... that the artists themselves would have the ability to sell and market their own music without big companies trying to get their piece of the pie.
It's not entirely clear what you mean, but I'm assuming you're refering to a company like PayPal "getting a piece of the pie" by facilitating those transactions of a buck or two. What's your notion, instead? That the musicians re-invent micropayments themselves, establish the infrastructure, the banking connections, etc., thus cutting out "the man," and then having no time to ever write or record another lick of music?
We're a civilization of specialists. Most musicians don't grow all of their own food, either, and instead allow other people to get a "piece" of their food money. Someone else gets a piece of the pie when the band replaces the brake pads on their van, too. Making it easier for artists to handle small transactions is making it better for the artists, but it isn't better for anyone if the people building systems like that have no expectation of making a living off of their own efforts and investments themselves.
Certainly artists that don't find this sort of tool useful can just... not use it! If tip jars at bars and coffee houses are more their speed, then that's always an option, too.
I'm sorry, but it's simply a truth that the current administration is far more secretive than most.
Most? How about at the height of either World War, or the Cold War? Nonsense. And it's a simple truth that the very nature and volume of the information that the government produces and processes - including while performing vital and extremely sensitive duties - is exploding. It's not as much paperwork, but more data. What's a secure document to you? A cc of an e-mail? Depends on where you work and what you do within that structure.
And, of course, we're now dealing with entirely new requirements for counter-espionage. Follow some of the recent coverage of how loosely, poorly, incorrectly, or not classified stuff is now being mined by teams of Chinese hackers to stitch together a wider and deeper understanding of all sorts of capabilities, techniques, and strategies on our part. That sort of thing is completely changing the info security landscape, and the need to secure it.
Saying that one administration is working in the White House while the many pieces of the government that have to worry about security act to avoid leaks that tip off bad guys to things like communications capabilities, networks with other diplomatic partners, business partnerships in countries where such relationships are priceless to US interests but slow to appeal to some elements in those countries... all the while forgetting that these practices (and necessesities) have some inertia (from LONG before the current administration), and are impacted by new developments (the internet, as it relates to international relations and espionage, just for one... or only-semi-friendly relationships with newly IT-oriented countries like China... or newly networked/digitized agencies and government operations across the board), well - it's apples and oranges, comparing the current moment in time with any other.
It boggles my mind that the borg of all things software would still be patronized given the minimal amount of independent thought that comes out of Redmond, WA people would just get fed up and embrace open source.
So, when Google copies Yahoo, or Google copies MapQuest - and then makes their versions of things, whether improved or not - they don't deserve the same scorn? Or when a Linux distro goes to a lot of trouble to provide users with an interface shockingly similar to Windows, that's innovation? Not every new service has to be a brand spanking new innovation. Otherwise we wouldn't have multiple car manufacturers, musicians, architectural jobs, or any other overlapping producers.
What further amazes me is that anything M$ does is still news
Let's see - millions and millions of users, and a giant new marketplace for ads from both small and large businesses...? It's a shame you don't understand why that might be worth mentioning to an audience that deals, in one way or another, with some of those millions of people all over the world.
In other news, america goes to war against its own population
You're an ass. The conflict, here, is New Orleans being attacked by a small number of its own residents. Of course, a small number of New Orleans residents has been attacking that town for years (see the extremely high ongoing murder rate, not counting this week). But if there weren't what's left of retailer's clothing and shoe inventories being stolen, houses being looted for small fencable items, sporting goods stores being raided for firearms, and then gangs of people ambushing ambulances and staking out clinics to steal narcotics, or organizing rapes in the shelters... it only takes a small number of people doing these things to require a huge response from law enforcement. You'd rather that wasn't done? The people that have to wade into areas where authorities are being shot at are exactly facing combat issues. Calling it anything else is nonsense, and glosses over the situation that the city's punk contingent has made many-fold worse.
No, and I don't expect to. Because if I were to live my whole life in a below-sea-level town on a coast that gets hit with hurricanes every year, I'd probably save up the same amount of money it costs to buy one pizza, and put a few liters of water and a couple dozen snack bars in a cheap backpack, along with a $3 flashlight and some toilet paper, and be way, way ahead of the thousands of people in that town that decided not to do anything to help their town have less of a disaster on their hands.
