All the actions of our government over the last few years are those of a governement afraid it's own people will rise against it, not one worried about our safety from terrorists, should be clear to almost anyone by now.
No, it's terrorists - that's pretty clear given the limited actions they've taken domestically along with the fact that we continue to change our government with elections, have a free press, free speech, 2nd Amendment rights, are free to work and travel largely as we please (even if there is the nuisance of security checks prior to flights). I'd love to see your version of how this somehow isn't the case.
To the extent they've stopped even a single credible terrorist plot (I haven't noticed they have prevented a single one) all they've managed is to deny me some good clean fun on moving target practice -- it's a total lose-lose.
Not hard to find... really....it's not. I'm guessing you've never looked.
The US is the only one allowed to use this tech to abuse human rights, and it really doesn't want to risk losing its lead in technology used for spying on citizens.
You are completely wrong. First off, it's legal, and not an abuse of human rights. (And no, this isn't the first time a court has made a similar finding.)
If you bother to read bin Laden's 'letter to America', you will see that in order for him to call off his minions, Americans will have to convert to his flavor of Islam, give up the constitution, implement Sharia law (which will mean cutting off hands of thieves, stoning adulterers, no more alcohol (prohibition again), drugs, porn, executing homosexuals, etc., etc., etc.), and many other odious demands.
Ultimately this is about various factions of Islam trying to extend their power by force. It won't go away soon. I suggest you get used to it.
I think the following explains a lot, including the sexual assault allegations.
"Julian is incredibly like-able, incredibly enjoyable to be with – if you are agreeing with him. If you criticise him, he is very abusive. He has a very high IQ but very low EQ [emotional intelligence]." - Now Wikileaks suffers its own leaks
“I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier and all the rest,” Assange wrote Snorrason. “If you have a problem with me, piss off.”
“I believe that Julian has in fact pushed the capable people away,” Snorrason said in an interview with Wired.com. “His behavior is not of the sort that will keep independent-minded people interested.” -- Unpublished Iraq War Logs Trigger Internal WikiLeaks Revolt
At least four other senior WikiLeaks activists have also left, including the site's former spokesman, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who accused Mr Assange of "behaving like some sort of emperor", adding: "Our raison d'être was transparency, but we were not transparent ourselves."
Mr Domscheit-Berg and other ex-WikiLeaks staff will tomorrow launch a rival site, OpenLeaks, which promises to be "democratically governed by its members, rather than one group or individual." - Now Wikileaks suffers its own leaks
Why would any number of governments need to conduct a conspiracy against Wikileaks when they already have Assange's ego working in their favor?
Many journalists have fallen for the conspiracy theory of government. I do assure you that they would produce more accurate work if they adhered to the cock-up theory. —Sir Bernard Ingham
“the enemy is making a false move, why should we interrupt him?” -- Napoleon
Now that WikiLeaks has competition, it would make sense to try and stop that competition. When you have a site like OpenLeaks that is all about anonymously leaking information, trying to say that they are not trusted with that would possibly hurt them. I think it is good there are multiple sources doing this. I don't see what WikiLeaks problem is with it. If they are truly in this to spread information to the masses, then the more sites that do it, the easier it will be for the information to get released.
So far the publicly available formula for Wikileaks has been: 1. Accept stolen documents 2. Put them on the web for people to download. 3.? 4. Profit!
Maybe #3 really isn't a blank, and competition from other sites would endanger it unless they coordinated what documents to make available, and when.
WikiLeaks sold classified intel, claims website's co-founder One of the early members and co-founders of the tight-knit, secretive WikiLeaks operation charged today that the website and its co-founder, Julian Assange, sold intelligence information the site had obtained.
John Young, whose name was listed as the public face of WikiLeaks in the site's original domain registration, also alleged that the website is a lucrative business.
Young said he left the site in 2007 due to concerns over its finances and that WikiLeaks was engaged in the selling of documents.
Young was speaking today to WND senior reporter Aaron Klein on Klein's radio program on New York's WABC Radio.
"I think it is a money-making operation, no doubt," Young said of WikiLeaks.
