The US hurts people out of ignorance and letting the wrong people have more power than they otherwise would have, but even then it doesn't compare to the types of power and brutality you saw out of the Soviet Union or other dictatorships.
The US doesn't not "hurt" people through ignorance. Greed has been a much more consistent factor. Just to take one example, the US (in collusion with Britain) did not engineer a coup to topple the democratic government of Iran in 1953 through ignorance. It did it to gain control of the oil. Nor did the CIA train and back the brutal SAVAK secret police (who tortured and murdered thousands of dissidents opposed to the rule of the dictator we installed) through ignorance.
The main difference between powerful dictatorships and powerful democracies is that the dictatorships concentrate their violence and oppression on their own populations through blatant means, whereas the democracies concentrate their violence and oppression externally (and often more cleverly). The result of this is that the populations of the democracies think their governments are the "good guys" since they are seldom on the receiving end of the violence. Those that are on the receiving end have no such illusions.
I think you overestimate the British media. They suffer the same issues as any corporate media.
Stories that regurgitate government statements without challenge are defined as being impartial. Stories that strongly challenge government statements and cite previous deceptions etc, are classed as biased and/or left-wing. The few journalists who adopt highly critical points of view are largely cast out of the mainstream media, even if they are award-winning. A good example would be John Pilger.
The BBC is being particularly bad at the moment. It is becoming increasingly afraid to criticise the US and they keep talking about the problem of "anti-Americanism". Several BBC jouralists have even written happy-feelgood books about the US (e.g. Justin Webbs "Have a Nice Day"). If the BBC allows journalists to express highly positive views about the US, where are the journalists writing books with Chomskyesque titles like "Why the US is a Rogue State". The answer is the the system filters such journalists out before they ever reach that level of journalism. If a BBC journalist did suddenly break ranks and write such a book, he would be slammed as being biased or even anti-American (since obviously criticising US foreign policy means you hate the US and everyone in it).
When you look at BBC stories on Iran they are highly critical and suspicious of official statements. This is the standard line and is never taken to be biased and certainly not anti-Iranian. Where are the BBC journalists who are gushingly in love with Iranian culture and their struggles against the Shah etc? Such a journalist would be viewed as completely biased in Iranian favour and kicked out. Endless stories about how Hugo Chavez is crazy and wants to rule for ever are also not viewed as biased within the BBC and the word anti-Venezuelan certainly never comes up.
Time and time again, the British media will take a stance and then effectively define it as being the unbiased view. Any other views are then easily dismissable as biased, and occasionally even more potent words like "anti-American" are available.
Seasons one and two were great, but things rapidly started to go down hill after that. It became rapidly apparent that there was no overall plan (like Straczynski had with Babylon 5). They had set up lots of mysteries without first knowing what the resolution would be. If the mysteries were ever solved at all, they were solved in random ways, and they have pretty much admitted as much. A good example of this was the "final 5". By their own admission they picked them randomly, so what was the point of the audience trying to guess who they might be, based on possible clues?
I find it difficult to watch a show knowing that the writers have no more idea of how things will be resolved than I do. Mysteries can be very compelling, but the fun of a mystery is trying to unravel it yourself, and you clearly can't unravel it if the writers are going to use a dartboard to resolve it. What's the point of getting caught up in a mystery when you know it's a complete mystery to the writers as well?
Another problem with Galactica has been the masses of pointless filler. A good recent example of that is Baltar's religious Harem. They spent absolutely ages on that plot-line, then dumped it at the last minute. What was the point of it all? How exactly did it advance the plot? A lot of fans I know dumped the series somewhere in Season 3, complaining that it had turned into a soap opera. I know exactly what they mean.
Whereas in Season 1 and 2 you tended to have strong plots in each episode (blowing up a Cylon fuel depot, or Finding a missing pilot etc) in later seasons things started to become very drawn out. Instead there was more and more focus on relationships and peoples petty problems. That sort of thing is fine in an Alan Bennett play, but this show was fundamentally about people fleeing from killer robots in outer space. When you watch science fiction you expect some degree of excitement. It doesn't necessarily have to be low-brow "laser gun battle" excitement, but endless drawn out episodes with nothing happening are a pretty sorry excuse for science fiction (if not fiction in general).