There's no excuse for watching that storm approach for days, and not doing the simplest things to prepare yourself for a Tuesday-through-Thursday wait while the buses and helicopters get lined up. Of course that wouldn't have made everything just peachy for every person - but it would have hugely reduced the stress on the local help that was supposed to be taking care of the local people while other resources moved in. Honestly - it's like being responsible for your own well being is so out of fashion that a little food and water is too much to think about in advance, even as the news and your own city government is screaming at you about it.
Of course, there were thousands and thousands of people who did take care of themselves enough to not slow down emergency workers with other priorities - but those people didn't make for very dramatic sound bites, and since they weren't as ready to bitch about the government, there just wasn't any Pulitzer-winning spin to extract.
Oh, please. Check with people at Apple or Pixar and ask if Jobs has ever had a maximum-flake-factor freaky tirade in their own personal cubicle before. Don't let the sandals fool you. He's no paragon of zen-like level headedness when confronted with contrary news, uppity employees, or a marketplace that doesn't always see things his way.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm curious. Who do you think has killed more Iraq people? The Bush Regime Or Sadaam's Regime?
I'm going with Saddam's regime. The Iraq-centric conflict in the Gulf can arguably be said to have started in 1980, when Saddam launched a more-or-less surpise attack against its neighbor, Iran. In that conflict, at least 300,000 of Saddam's Iraqi citizens were killed, most of whom were conscripted foot soldiers. Probably a million people died in that bit of Saddam's aggession, including the substantial Iranian casualties. You can bone up on his attempt to expand his territory into Iran here, if you want.
Of course, that became a grinding war of attrition, and Saddam failed to get any traction. Next stop: his attempt to take over Kuwait by force. In reversing that invasion and pushing Saddam's troops back out of Kuwait, another 20,000 or so Iraqis were killed, sacrificed again by Saddam to his expansionist ambitions.
Of course, while busy trying to gobble up neighbors, Saddam's ruling clan oversaw horrendous mass killings within his own country. Those mass graves that have already been excavated show mass killings of at the very least, 400,000 people. Thousands of corpses, lined up, many with hands lashed together, with bullet holes in the back of their heads. Lots of them, women and children, too.
Then, how do you count the people that Saddam starved or medically neglected as he syphoned off the money - explicitly targeted for that use by the (ridiculously corrupt) United Nations - and instead continued to build palaces, and bolster his private Republican Guard and tribal relatives in Tikrit. Then there's the 50,000-100,000 Kurds that he killed while trying to crush their movement for freedom from minority Sunni rule.
How are we doing so far? I'm guessing that you'll now back up the implication of your comment, and enumerate how the United States has killed over a million Iraqis? Get busy. And just for comparison, be sure to mention the millions that recently got to vote, for the first time ever, for their own elected officials.
That's OK, I prefer not to get history tips from anonymous trolling cowards.
How does Joe Sixpack back up 500Gb?
With a second drive. Hopefully they'll be doing some sort of buy-one-get-one-free deal.
The Soviet Union did worse things than those you mention to its own people but no one contested its sovereignity.
Surely you jest! The entire Cold War was a one giant contest over the legitimacy of the Soviet Union - and, of course, it wasn't (legitimate), as shown by the many "client" nations that couldn't wait to get out from under their thumb.
But, is there any authority in Iraq that can handle this?
Just because Iraq can't handle every detail of everything they're tackling, and need a lot of international support, doesn't mean they shouldn't be assigned the authority to do so. For example - USAID is helping their Ministry of Communications with an enormous task: getting the local telecom infrastructure up to date. That seems like a natural channel through which to tackle domain admin, even if it's with some help for a while. For some comments on how much fiber and whatnot they've been stringing up, see here, just as an example.
it will be full of similar incorrect assumptions and rhetoric
Ah, well, we wouldn't want to use any "incorrect assumptions" or "rhetoric" while blaming problems on people from a particular area of a country, now, would we? So glad that you're above all of that! How could you find the time, anyway, when you're so busy oppressing the Irish or making up for the trouble caused by ignorant Geordies? What? Those are pointless, nonsensical generalizations? Huh.
