'1. How does the RIAA control the media so well? Are the big papers and news channels really lazy enough to only report things that have press releases?"
I was thinking the same thing and suspect that the vertical integration now between
news outlets and their entertainment conglomerate owners makes all this possible. A very important news story can break out and STILL the news is dominated by some celebrity antic or movie etc. News coverage is now often just an extension of marketing.
"2. For a group of companies that makes their money by essentially making idiots look cool, why are they so incapable of making non-piracy cool?"
Don't tempt them! Remember Sony slipping in it's rootkit? I think they would like a computer that explodes and self destructs under the right circumstances!
The Washington Times had it right when it said in it's editorial of June 26 that what the New York Times and LA Times did was "an extraordinary commandeering of public policy from elected officials and the government they administer, committed ostensibly in the name of "the public interest" but more likely stemming from hostility to government as administered by George W. Bush. There is no other persuasive explanation...This is another unnecessary leak, six months after the New York Times revealed a secret National Security Agency terrorist surveillance program."
It's clear this program worked and that it was legal. It was a primary source of knowledge about Islamo Fascism and was responsible for the capture of the terrorist known as "Hambali." Hambali, or Riduan Isamuddin, masterminded the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 innocent men and women.
When I read many of the reactionary complaints (from inferior types addicted to being judgmental as a way of maintaining a false superiority)its easy to detect that many of the criticisms don't stem from any virtuous concerns but are the mutterings of people with a seething nature more sympathetic to criminal elements they share an identity with.
I got the same treatment from AOL. I was going to contact the Attorney Generals Office and found out Eliot Spitzer's Office had already settled with AOL - obviously to no good effect. The AE gets to make a buck and AOL figures the fine as a cost of business. The release from 2005:
AOL TO REFORM CUSTOMER SERVICE PROCEDURES
Settlement Requires Company to Remove Obstacles Consumers Face When Seeking to Switch or Cancel Service
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today announced an agreement that requires the nation's leading internet service provider to reform its customer service procedures.
Under the agreement, America Online (AOL) will alter the incentives it offers to customer representatives who seek to persuade subscribers not to cancel their service.
"This agreement helps ensure that AOL will strive to keep its customers through quality service, not stealth retention programs," Spitzer said.
In response to approximately 300 consumer complaints, Spitzer's office began an inquiry of AOL's customer service policies. The investigation revealed that the company had an elaborate system for rewarding employees who purported to retain or "save" subscribers who had called to cancel their internet service. In many instances, such retention was done against subscribers' wishes, or without their consent.
Under the system, consumer service personnel received bonuses worth tens of thousands of dollars if they could successfully dissuade or "save" half of the people who called to cancel service. For several years, AOL had instituted minimum retention or "save" percentages, which consumer representatives were expected to meet. These bonuses, and the minimum "save" rates accompanying them, had the effect of employees not honoring cancellations, or otherwise making cancellation unduly difficult for consumers.
Many consumers complained that AOL personnel ignored their demands to cancel service and stop billing.
The agreement requires AOL to:
Eliminate any requirements that its customer service representatives maintain a minimum number of "saves" in order to earn a bonus;
Record all service cancellation requests and verify action on the request through a third-party monitor;
Provide refunds to all New York consumers who claim harm based on improper cancellation procedures, up to four months worth of service;
Pay $1.25 million to the state in penalties and costs.
Haha - I used to get mod points every 3 days almost. Then I criticized a bill promoting Homosexual education in California and have been in Cyberia ever since. This a very funky place on the whole - spooky even.
Many around the globe complain about US pop culture. Then many around the globe steal US pop culture (and yes THEIR laws may allow that). Then many around the globe complain when the companies try to protect themselves. Funny thing is is that many of the companies aren't even US companies (Sony BMG, EMI, Universal etc.). It's becoming clear that the self centered perspective of the media companies is matched by many of it's critics.
That's called "appeasement" and even a rudimentary understanding of history and human nature shows how foolish it is - not to mention cowardly. It's amazing that this is supposed to be a site of educated people and yet I read the most ridiculous stuff. Must be the gamers.
Of the four major music labels only one is mostly American.
Universal Music Group is owned by French media conglomerate Vivendi. EMI Group is from the UK Sony BMG is Japanese/German Warner is the only US group
There is obviously a lot of foreign money and lobbies behind US efforts in this area. Like the UN and other countries when the heavy lifting needs doing they want the US to do it while softies whine over tea and crepes.