There's a reason we're not getting our asses handed to us like the Russians did, and that's because our first choice is to make allies of the locals, rather than "conquering" them.
The Russian's made allies too. They're not idiots. The Russian narrative was the same as ours. i.e. "We're here to stop the extremists." The real difference is that back in the 80s a superpower was funding and arming the opposition. If Russia was supplying the Taliban with Anti-Aircraft missiles and anti-Tank weaponry, things would look very different indeed.
The Afghan population is already pretty pissed off with the continuous civilian air-strike casualties. They're not stupid. They know that air-strikes put military lives above those of Afghan civilians, and they know we wouldn't use such tactics if we risked killing western civilians. Whatever popular support NATO/US forces have can run out very quickly.
Now they even keep the DNA samples of people arrested by mistake. Fight against it. Don't give them an inch or they will take a mile. Any gains in crime fighting are dwarfed by the enormous potential for abuse. It's really paving the way for future tyranny.
iran doesnt invade any country actively, but they invade them through the religious terrorist organizations they fund. hezbollah, hamas, ibda-c, numerous groups trying to invade pakistan, afghanistan are just a few.
If we condemn Iran for funding such groups, we must also condemn many western nations for similar support. e.g. The US support for the murderous contras whose crimes make Hamas look like a pacifist group. Then we must also consider western support for mass murderers such as Suharto of Indonesia. The US and Britain knew he was slaughtering the East Timorese, yet the flow of weapons and support continued.
[quote]Journalists - particularly those at the top - seem to believe that their training and expertise and degrees somehow give them license to disguise their personal beliefs and views as objective reporting.[/quote
It's worse than that. Whereas you or I writing about some topic will have our own opinions, the Mass media have so-called gatekeepers to make sure stories conform to the company's (and lets not forget they are companies) "guidelines". In other words with the mainstream media you have mass organised bias. For example, a story condemning Russian troops as brutal would go through BBC gatekeeping but a similar one condemning troops of an ally (e.g. the US) would not. Such a story would be marked as biased or even "anti-American" (sadly quite a buzzword that BBC reporters like to throw around these days).
The whole of the media is really biased in favour of power. Journalist Pepe Escobar coined the term "Embedded With Power" to describe this. You don't get to be a reporter at a major outlet by rocking the boat to much. The system filters out troublesome journalists who are really critical of those in power.
After Harold Lloyd (of silent film fame) retired, he took hundreds of stereo pictures of famous actresses, including many of Marylin Monroe. You can even get a book containing some of his work.
There are two problems with stereo images though.
1. There are no digital stereo cameras available. (you can make one of course but that's enough to put most people off)
2. There is no nice way of viewing them digitally. (not everyone can do freeviewing, and even when you can its a bit awkward)
If only some company would make a cheap digital 3D Camera and some kind of digital viewmaster to view the results.
At current oil prices the current Iranian government is certain to collapse.
They once had a parliamentary democracy of course, but the leader, Mossadegh, committed the heinous crime of trying to get a better oil deal for his country. This resulted in the US and UK backing a coup which installed the Shah of Iran, a dictator who would rule with an Iron fist for decades. His CIA-trained secret police (the SAVAK) tortured and murdered thousands. The inevitable backlash unfortunately resulted in a theocracy rather than the democracy the people we hoping for.
Iran's demographics favor a serious culture shift soon. The ruling theocracy has dealt with this [b]repeatedly in the past by going to war[/b], often wars so nasty that they killed off the majority of males in their 20s, directly changing the demographics.
Iran has not attacked another country for centuries. Iraq started the war with Iran and was supported by the US, UK and others. It was a devastating war but rather than trying to stop it, we poured fuel on the fire hoping that Saddam would win. The support for Iraq was so great that the US even tried to blame the Iranians for Saddam's chemical attack on Halabja. So we wreck one democracy and install a dictator. Then when he is overthrown we back the neighbouring dictator in a devastating war.
