Yes, this is correct. British colonial rule over the remanants of the Osman empire resulted in the current system of borders drawn haphazardly in strange places. Infact, it is rather amazing how they could of screwed up so bad, all the trouble spots extending from Egypt, through Palestine and Israel over to Afganistan originated with British meddling in matters. Not to mention Pakistan and India.
The United States basically took over once the British empire crumbled. The US imperial style was much softer, based on supporting governments (sound familiar) rather than an iron fisted colonial rule.
These supporting governments were of course propped up by military might when neccecary. Iran was probably lost because of "that softie" Carter, who didn't want to go to war with Iran.
"To extend that idea a bit further: If we lose liberties present in The Constitution, The Amendments and The Bill of Rights, have the terrorists won?
Now has this been lifted from a speech by Osama bin Laden, because I haven't heard him say that. Any current middle eastern terrorist entity, be it how corrupt and morally bankrupt, is really not interested in how Americans live, wether we live in a banana republic -like state or whatever.
The only interest of a terrorist, is to punish Americans for meddling in their affairs and to run them out of the Middle East.
And might I add, the Brits and Americans were involved in the Middle East way before any terrorists were.
But, of course, as the Patriot act is renewed and the State cracks down on its citizens, I am sure Bin Laden is rubbing his hands and laughing at the bitter irony of it all. He reprsesents (albeit in a rather twisted and morally dispondent way) a repressed people. Now Americans get to taste their own medicine.
As told in Robert Fisks new book, Osama bin Ladens goal is to "reduce the USA to shadow of itself" -exactly what he did to the Soviet Union through his exploits in Afganistan.
Funny how people are always trying to improve upon the basic qwerty, but always fail to realize, that its main appeal is its universality. Everyone knows how to use it.
The arangement of the keys has no meaning, as different languages use different sets of letters more frequently.
As far as addittional keys go, as is suggested with this new keyboard, we have had compact keyboards with several function keys before, BFD!
I am sorry if I have trouble understanding why shooting innocent civilians, occupying a foreign country and whinging about how being deservedly shot at has anything to do with my freedom.
Now, I can understand, if you were saying you got shot by rubber bullets by Jim Crow's goons on a civil rights march. Or got gassed while demanding the government try or release people who have been behind bars for years without trial. Or got shot while fighting for the right of self determination for the retched poor of the earth. I would really respect that, I really would.
I really, truly could understand your point, if your friend died while really fighting for civil liberties, justice and peace. Instead, you are using those words to justify a war to pacify a country that doesn't want anything to do with you or the US army, and has absolutely nothing to do with any freedoms that Americans or Europeans may or may not have. A country that has fought against it's dicators and occupiers before, and are simply continuing to do so. They have every right to bear arms for self determination.
In fact, it would be the exact thing that you (or me even) would do if we were in the same situation. You would not for one second suffer a foreign occupation, and would think those not doing anything about it were betraying their country.
So sorry about your and your friends family, but as I said, the bad guys want, really truly want to think they are fighting for a just cause -I mean, the Nazis thought they were slaughtering Russians for a just cause too.
But if you think about it, bombing the crap out of a small town in northern Iraq while doing horrible things to the people living there, or say, attacking the Mahdi army in Najaf has absolutely nothing to do with me surfing the web, commenting this post or any of the things you claim to be fighting for.
So I say again, STFU murderer and take what you have coming for you.
Perhaps you can vindicate yourself by demanding that (and perhaps fighting for) US troops to go home immediately.
I used to think that US forces were happless victims, poor simple folk who only wanted an education and a job.
But after reading numerous accounts and opinions by US soldiers on message boards and such, I have come to the opinion, that US soldiers are merely willing mercenaries -blood thirsty ones at that.
Therefore, I no longer feel bad when I hear US soldiers have been horribly blown up or injured in Iraq. They are occupiers, they are there killing and murdering Iraqis, they shouldn't be there.
Feeling hot while on a patrol? Sucks to be you.
