Newspapers have duties? To whom and when did this happen?
Sorry, I was under the impression that news media had a duty of care to report accurately.
I know this isn't a popular opinion in the US, but in the UK it's taken pretty seriously. Certainly, inaccurate reporting or accusations of deliberate bias have been the subject of court cases that had ended up with millions being paid in compensation, and every now and again you'll get a public apology and retraction from a news show or newspaper.
The BBC, ITV1 and Channel 4 news programmes are all expected to uphold a certain level of impartiality, and get severely reprimanded when/if they slip.
Broadsheet newspapers are held to a less severe standard, but are still expected to aim for impartiality. Tabloids are pretty much ignored, but since anyone with half a brain knows not to trust them that's mostly because they're not taken too seriously.
I know the USA doesn't seem to even try for impartiality in its news media any more, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world's media is as institutionally corrupted by bias as yours...
The American revolution was founded by guys who wrote very opinionated, not really fact filled, newspapers devoted to making people angry and raising arms against a government. Posting neutral facts wouldn't have cut it.
And that's lovely, if you're trying to organise a revolution. I also believe there's even a specific word for it - propaganda.
However, news media should be trying to report the facts, not persuade people to a point of view. If you don't even realise this then there truly is no hope for objective reporting in the USA any more.
Oftend times people forget that facts themselves are also biased depending on which ones are revealed and how often.
What on earth are you talking about?
Facts are facts - objective and unbiased. Reporting of facts may be biased (eg, by misrepresenting them or selectively reporting them), and conclusions drawn may be biased, but facts are facts.
I'm really starting to worry about the state of the USA - I always assumed that the media was corrupt and partial as hell, but that normal people at least understood the concept of balanced, objective reporting. Now I'm starting to think you don't even know what the news media should be striving for, let alone that they aren't achieving it.
But in the end I would agree with you... New organizations should strive through altruism to report the facts without opinion, but I'm not holding my breath.
Again, and apologies, but that's a function of where you live, not of the subject itself.
Whole sections of the rest of the world have an aggressive, independant investigative news media, and they're doing fine.
Of course, this is because news media follows what people want. If people want impartial reporting and hard truths then that's what news media will provide. If people are intellecually lazy and just want to have their prejudices comfortably reinforced then that's the direction the media will go in.
I don't tend to read too many British papers - I tend to get most of my news online from the BBC, CNN and Al-Jazeera (trying to minimise any bias by spreading my sources).
The Times is a pretty good, as is the Guardian (although it's a bit left-leaning). TBH, most of the broadsheets are passable.
I'd certainly avoid the tabloids like Daily Mail, the Sun, the Daily Sport and similar.
On TV the BBC, ITV1 and Channel 4 news are respected worldwide and do a very good job of reliably reporting and staying impartial. (IMO, anyway)
I'd certainly recommend comparing the BBC and CNN coverage of world news, and even occasionally checking out Al Jazeera. You'd be absolutely amazed what loaded reporting even CNN can get away with sometimes, compared to the rest of the world's media.
Bemoaning the lack of unbiased sources is putting the cart before the horse.
In what way?
And believing that real lack of bias is even possible is simple naivety
Fair play. I should have said news media should strive for unbiased reporting (in the same way people should strive to be good people). No-one can do it all the time, but as long as they always try it doesn't matter if they fail occasionally.
Unfortunately, people have a tendency to assume that "bias is inescapable" implies there's no point in even trying, and then use exactly this phrase to excuse deliberate, unforgivable bias and misrepresentation.
Thats a crap analogy. Everyone has opinions and papers express those opinions. Very very few people are paedophiles.
Sigh. I wasn't implying any different for a second. The point I was making was that one extreme doesn't excuse another, when the real conflict is between "extreme" and "moderate".
I shouldn't have chosen such an emotive example, but it was hard to find one that wouldn't set someone off (Bush, Bin Laden and the fundamentalists vs. the western/arab moderates was the only other one that came to mind, but that would have got really messy).
Theres no such thing as unbiased reporting because by the nature of the job reporters give a subjective view of what they're reporting on. Therefor all points of view are required to give a full spectrum of opinion for people (if they wished) to evaluate.
Right, so should Encyclopedias also qualify every statement in their articles on the Holocaust because of the existence of holocaust deniers? Should physics journals cover articles on the TimeCube? Should I consult the tramps who live ouside my local train station when choosing a pension scheme?
No, (heresy alert!) because although everyone has an opinion not all points of view are equal, and some are simply worthless.
Sure, everyone reports things from his/her own point of view, but as long as they're striving to tell the true story (and not just pushing an agenda), the level of bias is all but undetectable.
Being "unbiased" doesn't consist of tellign every single possible interpretation - this is the kind of idiocy that gets creationism taught in school science classes.
Being "unbiased" consists of accurately reporting all sides of a story, and weighting each according to its factual content.
Eg, if I'm writing a story about the beginning of life, I write about evolution and how it's the mainstream scientific theory accepted across the world by millions of people, and supported by a vast body of evidence collected over the last hundred or more years.
I also mention the fact that other people have a variety of religious beliefs that variously accept or contradict evolution, and also that some secular scientists don't agree with it to varying degrees.
I can safely ignore the point of view that says we were all pulled out of the arse of the great green Snorgazmodula twenty-five seconds ago complete with false memories, because although some people might believe this, it's a sufficiently baseless, non-factually-supported minority view that it's irrelevant.
What I don't do, under any circumstances, is write a 2000 word article, spend 1000 words talking about evolution and the remaining 1000 words talking about one religiously-inspired, factually-disproven minority opinion that's pretty much confined to one small area of the globe and almost universally derided in all others.
Giving equal coverage and credibility to unequal opinions is biased, because you should report what appears to be the factual truth, not just what people believe or want to hear.
Granted. I should have made clear that this was an ideal rather than a hard requirement.
However, while bias may be inescapable, people often use exactly that phrase to excuse blatant, unnecessary bias like Fox News or (some) Indymedia sites.
Although it may be true in practice, accepting that bias is inescapable often means that people stop even trying to be unbiased, and stop expecting news outlets to make the same effort.
Bias is like "goodness" - nobody's perfectly good and ethical all the time but that doesn't mean people should stop trying to be.
Clearly that's the new fork of SpamAssassin that ensures only Vi4gra, penis-enlargement pills and "meet h0T n4k3d t33n s1uts" invitations get through...
Short-term thinkers and pollyannas often trot out the old maxim about how "those who aren't criminals have nothing to hide".
However, this ignores a few important points. When you hand a new power to the police or government:
You aren't just trusting the current government/police authority to use said power responsibly - you're trusting them and every government or police authority for the rest of time to act responsibly.
Seriously, when was the last time the government (any government) looked around and said "You know what? We've got too much information on people, really. We know too much about them and their private lives, and we should just take a bunch of these databases we have and delete the lot."