Although there are lots of crazy ideas flying about, there are plenty of real conspiracies taking place. It's just a case of separating the wheat from the chaff. There clearly are powerful groups in the world who attempt to manipulate events to further their own ends. Typically governments lead the way in this area. For example, the US has spent much of the past 50 years interfering in the affairs of Central and South American states. Often this has involved sophisticated and well organised propaganda campaigns e.g. The coup in Guatemala in 1954. Sometimes genuine conspiracies sound the craziest of all. For example, Operation Northwoods was a plan to fake terrorist attacks on US assets and blame them on Cuba as an excuse for war (fortunately the plan was not approved).
When considering a conspiracy, it is worth considering at least 3 points.
1. Is there any good evidence to support the claims?
2. Does it fit the Modus Operandi of the party involved?
3. Could they hope to get away with it?
Take these 2 topical claims.
1. The British Government murdered Dr David Kelly (The Government Weapons Scientist).
2. The US government is trying to destabilize the Bolivian Government.
For the Dr Kelly claim we have to ask, is there any evidence he was murdered? Well, there are some oddities, such as not much blood being found at the scene, and some doctors think he could not have died from the pills he took or the slashed wrists. However, other doctors believe his heart condition was such that even a small blood loss could have killed him. There are often oddities with suicides and there is not nearly enough evidence to say he was murdered.
Secondly we ask whether it is part of the MO of the British government to murder troublesome citizens (dissidents, whistle-blowers etc). The British government does not have a history of this. It's very difficult to keep that sort of thing a secret, particularly in a democracy, and it would have come out. Rather than murdering people like Dr Kelly, the British Government MO is to discredit them, call them incompetent fantasists etc.
Lastly we ask "Could they hope to get away with it?" The answer is no. The murder would come out eventually and when it did the people involved would be arrested and imprisoned. You can't get away with murdering troublemakers in that way.
What about the case of the US government trying to destabilize the Bolivian Government though?
The President of Bolivia has certainly made the accusation (along with many others) but is there any evidence? According to the The Center for Economic and Policy Research, "USAID has an "Office of Transition Initiatives" operating in Bolivia, funnelling millions of dollars of training and support to right-wing opposition regional governments and movements.". CEPR has called on the US Government to come clean on which groups it is funding. The CEPR Co-Director, Mark Weisbrot said "If Washington has nothing to hide in terms of whom it is funding and working with in Bolivia, then it should reveal which groups those are." Despite many Freedom of Information Act requests, the U.S Government has not turned over all the names of groups receiving USAID funds. The US is also known to fund opposition groups through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Allen Weinstein, one of the founders of NED has said "A lot of what we [NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA".
So their is evidence of US funding of opposition groups and the groups involved in the funding have a rather colourful history. It's not conclusive evidence, but you rarely get anything totally concrete. What about question 2 though? Does it fit the Modus Operandi of the party involved. To that we have to answer an unwavering yes. Undermining a left wing government totally fits the MO of the US government in Central and South America. The examples are too numerous to mention. What about the 3rd question though, Could they hope to get away with it? The answer is likely y
For me the "last loop" is also fibre. I was with Blueyonder before Virgin Media bought it and the reliability nosedived. I don't see the point in any of their high speed deals. As soon as you use your connection for anything significant, you get throttled.
"If the lives lost aren't American Lives, does it still matter?"
In military planning, civilian lives seem to matter a lot less than military lives. You can see that in the type of tactics being used. Air Strikes are far more dangerous for civilians than sending in troops (who may actually notice its a wedding), but they are obviously much safer for the military. Foreign civilian lives don't really seem count for much, particularly when it comes to far flung non-western countries like Iraq or Afghanistan. Obviously you couldn't get away with calling in an airstrike on a suspected terrorist hideout in the States or the UK. Although an airstrike would reduce the risk to police and the military, the public and the media would never put up with the inevitable civilian casualties. This huge gulf in the value we place on civilians lives in different countries is something that's rarely discussed in the media.
chemical weapons factory. I hope that the hidden area on the map doesn't drawn anyone's attention. And therein lies the problem with obscuring secret locations on maps. The mere act of obscuring it announces it.