Being shot at all the time? You asked for it.
Getting blown to ragged chuncks of flesh getting to you? Well that's just too bad!
Of course the bad guys never want to think they are the bad guys. But face it, the US army is being the Nazis right now and anything they have coming to them, they've been asking for.
"In that case, what makes this problem unique to Wikipedia? Isn't the same true of any traditional encyclopedia?"
Of course. But a traditional encyclopedia has only one point of view that has been laid down by the editorial board and checked by the editors. So it may not be NPOV (though it claims to be) but it is One Point Of View.
Traditional encyclopedias are not perfect of course, otherwise Wikipedia would not have been received so well.
I think Wikipedia is flawed. It is based on NPOV but there is no such thing. This is discussed in depth by post modernistis (who I don't agree with on everything, but they have valid points).
The problem is, that any point of view is in some way a personal point of view, there are always nuances, deletions and viewpoints that stress one thing over another. It is simply not possible to write about something in a neutral way. Even netural is a point of view.
However, I don't think this has ever been a problem untill it became a sort of myth that there is actually something caled a neutral point of view. This, I think the whole idea is quite recent and arrived with modern newspapers.
It still isn't a problem -I say, let all viewpoints be recorded, atleast all well written and well sourced viewpoints. I think it is fairer to the reader if a point of view is out in the open rather than hidden behind claimed netrality.
In the end, it is much better to have several points of view than one point of view that claims to be netural.
A mountain may appear a different shape when viewed from various angles. That doesn't mean that the mountain has no shape at all.
In europe in some countries they already levy a "tax" on mp3 player. In Germany I think this is levied on all storage devices, including hard drives. In Finland they currently only levy a tax on CD's and tapes.
Now is it me, or does this mean that the state has given up its monopoly right to taxation? I remember something about a war taking place due to taxation without representation...
I think the key to this is the fact that nobody actually buys singles CD's. They don't have to buy that many to get on the charts and they just distribute the re-bought CD's as promo material.
"Sales of horse drawn carriages have slumped. Horse drawn carriage manufacturers are worried about the increased use of horseless carriages and are hoping to pass legislation making it a requirement for everyone to have a horse infront of their carriage."
Whats up with all the shell faschists? What if I want to use an operating system without using touching the shell once?!?
Coming from Windows, I thought KDE worked fine as long as you didn't have to do anything extraordinary -and by extraordinary I mean do something else than open windows and surf the web. I'm still don't know enought about GNOME to comment on that.
I spend about as many hours a day on line as I can, perhaps 10+ except the days I'm working, and I've never heard of myspace.com.
But yes, there is a definite bunch of people who are in the know about things on line.
In my age group, it was quite rare to have grown up around computers, and you can definetly tell the difference between me and my girlfriend. Though she is no technofobe or luddite, she has trouble with coming to grips with computers and technology some times. This can be easily seen in us slightly under 30 year olds, there are those who can and those who have to struggle to do so -not to mention the real computer haters who want to have nothing to do with the devils spawn.
The younger ones are an altogether different bunch, a huge majority of them are growing up with computers from the beginning. And waaaay better ones with so much more to do. I grew up around Olivettis with floppies and telnet!
The free market is an excellent motivator for creating...well, anything really, that makes a profit. As we all know, the free market and capitalism has made all kinds of wonderful toys for us. I'm definetly not complaining about those.
The problem of course is the stuff that the free market does not do so well, namely the bummer stuff that does not make a profit, namely feeding and clothing the poor, protecting the environment and minor things like that.
I would not really apreaceate my mouse blinking (or vibrating for that matter) while I'm playing a game. And if I accidentally touched the IM button and it were to tab out of the game (which often crashes certain games btw) I would be really annoyed.
This is great. Combine biodiesel in cars that use less than 3 liters per 100km (3 liters per 100km = 78.4048614 miles per gallon) and you are using an incredibly small amount of fuel that does not come from the Middle East.
Perhaps driving cars does have a future, even if the gas guzzlers are out.
