GNUstep is themeable and can be made to look like anything you want it to look like. But it's primarily focused toward developers. The development framework is where the interest is for me.
It was created to stop war between the superpowers. This may have been useful during the Cold War but is hopelessly outdated today. Diplomacy only works when all parties have parallel goals. And no two parties on the Security Council have parallel goals. So the U.N. is not really able to deal swiftly with rising threats.
There is a strong tendency toward making the U.N. a monopoly of government. Monopolies are bad in the business world, and they are very bad in government. As things currently stand, there is still somewhere to go when moral crusaders in the U.S. decide that DMCA-style legislation is the only way to go, or when European nations decide that everyone in the world must have free abortions, or when Muslims decide that everyone must worship Allah, or whatever other thing sounds perfectly fine to one society and offends or scares another. Keeping governments divided ensures at least a modicum of competition between governments. In fact, I'd like to see more government competition within the U.S. instead of the nationalization spree we've been on for the past 150 years or so.
OK, and United Artists started out as Chaplin, Fairbanks, and whatshername dumping the studios to do their own thing. The key is that the whole operation should be a not-for-profit cooperative, whose sole purpose is to benefit musicians.
Well, that's what I was talking about, actually. It was called ASCAP.:-)
I really don't think there are principles sound enough to keep it from evolving into a behemoth. There's always human nature and entropy, working hand in hand to make a dog's breakfast of everything.
Did you even read those press releases? They make my point precisely. Constantly, the President stresses the duplicity of the Hussein regime. This is the casus belli. And in reference to WMDs, he makes those very clear statements that Saddam possessed WMDs and was actively working to obtain more. After the invasion, we found plenty of evidence that this was true. Hussein didn't have enormous stockpiles of long-range MIRV-tipped ICBMs ready to obliterate all of America, but that was never the threat in the first place. This isn't the cold war.
Just as an example, immediately following your first quote, Bush said this:
The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other. [Emphasis mine.]
As we see, the threat was that of an easily transportable and small to medium quantity of an agent being passed to Hamas or another terror organization and moved to our nation or an ally like Israel, where it would be used to kill. Saddam supported terror organizations because he wanted to be seen as a pan-Arab hero. The likelihood of this scenario is so astonishingly great that to take any other action than regime change is little short of idiotic.
From the 2003 State of the Union address:
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.
This, to me, was the clincher. It quite frankly doesn't matter to me what Saddam Hussein, or Kim Jong Il, or the Ayatollah are or are not doing. Their behavior itself is indicitive of a threatening posture and is worthy of action. The fact that Saddam kept playing shell games with the United States and the United Nations was evidence enough that he needed to be removed. If you let somebody like Hussein go on and on with that kind of behavior, sooner or later you will regret it. When 300 million people are relying on you to protect them, hoping things won't go wrong isn't reasonable.
Of course, there were other useful objectives in the war too. The goal of social, political, and economic changes in the Middle East is worthy, in my opinion. The strategic position between Iran, Turkey, and Syria is also helpful.
No, he jumped up and down and talked about mushroom clouds and how we had to invade right now to stop Saddam from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Exactly. Which was and still is a completely valid reason for invading since Iraq was attempting to purchase materials for nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. And they already had quite a bit. They just didn't have massive stockpiles of ICBMs that the Left suddenly thinks we went there to get.
Have you actually developed AJAX apps? It is most definitely worse than writing java apps. At least in java you have a coherent and usable (albeit ugly) component framework. AJAX has html forms, divs, iframes and a whole lot of javascript. That just sucks.
I have to agree on this. The only thing AJAX has on Java is that it's easier to design slick custom visual styles. AJAX is not only a hack, it's an unsatisfying hack. And it takes a *lot* of work for a reasonable result.
It kind of reminds me of developing snazzy games back in the days of DOS and the EGA/VGA. If you knew your stuff, dropped down to Assembler, and worked for a long time, you could do some rather neat stuff. But it certainly wasn't a "good" way of doing it.
Now that is quite incorrect. But Bush never said anything that urgent. His main concern seemed to be Saddam's violations of cease-fire regulations. Which is not to say that there wasn't a hidden agenda. But the hidden agenda was an attempt to alter the cultural and economic make-up of the Middle East and check the power of Islamic extremist appeals for pan-Arab unity.
I can understand wanting to finish the Gulf War. The Gulf War wasn't over--we merely had a cease-fire, contingent upon Saddam continuing to abide by what he said he would do (which he notably broke left and right without real repercussion). But none of that is what Bush claimed.
Huh? That's exactly the argument that was made. Go back and read all the speeches made before the war. 90% of it was about Saddam not complying with U.N. resolutions.