"I would like to see other internet service providers follow suit to reinforce our message that violence will not be tolerated either on the internet or in the real world"
Jeopardize Space Station, would be an equally valid title. I'm sure the Russians have suspicions that the US was ultimately behind the Georgian bombardment and invasion of South Ossetia.
Watching the media reporting on this has been fascinating. If Russia had been the Western Ally rather than Georgia, the media would have been focusing on the Georgian bombardment and invasion of South Ossetia and all the casualties it caused. People killed in Russian air-strikes would get a mention in words, but certainly not pictures. When the media report on official enemies, the gloves come off. The BBC's Newsnight program called Russian announcements Orwellian Newspeak. I can't recall the BBC ever calling US or UK announcements Orwellian Newspeak, no matter how propagandistic and dubious they sound. Instead the media is happy to band around phrases like "Winning Hearts and Minds" without question.
For anyone interesting in the way the media works, watch the documentary "Manufacturing Consent" (based on the book by Herman and Chomsky). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wksCW3ooJ5A
Amen, gov't apps aren't generally created by seasoned programmers, they are programmed by whoever they could grab to throw at IT in the 90s. People that don't understand the concept of a variable, headers, comments, or anything resembling maintainable code.
I suppose it depends on what standards have to be met. In the UK we often have to meet the ISO 9000 standard, but that just involves showing them project documents (e.g. Requirements Capture, Functional Design Spec etc). The code itself could be complete crap, but as long as the planning documents look good, you pass.
People sometimes seem a bit confused over why old people are pushed out of software development. It's not that companies think they are senile or something, in fact they know full well they have more experience. The issue is that software companies don't like older programmers because they know they will have to pay them more. That's really why you get replaced with a young guy. They can pay him a lot less. It doesn't matter if his poor code actually ends up costing the company more money in the long run because they tend not to be smart enough to see that bigger picture.
With this kind of blatant State censorship, at least people know they are being censored. People in the west are in some ways not so fortunate.
Czech dissident writer Zdenek Urbanek once said...
In one respect, we are luckier than you in the free west, because we have learnt to read between the lines, and you believe you have no need; but you do.
George Orwell recognized that western media operates on self-censorship way back in the 40s. He wrote a preface to Animal farm all about it, but the preface itself was censored and never published. Amongst other things, he said...
The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary.... [Things are] kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact
For example, if you read the BBC online, you probably know that Hugo Chavez shook the Spanish King's hand recently after their previous spat. Hardly Earth shattering news. Yet you probably won't be aware that Colombian President Alavaro Uribe is under investigation for possible involvement in the planning of a massacre by right wing paramilitaries. The general trend is that bad stories about allies are either ignored or only reported in passing, whereas those about official enemies such as Chavez are accentuated and repeated ad infinitum.
Anyone interested in censorship in the western media should read "Manufacturing Consent" by Hermann and Chomsky, or watch the documentary on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wksCW3ooJ5A
There are plenty of cheap hidden cameras these days. Even ones that look like shirt buttons. Best not to make yourself an obvious target in the first place. One thing that really bothers me in the UK is the intimidation used to deter people from attending protests. It used to just be police Forward Intelligence Units photographing everyone, but now we have a situation where the police can keep your DNA when they arrest you. That's a pretty big deterrent really.
Lots of people have been angry over the amazingly one-sided special relationship for many years. This resulted in something called the "British American Project for the successor generation" which was aimed at countering criticism of the "Special Relationship". The organisation tends to recruit top media people. For example, Jeremy Paxman is a member (he's even on the frontpage http://www.baponline.org./
Slashdot Mirror
The US hurts people out of ignorance and letting the wrong people have more power than they otherwise would have, but even then it doesn't compare to the types of power and brutality you saw out of the Soviet Union or other dictatorships.