You aren't even just trusting all future police and government to use the information you give up responsibly - you're also trusting them to hold it in trust and protect it from hackers, con-men, identity thieves and the like... again (at the very least) for the rest of your life.
Given the tracks records of the UK and US governments on computer security, this is not a sensible bet to place.
You might not be a non-criminal for ever.
This doesn't even have to be something deserved, like murder or mugging. Jews weren't criminals in (prosperous, peaceful) Germany in 1931, but by 1941 they were being herded into death camps by the hundred thousand. And if you can't haven't already spotted the first potential glimmerings of totalitarianism on the UK, USA and other wetern countries, then you've been walking around with your eyes shut.
(Hint: The first thing a totalitarian state needs is control, so the first thing they do is remove judicial oversight, greatly expand their record-keeping and databasing efforts, and start invading their citizens' privacy on flimsy or fearmongering pretexts. Hmmm.
I think the last one is the thing that gets most people. Even if I agree 100% with the policies of the current government of my country (I don't, but anyway...), why would I give up the potential ability to disagree or rebel against them in the future?
If they do something that I find offensive enough to make me break a law, why should or would I make it easier for them to then catch me?
You seem to be missing the point. In news reportage, there's no such thing as a "healthy counterpoint" to any bias.
News media should strive for accuracy, fairness and balance in their reporting. If the Morning Star is too left-wing and the Daily Mail is too right-wing, that doesn't excuse the DM (or the MS). It merely means that both have failed in their duties as newspapers.
Forgive the analogy, but your position is a little like implying that paedophilia is a "healthy counterpoint" to violent child-abuse, since one is motivated by exessive anger and the other by excessive "love".
In fact, both are utterly wrong, and neither one excuses the other. It's not a case of "left" vs. "right", it's a case of "impartial" vs. "biased", and that puts the DM and the MS on the same side.
The Daily Mail, the Sun, the Daily Sport and the Morning Star are all comics, not newspapers. Read them when you lack enough feelings of moral outrage in your life, or believe you may have a few too many braincells that you need to get rid of.
There were still a barrier between the NSA, CIA and law enforcement. Back before Bush, even if they spied on you, you couldn't be prosecuted with the information the intelligence agencies got on you using their "special spook methods." Now, people have a good reason to worry.
All things considered, nothing that Bush is doing will end Islamic terrorism. The harsh truth is that yes, there are millions of good people who are Muslims and do no support terrorism.
Wow. I've never agreed so strongly with someone's first five sentences and disagreed so violently with the entire rest of their post before.
There are, unfortunately, far more Muslims who are at least sympathetic to terrorism than there are religionists of any other persuasion.
Please provide the merest hint of evidence that this is anything other than baseless, pulling-facts-out-of-my-arse racist bullshit, or be modded into oblivion.
Remember in your answer to differentiate between the truly violent religions and those which are merely prevalent in extremely deprived, politically-unstable parts of the world.
Also remember to excuse the (nominally-Christian) West's identical behaviour during periods of similar social strife and deprivation, and the fact that the entire Middle East region is so unstable pretty much entirely because of the machinations of european countries and the US over the course of the last hundred years or so.
These are not people that we want in our borders--period! But... we can't know a person's heart, so what do we do? I say we end immigration from Islamic countries. Allow them to come over on a guarded visa that is routinely checked up on to work for a few years, but then they have to go home.
Great idea - lose all the terrorist sympathisers... along with most of the middle- and far-eastern grad students who are the only ones counteracting the US's massive brain-drain to countries with less restrictive (and less religiously-inspired) research laws.
Also remember turnabout is fair play, and remove all your expatriots from the region. Specifically all the ones with guns, bombs and missiles who are doing such a bang-up job of convincing the terrorist sympathisers to invade your hallowed shores.
Look, the only way to fight Islamic terrorism without falling prey to more of it at home, and not violating the rights of our citizens, non-Muslim and Muslim alike, is to keep new Islamic immigrants out of our country.
Or, y'know, stay out of theirs. Again, specifically the tooled-up tourists in uniforms.
There is no fundamental human right to live in a country of your choice.
Nope. Nor is there a fundamental human right allowing you to invade other countries who pose no threat to you, extort them to change their laws to ones you'd like purely for your own benefit, topple democratically-elected leaders, invade countries on false premises and then let the guy who did it off scot-free, etc, etc, etc.
Your point?
This is not an ethnic thing as I'd have just as much problem allowing a white Australian who admitted to being a Muslim come here as I would a Saudi. The only two countries I could see getting any sort of exception might be Albania and Turkey.
Well, personally the only "Christians" I hear about in the mass-media are the fundamentalist fuckwits intent on ousting evolution from schools, banning medical research and calling for the assassination of democratically-elected South American leaders. Can we ban all the Christians too while we're at it?
All religions have violent pasts because for a long period of time, the world was a truly brutal and uncivilized place.
Was? Was? Dude, where are you living? Under a rock?
Back in the day lego blocks were general and non-specific. Sets came with instructions for at least two different models you could make with the same bricks, and bricks could easily be mixed-and-matched between sets.
In the last few years (partly as a response to your points) Lego started producing more and more licensed tie-in (cash-in) sets, which had all sorts of weird and wonderful single-use bricks and were, frankly, crap for general creative building.
Granted, the factors you raise may have started the problems with the company, but IMO they had a hefty hand in their own undoing by producing sets that went against the entire point of lego - creative, inventive play.
How many psych studies would I have to present to you to retract your statements?
Only a couple, but they'd have to demonstrate that violent media caused violent behaviour, not not just that violent people preferred both violent media and violence.
SFBwian nailed my position in the other response to your post - I'm not disputing there's a correlation there, but us humans have a distinct propensity for confusing correlation with causation.
For example, people often claim cannabis is dangerous because "the majority of heroin addicts start off smoking pot". Therefore, the theory goes, pot's clearly a "gateway" drug, and so should be banned.
The problem is, you can replace "smoking pot" with "drinking breastmilk" and it's still true. Sure, every heroin addict was a pot-smoker, but that says absolutely nothing about how many people smoke pot but never do heroin. You might as well say "wearing shoes" is a gateway activity to heroin addiction.
Likewise, I'd be positively surprised if damaged kids with a propensity for violence didn't start out by absorbing simulated violence, possibly later finding this insufficient release and actually performing it themselves.
However, this doesn't mean that watching violence caused their violent behaviour. Indeed, in this situation watching violence could (conceivably) actually reduce their violent behaviour, as they're getting some of the release through non-destructive means.
To be sure, I make no claims the above point is true, but it illustrates how flawed reasoning like the "gateway" theory can end up doing more harm than good.