The UK media is so compulsively anti - American it reads like a comic book or WWF speech. Tony Blair himself described anti-Americanism across Europe as "madness" and after Katrina he said the BBC's coverage of Hurricane Katrina as 'full of hatred of America' and 'gloating' at the country's plight. Heck al-Jazeera grew out of the BBC. The UK is a great country but the media there fills the people full of crap even more than the US media does and that's saying something.
Those "poor bastards" being "exploited" make 4 dollars a day in their own corrupt country (if they even have work) - which is why they break in here to get "exploited". They already tried the "Day Without Immigrants" to prove to us how essential they were and it was hardly a blip. The US economy does not run on landscapers and lettuce pickers who turn around and bankrupt hospitals, over burden schools, cause rampant property tax increases and make up over 30 percent of the jail population. I suggest you enjoy feeling sorry for people you see as lower than you as a way of having a nice nice image of yourself - thats the sneaky side of racism.
The US and Canada had the largest North American blackouts ever within weeks of Italy and the UK also having massive blackouts. People then were calling attention to the software involved but the story was never followed up.
Richard Clarke wrote about the weaknesses in the electric industry:
"Richard Clarke, a former cyber-security expert in the Bush administration, laments complacency. "People claim no one will ever die in a cyber-attack, but they're wrong. This is a serious threat."
Clarke says that each time the US government has tested the security of the electric power industry, he and his colleagues have been able to hack their way in, "sometimes through an obscure route like the billing system". He reveals that computer security officers at a number of chemical plants have told him privately that they are very concerned about the openness of their networks.
This was an article about software involved in the failures.
"Software failure cited in August blackout investigation"
Egotistical anger and judgement makes one blind to realities. Nukes are in the hands of vermin. Bird flu is looming. France and the Netherlands are showing the early signs of collapse from internal factions hostile to the host country. We are on the verge of a catastrophe that will make the 40's look like a picnic. Wake up friend.
The sweeps/scans work ok. However a user is meant to be able to keep program on while browsing since it blocks nasties. Unfortunately the prophylactic usage is what causes my computer to choke - often after I try to shut PC off. So I just use it for a weekly scan and turn the program off with Task Manager before it can hang while trying to turn off PC. I am looking at a Mac now just to get away from all this endless pruning/blocking/scanning/deleting etc.
Most of the people who whine about Abu Ghraib and "innocent Iraqis" dont really care about them at all. In fact, they are secretly delighted for any fault since it lets them vent their inner seething nature. Having no virtue of their own, such people have a secret need to judge any errors of others for a false sense of superiority.
Curiously, people who have lost their virtue can't take a stand on virtue (having lost theirs) and tend to attack people who still have theirs. Such people identify with the villain in any contest against the good because they share the same nature. This is the reason millions of corrupt and psychotic people with self loathing and anger feel sympathy for terrorists and dictators and transfer the anger from their broken lives to the something like the US - a safe target (these people are generally cowards you see)
UN forces were found to be raping women and children in the congo and yet hardly a peep is heard (BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4122417.stm ). Instead there is the self serving mantra over Abu Ghraib which was not as bad as Congo. People still carping about Abu Ghraib are phonies and I can tell what their secret lives are like. This is why Al-Qaeda types want to kill us off - not because we are too strong but because we are weak and gutless with false virtue.
US public schools are better at dumbing people down today that educating them. This has been no accident. Education in the US is a massive liberal brain screw with a shallow veneer of learning smoothed over it.
The California senate recently passed SB 1437 which mandates social science to include "age-appropriate" study of "people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, to the economic, political, and social development of California and the United States of America, with particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society."
SB 1437 turns every school into a sexual indoctrination center and even the liberal Los Angeles Times wrote "It is, forgive us, a textbook lesson in political meddling... It's a twisting of what history textbooks are supposed to do: tell about the most important contributions, and misdeeds, of people in history, regardless of their beliefs and orientations. Instead, under SB 1437 books would recount history in part through a gay and lesbian prism."
The left has been running the schools into the ground for years. They worked to dumb kids down so they could confuse and then rebuild them. The last 40 years of education in the US have been about brainwashing and sowing confusion while promoting any perversion as a divine right. The average high school today is just a holding tank for studs and hoes. I don't know how people can send their kids to publicx schools today.