I think you don't understand the fundamentals of Capitalism nor Communism.
Capitalism would be where someone a long time ago got hold of the radio frequency through some means, was using it to make money and you would eventually go to jail for using it for free. As is the case now. However, if no-one got hold of some frequency, you could probably use it untill someone figured out how to make money out of it and then it would be regulated, unless the unregulated state proved MORE profitable.
Socialism would be where the state owns the radio frequency, and would do as it sees best with it. The type of state (democratic, authoritarian, liberal) would determine what it does with those frequencies.
Communism has not been defined accurately. Notice, that there has yet to be a communist society, only societies that had socialist economies run by people calling themselves communists.
I've been scanning through these replies and I haven't seen ONE mention of district heating. That is, piping hot water from a central power station to the whole city.
Not only is it super efficient, it is reliable and cheap to operate once you get over the initial investment. Also, you can use heat generated by the generation of electricity -so double efficiency.
This is obviously not a system suited for rural or sub-urban living. But why live that inefficiently anyway?
The great thing about it is, during the summer, you can reverse the system and transport COLD water to homes to cool them off.
With all these benefits, I don't see why it isn't in broader use.
Slashdot Mirror
And this is precicely the reason why capitalism is the root of all evil!
Yes, this is correct. British colonial rule over the remanants of the Osman empire resulted in the current system of borders drawn haphazardly in strange places. Infact, it is rather amazing how they could of screwed up so bad, all the trouble spots extending from Egypt, through Palestine and Israel over to Afganistan originated with British meddling in matters. Not to mention Pakistan and India.
The United States basically took over once the British empire crumbled. The US imperial style was much softer, based on supporting governments (sound familiar) rather than an iron fisted colonial rule.
These supporting governments were of course propped up by military might when neccecary. Iran was probably lost because of "that softie" Carter, who didn't want to go to war with Iran.
"To extend that idea a bit further: If we lose liberties present in The Constitution, The Amendments and The Bill of Rights, have the terrorists won?
Now has this been lifted from a speech by Osama bin Laden, because I haven't heard him say that. Any current middle eastern terrorist entity, be it how corrupt and morally bankrupt, is really not interested in how Americans live, wether we live in a banana republic -like state or whatever.
The only interest of a terrorist, is to punish Americans for meddling in their affairs and to run them out of the Middle East.
And might I add, the Brits and Americans were involved in the Middle East way before any terrorists were.
But, of course, as the Patriot act is renewed and the State cracks down on its citizens, I am sure Bin Laden is rubbing his hands and laughing at the bitter irony of it all. He reprsesents (albeit in a rather twisted and morally dispondent way) a repressed people. Now Americans get to taste their own medicine.
As told in Robert Fisks new book, Osama bin Ladens goal is to "reduce the USA to shadow of itself" -exactly what he did to the Soviet Union through his exploits in Afganistan.
So far his plan is right on track.
Funny how people are always trying to improve upon the basic qwerty, but always fail to realize, that its main appeal is its universality. Everyone knows how to use it.
The arangement of the keys has no meaning, as different languages use different sets of letters more frequently.
As far as addittional keys go, as is suggested with this new keyboard, we have had compact keyboards with several function keys before, BFD!
I find it almost cool, that you would start out with a "you are not educated" and then proceed to fill your manic rant with spelling errors.
Oh, and STFU you murdering Nazi and get the fuck out of Iraq!
I am sorry if I have trouble understanding why shooting innocent civilians, occupying a foreign country and whinging about how being deservedly shot at has anything to do with my freedom.
Now, I can understand, if you were saying you got shot by rubber bullets by Jim Crow's goons on a civil rights march. Or got gassed while demanding the government try or release people who have been behind bars for years without trial. Or got shot while fighting for the right of self determination for the retched poor of the earth. I would really respect that, I really would.