He claimed there were still more WMDs and didn't give the inspectors time to check it out (and ignored what they were saying).
Er, no. There were claims about continued interest in developing weapons which are still reliable. There were claims about a desire to boost his image in the Arab world by supporting terror, which is still valid. There was evidence presented about Saddam's dodgy behavior which is still valid. But at no point did the President jump up and down and scream "He's got millions of ICBMs! Let's go get 'em!" This is what everybody seems to think he said, however.
As for the inspectors, their phones were bugged, they were followed around, and they worked for the U.N. Combined, that makes them about as trustworthy as a carnival barker. Quite frankly, if you don't trust a regime to control dangerous weapons, why would you trust them to be honest with weapons "inspectors"?
I think we should send some Dutch advisors over and tell the American companies exactly how they should apply *our* IP laws as universal guidelines.
We already have that. It's called the U.N.
Actually though, I *would* like to see somebody talk some sense into our legislature's heads on this issue. Of course, if they just read and understood the Constitution it would be great start.
The reason that such things occur i because I think that we can not do much about media sensationalism or the scientific ignorance of many journalists.
Well, what we really need to be able to fix is ignorant journalists who think they know everything. Which is about 99% of them.
On the contrary, there are no good people in the world. Man is by nature a rebellious and wicked creature. It is only a matter of degree to which evil is made manifest visibly.
The real long term concern is that if warfare ends up becoming a battle between robots and remote drones, will people finally realize that war has no point anymore?
As long as evil human nature persists, there will be war and death. So no, I wouldn't count on it.
How about a giant musicians' cooperative? A handful of big-name artists could get the thing rolling.
Curiously enough, this is how the big Copyright industry started. It always works that way. Some little guys aren't getting a fair deal, so they band together to fight for something better. Before long, the little guys become the very big establishment and unintentionally—at least at first—make it very hard for others to enter the market.
We saw this at the beginning of the automobile age with buggy manufacturers. Initially, they had a lot of power and worked hard to defend themselves from the automobile. Eventually, they went the way of the dodo and the process started again. Now the automobile manufacturers are the huge industry defending their turf.
This is also, in my opinion, why environmentalists will not be satisfied with a hydrogen-driven economy. Eventually, businesses in related industries will be seen as "big and evil" and we'll see just as much bile, hatred, and junk science directed at them.
Burning Man is one of those things that's very hard to describe, mainly because it's pretty unique. Trying to stereotype it into a "naked hippies" thing is sort of like stereotyping Slashdot into "geeks who can't get laid" -- probably accurate for a small percentage, but not all that illuminating.
So you're saying 90% of the visitors are Bush supporting, pro-war, states rights, strict constructionalists? Somehow, I doubt it.
There is also no decent IDE for mono (monodevelop is so far away from being able to compete with visual studio or borland's offering that it's not funny).
You mean people actually use something other than vi? Blasphemy!
Considering that 90% of the news in print comes from either Reuters or Associated Press, are you meaning to imply that 50% of the news out there shouldn't be taken seriously?
More like 100%. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, so I'll give 'em a percentage point or two, just because I'm a nice guy.
And they all come from different sources. The point is that the reason different Linux distributions exist is to customize your experience. And you can create your own if you like. Microsoft is one source for a number of "distributions," if you like, of a single product, all of which pour money into Microsoft. Which is fine. But the two situations are different and you implied that they are the same.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the latest Camaelon theme engine. There's a really nice theme called "Nesedah" out there.
GNUstep is themeable and can be made to look like anything you want it to look like. But it's primarily focused toward developers. The development framework is where the interest is for me.
That's not news!
Exactly. Good job on connecting with the Jefferson quote too. :-)
I see two real problems with the U.N.:
Yep. But our media has a massive ego to keep inflated. That kind of approach would just get in the way.
Well, that's what I was talking about, actually. It was called ASCAP. :-)
I really don't think there are principles sound enough to keep it from evolving into a behemoth. There's always human nature and entropy, working hand in hand to make a dog's breakfast of everything.
Did you even read those press releases? They make my point precisely. Constantly, the President stresses the duplicity of the Hussein regime. This is the casus belli. And in reference to WMDs, he makes those very clear statements that Saddam possessed WMDs and was actively working to obtain more. After the invasion, we found plenty of evidence that this was true. Hussein didn't have enormous stockpiles of long-range MIRV-tipped ICBMs ready to obliterate all of America, but that was never the threat in the first place. This isn't the cold war.
Just as an example, immediately following your first quote, Bush said this:
As we see, the threat was that of an easily transportable and small to medium quantity of an agent being passed to Hamas or another terror organization and moved to our nation or an ally like Israel, where it would be used to kill. Saddam supported terror organizations because he wanted to be seen as a pan-Arab hero. The likelihood of this scenario is so astonishingly great that to take any other action than regime change is little short of idiotic.