This is quite a match! Microsoft has software that lets a lot of crap get in to a computer. MTV creates and pumps out a lot of crap. This all makes for one grand "inondation de crap"! I hope all the people who carp about junk US culture aren't going to give their ducats to MTV.
I have had Spy Sweeper on my XP Desktop for over a year. It is always freezing up and/or choking. I can't even turn the computer off without it hanging and spitting up nag screens etc. I only bring it up for the weekly scan now and don't use it when surfing. I keep the program updated and even after clean installs the thing doesn't work like it did a few years ago. I don't think Microsoft is their only problem. I won't be renewing for this software because of its own issues.
With regard to the US funding fighters in Afghanistan I came across a very interesting interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski in which he admitted it was Carter who started stirring the pot with these people and not Reagan as is so often mentioned in media.
Interviewer: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
That documentary was mental junk food. It was artfully contrived and viewed like a thriller, but was rather devoid of meaningful content. If lazy people were looking for an excuse to dismiss Islamic Fascism that documentary gave it to them. Right from the start it reveals itself as deeply flawed when it totally mis characterises Sayeed Qutb. Qutb,a father of modern Islamic fundamentalism, is a primary inspiration for Al Qaeda since he wrote contemporary Islam would be wrong to consider jihad as only a "defensive option"
Qutb wrote:
"As to persons who attempt to defend the concept of Islamic Jihaad by interpreting it in the narrow sense of the current concept of defensive war, and who do research to prove that the battles fought in Islamic Jihaad were all for the defense of the homeland of Islam-- some of them considering the homeland of Islam to be just the Arabian peninsula--against the aggression of neighboring powers, they lack understanding of the nature of Islam and its primary aim. Such an attempt is nothing but a product of a mind defeated by the present difficult conditions and by the attacks of the treacherous orientalists on the Islamic Jihaad".
The documentary mentions Qutb as if he were a benevolent force and I found such a flaw quite odd since the writings are there for people to see. We are caught up in some form of denial here with this documentary. It has true enough principles but applies them poorly and to some detriment.
Qutb also wrote how Islamic communities in foreign lands would need to take political power when their numbers were sufficient:
"Thus, wherever an Islamic community exists which is a concrete example of the Divinely-ordained system of life, it has a God-given right to step forward and take control of the political authority so that it may establish the Divine system on earth, while it leaves the matter of belief to individual conscience. When God restrained Muslims from Jihaad for a certain period, it was a question of strategy rather than of principle; this was a matter pertaining to the requirements of the movement and not to belief. Only in the light of this explanation can we understand those verses of the Holy Qur'an which are concerned with the various stages of this movement."
Hello France and Netherlands ?!
This is why we would do well not to underestimate the tactics of these people and make excuses for their actions by becoming self condemning democracies (a neurotic trait really). Islamic scholars like Tariq Ramadan also need to be scrutinized since they try to portray a moderate, intellectualism removed from violent fundamentalist sentiments yet they often hold Qutb in high regard - which is a lot like admiring Hitlers theories but claiming to dismiss Nazi ideals.
It is worth the effort - but Tamiflu is wasted effort. If mortality in a group using Tamiflu is the same as a group not using Tamiflu then where is the advantage?
Yes that is a good point about the next pandemic coming from a different strain. I would hope H5N1 never really amounts to much. I'm just of the opinion that we are ripe for a large Malthusian moment. We have Burgeoning population centers, lowered hygiene standards, barley moderated travel and immigration (outbreaks of mumps, bed bugs and bubonic plague turning up in same weeks news in US - immigration related)and many people are more sick and run down then ever (New York Times wrote of one study alone that counts 1 in 7 New Yorkers as diabetic!).
I think people want to believe Tamiflu will be there to protect them and I can't feel confident about it personally when I saw the ripples of shock moving through the medical community. From CTV article above:
"Toronto infectious disease consultant Dr. Neil Rau says the study has serious implications.
"Here you have the optimal situations, the right dose, the right duration, the right timing and administration and yet you have a bad outcome. That's not a good thing to see," Rau told CTV News.
Thankfully it is harder for H5N1 to mutate than say a bacterium. But once it does it's also harder to remedy. I would be all for Tamiflu if I thought it would help but ti doesn't look so promising I would bet my life on it. I also think it just diminishes peoples resolve and they just keep eating and drinking crap expecting the government and doctors will be there to swoop in with the quick fix. Discussions about closing borders (US) in the event of a deadly pandemic are already being dismissed as an "over reaction".