"It follows the model of a number of other business intelligence operations. Selling intelligence information is a very lucrative field, and so they are following that model, usually cloaked in some kind of public benefit," he told Klein.
"But they are far from being the only one that does that," Young added. "It's a well-known business model.
See the inside story in "Intelligence Failure: How Clinton's National Security Policy Set the Stage for 9/11"
Asked specifically whether he was charging WikiLeaks with selling classified information and documents, Young replied, "Yes."
Klein then asked, "When you were at WikiLeaks initially, was your impression they were trying to sell information?"
Young responded, "Well, it only came up in the topic of raising $5 million the first year. That was the first red flag that I heard about. I thought that they were actually a public interest group up until then, but as soon as I heard that, I know that they were a criminal organization."
Now Wikileaks suffers its own leaks Wikileaks is facing questions over its finances as lawyers for its alleged main source, Pte Bradley Manning, said they had not seen a penny of tens of thousands of dollars raised by the site to help pay for his defence and promised to them three months ago. The development comes as a senior WikiLeaks activist told The Sunday Telegraph that she and others had resigned from the organisation because of their deep concern about its treatment of sources and "lack of transparency with relation to large sums of money".
This newspaper has learned that one of WikiLeaks's main funding channels, the Germany-based Wau Holland Foundation, has been issued with two official warnings by charity regulators after failing to file financial records.
It has also emerged that the online payment service PayPal, which last week cut off donations to WikiLeaks, suspended the site's account twice before, once under money laundering regulations.
WikiLeaks, which says its operating costs are about $200,000 (£125,000) a year, claims to have raised more than $1 million (£625,000) in donations
Although the GP post was a bit harsh, there is no denying that the BBC, one of the great institutions of British society, is biased as an institution. It has been admitted repeatedly by the BBC over the years on various matters (and you don't have to read it in the Daily Mail). Perhaps the first one I quote from 1994 helps explain the others.
Birts admits BBC has London bias - Friday, 25 March 1994 The BBC is too London- based and 'must make a huge leap forward in reflecting life, activity, culture and events in the whole of the UK,' John Birt, the corporation's director-general said yesterday.
In a speech in Glasgow, Mr Birt conceded that the BBC had 'developed far too much' in London, where more than 80 per cent of network television and radio programmes were made.
The revelation came after details of an 'impartiality' summit called by its chairman, Michael Grade, were leaked.
Senior figures admitted that the BBC is guilty of promoting Left-wing views and an anti-Christian sentiment.
They also said that as an organisation it was disproportionately over-represented by gays and ethnic minorities.
It was also suggested that the Beeb is guilty of political correctness, the overt promotion of multiculturalism and of being anti-American and against the countryside.
During the meeting, hosted by Sue Lawley, executives admitted they would happily broadcast the image of a Bible being thrown away - but would not do the same for the Koran.
BBC was biased against Thatcher, admits Mark Thompson - 02 Sep 2010 The BBC was "massively" biased against Margaret Thatcher and journalists allowed their left-wing politics to set the corporation's agenda, director-general Mark Thompson has admitted. Critics of the BBC have long accused it of left-wing bias and a hatred of the former Tory leader.
Confirming their fears, Mr Thompson said: "In the BBC I joined 30 years ago there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people's personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left.
"The organisation did struggle then with impartiality. And journalistically, staff were quite mystified by the early years of Thatcher."
The attitude was reinforced by a belief that the British population was anti-Semitic and that anti-German propaganda about atrocities in the First World War, which was often fiction, had made the public sceptical of such stories. Early in the war the Government and the BBC agreed that this time, British propaganda would contrast Nazi 'lies' with British truthfulness and a 'good clean fight'.
- Why are people letting the US govt away with this? An internet kill switch sounds an awful lot like a violation of free speech, especially if they're thinking of using it in the same way the Egyptian govt did.
National emergencies occur for more reasons than suppressing the population to keep a dictator in office for a 31st year. I'm sure if you thought about it you could come up with some reasons.
The US pulled the equivalent of an "Airline kill switch" on 9/11.
I'm sure nobody has ever threatened to invade Australia.