All that said, if you can provide evidence that to a normal, well-adjusted child "adult" media can tip them in an antisocial direction I'll shut up and sit down. Just be careful to remember correlation != causation.;-)
I'm generallizing. I realize there are exceptions to the rules, but children who watch violence on TV tend to be more violent than those who do not.
I call BS.
Children whose parents neglect them, or abuse them, or bully them, or simply aren't supportive and nurturing tend to be more violent than kids whose parents aren't.
I was allowed to watch movies that were "above" my age by my parents when I was a kid - I'm not talking about slasher flicks when I was 5 or anything silly, merely more "grown up" films that (yes) included violence.
In fact my parents were remarkably relaxed in allowing me access to media that was traditionally "too old" for me (novels, New Scientist magazine, films, comics, etc).
To be clear, they didn't just allow me to watch/read anything I wanted, and for many videos/books they accompanied me to put it in context, but I was still playing violent games and watching (sometimes-violent) movies.
In contrast, I had several friends with neglectful or overly-authoritarian parents who restricted the kids from watching anything over their age-limit, but also neglected to provide much in the way of love, support or understanding.
Guess which one is gainfully employed and happy, and which have almost all ended up dropping out, in trouble with the law or even enjoying spells in prison?
I'm not saying that violent movies don't exacerbate the problem with an already damaged child, but you've got to have already screwed the kid up quite nicely by yourself for it to have a major effect.
Frankly, I've never understood the demonizing of ActiveX technology.
ActiveX allows arbitrary code from an arbitrary web page to run on your machine with full administrative priviliges, and the only defence against it is the computer-savviness of the user.
Uh-oh.
Now, you can argue that technology shouldn't be castigated because of user-error, but that's like saying there's nothing wrong with a.305 Magnum that automatically points at your foot, or a cruise missile that automatically targets friendly units. Sure, it requires user-intervention to cause a disaster, and if something happens it's technically the user's fault, but it's clearly also the bloody stupid design of the system that contributed to the disaster.
And in case you've missed it, it's no longer considered professional as any kind of IT engineer to go "Oh, ID10T error" and wash your hands of the problem. Users will ever be clueless, but well-designed technology has a learning curve that allows for this.
ActiveX offers a simple Yes/No dialogue choice, and to fully comprehend the implications of each that answer could take the average user weeks of study.
Microsoft (as ever) badly dropped the ball on security, and rather than fix the problem they just slapped a dialog box in front of it and claimed any disasters caused were now officially the fault of the user.
Actually, I've never even understood why people seem to concentrate only on the embedded controls in MSIE when ActiveX is about COM integration on the whole Win32 platform...
Indeed. However, when you've got an interesting idea with some nice applications than also just happens to cause the apocalypse, don't be surprised if the people huddling in craters across the broken, sulphur-spewing landscape happen to, y'know, not fixate on the few things it did pretty well.
Anyway, assuming we only care about browsers: the reason why you might want ActiveX is the same why you might want plugins or extension: to make the browser do something MORE than render (D)HTML.
Erm, not really. The first thing any sensible user wants any technology like that to do is to not open his machine to infection from every scumbag on the net... and make the browser do something more than render (D)HTML. See, the thing is, that first part is so freaking obvious that most people forget it's even a consideration.
An analogy:
People want tasty cakes, but they also don't want to be poisoned.
Microsoft produces a range of tasty cakes, some of which (at random) are chock-full of arsenic.
When people complain, they "solve" the problem by printing in big letters on the front: "WARNING: cake may conceivably not be perfectly free of element number 33".
Sensible people who can afford to thus avoid the cakes altogether, but people who can't read and people who don't know element number 33 is arsenic all risk ending up dead with every bite. As do people who work in Microsoft-only offices, who save with Microsoft-cake-mandating banks and a whole range of other people.
So whenever bakers gather to talk about Microsoft Cakes, unaccountably they ignore its fluffy texture and pleasing aroma, and bizarrely fixate on the fact that it regularly kills anyone uneducated enough to ingest it.
See the point now?
Unless you also hate Java applets, plugins, FF extensions and Opera widgets, how can you hate ActiveX?
Because Java applets run in a sandbox, plugins weren't generally produced by anyone but large, trustworthy companies, and have massively dropped out of favour (because of lack of security) even so, and FF extensions and Opera widgets are both (i) somewhat insulated from the operating system, and (ii) selected, once, by the user due to their utility, and not pushed at the user by any weirdo third-party
But people have been making copies of music and sharing the copies for as long as recording devices have been available -- even back in the reel-to-reel days. Sure, the qualitiy of the copies is much better now, but I don't think it is realistic for the recording companies to think they are going to change decades of consumer behavior at this point.
Granted, but the fact is that it's illegal. It might be something that was overlooked when it was impossible to defend against, but that doesn't mean that it's legal, a god-given Right or even an ethically defendable position, does it?
In fact, it is the ability to copy, mix, and share music that made popular music the huge industry that it is. To try to pretend copying should never happen is to deny the entire history of the popular music industry.
I'm not arguing with you here - I also think that some copying has positively been of benefit to the recording industry. Regardless, the important thing in this "experiment" is their perceptions - if they perceive the test to go well it'll be continued/expanded. If they perceive it's gone badly, it'll be discontinued, DRM will be mandated and they'll even use this experiment as something (finally!) to point to to back up [sic] their own draconian approach.
Instead of pretending that copying doesn't happen, the industry should do what they've done in the past -- find a business model that can profit from copying. For example, they could give away music that builds a "brand" identity for an artist, then make money off of imbedded advertising, merchandising, concerts, and other related products.
Yes, they should. But do you really think they're going to do that right this second? How about at any time in the near future?
No, which is why it's vitally important that this experiment is successful... which means they make a higher profit margin than on DRMed versions of the song, and pirate versions of the files don't end up splashed over P2P networks.
But instead of creative thinking, all we are hearing lately is an attempt to criminalize what has been normal consumer behavior for decades.
Yes, because it was never legal, and now the recording industry are starting to have the technology to stop it (or at least make it difficult).
Do I think this is right? No.
However, with the JS MP3 trial it's the RIAA that owns the ball, it's the RIAA game, and if they don't get things exactly how they want it they'll take their toys and go home, denying us exactly what we want.
You remember what we want, right? Music that's not encrusted by DRM. Music that, if you want, can be copied and shared. That kind of music.
No matter what the recording companies try to do with DRM, history tells us that copying and sharing music is only going to get easier in the future, not harder. Copying will not go away.
That's a beautiful sentiment. Unfortunately it's flat wrong.
What history tells us is that in the absence of a proper cryptographic infrastructure and with a pathetically insecure hardware never designed for rights mangement, copying gets easier and easier as we move towards a pure information economy.
However, unless you've been living under a rock for the last few years, you won't have missed digital watermarking, DRM, FairPlay [sic] and WMA/V becoming industry standards, and the near-future introduction of the Trusted Computing [sic] architecture.