Iraq was a soverign nation BEFORE
No, Iraq was run by a murderous thug and his tribal minority that killed the previous regime, and killed everyone, ever since, that raised any sort of political opposition. People making a comment just like yours were the ones that got pushed through a woodchipper while your family watched. That's your idea of a sovereign nation?
Or was the sovereign part the period when Saddam tried to forcibly annex Kuwait, and started lobbing missiles into Israel and burning oil wells when he was being run back out? Or was it the part when the multinational patrol flights watching the no-fly zones over the areas in Iraq where he had been slaughtering more people came under weekly and even daily fire? Or was it the part when he completely faked up documents to show what exactly he did with the tons and tons of things like VX gas that had been in plain site during previous visits by surrender-treaty-empowered inspectors?
for absolutely nothing
I'd love to see you stand in the living room of a family in Baghdad that had, for the first time in their lives, just voted for a representative of their own choosing, and tell them that.
These days it's just young American kids from the southern states, rather than Iraqis, torturing the innocent.
From the "north" are you? Not a chance that any National Guardsmen from north of the Mason-Dixon Line were ever jackasses, not trained enough for a particular task, of supervised by someone who turns out to be a PHB? I live in Maryland. people from the South think I'm from the North, and people from the North think I'm from the South. I get to see the asses on both sides, but it seems that I get to see a lot more condescension, patronizing, and ill-informed elitist psuedo-intellectualism from the North than the other way around.
I've had plenty of bones to pick with the Bible Belt, but I think sometimes the idiocy in that region is come by more honestly, if you will, than the hypocritical blatherings that I frequently hear from the North (specifically, the Northeast and Northwest). The Upper Midwest is not without its failings, but the people there seem to be a lot more level-headed, honest with themselves, and just more polite than the rest (not counting the South, where - despite what you seem to be suggesting - there are places you'll encounter more decency per capita than in many a New England suburb or Seattle coffee bar).
And that's just what has become public
Yeah, yeah. And police in New York all shoot immigrants 40 times (I saw it on TV once, so I'm sure we can extrapolate to the entire NYPD, and all of the citizens that live there, right?). And Howard Dean didn't appoint any African Americans to his administration, so Vermont residents are all racist, right? Get a grip.
Things haven't changed
You're right, of course. The US is busy, right now, looking for replacements for Saddam's two genius sons so that we'll still have someone to put political opponents through industrial shredders while their families watch, to torture the Iraqi national soccer team when they lose games, and a whole new crew of heavy equipment operators to dig mass graves for the ethnic cleansing of Kurdish villages that we're so busy carrying out.
it is refreshing to see a New Jersey resident even consider the existence of the "old" Jersey
Hell, it's refreshing to see the words "New Jersey" and "consider" in the same sentence at all!
there's still ongoing violence
So, should we de-register any New Orleans city-related domains until that mayor and his state's governor can figure which of them works for who under what authority? That seems to be a somewhat contested issue at the moment. You could also say that the Sudan, or Lebannon don't deserve their own TLDs. Or how about the "stans" that operate essentially without any meaningful constitutional democracy. For that matter, what about China? Would you consider that oppressive, totalitarian regime the ideal owner of an enormously busy hunk of the internet's address space?
How did that government get authority without the country having a constitution?
By having representatives of a range of regional and ethnic groups get together and approve a provisional foundation under which they would operate. You do realize it took years for the US to draft and ratify its own constitution, right?
Hope against evidence that the price of gas will actually go down with the increase in available crude (actual crude price increase in past year 66%, gasoline price increase over same period 132%, source BBC)
Well, you will lose that gamble, because the problem isn't the price or availability of crude (though of course it's a factor). The problem is the lack of our own refining capacity. 4 of the 8 big refineries that were taken offline by Katrina are already back in action (hence the reversal in the gas prices already), but the other 4 are still being checked out. And, of course, all of the gulf coast people that work in those refineries have to live somewhere, and a lot of their houses just got flushed. And their local grocery store is going to have to be gutted and rebuilt. All of that stuff is way down stream from the crude supply/price.
Combine all of that with the fact that we haven't built a new refinery in 20 years, and can't seem to find a locale in the US that will tolerate a new one... well, you get the idea.
Is it really abnormal? Or is it just another as-yet-unheard-of natural phenomena? Or is it just another glitch in computers running Micro$oft crap?