- The constitution is starting to look like a bad joke.
It's in fine shape. The US just had one of the biggest changes in the legislature in 70 years, and the massive power grab that is Obamacare is being defeated in court.
Because that has been a model of success for preventing worms, spam, botnets, DDOSm and all the other old internet security problems? I guess the critical infrastructure is safe then, even in the event of direct attacks on it.
- They have been shooting protesters, do they need to rape them too?
No, but they could open fire on mass demonstrations, or other means of crushing dissent.
Hama 1982 – The Syrian massacre you never heard about In 1982 the Syrian government killed 30,000 – 40,000 of its own citizens. Assad leveled an entire city with an air bombardment followed by artillery and tank fire. Why? They were anti Baath party, and apparently in 1982 in Syria that was a death sentence
“The residents of a Syrian city named Hama had been more persistent in their criticisms of the dictator than other towns. For that reason,
Hafez Assad decided that Hama would be the staging point of the example he was to make to the Syrian people. In the twilight hours of February the 2nd, 1982, the city of Hama was awakened by loud explosions. The Syrian air force had begun to drop their bombs from the dark sky.
The initial bombing run cost the city few casualties. It's main purpose had been to disable the roads so that no-one could escape. Earlier in the night, Syrian tanks and artillery systems had surrounded Hama. With the conclusion of the air bombing run, the tanks and artillery began their relentless shelling of the town.
The cost in human lives was severe. As homes crumbled upon their living occupants and the smell of charred skin filled the streets, a few residents managed to escape the shelling and started to flee. They were met by the Syrian army which had surrounded the city... they were all shot dead.
Hours of shelling had turned Hama into rubble. The tanks and artillery had done all that they could. The next wave of attacks came in the form of Syrian soldiers. They quickly converged onto the town killing anything that would move. Groups of soldiers would round up men, women, and children only to shoot them in the back of the head. Many other soldiers would invade homes with the orders to kill all inhabitants.....
The final attack on Hama was the most gruesome. To make sure that no person was left alive in the rubble and buildings, the Syrian army brought in poison gas generators. Cyanide gas filled the air of Hama. Bulldozers were later used to turn the city into a giant flat area.
The Syrian government death count was place at around 20,000 people dead... but the Syrian Human Rights Committee estimates it to be much higher, at somewhere between 30,000 to 40,000 civilians’ dead or missing”
So, yes, it can get a lot worse without rape.
That is what a genuinely brutal dictatorship looks like. Sadly, too many divert their attention and misdirect their anger at let's pretend "dictators" instead of the real thing.
Of course for mass death, it's hard to beat Mao.
Mao: The Unknown Story "Mao Tse-tung, who for decades held absolute power over the lives of one-quarter of the world's population, was responsible for well over 70 million deaths in peacetime, more than any other twentieth century leader." Chang and Halliday claim that he was willing for half of China to die to achieve military-nuclear superpowerdom. Estimates of the numbers of deaths during this period vary, though Chang and Halliday's estimate is one of the highest. Sinologist Stuart Schram, in a review of the book, noted that "the exact figure... has been estimated by well-informed writers at between 40 and 70 million".
“In Egypt you can walk wherever you want,” he said. “There are no rules or laws here.”
Well, I thought. There are laws against involvement in politics. But I knew what he meant. The Egyptian government doesn’t micromanage its citizens. Good on Hosni Mubarak for that one, at least. Egypt may be a police state, but at any given moment it doesn’t feel like one......
Can we talk about politics out in the open?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “We can say whatever we want.”
“Is it because we’re speaking in English?”
“No,” he said. “We could do it in Arabic, too.”
“You’re not worried about the secret police?”
“Not any more,” he said. “It is a real change from last year. Last year there was no way. But it’s better now, more open. Do you know why?”
“No,” I said. “Tell me.”
“Because of pressure from George W. Bush.”....
I wanted to know what he thought of the Muslim Brotherhood. Was it even possible that they are as moderate as they want everyone to believe?