First of all, that headline... While it may be technically true, it's misleading.
Errrrm, no. It's factually correct in every detail - technically, legally and even regarding the intent.
Then the write-up that convicts the entire program even before an investigation (which is apparently now stalled) has been started by calling it "illegal actions".
First, the program was illegal - the NSA can't monitor US citizens without a warrant. Even if the law is later changed, that doesn't change the fact that it was illegal when it happened, and your justice system mandates that someone should be punished for breaking the law even if the law later changes.
I'm in the UK and I know this about your laws - how is it that you don't?
Secondly, there's no point in convoluted and intellectually dishonest apologising - the president expressely chose to block security authorisation for the investigators, knowing full well that this would halt the investigation in its tracks.
Bonus points: I believe this is the first time this has ever happened to the OPR in its entire 30+ year history.
That might be putting the proverbial cart before the horse.
Again, errrrrrm... no.
No matter how you might (intentionally or merely uninformedly) try to spin the situation, the cart is still the one with the wheels, and the horse is still the smelly one with four legs and a harness. The horse is firmly in front on this one.
There's just no case to be made it's anything else.
I think it's more that, because it's free and open source/open format, it costs (hundreds of dollars per seat) less to upgrade to the latest version and there's a much greater chance that someone will produce a latest-version-compatible import utility for older versions of OO.o.
For example, I believe OO.o 1.1.5 opens OO.o 2 files, but have you tried opening Office 2003 files in Office 2000? And since it's closed-source, you can't even scratch your own itch.
Everyone corporation acts in their own best interests - shareholders wouldn't let them act any other way, and besides, everyone knows ethics and morality don't apply to corporations. (</sarcasm>)
The point is that by being self-serving, greedy, good little capitalists Yahoo are actually offering an opportunity to show the industry whole idea of DRM and vendor lockin is counter-productive. It's especially timely, happening as it is before Vista is released, Trusted Computing becomes entrenched and DRM becomes omnipresent (likely only a few years away).
You can cast aspersions on their motives all you like, but when you're drowning and someone throws you a rope, it's stupidity itself to refuse to grab it because you disapprove of the motivations of the guy throwing it.
This is a test, to see if unDRMed music is viable from the RIAA's point of view.
The price is irrelevant, but tells you a lot - if the RIAA was right behind unDRMed music they'd have debuted it at $0.99 and made a packet. The fact that Yahoo's had to twist their arms into doing it, and when they do it retails for $1.99 tells you this is a highly speculative toe-in-the-water attempt, and I think we'd all agree the RIAA would be entirely happy if it failed miserably. Certainly it would justify to people the use of DRM in the future, and it would give the RIAA ammunition to back up their (frequently ridiculous) claims.
At the moment they don't have a leg to stand on, having not actually tried what they're arguing against. They've also spent years (and millions of dollars) telling people that DRM is essential to ensure the artist gets compensation. If this experiement goes well and is financially successful, it shows DRM as the unnecessary financial burden it is, and incidentally makes the RIAA look a bit silly in the process.
I wouldn't be surprised if the record label deliberately set the price at the high end precisely to give the scheme less chance of succeeding.
Regardless, I'll still be buying it - $1.99 is a small price to send a message to the RIAA that they should shut up and sit down.
There are two reasons to oppose DRM - "personal convenience" and "a licence to pirate".
While I've been known to pirate in the past (hell, who hasn't?), my main objection to DRM is that once I buy the file I want to own it. I don't want anyone telling me I can only play it on certain makes of MP3 player, can't transcode it to Ogg Vorbis, stream it to other PCs in my house, etc.
Finally a mainstream media company has somehow persuaded the idiots at the RIAA to allow unDRMed downloads on a trial basis. This is a good thing.
Frankly, anyone who opposes DRMed music primarily because it allows them to pirate and distribute is a thief^H^H^H^H^H copyright violator, and should shut up and sit down now to avoid fucking things up for everyone else.
While I appreciate the OP's information on the watermarking technology, it's completely irrelevant - there's no excuse for sharing the MP3 of this track, now there's an affordable (expensive, sure, but it's only a test), unDRMed cross-platform, mainstream outlet to legally purchase it from.
Anyone pirating this track is frankly working against the chances of the RIAA dropping DRM - you will be ruining a brave (if overdue) experiment, and directly contributing to a future of omnipresent DRM lock-in.
Regardless of what you think of the artist or the song, the sales figures for this track likely dictate the entire future position of the RIAA/music industry. Pirating it is the worst kind of short-term-gain idiocy.
I hate Jessica Simpson and the MP3's overpriced, but I'll be buying this track - and if you're anti-DRM (as opposed to pro-piracy), so should you.
Right there, where you made fun of our desire to liberate Iraq...
Deary, deary me. Where exactly did I make fun of "our" (yes, the UK was involved too) desire to liberate Iraq?
I may have posted "wherever the US invades/liberates next", but but that was an unimpeachably factual statement:
The US did (along with the UK/others) unarguably invade Iraq. Look up the definition of the term using the handy link, if you like - invasion means "any entry into an area not previously occupied", or "a military action consisting of troops entering a foreign land (a nation or territory, or part of that), often resulting in the invading power occupying the area, whether briefly or for a long period".
Note please that invasion doesn't necessarily say anything about the intentions of the military power involved.
Liberation deals with the intention of the invasion - in this case, to "free: grant freedom to; free from confinement".
Therefore, "invasion/liberation" was precisely correct in every detail.
"Wherever... next"? Well, unless you're privy to inside information, the US/UK hasn't invaded anywhere since then, so we don't know where they'll invade next. We also don't know if they necesarily will invade anywhere next (despite the US in particular eyeing up Syria, South Korea and, recently especially, Iran), but then again in normal usage the word "wherever" implies the possibility of "nowhere":
"Where are you going on holiday?" "Pffft, I dunno - wherever I can afford".
So, again, apart from that jerking knee that's threatening to do you a mischief, what exactly was taking the piss out of the Iraq invasion/liberation?
And, as an aside, while I strongly disagree with both the US and UK foreign policies, I actually have a great affection for both countries, and many people (of both nationalities) that I've met.
Apart from the kind of childish black-and-white "you're either with us or against us" bullshit that the US neocons are famous for using to derail intelligent debate, exactly when did disagreeing with Bush's policies become being "anti-american"?
In this case, I don't care if you get shot... There is nothing wrong with being an American citizen, and your blaming me for getting shot over it, means, you are ready to blame the victim (as in: "Her wearing the mini-skirt is the reason, she got raped."). I'll cheerfully pass the victimhood onto you by ducking...
Again with the black-and-white.
I don't blame you entirely. In fact, it's mostly the fault of the guy pulling the trigger. Nevertheless, if you cause a situation where I get hurt by someone after you, then that's at least partly your fault. I know it's comfortable to pretend you have a right to do and say whatever you like to whoever you like, but it's bullshit.