The US doesn't not "hurt" people through ignorance. Greed has been a much more consistent factor. Just to take one example, the US (in collusion with Britain) did not engineer a coup to topple the democratic government of Iran in 1953 through ignorance. It did it to gain control of the oil. Nor did the CIA train and back the brutal SAVAK secret police (who tortured and murdered thousands of dissidents opposed to the rule of the dictator we installed) through ignorance.
The main difference between powerful dictatorships and powerful democracies is that the dictatorships concentrate their violence and oppression on their own populations through blatant means, whereas the democracies concentrate their violence and oppression externally (and often more cleverly). The result of this is that the populations of the democracies think their governments are the "good guys" since they are seldom on the receiving end of the violence. Those that are on the receiving end have no such illusions.
I think you overestimate the British media. They suffer the same issues as any corporate media.
Stories that regurgitate government statements without challenge are defined as being impartial. Stories that strongly challenge government statements and cite previous deceptions etc, are classed as biased and/or left-wing. The few journalists who adopt highly critical points of view are largely cast out of the mainstream media, even if they are award-winning. A good example would be John Pilger.
The BBC is being particularly bad at the moment. It is becoming increasingly afraid to criticise the US and they keep talking about the problem of "anti-Americanism". Several BBC jouralists have even written happy-feelgood books about the US (e.g. Justin Webbs "Have a Nice Day"). If the BBC allows journalists to express highly positive views about the US, where are the journalists writing books with Chomskyesque titles like "Why the US is a Rogue State". The answer is the the system filters such journalists out before they ever reach that level of journalism. If a BBC journalist did suddenly break ranks and write such a book, he would be slammed as being biased or even anti-American (since obviously criticising US foreign policy means you hate the US and everyone in it).
When you look at BBC stories on Iran they are highly critical and suspicious of official statements. This is the standard line and is never taken to be biased and certainly not anti-Iranian. Where are the BBC journalists who are gushingly in love with Iranian culture and their struggles against the Shah etc? Such a journalist would be viewed as completely biased in Iranian favour and kicked out. Endless stories about how Hugo Chavez is crazy and wants to rule for ever are also not viewed as biased within the BBC and the word anti-Venezuelan certainly never comes up.
Time and time again, the British media will take a stance and then effectively define it as being the unbiased view. Any other views are then easily dismissable as biased, and occasionally even more potent words like "anti-American" are available.
Seasons one and two were great, but things rapidly started to go down hill after that. It became rapidly apparent that there was no overall plan (like Straczynski had with Babylon 5). They had set up lots of mysteries without first knowing what the resolution would be. If the mysteries were ever solved at all, they were solved in random ways, and they have pretty much admitted as much. A good example of this was the "final 5". By their own admission they picked them randomly, so what was the point of the audience trying to guess who they might be, based on possible clues?
I find it difficult to watch a show knowing that the writers have no more idea of how things will be resolved than I do. Mysteries can be very compelling, but the fun of a mystery is trying to unravel it yourself, and you clearly can't unravel it if the writers are going to use a dartboard to resolve it. What's the point of getting caught up in a mystery when you know it's a complete mystery to the writers as well?
Another problem with Galactica has been the masses of pointless filler. A good recent example of that is Baltar's religious Harem. They spent absolutely ages on that plot-line, then dumped it at the last minute. What was the point of it all? How exactly did it advance the plot? A lot of fans I know dumped the series somewhere in Season 3, complaining that it had turned into a soap opera. I know exactly what they mean.
Whereas in Season 1 and 2 you tended to have strong plots in each episode (blowing up a Cylon fuel depot, or Finding a missing pilot etc) in later seasons things started to become very drawn out. Instead there was more and more focus on relationships and peoples petty problems. That sort of thing is fine in an Alan Bennett play, but this show was fundamentally about people fleeing from killer robots in outer space. When you watch science fiction you expect some degree of excitement. It doesn't necessarily have to be low-brow "laser gun battle" excitement, but endless drawn out episodes with nothing happening are a pretty sorry excuse for science fiction (if not fiction in general).
...since they also 'feel that the law has no control over them'.