Wow. You're really having to work to get in that gratuitous dig at MS, aren't you? At least now your day is complete: you've managed to sound like an idiot while feeling great about yourself.
Oh, and that whole "M$" thing - dang, that's hysterical! I mean, who else could have thought of such a funny use of the dollar sign! Of course, I'm sure you use it when you type out My$QL, too, since they also charge for their products. And of course, you probably really hate Clothing $tores, and evil people who charge you money when you order $ushi from them. To say nothing of ga$oline, mu$ic, and film$.
I just wish I'd thought of that first, though. You're just so smart! Try not to get upset, though, when other people that aren't nearly as creative and witty as you copy your joke while trying to look cool. I mean, you'll know they're just losers copying your joke, but other people may not, and won't give you credit for your entertainment genius.
Or is it just another as-yet-unheard-of natural phenomena?
Maybe you could take 15 seconds to RTFA before shooting your mouth off? They've been watching and measuring it for a long time now, and generally know what's behind it. You know, by using expensive scientific instruments, which they had to buy from $cientific equipment manufacturers.
Tim basically just states that since we're using his baby in ways he coldn't have foreseen, that certainly all the new stuff we'll see in the next 10 years will come as a surprise, too.
Well, Tim... duh! But I actually have a bone to pick with the way the post spins his comment. The web isn't going to make kids more creative. Perhaps it will allow natively creative kids to draw on more information and savor the exposure to a wider world... but that's only useful if creativity, as a hardwired personality trait, and as a parent-nurtured habit/way-of-life is actually present.
It's more likely that some creative children will leverage all of this great connectivity to grow up and make cool things happen, and that many more other children will leverage all of this great connectivity by sitting on their couches passively consuming that which the first group creates. Is there anything about humanity's adoption of any evolving communication medium that suggests otherwise? The availability of printing presses didn't turn everyone into authors, and the availability of cheap home video gear didn't turn everyone into creative filmmakers. And the availability of low-brow blogging and site authoring tools sure as hell hasn't made most kids any more creative - just noisier.
I am looking forward to how really creative people continue to push the technology in unexpected directions. But I know better than to think that the creative/potato ratio will change in any meaningful way, Semantic Web or not, Tim.
You won't find a government of any significant size willing to promote such technology due to such business relationships between politicians and energy interests.
I guess you don't consider the US government to be of "significant size?"
At least spend one minute using Google before you make such ridiculous comments.
Read.
The main thing to consider is the economics. More to the point, how will the existing oil/energy companies financially benefit from such technology? For if they don't have an interest in this product, it will never come to fruition, regardless of its technical merit.
Yes, yes. Sort of like VOIP will never happen because the old-school phone companies won't like it. Or DVD players are just a fad, because theater owners don't like them. Etc.
I'm always astounded by the imaginary power that people assign to particular industries, even as we watch the market tap-dance right around them, to the tune of that old favorite, demand.
Energy companies distribute energy in ways that are useful to the people who are willing to pay for it. If there is anything like a useful price point for technology such as this (though I think it will require a huge number of nuclear power plants to provide enough juice to pull that much hydrogen out of enough water to replace oil, per se), then companies will be there to provide that service. Whether its BP, or Exxon, or whether it's Uncle Jimmy's Hydrogen Shoppes, it'll happen. If there's fundamentally no way to make the math work, then it won't work.
Otherwise, saying that the (currently, mostly) oil companies are going to use their secret cabal super powers to stop this sort of thing is like saying that Detroit and Big Oil aren't going to let hybrid cars find a way to the market (a commonly enough heard argument, which plainly turns out to be nonsense).
this time around Canadian support was turned away by the US government
The US government isn't "turning away" help, it's trying to make use of that help which best compliments the huge resources already in play. I'm doubting that Canada could have had entire helicopter teams (pilots, flight crews, equipment, maintenance vehicles, fuel) in place any more quickly than the US Coast Guard and guard units did. It's part of the US's structure and custom that organizations like the Red Cross do a lot of the personal caring for people displaced in disasters, so just plain cash donated to organizations like that is a huge help (and such donations have indeed been coming in from all over the world, including Canada, and are part of what will help the individual people impacted by this storm rebuild their lives). But we don't appear to have any lack of doctors, medicine, food, water, police, or much of anything else - there are only so many ways, though, that we can use giant pumps to drain a flooded city - and I don't know how Canada, or anyone else, is going to be able to accelerate what we're already doing on that front.