“They are moderate because they don’t have guns,” he said. “They don’t kill people. It’s true. But most of the armed terrorist groups we see now were born out of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
“At some point,” I said, “if you want to live in a democracy you’re going to have to accept the fact that conservative religious political parties exist. You may never like them, but they won’t always be a terrorist threat. Democracy has mellowed out the Islamists in Turkey, for example.”
“Yes,” he said. “But Turkey has a secular constitution. They want to enter the EU, so the Islamists are forced to play by the rules of the game. They cannot step on the freedoms that the Turkish people take for granted. The Egyptian people, though, since the time of the Pharaohs, have been a flock. They follow the shepherd.”
“My biggest fear,” he continued, “is that if the Muslim Brotherhood rules Egypt we will get Islamism-lite, that they won’t be quite bad enough that people will revolt against them. Take bars, for example. Most Egyptians don’t drink, so they won’t mind if alcohol is illegal. The same goes for banning books. Most Egyptians don’t read. So why should they care if books are banned? Most women wear a veil or a headscarf already, so if it becomes the law hardly anyone will resist.”
“How many people here think like you do?” I asked him.
“Few,” he said. “Very few. Less than ten percent probably.”
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood eyes unity gov't without Mubarak The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group,is in talks with other anti-government figures to form a national unity government without President Hosni Mubarak, a group official told DPA on Sunday....
Gamal Nasser, a spokesman for the Brotherhood, told DPA that his group was in talks with Mohammed ElBaradei - the former UN nuclear watchdog chief - to form a national unity government without the National Democratic Party of Mubarak.
...used "terrorist" as a charge that could get you sent to the Gitmo or worse.
These things just go on and on.
There are some distinct differences.
Making a joke about Stalin could get you sent to the Gulag, or just a quota due to a shortage of prisoners being used for forced labor at an important state project. Apparently more than 18,000,000 people passed through the Gulag system from Lenin's time.
It is nearing 10 years now, and less than 1,000 people have been sent to Guantanamo, and it is emptying. Making jokes about George Bush is practically a national pastime, but people don't go to jail over it. The vast majority of Guantanamo's prisoners were either captured on the battlefield or in hiding, overseas. They either were active participants in making war against the United States, or suspected of active participation or direct support.
The Ivy League has a long and sad history of...ahem..."exceptions" made for the wealthy, politically-connected, and famous. Basically--if you're a movie star, the son or daughter of a well-known U.S. politician, or the son or daughter of someone with a lot of money to donate to the school--you're in. They probably don't even check your SAT's.
Modern high performance military fighter aircraft have a history of killing pilots without the intelligence and skill to fly them. I think that we can be quite certain that whatever stings might have been pulled to get George Bush into Yale and Harvard didn't reach all the way into the cockpit of his F-102. He flew that himself. Every time a fighter pilot takes off he is taking a pass/fail exam, one which Bush passed repeatedly.
Obama is better than W only because he has a normal IQ.
By which you mean he agrees with your politics.
Bush graduated from Yale, earned a Harvard MBA (the only president with an MBA), and few fighter jets for the military. Say what you want, but nobody was in the cockpit with him flying for him. Apparently he was also an avid reader. Although it is a bitter pill, Obama is carrying on a number of Bush policies since they make sense given the alternatives.
The Iranians continue in their attempts to spread their revolution to other countries. They were/are assisting insurgents in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places. They control the powerful state within a state that is Hezbollah in Lebanon. I believe they are also working in Central and South America. Their presence in so many other places is useful in more ways than one.
I think you will find this video revealing....there are plenty more at MEMRI worth seeing.
I have heard a lot of people say that Assange has a big ego, is a narcissist etc. But when I actually listen to him speak he strikes me as a level headed guy.
Why do so many people think he has a big ego?
From the picture that emerges in the media, Assange is generally good before a camera (not always), and can charm people. However, people who know him, even his friends, generally recognize that he can be dismissive, abrasive, and is encumbered with an ego at least equal to his substantial programming talents. He tends to berate, insult, and drive people away. If he was better with his people skills and treated people with consideration (after he gets what he wants from them), he probably wouldn't have two sets of sexual assault charges lodged against him by women who apparently threw themselves at him for a fling, not a long term relationship.