From other outbreaks of the H5N1 virus the mortality rate being quoted is about 50%. In the Vietnam case the mortality rate was about the same even with Tamiflu in use (and it was administered under optimal conditions).
From the article linked:
"Toronto infectious disease consultant Dr. Neil Rau says the study has serious implications...
"Here you have the optimal situations, the right dose, the right duration, the right timing and administration and yet you have a bad outcome. That's not a good thing to see," Rau told CTV News.
A lot of experts were surprised what happened in Vietnam. None that I have seen were satisfied with the Tamiflu.
On May 5, Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) ministers met and H5N1 was a topic. WHO's Vietnam chief Hans Troedsson said: "The virus attacks multiple organs, including the kidneys and respiratory system, said WHO's Vietnam chief Hans Troedsson. 'It is very, very nasty,' he said. 'It has a high mortality rate, up to 50 percent, which is very rare.'
I don't think its wise to relay on Tamiflu. This makes people falsely optimistic and lazy. We are in for a nasty time.
I only mention the BBC article because Governments usually try to play these things down. For H5N1 they are all being unusually dire and forthright. I think they know it will be even worse than the 2% mortality rate they often mention.
Robert G. Webster is one of the few bird flu experts confident enough to answer the key question: Will the avian flu switch from posing a terrible hazard to birds to becoming a real threat to humans?
There are "about even odds at this time for the virus to learn how to transmit human to human," he told ABC's "World News Tonight." Webster, the Rosemary Thomas Chair at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., is credited as the first scientist to find the link between human flu and bird flu.
"I personally believe it will happen and make personal preparations," said Webster, who has stored a three-month supply of food and water at his home in case of an outbreak."
Slashdot Mirror
'1. How does the RIAA control the media so well? Are the big papers and news channels really lazy enough to only report things that have press releases?"
I was thinking the same thing and suspect that the vertical integration now between
news outlets and their entertainment conglomerate owners makes all this possible. A very important news story can break out and STILL the news is dominated by some celebrity antic or movie etc. News coverage is now often just an extension of marketing.
"2. For a group of companies that makes their money by essentially making idiots look cool, why are they so incapable of making non-piracy cool?"
Don't tempt them! Remember Sony slipping in it's rootkit? I think they would like a computer that explodes and self destructs under the right circumstances!
You project ther resentment you have for your Dad into Bush. Let it go.
The Washington Times had it right when it said in it's editorial of June 26 that what the New York Times and LA Times did was "an extraordinary commandeering of public policy from elected officials and the government they administer, committed ostensibly in the name of "the public interest" but more likely stemming from hostility to government as administered by George W. Bush. There is no other persuasive explanation...This is another unnecessary leak, six months after the New York Times revealed a secret National Security Agency terrorist surveillance program."
4 2r.htm )
It's clear this program worked and that it was legal. It was a primary source of knowledge about Islamo Fascism and was responsible for the capture of the terrorist known as "Hambali." Hambali, or Riduan Isamuddin, masterminded the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 innocent men and women.
When I read many of the reactionary complaints (from inferior types addicted to being judgmental as a way of maintaining a false superiority)its easy to detect that many of the criticisms don't stem from any virtuous concerns but are the mutterings of people with a seething nature more sympathetic to criminal elements they share an identity with.
Good editorial from The Washington Times - no conservative bastion:
( http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060623-085054-65
I got the same treatment from AOL. I was going to contact the Attorney Generals Office and found out Eliot Spitzer's Office had already settled with AOL - obviously to no good effect. The AE gets to make a buck and AOL figures the fine as a cost of business. The release from 2005:
0 5.html
AOL TO REFORM CUSTOMER SERVICE PROCEDURES
Settlement Requires Company to Remove Obstacles
Consumers Face When Seeking to Switch or Cancel Service
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today announced an agreement that requires the nation's leading internet service provider to reform its customer service procedures.
Under the agreement, America Online (AOL) will alter the incentives it offers to customer representatives who seek to persuade subscribers not to cancel their service.
"This agreement helps ensure that AOL will strive to keep its customers through quality service, not stealth retention programs," Spitzer said.