As for the Cuban government's control over its own people: yes, I imagine that they do regularly move people away from vulnerable coastal villages - they get big hurricanes all the time, and they also have a ruthless centralized government running an entire country that's very small, relative to, say, the impacted Gulf Coast area. People in Cuba generally do what they're told (or get in serious trouble for not), partly because that's what it's like to live in a totalitarian regime. People in Louisiana are a lot more their own people, foolishly or otherwise. I guarantee that if you told everyone in Toronto to evacuate, you'd have a lot of hold outs there, too. You don't live that far north without a certain amount of rugged individualism - at least in part of the population. And people like that chafe at being told to leave their homes. People in New Orleans did the same, in many cases - partly out of stupidity, partly out of difficulty, and partly out of a fear of abandoning their houses to looters. New Orleans has a long-standing crime problem that its elected city government can't seem to do anything about, and the people there know it - and it doesn't take much of an imagination to wonder what will happen to everything valuable in your house when you leave it for a few days amid that sort of chaos.
Should the city have chosen to build bigger levies? Perhaps. It's sort of a losing proposition, regardless. They weren't designed to handle what hit them, and even if more maintenance money, as has been discussed, had been poured into them, the fundamental design would not have changed enough to handle a Category 4+ storm this time, or the next time, or the next time. An island like Cuba, which is basically the top of a small mountain range sticking out of the water, has a totally different set of issues than a swampy river delta with walls around it. Personally? I think it's crazy to have kept a city there where the French put one 300 years ago. Hopefully people will be re-thinking that whole issue, now.
But more importantly - we can hope that people who live there will pay attention to the warnings they get, and fill up a couple jugs with drinking water next time they are being told, for days straight, that a giant storm is coming. A culture that comes to depend too much on anything other than its individuals to take care of themselves, at least for a couple of days, is going to hear a lot of grief when trouble happens. I'm hoping this is a wake up call for a more self-sufficient population - or at least for more people making a couple of advance purchases from the snack bar industry.
Given that there was a few days notice of Katrina, there seems to be no excuse for the way in which it has been dealt with by the richest nation on the planet.
So, let's see. If this were something that happened to a less wealthy nation, what would have happened? In matter of some weeks, there would be some pale shadow of the amount of support that was moving into the Gulf Coast area within hours. There has been significant destruction over 90,000 square miles, with people cut off from utilities and communication throughout that area.
The National Guard has been been running non-stop relief flights and convoys into that entire area - and this is important, because those remote rural areas are the least able to connect to support. The people living in urban areas are easier to support, given their density, once you've got transportation lined up. That it only took from Tuesday until early Thursday for that to work, despite the huge problems, is actually pretty amazing. That doesn't sound so nice to the people that didn't get out of town, but it's worth mentioning that the town's mayor - who knows exactly where emergency support starts (locally) - explicitly told his local citizens that if they were to gather in the central stadium area, they were to bring their own food and water because there would be none immediately available.
the richest nation on the planet
Being the richest nation on the planet doesn't allow us to change the laws of physics (in terms of moving supplies, equipment, and people). But it's also worth talking about one of the key foundational aspects of US culture - and part of what allows the US economy to maintain its level of productivity and high employment. Specifically, the country has a long tradition of self sufficiency and localized culture. This extends all the way through how emergency services are planned (or not).
Had it been an unforseen terrorist attack, Dubwa would be blaming it all on terrorists
And, who would you blame for a terrorist attack, other than the terrorists that commit the attack? If you're in the "victims deserve the attacks they get" camp, then there's really no point continuing a discussion. Otherwise, that sort of leaves the attackers culpable. But since you're trying to draw some sort of connection between the aftermath of a colossal storm that impacted an area the size of many entire other countries, and think that somehow the president is in a position to stop it, or to tell the governer of Louisiana when and how to ask for help... well, you're missing the point. Come to think of it, why did the governor of Louisiana wait until Wednesday to authorize her state's guards to use private sector transportation to actually provide relief for her people? She'll have to answer to the local people that elected her. But I guarantee that if the federal government, in non-crisis circumstances, told the state governors that they were going to permanently muscle in and run the local preparation for things like storms, then there would be a huge mess, politically at the very least.