Domscheit-Berg announced his resignation in an interview with Der Spiegel. By then, a key WikiLeaks programmer had resigned as well, sources say. The coder was responsible for building the software tool WikiLeaks’ volunteers were using to perform a painstaking, line-by-line harm-minimization review of the Iraq logs.
Then Snorrason, the Icelandic university student, resigned after he challenged Assange on his decision to suspend Domscheit-Berg and was bluntly rebuked.
“I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier and all the rest,” Assange wrote Snorrason. “If you have a problem with me, piss off.”
“I believe that Julian has in fact pushed the capable people away,” Snorrason said in an interview with Wired.com. “His behavior is not of the sort that will keep independent-minded people interested.”
"The only victim here is me," stressed the 39-year-old Australian spokesman of the whistleblower website notorious for having recently published nearly 77,000 classified US military documents about Afghanistan.
You corner an animal it will fight back and use every dirty trick it knows.
You mean a couple of million Jews surrounded by 100,000,000 Arabas & Muslims?
I'm sorry but history shows who lived in palenstine long before the mass Israeli illegal immigration.
You mean the other Jews and some Arabs?
, maybe the Jews were not killed like the Nazi's did, but they have done nothing, but murder and create their own ghettos and stuffed them with the palenstinean people.
Actually you can thanks the Arab nations surrounding Israel for that. They told the local Arabs to leave while they slaughtered all the Jews.... but it didn't quite work out that way. Then they were stuck with the situation. Sadly, the Arab nations that caused the mess haven't allowed their brother Arabs from Palestine to normalize their relationship and settle where they are. It is Arabs keeping Arabs in the camps.
The solution is to arm both sides equally. I'm sure negotiations would be much more productive if the Palestinians had helicopter gunships, tanks, jet fighters, and billions in military aid every year instead of barely enough food to eat.
So you think that would turn out better than when the surrounding Arab nations and the Arabs in Palestine went to war with Israel? '48, '56, 67, '73?
It would also stop the suicide bombing, since they would be able to target what they really want to hurt: the IDF.
Don't be ridiculous, it has nothing to do with the IDF - it is about killing and terrorizing Jews. Why do you think they sent suicide bombers into pizza parlors? Couldn't find an army patrol?
The Arabs living in Palestine would be better off if their leaders would give up two things: 1. Kleptocracy as a governing and organizing principle. 2. The fantasy of trying to destroy Israel.
Butchered? Civilians, children and reporters butchered with hollow point bullets, you're fine with that. Showing the world it's happening, you call that butchery.
The "civilians" were armed insurgents, apparently associated with running firefights and rocket attacks through the night. They were also probably in violation of curfew, which would once again make them targets. (You noticed how empty the streets were, right?)
The children should have been left behind by the insurgents attempting to rescue their comrades.
By accompanying the insurgents, and without marking themselves, the reporters made themselves targets. They weren't attacked because they were reporters. That was a risk they took upon themselves when they decided to accompany violent extremists fighting against the Iraqi government.
The lot of them were apparently engaged with the apache's 30mm automatic cannon. The military doesn't use hollow point bullets (Geneva & Hague Conventions, and all that).
Clashes in a southeastern neighborhood here between the American military and Shiite militias on Thursday left at least 16 people dead, including two Reuters journalists who had driven to the area to cover the turbulence, according to an official at the Interior Ministry....
The American military said in a statement late Thursday that 11 people had been killed: nine insurgents and two civilians. According to the statement, American troops were conducting a raid when they were hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The American troops called in reinforcements and attack helicopters. In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed.
''There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force,'' said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad.
A U.S. air strike killed a senior al Qaeda militant who masterminded truck bombings on Iraq's minority Yazidi community last month that killed more than 400 people, the military said on Sunday.
"On September 3, a coalition air strike killed the terrorist responsible for the planning and conducting of the horrific attack against the Yazidis in northern Iraq on August 14," military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox told a news conference.