There are areas of Northern Ireland I wouldn't wear a "the Pope is gay" t-shirt, and areas of the US I wouldn't wear a "Fuck god" baseball cap. Although it's my right to do so, if I do and something bad happens to me, whose fault is it?
Ok, now if I cause the same situation but I know damn well that you're going to get hurt not me, whose fault is is that you get hurt. Yours?
Back to the RFID-enabled bombs, there is no need to really explode them necessarily. Triangulation will find, where they are, so they can be disabled (or even exploded after an evacuation).
Now you're making more sense. However, you're assuming that an unmanned drone would be able to detect something that may only have to be detectable from inches away. On what basis, exactly, do you base this conclusion? Your entire argument falls apart if a drone (in fact, multiple drones, widely spaced) can't detect the transmitter, when
This is just getting silly, and I'm starting to suspect I'm being trolled.
By "anti-American", I meant your earlier posting.
What part of my posting exactly struck you as "anti-American" (specifically, rather than "anti-US-and-UK-government", which is a totally different thing), "joyful", or remotely happy about the idea?
In fact, I believe that my post started with the words "And while I hate to be a bring-down", rather implying the thought of nationality-specific RFID bombs was, y'know, a bad thing.
Phhlease... Our internation reputation went down the tubes when we restarted this war. Iraqi fractions killing each other has not made our reputation worse.
This is such a non-sequiteur I'm starting to wonder if you're even reading my posts, or just responding to isolated phrases that catch your eye.
And incidentally the USA's international reputation now is "poor". You can try for "really bad", "terrible" or "execrable" if you really want to, but the fact the USA (and UK) have made themselves unpopular is hardly an excuse to carry on doing so.
If one shoots at me, I duck, and the bullet hits you -- do you blame me for the ducking or my enemy (who, BTW, is your enemy too, in the cases being discussed) for the shooting?
Well, if you've deliberately pissed off our enemy, know damn well I'm standing right behind you, and you're wearing a t-shirt saying "I'm an american citizen" in a part of the world where that's deeply unpopular, then yes, damn straight I'd blame you, at least in part.
Would I blame you for the guy shooting at you? Not entirely. Would I blame you for my injury? Yes, you had a clear contributory role in it.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, I was under the impression that news media had a duty of care to report accurately.
I know this isn't a popular opinion in the US, but in the UK it's taken pretty seriously. Certainly, inaccurate reporting or accusations of deliberate bias have been the subject of court cases that had ended up with millions being paid in compensation, and every now and again you'll get a public apology and retraction from a news show or newspaper.
The BBC, ITV1 and Channel 4 news programmes are all expected to uphold a certain level of impartiality, and get severely reprimanded when/if they slip.
Broadsheet newspapers are held to a less severe standard, but are still expected to aim for impartiality. Tabloids are pretty much ignored, but since anyone with half a brain knows not to trust them that's mostly because they're not taken too seriously.
I know the USA doesn't seem to even try for impartiality in its news media any more, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world's media is as institutionally corrupted by bias as yours...
And that's lovely, if you're trying to organise a revolution. I also believe there's even a specific word for it - propaganda.
However, news media should be trying to report the facts, not persuade people to a point of view. If you don't even realise this then there truly is no hope for objective reporting in the USA any more.
What on earth are you talking about?
Facts are facts - objective and unbiased. Reporting of facts may be biased (eg, by misrepresenting them or selectively reporting them), and conclusions drawn may be biased, but facts are facts.
I'm really starting to worry about the state of the USA - I always assumed that the media was corrupt and partial as hell, but that normal people at least understood the concept of balanced, objective reporting. Now I'm starting to think you don't even know what the news media should be striving for, let alone that they aren't achieving it.
Again, and apologies, but that's a function of where you live, not of the subject itself.
Whole sections of the rest of the world have an aggressive, independant investigative news media, and they're doing fine.
Of course, this is because news media follows what people want. If people want impartial reporting and hard truths then that's what news media will provide. If people are intellecually lazy and just want to have their prejudices comfortably reinforced then that's the direction the media will go in.
I don't tend to read too many British papers - I tend to get most of my news online from the BBC, CNN and Al-Jazeera (trying to minimise any bias by spreading my sources).
The Times is a pretty good, as is the Guardian (although it's a bit left-leaning). TBH, most of the broadsheets are passable.
I'd certainly avoid the tabloids like Daily Mail, the Sun, the Daily Sport and similar.
On TV the BBC, ITV1 and Channel 4 news are respected worldwide and do a very good job of reliably reporting and staying impartial. (IMO, anyway)
I'd certainly recommend comparing the BBC and CNN coverage of world news, and even occasionally checking out Al Jazeera. You'd be absolutely amazed what loaded reporting even CNN can get away with sometimes, compared to the rest of the world's media.
In what way?
Fair play. I should have said news media should strive for unbiased reporting (in the same way people should strive to be good people). No-one can do it all the time, but as long as they always try it doesn't matter if they fail occasionally.
Unfortunately, people have a tendency to assume that "bias is inescapable" implies there's no point in even trying, and then use exactly this phrase to excuse deliberate, unforgivable bias and misrepresentation.
Sigh. I wasn't implying any different for a second. The point I was making was that one extreme doesn't excuse another, when the real conflict is between "extreme" and "moderate".
I shouldn't have chosen such an emotive example, but it was hard to find one that wouldn't set someone off (Bush, Bin Laden and the fundamentalists vs. the western/arab moderates was the only other one that came to mind, but that would have got really messy).
Right, so should Encyclopedias also qualify every statement in their articles on the Holocaust because of the existence of holocaust deniers? Should physics journals cover articles on the TimeCube? Should I consult the tramps who live ouside my local train station when choosing a pension scheme?
No, (heresy alert!) because although everyone has an opinion not all points of view are equal, and some are simply worthless.
Sure, everyone reports things from his/her own point of view, but as long as they're striving to tell the true story (and not just pushing an agenda), the level of bias is all but undetectable.
Being "unbiased" doesn't consist of tellign every single possible interpretation - this is the kind of idiocy that gets creationism taught in school science classes.
Being "unbiased" consists of accurately reporting all sides of a story, and weighting each according to its factual content.
Eg, if I'm writing a story about the beginning of life, I write about evolution and how it's the mainstream scientific theory accepted across the world by millions of people, and supported by a vast body of evidence collected over the last hundred or more years.
I also mention the fact that other people have a variety of religious beliefs that variously accept or contradict evolution, and also that some secular scientists don't agree with it to varying degrees.
I can safely ignore the point of view that says we were all pulled out of the arse of the great green Snorgazmodula twenty-five seconds ago complete with false memories, because although some people might believe this, it's a sufficiently baseless, non-factually-supported minority view that it's irrelevant.