There's a reason we're not getting our asses handed to us like the Russians did, and that's because our first choice is to make allies of the locals, rather than "conquering" them.
The Russian's made allies too. They're not idiots. The Russian narrative was the same as ours. i.e. "We're here to stop the extremists." The real difference is that back in the 80s a superpower was funding and arming the opposition. If Russia was supplying the Taliban with Anti-Aircraft missiles and anti-Tank weaponry, things would look very different indeed.
The Afghan population is already pretty pissed off with the continuous civilian air-strike casualties. They're not stupid. They know that air-strikes put military lives above those of Afghan civilians, and they know we wouldn't use such tactics if we risked killing western civilians. Whatever popular support NATO/US forces have can run out very quickly.
Now they even keep the DNA samples of people arrested by mistake. Fight against it. Don't give them an inch or they will take a mile. Any gains in crime fighting are dwarfed by the enormous potential for abuse. It's really paving the way for future tyranny.
iran doesnt invade any country actively, but they invade them through the religious terrorist organizations they fund. hezbollah, hamas, ibda-c, numerous groups trying to invade pakistan, afghanistan are just a few.
If we condemn Iran for funding such groups, we must also condemn many western nations for similar support. e.g. The US support for the murderous contras whose crimes make Hamas look like a pacifist group. Then we must also consider western support for mass murderers such as Suharto of Indonesia. The US and Britain knew he was slaughtering the East Timorese, yet the flow of weapons and support continued.
[quote]Journalists - particularly those at the top - seem to believe that their training and expertise and degrees somehow give them license to disguise their personal beliefs and views as objective reporting.[/quote
It's worse than that. Whereas you or I writing about some topic will have our own opinions, the Mass media have so-called gatekeepers to make sure stories conform to the company's (and lets not forget they are companies) "guidelines". In other words with the mainstream media you have mass organised bias. For example, a story condemning Russian troops as brutal would go through BBC gatekeeping but a similar one condemning troops of an ally (e.g. the US) would not. Such a story would be marked as biased or even "anti-American" (sadly quite a buzzword that BBC reporters like to throw around these days).
The whole of the media is really biased in favour of power. Journalist Pepe Escobar coined the term "Embedded With Power" to describe this. You don't get to be a reporter at a major outlet by rocking the boat to much. The system filters out troublesome journalists who are really critical of those in power.
If you're interesting in the systematic bias and other problems with the mass media, it's well worth watching the documentary "Manufacturing Consent". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sirvWxLHNo8&feature=related
After Harold Lloyd (of silent film fame) retired, he took hundreds of stereo pictures of famous actresses, including many of Marylin Monroe. You can even get a book containing some of his work.
There are two problems with stereo images though.
1. There are no digital stereo cameras available. (you can make one of course but that's enough to put most people off)
2. There is no nice way of viewing them digitally. (not everyone can do freeviewing, and even when you can its a bit awkward)
If only some company would make a cheap digital 3D Camera and some kind of digital viewmaster to view the results.
At current oil prices the current Iranian government is certain to collapse.
They once had a parliamentary democracy of course, but the leader, Mossadegh, committed the heinous crime of trying to get a better oil deal for his country. This resulted in the US and UK backing a coup which installed the Shah of Iran, a dictator who would rule with an Iron fist for decades. His CIA-trained secret police (the SAVAK) tortured and murdered thousands. The inevitable backlash unfortunately resulted in a theocracy rather than the democracy the people we hoping for.
Iran's demographics favor a serious culture shift soon. The ruling theocracy has dealt with this [b]repeatedly in the past by going to war[/b], often wars so nasty that they killed off the majority of males in their 20s, directly changing the demographics.
Iran has not attacked another country for centuries. Iraq started the war with Iran and was supported by the US, UK and others. It was a devastating war but rather than trying to stop it, we poured fuel on the fire hoping that Saddam would win. The support for Iraq was so great that the US even tried to blame the Iranians for Saddam's chemical attack on Halabja. So we wreck one democracy and install a dictator. Then when he is overthrown we back the neighbouring dictator in a devastating war.