Iraq's government has put the death toll at 411 from the suicide bombings, although the Iraqi Red Crescent has said it could be more than 500. The bombings in the villages of Kahtaniya and al-Jazeera were the deadliest militant attacks in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
A U.S. military statement named the mastermind as Abu Mohammad al-Afri, adding he was the al Qaeda "emir", or prince, in the area where the bombings took place.
Do you have any words for Al Qaeda's actions? Genocidal might fit, as they want to rub out the Yezidi as a people & belief system. What about the attack on the market?
Slashdot Mirror
No, it's terrorists - that's pretty clear given the limited actions they've taken domestically along with the fact that we continue to change our government with elections, have a free press, free speech, 2nd Amendment rights, are free to work and travel largely as we please (even if there is the nuisance of security checks prior to flights). I'd love to see your version of how this somehow isn't the case.
Not hard to find... really....it's not. I'm guessing you've never looked.
(Just a sample - there are many, many more.)
Daniel Boyd pleads guilty to US terrorism charges -9 February 2011
Domestic Terrorist 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Guilty to Four Charges - Feb 2, 2011
Stockham requests new attorney - February 05, 2011
Note: This individual is apparently an American Sunni Muslim who tried to attack a Shia Muslim Mosque.
Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert - January 27, 2011
Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md. - Thursday, December 9, 2010
Oregon Bomb Suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud Wanted "Spectacular Show," - November 29, 2010
Faisal Shahzad: 'War With Muslims Has Just Begun' - Oct. 5, 2010
2 MN women charged with aiding Somali terrorists - Aug 5, 2010
U.S. links 8 to Somali terrorist group - November 24, 2009
The US is the only one allowed to use this tech to abuse human rights, and it really doesn't want to risk losing its lead in technology used for spying on citizens.
You are completely wrong. First off, it's legal, and not an abuse of human rights. (And no, this isn't the first time a court has made a similar finding.)
Second, it's necessary because some American citizens, immigrants, and visitors don't want to live in peace, but have taken up the cause of extremists. (Just a sample - there are many, many more.)
Daniel Boyd pleads guilty to US terrorism charges -9 February 2011
Domestic Terrorist 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Guilty to Four Charges - Feb 2, 2011
Stockham requests new attorney - February 05, 2011
Note: This individual is apparently an American Sunni Muslim who tried to attack a Shia Muslim Mosque.
Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert - January 27, 2011
Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md. - Thursday, December 9, 2010
Oregon Bomb Suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud Wanted "Spectacular Show," - November 29, 2010
Faisal Shahzad: 'War With Muslims Has Just Begun' - Oct. 5, 2010
2 MN women charged with aiding Somali terrorists - Aug 5, 2010
U.S. links 8 to Somali terrorist group - November 24, 2009
And here's one for the Canadians: Converts Who Kill
And how did this get started? September 11 attacks
If you bother to read bin Laden's 'letter to America', you will see that in order for him to call off his minions, Americans will have to convert to his flavor of Islam, give up the constitution, implement Sharia law (which will mean cutting off hands of thieves, stoning adulterers, no more alcohol (prohibition again), drugs, porn, executing homosexuals, etc., etc., etc.), and many other odious demands.
Ultimately this is about various factions of Islam trying to extend their power by force. It won't go away soon. I suggest you get used to it.
Dreaming of Al-Andalus
By the way - the Muslim Brotherhood is not helping.
I think the following explains a lot, including the sexual assault allegations.
Why would any number of governments need to conduct a conspiracy against Wikileaks when they already have Assange's ego working in their favor?
Now that WikiLeaks has competition, it would make sense to try and stop that competition. When you have a site like OpenLeaks that is all about anonymously leaking information, trying to say that they are not trusted with that would possibly hurt them. I think it is good there are multiple sources doing this. I don't see what WikiLeaks problem is with it. If they are truly in this to spread information to the masses, then the more sites that do it, the easier it will be for the information to get released.
So far the publicly available formula for Wikileaks has been:
1. Accept stolen documents
2. Put them on the web for people to download.
3.?
4. Profit!
Maybe #3 really isn't a blank, and competition from other sites would endanger it unless they coordinated what documents to make available, and when.