this just goes to show that the USA is too arrogant to defend itself against anything
Not quite sure how that follows - but I don't think, being a Brit, you're quite understanding the nature of a federal republic, or the strong powers (and responsibilities) that are given to the 50 states that make up the union. That has its strengths and weaknesses - and a state, like Louisiana, that is notorious for its local government corruption and weakness, is (quite literally, now, alas) stewing in its own juices. There are mechanisms in place for the federal government to displace the local governor's authority, but the constitution actually calls for findings of "insurrection" at the local level before we bypass the important responsibilities and powers that are reserved by the states.
You may or may not have noticed the substantial response that New York's
We seem to have a real problem building infrastructure in this country when it's not needed on an everyday basis
Hell, even when it is needed on an everyday basis. Living in the DC area, I can tell you that people who have to sit in an hour of traffic each morning to commute 12 miles into town are not at all optimistic that those same roads would be anything other than a (probably murderous) parking lot in the event of disaster.
It's like living paycheck to paycheck - no room for disaster. The discipline and politically unpopular solutions (more roads, less development) are nearly impossible to put through when everything's fealing "normal."
PayPal charges exuberant percentages to small transactions
Yes, because it costs them a LOT on small transactions, to interact with Banks, card processors, and the like. They have to leave a permanent accounting trail for every one of those transactions, hold up to audits and the scrutiny that any publicly held company must be able to support. But the whole point of the article in question is that they (eBay's PayPal unit) are looking at ways to specifically support micro-sized payments in a way that won't put such a burden on them or the other two participants in the transaction.
and has a history of "locking funds" randomly with no explanation.
Actually, the people who complain the most loudly about this are usually the people who (shockingly!) are getting complaints from their own customers, or are having charges disputed. Doesn't matter, because it's a tiny, tiny percentage of the millions and millions of transacitons they handle. The rate of charge-backs and fees charged by "normal" credit cart processing companies is as high or higher, and most people that use PayPal when they put up an auction on eBay, etc., would never qualify as a card-taking merchant, and if they did, would be in the high-risk category, and lose an even higher percentage of their transactions to the banks that float the money for them.
are, for all piratical purposes, a monopoly.
Well, that's just not true. There are hundreds of other auction and 1-to-1 online selling sites and systems out there (you know, tiny little outfits like Yahoo, Amazon). eBay is successful because they had a good idea early on, and spent a fortune investing in it. Are you thinking they should be hated for being successful? What leverage does eBay have over you, or what choices do they keep you from making, and how is it that they are keeping you from launching your own auction system? And of course, there's absolutely no reason two people wrapping up a transaction on eBay have to use PayPal - but no one else has managed to stay profitable trying to run something similar, so they fail. In the meantime, a merchant using eBay is welcome to charge cards through any of thousands of other channels, or take a check or wire transfer, or even use a third party escrow service. PayPal is simply convenient and well integrated into eBay's process... as well it should be for what they've spent on it.
God forbid ... that the artists themselves would have the ability to sell and market their own music without big companies trying to get their piece of the pie.
It's not entirely clear what you mean, but I'm assuming you're refering to a company like PayPal "getting a piece of the pie" by facilitating those transactions of a buck or two. What's your notion, instead? That the musicians re-invent micropayments themselves, establish the infrastructure, the banking connections, etc., thus cutting out "the man," and then having no time to ever write or record another lick of music?
We're a civilization of specialists. Most musicians don't grow all of their own food, either, and instead allow other people to get a "piece" of their food money. Someone else gets a piece of the pie when the band replaces the brake pads on their van, too. Making it easier for artists to handle small transactions is making it better for the artists, but it isn't better for anyone if the people building systems like that have no expectation of making a living off of their own efforts and investments themselves.
Certainly artists that don't find this sort of tool useful can just... not use it! If tip jars at bars and coffee houses are more their speed, then that's always an option, too.
I'm sorry, but it's simply a truth that the current administration is far more secretive than most.