What I don't do, under any circumstances, is write a 2000 word article, spend 1000 words talking about evolution and the remaining 1000 words talking about one religiously-inspired, factually-disproven minority opinion that's pretty much confined to one small area of the globe and almost universally derided in all others.
Giving equal coverage and credibility to unequal opinions is biased, because you should report what appears to be the factual truth, not just what people believe or want to hear.
Granted. I should have made clear that this was an ideal rather than a hard requirement.
However, while bias may be inescapable, people often use exactly that phrase to excuse blatant, unnecessary bias like Fox News or (some) Indymedia sites.
Although it may be true in practice, accepting that bias is inescapable often means that people stop even trying to be unbiased, and stop expecting news outlets to make the same effort.
Bias is like "goodness" - nobody's perfectly good and ethical all the time but that doesn't mean people should stop trying to be.
Clearly that's the new fork of SpamAssassin that ensures only Vi4gra, penis-enlargement pills and "meet h0T n4k3d t33n s1uts" invitations get through...
Short-term thinkers and pollyannas often trot out the old maxim about how "those who aren't criminals have nothing to hide".
However, this ignores a few important points. When you hand a new power to the police or government:
Seriously, when was the last time the government (any government) looked around and said "You know what? We've got too much information on people, really. We know too much about them and their private lives, and we should just take a bunch of these databases we have and delete the lot."
Given the tracks records of the UK and US governments on computer security, this is not a sensible bet to place.
This doesn't even have to be something deserved, like murder or mugging. Jews weren't criminals in (prosperous, peaceful) Germany in 1931, but by 1941 they were being herded into death camps by the hundred thousand. And if you can't haven't already spotted the first potential glimmerings of totalitarianism on the UK, USA and other wetern countries, then you've been walking around with your eyes shut.
(Hint: The first thing a totalitarian state needs is control, so the first thing they do is remove judicial oversight, greatly expand their record-keeping and databasing efforts, and start invading their citizens' privacy on flimsy or fearmongering pretexts. Hmmm.
I think the last one is the thing that gets most people. Even if I agree 100% with the policies of the current government of my country (I don't, but anyway...), why would I give up the potential ability to disagree or rebel against them in the future?
If they do something that I find offensive enough to make me break a law, why should or would I make it easier for them to then catch me?
You seem to be missing the point. In news reportage, there's no such thing as a "healthy counterpoint" to any bias.
News media should strive for accuracy, fairness and balance in their reporting. If the Morning Star is too left-wing and the Daily Mail is too right-wing, that doesn't excuse the DM (or the MS). It merely means that both have failed in their duties as newspapers .
Forgive the analogy, but your position is a little like implying that paedophilia is a "healthy counterpoint" to violent child-abuse, since one is motivated by exessive anger and the other by excessive "love".
In fact, both are utterly wrong, and neither one excuses the other. It's not a case of "left" vs. "right", it's a case of "impartial" vs. "biased", and that puts the DM and the MS on the same side.
The Daily Mail, the Sun, the Daily Sport and the Morning Star are all comics, not newspapers. Read them when you lack enough feelings of moral outrage in your life, or believe you may have a few too many braincells that you need to get rid of.
Don't read any of them for news.
Wow. I've never agreed so strongly with someone's first five sentences and disagreed so violently with the entire rest of their post before.
Please provide the merest hint of evidence that this is anything other than baseless, pulling-facts-out-of-my-arse racist bullshit, or be modded into oblivion.
Remember in your answer to differentiate between the truly violent religions and those which are merely prevalent in extremely deprived, politically-unstable parts of the world.
Also remember to excuse the (nominally-Christian) West's identical behaviour during periods of similar social strife and deprivation, and the fact that the entire Middle East region is so unstable pretty much entirely because of the machinations of european countries and the US over the course of the last hundred years or so.
Great idea - lose all the terrorist sympathisers... along with most of the middle- and far-eastern grad students who are the only ones counteracting the US's massive brain-drain to countries with less restrictive (and less religiously-inspired) research laws.
Also remember turnabout is fair play, and remove all your expatriots from the region. Specifically all the ones with guns, bombs and missiles who are doing such a bang-up job of convincing the terrorist sympathisers to invade your hallowed shores.
Or, y'know, stay out of theirs. Again, specifically the tooled-up tourists in uniforms.
Nope. Nor is there a fundamental human right allowing you to invade other countries who pose no threat to you, extort them to change their laws to ones you'd like purely for your own benefit, topple democratically-elected leaders, invade countries on false premises and then let the guy who did it off scot-free, etc, etc, etc.
Your point?
Well, personally the only "Christians" I hear about in the mass-media are the fundamentalist fuckwits intent on ousting evolution from schools, banning medical research and calling for the assassination of democratically-elected South American leaders. Can we ban all the Christians too while we're at it?
Was? Was? Dude, where are you living? Under a rock?
I kno wthe US is famous
Sorry, but no.
Back in the day lego blocks were general and non-specific. Sets came with instructions for at least two different models you could make with the same bricks, and bricks could easily be mixed-and-matched between sets.
In the last few years (partly as a response to your points) Lego started producing more and more licensed tie-in (cash-in) sets, which had all sorts of weird and wonderful single-use bricks and were, frankly, crap for general creative building.
Granted, the factors you raise may have started the problems with the company, but IMO they had a hefty hand in their own undoing by producing sets that went against the entire point of lego - creative, inventive play.
Only a couple, but they'd have to demonstrate that violent media caused violent behaviour, not not just that violent people preferred both violent media and violence.
SFBwian nailed my position in the other response to your post - I'm not disputing there's a correlation there, but us humans have a distinct propensity for confusing correlation with causation.
For example, people often claim cannabis is dangerous because "the majority of heroin addicts start off smoking pot". Therefore, the theory goes, pot's clearly a "gateway" drug, and so should be banned.
The problem is, you can replace "smoking pot" with "drinking breastmilk" and it's still true. Sure, every heroin addict was a pot-smoker, but that says absolutely nothing about how many people smoke pot but never do heroin. You might as well say "wearing shoes" is a gateway activity to heroin addiction.
Likewise, I'd be positively surprised if damaged kids with a propensity for violence didn't start out by absorbing simulated violence, possibly later finding this insufficient release and actually performing it themselves.
However, this doesn't mean that watching violence caused their violent behaviour. Indeed, in this situation watching violence could (conceivably) actually reduce their violent behaviour, as they're getting some of the release through non-destructive means.
To be sure, I make no claims the above point is true, but it illustrates how flawed reasoning like the "gateway" theory can end up doing more harm than good.
All that said, if you can provide evidence that to a normal, well-adjusted child "adult" media can tip them in an antisocial direction I'll shut up and sit down. Just be careful to remember correlation != causation.