From the 2003 State of the Union address:
This, to me, was the clincher. It quite frankly doesn't matter to me what Saddam Hussein, or Kim Jong Il, or the Ayatollah are or are not doing. Their behavior itself is indicitive of a threatening posture and is worthy of action. The fact that Saddam kept playing shell games with the United States and the United Nations was evidence enough that he needed to be removed. If you let somebody like Hussein go on and on with that kind of behavior, sooner or later you will regret it. When 300 million people are relying on you to protect them, hoping things won't go wrong isn't reasonable.
Of course, there were other useful objectives in the war too. The goal of social, political, and economic changes in the Middle East is worthy, in my opinion. The strategic position between Iran, Turkey, and Syria is also helpful.
Exactly. Which was and still is a completely valid reason for invading since Iraq was attempting to purchase materials for nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. And they already had quite a bit. They just didn't have massive stockpiles of ICBMs that the Left suddenly thinks we went there to get.
I have to agree on this. The only thing AJAX has on Java is that it's easier to design slick custom visual styles. AJAX is not only a hack, it's an unsatisfying hack. And it takes a *lot* of work for a reasonable result.
It kind of reminds me of developing snazzy games back in the days of DOS and the EGA/VGA. If you knew your stuff, dropped down to Assembler, and worked for a long time, you could do some rather neat stuff. But it certainly wasn't a "good" way of doing it.
Now that is quite incorrect. But Bush never said anything that urgent. His main concern seemed to be Saddam's violations of cease-fire regulations. Which is not to say that there wasn't a hidden agenda. But the hidden agenda was an attempt to alter the cultural and economic make-up of the Middle East and check the power of Islamic extremist appeals for pan-Arab unity.
Huh? That's exactly the argument that was made. Go back and read all the speeches made before the war. 90% of it was about Saddam not complying with U.N. resolutions.
Er, no. There were claims about continued interest in developing weapons which are still reliable. There were claims about a desire to boost his image in the Arab world by supporting terror, which is still valid. There was evidence presented about Saddam's dodgy behavior which is still valid. But at no point did the President jump up and down and scream "He's got millions of ICBMs! Let's go get 'em!" This is what everybody seems to think he said, however.
As for the inspectors, their phones were bugged, they were followed around, and they worked for the U.N. Combined, that makes them about as trustworthy as a carnival barker. Quite frankly, if you don't trust a regime to control dangerous weapons, why would you trust them to be honest with weapons "inspectors"?
We already have that. It's called the U.N.
Actually though, I *would* like to see somebody talk some sense into our legislature's heads on this issue. Of course, if they just read and understood the Constitution it would be great start.
Well, what we really need to be able to fix is ignorant journalists who think they know everything. Which is about 99% of them.
On the contrary, there are no good people in the world. Man is by nature a rebellious and wicked creature. It is only a matter of degree to which evil is made manifest visibly.
No, it doesn't.
As long as evil human nature persists, there will be war and death. So no, I wouldn't count on it.
Curiously enough, this is how the big Copyright industry started. It always works that way. Some little guys aren't getting a fair deal, so they band together to fight for something better. Before long, the little guys become the very big establishment and unintentionally—at least at first—make it very hard for others to enter the market.
We saw this at the beginning of the automobile age with buggy manufacturers. Initially, they had a lot of power and worked hard to defend themselves from the automobile. Eventually, they went the way of the dodo and the process started again. Now the automobile manufacturers are the huge industry defending their turf.
This is also, in my opinion, why environmentalists will not be satisfied with a hydrogen-driven economy. Eventually, businesses in related industries will be seen as "big and evil" and we'll see just as much bile, hatred, and junk science directed at them.
Courtesy of the (sadly defunct) Brunching Shuttlecocks: A Brief Conversation with the Planet Pluto and Another Brief Conversation with the Planet Pluto.
Put that attitude away before your hurt somebody. No, I just thought the implication that Burning Man was incredibly diverse was a bit overstated.
So you're saying 90% of the visitors are Bush supporting, pro-war, states rights, strict constructionalists? Somehow, I doubt it.
You mean people actually use something other than vi? Blasphemy!
More like 100%. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, so I'll give 'em a percentage point or two, just because I'm a nice guy.
Perhaps you meant because the story is carried by Reuters it shouldn't be taken seriously?
And they all come from different sources. The point is that the reason different Linux distributions exist is to customize your experience. And you can create your own if you like. Microsoft is one source for a number of "distributions," if you like, of a single product, all of which pour money into Microsoft. Which is fine. But the two situations are different and you implied that they are the same.