Although the GP post was a bit harsh, there is no denying that the BBC, one of the great institutions of British society, is biased as an institution. It has been admitted repeatedly by the BBC over the years on various matters (and you don't have to read it in the Daily Mail). Perhaps the first one I quote from 1994 helps explain the others.
- Why are people letting the US govt away with this? An internet kill switch sounds an awful lot like a violation of free speech, especially if they're thinking of using it in the same way the Egyptian govt did.
National emergencies occur for more reasons than suppressing the population to keep a dictator in office for a 31st year. I'm sure if you thought about it you could come up with some reasons.
The US pulled the equivalent of an "Airline kill switch" on 9/11.
I'm sure nobody has ever threatened to invade Australia.
- The constitution is starting to look like a bad joke.
It's in fine shape. The US just had one of the biggest changes in the legislature in 70 years, and the massive power grab that is Obamacare is being defeated in court.
Obviously there would be no safeguards built in.
Because that has been a model of success for preventing worms, spam, botnets, DDOSm and all the other old internet security problems? I guess the critical infrastructure is safe then, even in the event of direct attacks on it.
- They have been shooting protesters, do they need to rape them too?
No, but they could open fire on mass demonstrations, or other means of crushing dissent.
So, yes, it can get a lot worse without rape.
That is what a genuinely brutal dictatorship looks like. Sadly, too many divert their attention and misdirect their anger at let's pretend "dictators" instead of the real thing.
Of course for mass death, it's hard to beat Mao.
- He is already a real dictator.
So, you're thinking they couldn't do worse?
- What about a super computer made out of FPGAs ?
It's been done.... more than once, or twice.
New FPGA-based Supercomputer in Scotland
SGI Builds World's Largest FPGA Supercomputer
Most things that the government requires add costs: various forms of record keeping, emission controls on automobiles, workplace safety devices, etc.
Substitute accountant for ISP and you could make the same argument, including most of the "clever criminals can outsmart law enforcement" argument.
How is this really different?
Both China and India are heading to the moon, IIRC.
Maybe.
Peace?
...used "terrorist" as a charge that could get you sent to the Gitmo or worse.
These things just go on and on.
There are some distinct differences.
Making a joke about Stalin could get you sent to the Gulag, or just a quota due to a shortage of prisoners being used for forced labor at an important state project. Apparently more than 18,000,000 people passed through the Gulag system from Lenin's time.
It is nearing 10 years now, and less than 1,000 people have been sent to Guantanamo, and it is emptying. Making jokes about George Bush is practically a national pastime, but people don't go to jail over it. The vast majority of Guantanamo's prisoners were either captured on the battlefield or in hiding, overseas. They either were active participants in making war against the United States, or suspected of active participation or direct support.
There really isn't any meaningful comparison.
The Ivy League has a long and sad history of...ahem..."exceptions" made for the wealthy, politically-connected, and famous. Basically--if you're a movie star, the son or daughter of a well-known U.S. politician, or the son or daughter of someone with a lot of money to donate to the school--you're in. They probably don't even check your SAT's.
Modern high performance military fighter aircraft have a history of killing pilots without the intelligence and skill to fly them. I think that we can be quite certain that whatever stings might have been pulled to get George Bush into Yale and Harvard didn't reach all the way into the cockpit of his F-102. He flew that himself. Every time a fighter pilot takes off he is taking a pass/fail exam, one which Bush passed repeatedly.
Obama is better than W only because he has a normal IQ.
By which you mean he agrees with your politics.
Bush graduated from Yale, earned a Harvard MBA (the only president with an MBA), and few fighter jets for the military. Say what you want, but nobody was in the cockpit with him flying for him. Apparently he was also an avid reader. Although it is a bitter pill, Obama is carrying on a number of Bush policies since they make sense given the alternatives.
The Iranians continue in their attempts to spread their revolution to other countries. They were/are assisting insurgents in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places. They control the powerful state within a state that is Hezbollah in Lebanon. I believe they are also working in Central and South America. Their presence in so many other places is useful in more ways than one.
I think you will find this video revealing....there are plenty more at MEMRI worth seeing.