I call BS.
Children whose parents neglect them, or abuse them, or bully them, or simply aren't supportive and nurturing tend to be more violent than kids whose parents aren't.
I was allowed to watch movies that were "above" my age by my parents when I was a kid - I'm not talking about slasher flicks when I was 5 or anything silly, merely more "grown up" films that (yes) included violence.
In fact my parents were remarkably relaxed in allowing me access to media that was traditionally "too old" for me (novels, New Scientist magazine, films, comics, etc).
To be clear, they didn't just allow me to watch/read anything I wanted, and for many videos/books they accompanied me to put it in context, but I was still playing violent games and watching (sometimes-violent) movies.
In contrast, I had several friends with neglectful or overly-authoritarian parents who restricted the kids from watching anything over their age-limit, but also neglected to provide much in the way of love, support or understanding.
Guess which one is gainfully employed and happy, and which have almost all ended up dropping out, in trouble with the law or even enjoying spells in prison?
I'm not saying that violent movies don't exacerbate the problem with an already damaged child, but you've got to have already screwed the kid up quite nicely by yourself for it to have a major effect.
Bugger. ".357 Magnum", even. Have 10 pedant points. :-p
ActiveX allows arbitrary code from an arbitrary web page to run on your machine with full administrative priviliges, and the only defence against it is the computer-savviness of the user.
.305 Magnum that automatically points at your foot, or a cruise missile that automatically targets friendly units. Sure, it requires user-intervention to cause a disaster, and if something happens it's technically the user's fault, but it's clearly also the bloody stupid design of the system that contributed to the disaster.
Uh-oh.
Now, you can argue that technology shouldn't be castigated because of user-error, but that's like saying there's nothing wrong with a
And in case you've missed it, it's no longer considered professional as any kind of IT engineer to go "Oh, ID10T error" and wash your hands of the problem. Users will ever be clueless, but well-designed technology has a learning curve that allows for this.
ActiveX offers a simple Yes/No dialogue choice, and to fully comprehend the implications of each that answer could take the average user weeks of study.
Microsoft (as ever) badly dropped the ball on security, and rather than fix the problem they just slapped a dialog box in front of it and claimed any disasters caused were now officially the fault of the user.
Indeed. However, when you've got an interesting idea with some nice applications than also just happens to cause the apocalypse, don't be surprised if the people huddling in craters across the broken, sulphur-spewing landscape happen to, y'know, not fixate on the few things it did pretty well.
Erm, not really. The first thing any sensible user wants any technology like that to do is to not open his machine to infection from every scumbag on the net... and make the browser do something more than render (D)HTML. See, the thing is, that first part is so freaking obvious that most people forget it's even a consideration.
An analogy:
People want tasty cakes, but they also don't want to be poisoned.
Microsoft produces a range of tasty cakes, some of which (at random) are chock-full of arsenic.
When people complain, they "solve" the problem by printing in big letters on the front: "WARNING: cake may conceivably not be perfectly free of element number 33".
Sensible people who can afford to thus avoid the cakes altogether, but people who can't read and people who don't know element number 33 is arsenic all risk ending up dead with every bite. As do people who work in Microsoft-only offices, who save with Microsoft-cake-mandating banks and a whole range of other people.
So whenever bakers gather to talk about Microsoft Cakes, unaccountably they ignore its fluffy texture and pleasing aroma, and bizarrely fixate on the fact that it regularly kills anyone uneducated enough to ingest it.
See the point now?
Because Java applets run in a sandbox, plugins weren't generally produced by anyone but large, trustworthy companies, and have massively dropped out of favour (because of lack of security) even so, and FF extensions and Opera widgets are both (i) somewhat insulated from the operating system, and (ii) selected, once, by the user due to their utility, and not pushed at the user by any weirdo third-party
Granted, but the fact is that it's illegal. It might be something that was overlooked when it was impossible to defend against, but that doesn't mean that it's legal, a god-given Right or even an ethically defendable position, does it?
I'm not arguing with you here - I also think that some copying has positively been of benefit to the recording industry. Regardless, the important thing in this "experiment" is their perceptions - if they perceive the test to go well it'll be continued/expanded. If they perceive it's gone badly, it'll be discontinued, DRM will be mandated and they'll even use this experiment as something (finally!) to point to to back up [sic] their own draconian approach.
Yes, they should. But do you really think they're going to do that right this second? How about at any time in the near future?
No, which is why it's vitally important that this experiment is successful... which means they make a higher profit margin than on DRMed versions of the song, and pirate versions of the files don't end up splashed over P2P networks.
Yes, because it was never legal, and now the recording industry are starting to have the technology to stop it (or at least make it difficult).
Do I think this is right? No.
However, with the JS MP3 trial it's the RIAA that owns the ball, it's the RIAA game, and if they don't get things exactly how they want it they'll take their toys and go home, denying us exactly what we want.
You remember what we want, right? Music that's not encrusted by DRM. Music that, if you want, can be copied and shared. That kind of music.
That's a beautiful sentiment. Unfortunately it's flat wrong.
What history tells us is that in the absence of a proper cryptographic infrastructure and with a pathetically insecure hardware never designed for rights mangement, copying gets easier and easier as we move towards a pure information economy.
However, unless you've been living under a rock for the last few years, you won't have missed digital watermarking, DRM, FairPlay [sic] and WMA/V becoming industry standards, and the near-future introduction of the Trusted Computing [sic] architecture.
Given the "proper cryptographic i
My feelings exactly. Chillingly appropriate, no?
Errrrm, no. It's factually correct in every detail - technically, legally and even regarding the intent.
First, the program was illegal - the NSA can't monitor US citizens without a warrant. Even if the law is later changed, that doesn't change the fact that it was illegal when it happened, and your justice system mandates that someone should be punished for breaking the law even if the law later changes.
I'm in the UK and I know this about your laws - how is it that you don't?
Secondly, there's no point in convoluted and intellectually dishonest apologising - the president expressely chose to block security authorisation for the investigators, knowing full well that this would halt the investigation in its tracks.
Bonus points: I believe this is the first time this has ever happened to the OPR in its entire 30+ year history.
Again, errrrrrm... no.
No matter how you might (intentionally or merely uninformedly) try to spin the situation, the cart is still the one with the wheels, and the horse is still the smelly one with four legs and a harness. The horse is firmly in front on this one.
There's just no case to be made it's anything else.
"Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia"
I think it's more that, because it's free and open source/open format, it costs (hundreds of dollars per seat) less to upgrade to the latest version and there's a much greater chance that someone will produce a latest-version-compatible import utility for older versions of OO.o.
For example, I believe OO.o 1.1.5 opens OO.o 2 files, but have you tried opening Office 2003 files in Office 2000? And since it's closed-source, you can't even scratch your own itch.
So what?