Although there are lots of crazy ideas flying about, there are plenty of real conspiracies taking place. It's just a case of separating the wheat from the chaff. There clearly are powerful groups in the world who attempt to manipulate events to further their own ends. Typically governments lead the way in this area. For example, the US has spent much of the past 50 years interfering in the affairs of Central and South American states. Often this has involved sophisticated and well organised propaganda campaigns e.g. The coup in Guatemala in 1954. Sometimes genuine conspiracies sound the craziest of all. For example, Operation Northwoods was a plan to fake terrorist attacks on US assets and blame them on Cuba as an excuse for war (fortunately the plan was not approved).
When considering a conspiracy, it is worth considering at least 3 points.
1. Is there any good evidence to support the claims?
2. Does it fit the Modus Operandi of the party involved?
3. Could they hope to get away with it?
Take these 2 topical claims.
1. The British Government murdered Dr David Kelly (The Government Weapons Scientist).
2. The US government is trying to destabilize the Bolivian Government.
For the Dr Kelly claim we have to ask, is there any evidence he was murdered? Well, there are some oddities, such as not much blood being found at the scene, and some doctors think he could not have died from the pills he took or the slashed wrists. However, other doctors believe his heart condition was such that even a small blood loss could have killed him. There are often oddities with suicides and there is not nearly enough evidence to say he was murdered.
Secondly we ask whether it is part of the MO of the British government to murder troublesome citizens (dissidents, whistle-blowers etc). The British government does not have a history of this. It's very difficult to keep that sort of thing a secret, particularly in a democracy, and it would have come out. Rather than murdering people like Dr Kelly, the British Government MO is to discredit them, call them incompetent fantasists etc.
Lastly we ask "Could they hope to get away with it?" The answer is no. The murder would come out eventually and when it did the people involved would be arrested and imprisoned. You can't get away with murdering troublemakers in that way.
What about the case of the US government trying to destabilize the Bolivian Government though?
The President of Bolivia has certainly made the accusation (along with many others) but is there any evidence? According to the The Center for Economic and Policy Research, "USAID has an "Office of Transition Initiatives" operating in Bolivia, funnelling millions of dollars of training and support to right-wing opposition regional governments and movements.". CEPR has called on the US Government to come clean on which groups it is funding. The CEPR Co-Director, Mark Weisbrot said "If Washington has nothing to hide in terms of whom it is funding and working with in Bolivia, then it should reveal which groups those are." Despite many Freedom of Information Act requests, the U.S Government has not turned over all the names of groups receiving USAID funds. The US is also known to fund opposition groups through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Allen Weinstein, one of the founders of NED has said "A lot of what we [NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA".
So their is evidence of US funding of opposition groups and the groups involved in the funding have a rather colourful history. It's not conclusive evidence, but you rarely get anything totally concrete. What about question 2 though? Does it fit the Modus Operandi of the party involved. To that we have to answer an unwavering yes. Undermining a left wing government totally fits the MO of the US government in Central and South America. The examples are too numerous to mention. What about the 3rd question though, Could they hope to get away with it? The answer is likely y
For me the "last loop" is also fibre. I was with Blueyonder before Virgin Media bought it and the reliability nosedived. I don't see the point in any of their high speed deals. As soon as you use your connection for anything significant, you get throttled.
"If the lives lost aren't American Lives, does it still matter?"
In military planning, civilian lives seem to matter a lot less than military lives. You can see that in the type of tactics being used. Air Strikes are far more dangerous for civilians than sending in troops (who may actually notice its a wedding), but they are obviously much safer for the military. Foreign civilian lives don't really seem count for much, particularly when it comes to far flung non-western countries like Iraq or Afghanistan. Obviously you couldn't get away with calling in an airstrike on a suspected terrorist hideout in the States or the UK. Although an airstrike would reduce the risk to police and the military, the public and the media would never put up with the inevitable civilian casualties. This huge gulf in the value we place on civilians lives in different countries is something that's rarely discussed in the media.
chemical weapons factory. I hope that the hidden area on the map doesn't drawn anyone's attention. And therein lies the problem with obscuring secret locations on maps. The mere act of obscuring it announces it.