Most? How about at the height of either World War, or the Cold War? Nonsense. And it's a simple truth that the very nature and volume of the information that the government produces and processes - including while performing vital and extremely sensitive duties - is exploding. It's not as much paperwork, but more data. What's a secure document to you? A cc of an e-mail? Depends on where you work and what you do within that structure.
And, of course, we're now dealing with entirely new requirements for counter-espionage. Follow some of the recent coverage of how loosely, poorly, incorrectly, or not classified stuff is now being mined by teams of Chinese hackers to stitch together a wider and deeper understanding of all sorts of capabilities, techniques, and strategies on our part. That sort of thing is completely changing the info security landscape, and the need to secure it.
Saying that one administration is working in the White House while the many pieces of the government that have to worry about security act to avoid leaks that tip off bad guys to things like communications capabilities, networks with other diplomatic partners, business partnerships in countries where such relationships are priceless to US interests but slow to appeal to some elements in those countries... all the while forgetting that these practices (and necessesities) have some inertia (from LONG before the current administration), and are impacted by new developments (the internet, as it relates to international relations and espionage, just for one... or only-semi-friendly relationships with newly IT-oriented countries like China... or newly networked/digitized agencies and government operations across the board), well - it's apples and oranges, comparing the current moment in time with any other.
It boggles my mind that the borg of all things software would still be patronized given the minimal amount of independent thought that comes out of Redmond, WA people would just get fed up and embrace open source.
So, when Google copies Yahoo, or Google copies MapQuest - and then makes their versions of things, whether improved or not - they don't deserve the same scorn? Or when a Linux distro goes to a lot of trouble to provide users with an interface shockingly similar to Windows, that's innovation? Not every new service has to be a brand spanking new innovation. Otherwise we wouldn't have multiple car manufacturers, musicians, architectural jobs, or any other overlapping producers.
What further amazes me is that anything M$ does is still news
Let's see - millions and millions of users, and a giant new marketplace for ads from both small and large businesses...? It's a shame you don't understand why that might be worth mentioning to an audience that deals, in one way or another, with some of those millions of people all over the world.
In other news, america goes to war against its own population
You're an ass. The conflict, here, is New Orleans being attacked by a small number of its own residents. Of course, a small number of New Orleans residents has been attacking that town for years (see the extremely high ongoing murder rate, not counting this week). But if there weren't what's left of retailer's clothing and shoe inventories being stolen, houses being looted for small fencable items, sporting goods stores being raided for firearms, and then gangs of people ambushing ambulances and staking out clinics to steal narcotics, or organizing rapes in the shelters... it only takes a small number of people doing these things to require a huge response from law enforcement. You'd rather that wasn't done? The people that have to wade into areas where authorities are being shot at are exactly facing combat issues. Calling it anything else is nonsense, and glosses over the situation that the city's punk contingent has made many-fold worse.
Spend much time hungry and on top of a roof?
No, and I don't expect to. Because if I were to live my whole life in a below-sea-level town on a coast that gets hit with hurricanes every year, I'd probably save up the same amount of money it costs to buy one pizza, and put a few liters of water and a couple dozen snack bars in a cheap backpack, along with a $3 flashlight and some toilet paper, and be way, way ahead of the thousands of people in that town that decided not to do anything to help their town have less of a disaster on their hands.
There's no excuse for watching that storm approach for days, and not doing the simplest things to prepare yourself for a Tuesday-through-Thursday wait while the buses and helicopters get lined up. Of course that wouldn't have made everything just peachy for every person - but it would have hugely reduced the stress on the local help that was supposed to be taking care of the local people while other resources moved in. Honestly - it's like being responsible for your own well being is so out of fashion that a little food and water is too much to think about in advance, even as the news and your own city government is screaming at you about it.
Of course, there were thousands and thousands of people who did take care of themselves enough to not slow down emergency workers with other priorities - but those people didn't make for very dramatic sound bites, and since they weren't as ready to bitch about the government, there just wasn't any Pulitzer-winning spin to extract.
Steve Jobs was right ... Steve Jobs was right
Oh, please. Check with people at Apple or Pixar and ask if Jobs has ever had a maximum-flake-factor freaky tirade in their own personal cubicle before. Don't let the sandals fool you. He's no paragon of zen-like level headedness when confronted with contrary news, uppity employees, or a marketplace that doesn't always see things his way.