Everyone corporation acts in their own best interests - shareholders wouldn't let them act any other way, and besides, everyone knows ethics and morality don't apply to corporations. (</sarcasm>)
The point is that by being self-serving, greedy, good little capitalists Yahoo are actually offering an opportunity to show the industry whole idea of DRM and vendor lockin is counter-productive. It's especially timely, happening as it is before Vista is released, Trusted Computing becomes entrenched and DRM becomes omnipresent (likely only a few years away).
You can cast aspersions on their motives all you like, but when you're drowning and someone throws you a rope, it's stupidity itself to refuse to grab it because you disapprove of the motivations of the guy throwing it.
You're missing the point.
This is a test, to see if unDRMed music is viable from the RIAA's point of view.
The price is irrelevant, but tells you a lot - if the RIAA was right behind unDRMed music they'd have debuted it at $0.99 and made a packet. The fact that Yahoo's had to twist their arms into doing it, and when they do it retails for $1.99 tells you this is a highly speculative toe-in-the-water attempt, and I think we'd all agree the RIAA would be entirely happy if it failed miserably. Certainly it would justify to people the use of DRM in the future, and it would give the RIAA ammunition to back up their (frequently ridiculous) claims.
At the moment they don't have a leg to stand on, having not actually tried what they're arguing against. They've also spent years (and millions of dollars) telling people that DRM is essential to ensure the artist gets compensation. If this experiement goes well and is financially successful, it shows DRM as the unnecessary financial burden it is, and incidentally makes the RIAA look a bit silly in the process.
I wouldn't be surprised if the record label deliberately set the price at the high end precisely to give the scheme less chance of succeeding.
Regardless, I'll still be buying it - $1.99 is a small price to send a message to the RIAA that they should shut up and sit down.
You know what? I don't care.
;-)
There are two reasons to oppose DRM - "personal convenience" and "a licence to pirate".
While I've been known to pirate in the past (hell, who hasn't?), my main objection to DRM is that once I buy the file I want to own it. I don't want anyone telling me I can only play it on certain makes of MP3 player, can't transcode it to Ogg Vorbis, stream it to other PCs in my house, etc.
Finally a mainstream media company has somehow persuaded the idiots at the RIAA to allow unDRMed downloads on a trial basis. This is a good thing.
Frankly, anyone who opposes DRMed music primarily because it allows them to pirate and distribute is a thief^H^H^H^H^H copyright violator, and should shut up and sit down now to avoid fucking things up for everyone else.
While I appreciate the OP's information on the watermarking technology, it's completely irrelevant - there's no excuse for sharing the MP3 of this track, now there's an affordable (expensive, sure, but it's only a test), unDRMed cross-platform, mainstream outlet to legally purchase it from.
Anyone pirating this track is frankly working against the chances of the RIAA dropping DRM - you will be ruining a brave (if overdue) experiment, and directly contributing to a future of omnipresent DRM lock-in.
Regardless of what you think of the artist or the song, the sales figures for this track likely dictate the entire future position of the RIAA/music industry. Pirating it is the worst kind of short-term-gain idiocy.
I hate Jessica Simpson and the MP3's overpriced, but I'll be buying this track - and if you're anti-DRM (as opposed to pro-piracy), so should you.
</advocacy>
(Let the accusations of shilldom fly...
Deary, deary me. Where exactly did I make fun of "our" (yes, the UK was involved too) desire to liberate Iraq?
I may have posted "wherever the US invades/liberates next", but but that was an unimpeachably factual statement:
The US did (along with the UK/others) unarguably invade Iraq. Look up the definition of the term using the handy link, if you like - invasion means "any entry into an area not previously occupied", or "a military action consisting of troops entering a foreign land (a nation or territory, or part of that), often resulting in the invading power occupying the area, whether briefly or for a long period".
Note please that invasion doesn't necessarily say anything about the intentions of the military power involved.
Liberation deals with the intention of the invasion - in this case, to "free: grant freedom to; free from confinement".
Therefore, "invasion/liberation" was precisely correct in every detail.
"Wherever... next"? Well, unless you're privy to inside information, the US/UK hasn't invaded anywhere since then, so we don't know where they'll invade next. We also don't know if they necesarily will invade anywhere next (despite the US in particular eyeing up Syria, South Korea and, recently especially, Iran), but then again in normal usage the word "wherever" implies the possibility of "nowhere":
"Where are you going on holiday?"
"Pffft, I dunno - wherever I can afford".
So, again, apart from that jerking knee that's threatening to do you a mischief, what exactly was taking the piss out of the Iraq invasion/liberation?
And, as an aside, while I strongly disagree with both the US and UK foreign policies, I actually have a great affection for both countries, and many people (of both nationalities) that I've met.
Apart from the kind of childish black-and-white "you're either with us or against us" bullshit that the US neocons are famous for using to derail intelligent debate, exactly when did disagreeing with Bush's policies become being "anti-american"?
Again with the black-and-white.
I don't blame you entirely. In fact, it's mostly the fault of the guy pulling the trigger. Nevertheless, if you cause a situation where I get hurt by someone after you, then that's at least partly your fault. I know it's comfortable to pretend you have a right to do and say whatever you like to whoever you like, but it's bullshit.
There are areas of Northern Ireland I wouldn't wear a "the Pope is gay" t-shirt, and areas of the US I wouldn't wear a "Fuck god" baseball cap. Although it's my right to do so, if I do and something bad happens to me, whose fault is it?
Ok, now if I cause the same situation but I know damn well that you're going to get hurt not me, whose fault is is that you get hurt. Yours?
Now you're making more sense. However, you're assuming that an unmanned drone would be able to detect something that may only have to be detectable from inches away. On what basis, exactly, do you base this conclusion? Your entire argument falls apart if a drone (in fact, multiple drones, widely spaced) can't detect the transmitter, when
What part of my posting exactly struck you as "anti-American" (specifically, rather than "anti-US-and-UK-government", which is a totally different thing), "joyful", or remotely happy about the idea?
In fact, I believe that my post started with the words "And while I hate to be a bring-down", rather implying the thought of nationality-specific RFID bombs was, y'know, a bad thing.
This is such a non-sequiteur I'm starting to wonder if you're even reading my posts, or just responding to isolated phrases that catch your eye.
And incidentally the USA's international reputation now is "poor". You can try for "really bad", "terrible" or "execrable" if you really want to, but the fact the USA (and UK) have made themselves unpopular is hardly an excuse to carry on doing so.
Well, if you've deliberately pissed off our enemy, know damn well I'm standing right behind you, and you're wearing a t-shirt saying "I'm an american citizen" in a part of the world where that's deeply unpopular, then yes, damn straight I'd blame you, at least in part.
Would I blame you for the guy shooting at you? Not entirely. Would I blame you for my injury? Yes, you had a clear contributory role in it.