"I would like to see other internet service providers follow suit to reinforce our message that violence will not be tolerated either on the internet or in the real world"
Unless of course it's State sponsored violence.
The Nomad Soul was an amazingly immersive game. I'm sure they were talking about a sequel a while back.
Jeopardize Space Station, would be an equally valid title. I'm sure the Russians have suspicions that the US was ultimately behind the Georgian bombardment and invasion of South Ossetia.
Watching the media reporting on this has been fascinating. If Russia had been the Western Ally rather than Georgia, the media would have been focusing on the Georgian bombardment and invasion of South Ossetia and all the casualties it caused. People killed in Russian air-strikes would get a mention in words, but certainly not pictures. When the media report on official enemies, the gloves come off. The BBC's Newsnight program called Russian announcements Orwellian Newspeak. I can't recall the BBC ever calling US or UK announcements Orwellian Newspeak, no matter how propagandistic and dubious they sound. Instead the media is happy to band around phrases like "Winning Hearts and Minds" without question.
For anyone interesting in the way the media works, watch the documentary "Manufacturing Consent" (based on the book by Herman and Chomsky). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wksCW3ooJ5A
Amen, gov't apps aren't generally created by seasoned programmers, they are programmed by whoever they could grab to throw at IT in the 90s. People that don't understand the concept of a variable, headers, comments, or anything resembling maintainable code.
I suppose it depends on what standards have to be met. In the UK we often have to meet the ISO 9000 standard, but that just involves showing them project documents (e.g. Requirements Capture, Functional Design Spec etc). The code itself could be complete crap, but as long as the planning documents look good, you pass.
People sometimes seem a bit confused over why old people are pushed out of software development. It's not that companies think they are senile or something, in fact they know full well they have more experience. The issue is that software companies don't like older programmers because they know they will have to pay them more. That's really why you get replaced with a young guy. They can pay him a lot less. It doesn't matter if his poor code actually ends up costing the company more money in the long run because they tend not to be smart enough to see that bigger picture.
Can you remember the source you got the Uribe story from?
Czech dissident writer Zdenek Urbanek once said...
In one respect, we are luckier than you in the free west, because we have learnt to read between the lines, and you believe you have no need; but you do.
George Orwell recognized that western media operates on self-censorship way back in the 40s. He wrote a preface to Animal farm all about it, but the preface itself was censored and never published. Amongst other things, he said...
The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. ... [Things are] kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact
For example, if you read the BBC online, you probably know that Hugo Chavez shook the Spanish King's hand recently after their previous spat. Hardly Earth shattering news. Yet you probably won't be aware that Colombian President Alavaro Uribe is under investigation for possible involvement in the planning of a massacre by right wing paramilitaries. The general trend is that bad stories about allies are either ignored or only reported in passing, whereas those about official enemies such as Chavez are accentuated and repeated ad infinitum.
Anyone interested in censorship in the western media should read "Manufacturing Consent" by Hermann and Chomsky, or watch the documentary on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wksCW3ooJ5A
There are plenty of cheap hidden cameras these days. Even ones that look like shirt buttons. Best not to make yourself an obvious target in the first place. One thing that really bothers me in the UK is the intimidation used to deter people from attending protests. It used to just be police Forward Intelligence Units photographing everyone, but now we have a situation where the police can keep your DNA when they arrest you. That's a pretty big deterrent really.
Lots of people have been angry over the amazingly one-sided special relationship for many years. This resulted in something called the "British American Project for the successor generation" which was aimed at countering criticism of the "Special Relationship". The organisation tends to recruit top media people. For example, Jeremy Paxman is a member (he's even on the frontpage http://www.baponline.org./
Here's an article about them.
http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=466
Could they have got away with "Crabble", with a clever word arranging crab on the splash screen?
Or assassination. e.g. A poisonous needle attached to the front.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
Why can't someone make a bipedal robot as impressive as bigdog?