In response to approximately 300 consumer complaints, Spitzer's office began an inquiry of AOL's customer service policies. The investigation revealed that the company had an elaborate system for rewarding employees who purported to retain or "save" subscribers who had called to cancel their internet service. In many instances, such retention was done against subscribers' wishes, or without their consent.
Under the system, consumer service personnel received bonuses worth tens of thousands of dollars if they could successfully dissuade or "save" half of the people who called to cancel service. For several years, AOL had instituted minimum retention or "save" percentages, which consumer representatives were expected to meet. These bonuses, and the minimum "save" rates accompanying them, had the effect of employees not honoring cancellations, or otherwise making cancellation unduly difficult for consumers.
Many consumers complained that AOL personnel ignored their demands to cancel service and stop billing.
The agreement requires AOL to:
Eliminate any requirements that its customer service representatives maintain a minimum number of "saves" in order to earn a bonus;
Record all service cancellation requests and verify action on the request through a third-party monitor;
Provide refunds to all New York consumers who claim harm based on improper cancellation procedures, up to four months worth of service;
Pay $1.25 million to the state in penalties and costs.
(New York State Attorney Generals Office) http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2005/aug/aug24a_
Haha - I used to get mod points every 3 days almost. Then I criticized a bill promoting Homosexual education in California and have been in Cyberia ever since. This a very funky place on the whole - spooky even.
Many around the globe complain about US pop culture. Then many around the globe steal US pop culture (and yes THEIR laws may allow that). Then many around the globe complain when the companies try to protect themselves. Funny thing is is that many of the companies aren't even US companies (Sony BMG, EMI, Universal etc.). It's becoming clear that the self centered perspective of the media companies is matched by many of it's critics.
That's called "appeasement" and even a rudimentary understanding of history and human nature shows how foolish it is - not to mention cowardly. It's amazing that this is supposed to be a site of educated people and yet I read the most ridiculous stuff. Must be the gamers.
Of the four major music labels only one is mostly American.
Universal Music Group is owned by French media conglomerate Vivendi.
EMI Group is from the UK
Sony BMG is Japanese/German
Warner is the only US group
There is obviously a lot of foreign money and lobbies behind US efforts in this area. Like the UN and other countries when the heavy lifting needs doing they want the US to do it while softies whine over tea and crepes.
The UK media is so compulsively anti - American it reads like a comic book or WWF speech. Tony Blair himself described anti-Americanism across Europe as "madness" and after Katrina he said the BBC's coverage of Hurricane Katrina as 'full of hatred of America' and 'gloating' at the country's plight. Heck al-Jazeera grew out of the BBC. The UK is a great country but the media there fills the people full of crap even more than the US media does and that's saying something.
Those "poor bastards" being "exploited" make 4 dollars a day in their own corrupt country (if they even have work) - which is why they break in here to get "exploited". They already tried the "Day Without Immigrants" to prove to us how essential they were and it was hardly a blip. The US economy does not run on landscapers and lettuce pickers who turn around and bankrupt hospitals, over burden schools, cause rampant property tax increases and make up over 30 percent of the jail population. I suggest you enjoy feeling sorry for people you see as lower than you as a way of having a nice nice image of yourself - thats the sneaky side of racism.
The US and Canada had the largest North American blackouts ever within weeks of Italy and the UK also having massive blackouts. People then were calling attention to the software involved but the story was never followed up.
i ty/recovery/story/0,10801,87400,00.html
Richard Clarke wrote about the weaknesses in the electric industry:
"Richard Clarke, a former cyber-security expert in the Bush administration, laments complacency. "People claim no one will ever die in a cyber-attack, but they're wrong. This is a serious threat."
Clarke says that each time the US government has tested the security of the electric power industry, he and his colleagues have been able to hack their way in, "sometimes through an obscure route like the billing system". He reveals that computer security officers at a number of chemical plants have told him privately that they are very concerned about the openness of their networks.
This was an article about software involved in the failures.
"Software failure cited in August blackout investigation"
(Computer World)
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/secur
"We have lived with real terrorism here for the last... 40 years" Its no wonder you live with it for so long after the way Spain buckled after Madrid.
We couldnt be that fortunate.
Egotistical anger and judgement makes one blind to realities. Nukes are in the hands of vermin. Bird flu is looming. France and the Netherlands are showing the early signs of collapse from internal factions hostile to the host country. We are on the verge of a catastrophe that will make the 40's look like a picnic. Wake up friend.