The Russians carried on using "counter-revolutionary" as an insult well past the time when the 1917 Revolution led to the Communists being in power.
The Soviets used "counter-revolutionary" as a charge that could get you sent to the Gulag or worse.
Of course the consequences for misdeeds in the Islamic Republic of Iran are likely to be.... severe.
That's neocon propaganda. That's not insightful.
Perhaps you could do us a favor and show what is actually wrong?
Or is "neocon propaganda" French for "facts inconvenient to my position"?
One of the interesting lessons the Allied powers learned in WW2 was that the most powerful "propaganda" was the truth.
I have heard a lot of people say that Assange has a big ego, is a narcissist etc. But when I actually listen to him speak he strikes me as a level headed guy.
Why do so many people think he has a big ego?
From the picture that emerges in the media, Assange is generally good before a camera (not always), and can charm people. However, people who know him, even his friends, generally recognize that he can be dismissive, abrasive, and is encumbered with an ego at least equal to his substantial programming talents. He tends to berate, insult, and drive people away. If he was better with his people skills and treated people with consideration (after he gets what he wants from them), he probably wouldn't have two sets of sexual assault charges lodged against him by women who apparently threw themselves at him for a fling, not a long term relationship.
Unpublished Iraq War Logs Trigger Internal WikiLeaks Revolt
Narcissism?
Assange: 'I'm the only victim' in rape scandal
You corner an animal it will fight back and use every dirty trick it knows.
You mean a couple of million Jews surrounded by 100,000,000 Arabas & Muslims?
I'm sorry but history shows who lived in palenstine long before the mass Israeli illegal immigration.
You mean the other Jews and some Arabs?
, maybe the Jews were not killed like the Nazi's did, but they have done nothing, but murder and create their own ghettos and stuffed them with the palenstinean people.
Actually you can thanks the Arab nations surrounding Israel for that. They told the local Arabs to leave while they slaughtered all the Jews.... but it didn't quite work out that way. Then they were stuck with the situation. Sadly, the Arab nations that caused the mess haven't allowed their brother Arabs from Palestine to normalize their relationship and settle where they are. It is Arabs keeping Arabs in the camps.
The solution is to arm both sides equally. I'm sure negotiations would be much more productive if the Palestinians had helicopter gunships, tanks, jet fighters, and billions in military aid every year instead of barely enough food to eat.
So you think that would turn out better than when the surrounding Arab nations and the Arabs in Palestine went to war with Israel? '48, '56, 67, '73?
It would also stop the suicide bombing, since they would be able to target what they really want to hurt: the IDF.
Don't be ridiculous, it has nothing to do with the IDF - it is about killing and terrorizing Jews. Why do you think they sent suicide bombers into pizza parlors? Couldn't find an army patrol?
The Arabs living in Palestine would be better off if their leaders would give up two things: 1. Kleptocracy as a governing and organizing principle. 2. The fantasy of trying to destroy Israel.
Butchered? Civilians, children and reporters butchered with hollow point bullets, you're fine with that. Showing the world it's happening, you call that butchery.
Let me guess.... "collateral murder"?
The "civilians" were armed insurgents, apparently associated with running firefights and rocket attacks through the night. They were also probably in violation of curfew, which would once again make them targets. (You noticed how empty the streets were, right?)
The children should have been left behind by the insurgents attempting to rescue their comrades.
By accompanying the insurgents, and without marking themselves, the reporters made themselves targets. They weren't attacked because they were reporters. That was a risk they took upon themselves when they decided to accompany violent extremists fighting against the Iraqi government.
The lot of them were apparently engaged with the apache's 30mm automatic cannon. The military doesn't use hollow point bullets (Geneva & Hague Conventions, and all that).
2 Iraqi Journalists Killed as U.S. Forces Clash With Militias
Butchery? No. If you want to know true butchery, look at Al Qaeda's attack on the Yezidi.
Or Al Qaeda's attacks on markets: Al Qaeda use two Down's syndrome women to blow up 99 people in Baghdad markets
Do you have any words for Al Qaeda's actions? Genocidal might fit, as they want to rub out the Yezidi as a people & belief system. What about the attack on the market?