The sweeps/scans work ok. However a user is meant to be able to keep program on while browsing since it blocks nasties. Unfortunately the prophylactic usage is what causes my computer to choke - often after I try to shut PC off. So I just use it for a weekly scan and turn the program off with Task Manager before it can hang while trying to turn off PC. I am looking at a Mac now just to get away from all this endless pruning/blocking/scanning/deleting etc.
Most of the people who whine about Abu Ghraib and "innocent Iraqis" dont really care about them at all. In fact, they are secretly delighted for any fault since it lets them vent their inner seething nature. Having no virtue of their own, such people have a secret need to judge any errors of others for a false sense of superiority.
Curiously, people who have lost their virtue can't take a stand on virtue (having lost theirs) and tend to attack people who still have theirs. Such people identify with the villain in any contest against the good because they share the same nature. This is the reason millions of corrupt and psychotic people with self loathing and anger feel sympathy for terrorists and dictators and transfer the anger from their broken lives to the something like the US - a safe target (these people are generally cowards you see)
UN forces were found to be raping women and children in the congo and yet hardly a peep is heard (BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4122417.stm ). Instead there is the self serving mantra over Abu Ghraib which was not as bad as Congo. People still carping about Abu Ghraib are phonies and I can tell what their secret lives are like. This is why Al-Qaeda types want to kill us off - not because we are too strong but because we are weak and gutless with false virtue.
US public schools are better at dumbing people down today that educating them. This has been no accident. Education in the US is a massive liberal brain screw with a shallow veneer of learning smoothed over it.
The California senate recently passed SB 1437 which mandates social science to include "age-appropriate" study of "people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, to the economic, political, and social development of California and the United States of America, with particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society."
SB 1437 turns every school into a sexual indoctrination center and even the liberal Los Angeles Times wrote "It is, forgive us, a textbook lesson in political meddling... It's a twisting of what history textbooks are supposed to do: tell about the most important contributions, and misdeeds, of people in history, regardless of their beliefs and orientations. Instead, under SB 1437 books would recount history in part through a gay and lesbian prism."
The left has been running the schools into the ground for years. They worked to dumb kids down so they could confuse and then rebuild them. The last 40 years of education in the US have been about brainwashing and sowing confusion while promoting any perversion as a divine right. The average high school today is just a holding tank for studs and hoes. I don't know how people can send their kids to publicx schools today.
This is quite a match! Microsoft has software that lets a lot of crap get in to a computer. MTV creates and pumps out a lot of crap. This all makes for one grand "inondation de crap"! I hope all the people who carp about junk US culture aren't going to give their ducats to MTV.
I have had Spy Sweeper on my XP Desktop for over a year. It is always freezing up and/or choking. I can't even turn the computer off without it hanging and spitting up nag screens etc. I only bring it up for the weekly scan now and don't use it when surfing. I keep the program updated and even after clean installs the thing doesn't work like it did a few years ago. I don't think Microsoft is their only problem. I won't be renewing for this software because of its own issues.
With regard to the US funding fighters in Afghanistan I came across a very interesting interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski in which he admitted it was Carter who started stirring the pot with these people and not Reagan as is so often mentioned in media.
l
Interviewer: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.htm
That documentary was mental junk food. It was artfully contrived and viewed like a thriller, but was rather devoid of meaningful content. If lazy people were looking for an excuse to dismiss Islamic Fascism that documentary gave it to them. Right from the start it reveals itself as deeply flawed when it totally mis characterises Sayeed Qutb. Qutb,a father of modern Islamic fundamentalism, is a primary inspiration for Al Qaeda since he wrote contemporary Islam would be wrong to consider jihad as only a "defensive option"
Qutb wrote:
"As to persons who attempt to defend the concept of Islamic Jihaad by
interpreting it in the narrow sense of the current concept of
defensive war, and who do research to prove that the battles fought
in Islamic Jihaad were all for the defense of the homeland of Islam--
some of them considering the homeland of Islam to be just the Arabian
peninsula--against the aggression of neighboring powers, they lack
understanding of the nature of Islam and its primary aim. Such an
attempt is nothing but a product of a mind defeated by the present
difficult conditions and by the attacks of the treacherous
orientalists on the Islamic Jihaad".
The documentary mentions Qutb as if he were a benevolent force and I found such a flaw quite odd since the writings are there for people to see. We are caught up in some form of denial here with this documentary. It has true enough principles but applies them poorly and to some detriment.
Qutb also wrote how Islamic communities in foreign lands would need to take political power when their numbers were sufficient:
"Thus, wherever an Islamic community exists which is a concrete
example of the Divinely-ordained system of life, it has a God-given
right to step forward and take control of the political authority so
that it may establish the Divine system on earth, while it leaves the
matter of belief to individual conscience. When God restrained
Muslims from Jihaad for a certain period, it was a question of
strategy rather than of principle; this was a matter pertaining to
the requirements of the movement and not to belief. Only in the light
of this explanation can we understand those verses of the Holy Qur'an
which are concerned with the various stages of this movement."
Hello France and Netherlands ?!
This is why we would do well not to underestimate the tactics of these people and make excuses for their actions by becoming self condemning democracies (a neurotic trait really). Islamic scholars like Tariq Ramadan also need to be scrutinized since they try to portray a moderate, intellectualism removed from violent fundamentalist sentiments yet they often hold Qutb in high regard - which is a lot like admiring Hitlers theories but claiming to dismiss Nazi ideals.
It is worth the effort - but Tamiflu is wasted effort. If mortality in a group using Tamiflu is the same as a group not using Tamiflu then where is the advantage?
Yes that is a good point about the next pandemic coming from a different strain. I would hope H5N1 never really amounts to much. I'm just of the opinion that we are ripe for a large Malthusian moment. We have Burgeoning population centers, lowered hygiene standards, barley moderated travel and immigration (outbreaks of mumps, bed bugs and bubonic plague turning up in same weeks news in US - immigration related)and many people are more sick and run down then ever (New York Times wrote of one study alone that counts 1 in 7 New Yorkers as diabetic!).
I think people want to believe Tamiflu will be there to protect them and I can't feel confident about it personally when I saw the ripples of shock moving through the medical community. From CTV article above:
"Toronto infectious disease consultant Dr. Neil Rau says the study has serious implications.
"Here you have the optimal situations, the right dose, the right duration, the right timing and administration and yet you have a bad outcome. That's not a good thing to see," Rau told CTV News.
Thankfully it is harder for H5N1 to mutate than say a bacterium. But once it does it's also harder to remedy. I would be all for Tamiflu if I thought it would help but ti doesn't look so promising I would bet my life on it. I also think it just diminishes peoples resolve and they just keep eating and drinking crap expecting the government and doctors will be there to swoop in with the quick fix. Discussions about closing borders (US) in the event of a deadly pandemic are already being dismissed as an "over reaction".
From other outbreaks of the H5N1 virus the mortality rate being quoted is about 50%. In the Vietnam case the mortality rate was about the same even with Tamiflu in use (and it was administered under optimal conditions).
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From the article linked:
"Toronto infectious disease consultant Dr. Neil Rau says the study has serious implications...
"Here you have the optimal situations, the right dose, the right duration, the right timing and administration and yet you have a bad outcome. That's not a good thing to see," Rau told CTV News.
A lot of experts were surprised what happened in Vietnam. None that I have seen were satisfied with the Tamiflu.
On May 5, Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) ministers met and H5N1 was a topic. WHO's Vietnam chief Hans Troedsson said: "The virus attacks multiple organs, including the kidneys and respiratory system, said WHO's Vietnam chief Hans Troedsson. 'It is very, very nasty,' he said. 'It has a high mortality rate, up to 50 percent, which is very rare.'
(Forbes) http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/afx/2006/05/05/a
I don't think its wise to relay on Tamiflu. This makes people falsely optimistic and lazy. We are in for a nasty time.
I only mention the BBC article because Governments usually try to play these things down. For H5N1 they are all being unusually dire and forthright. I think they know it will be even worse than the 2% mortality rate they often mention.
Here's one expert who was recently featured:
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(ABC News) http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/AvianFlu/story?id=17248
Excerpts:
Robert G. Webster is one of the few bird flu experts confident enough to answer the key question: Will the avian flu switch from posing a terrible hazard to birds to becoming a real threat to humans?
There are "about even odds at this time for the virus to learn how to transmit human to human," he told ABC's "World News Tonight." Webster, the Rosemary Thomas Chair at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., is credited as the first scientist to find the link between human flu and bird flu.
"I personally believe it will happen and make personal preparations," said Webster, who has stored a three-month supply of food and water at his home in case of an outbreak."