I really, truly could understand your point, if your friend died while really fighting for civil liberties, justice and peace. Instead, you are using those words to justify a war to pacify a country that doesn't want anything to do with you or the US army, and has absolutely nothing to do with any freedoms that Americans or Europeans may or may not have. A country that has fought against it's dicators and occupiers before, and are simply continuing to do so. They have every right to bear arms for self determination.
In fact, it would be the exact thing that you (or me even) would do if we were in the same situation. You would not for one second suffer a foreign occupation, and would think those not doing anything about it were betraying their country.
So sorry about your and your friends family, but as I said, the bad guys want, really truly want to think they are fighting for a just cause -I mean, the Nazis thought they were slaughtering Russians for a just cause too.
But if you think about it, bombing the crap out of a small town in northern Iraq while doing horrible things to the people living there, or say, attacking the Mahdi army in Najaf has absolutely nothing to do with me surfing the web, commenting this post or any of the things you claim to be fighting for.
So I say again, STFU murderer and take what you have coming for you.
Perhaps you can vindicate yourself by demanding that (and perhaps fighting for) US troops to go home immediately.
You are correct. They should fill the vehicle with cool flowing water instead!
No, the Mahdi Army uses those to wage Jihad.
I used to think that US forces were happless victims, poor simple folk who only wanted an education and a job.
But after reading numerous accounts and opinions by US soldiers on message boards and such, I have come to the opinion, that US soldiers are merely willing mercenaries -blood thirsty ones at that.
Therefore, I no longer feel bad when I hear US soldiers have been horribly blown up or injured in Iraq. They are occupiers, they are there killing and murdering Iraqis, they shouldn't be there.
Feeling hot while on a patrol? Sucks to be you.
Being shot at all the time? You asked for it.
Getting blown to ragged chuncks of flesh getting to you? Well that's just too bad!
Of course the bad guys never want to think they are the bad guys. But face it, the US army is being the Nazis right now and anything they have coming to them, they've been asking for.
"In that case, what makes this problem unique to Wikipedia? Isn't the same true of any traditional encyclopedia?"
Of course. But a traditional encyclopedia has only one point of view that has been laid down by the editorial board and checked by the editors. So it may not be NPOV (though it claims to be) but it is One Point Of View.
Traditional encyclopedias are not perfect of course, otherwise Wikipedia would not have been received so well.
I think Wikipedia is flawed. It is based on NPOV but there is no such thing. This is discussed in depth by post modernistis (who I don't agree with on everything, but they have valid points).
The problem is, that any point of view is in some way a personal point of view, there are always nuances, deletions and viewpoints that stress one thing over another. It is simply not possible to write about something in a neutral way. Even netural is a point of view.
However, I don't think this has ever been a problem untill it became a sort of myth that there is actually something caled a neutral point of view. This, I think the whole idea is quite recent and arrived with modern newspapers.
It still isn't a problem -I say, let all viewpoints be recorded, atleast all well written and well sourced viewpoints. I think it is fairer to the reader if a point of view is out in the open rather than hidden behind claimed netrality.
In the end, it is much better to have several points of view than one point of view that claims to be netural.
A mountain may appear a different shape when viewed from various angles. That doesn't mean that the mountain has no shape at all.
We are much better served by varying viewpoints.
In europe in some countries they already levy a "tax" on mp3 player. In Germany I think this is levied on all storage devices, including hard drives. In Finland they currently only levy a tax on CD's and tapes.
Now is it me, or does this mean that the state has given up its monopoly right to taxation? I remember something about a war taking place due to taxation without representation...
I think the key to this is the fact that nobody actually buys singles CD's. They don't have to buy that many to get on the charts and they just distribute the re-bought CD's as promo material.
Why doesn't this article ask the question, "why the hell do we something this incredibly readioactive just lying around"??!?!
This is very troubling. I don't think Saddam would be allowed something this dangerous.
... for finally finding Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction!
"Sales of horse drawn carriages have slumped. Horse drawn carriage manufacturers are worried about the increased use of horseless carriages and are hoping to pass legislation making it a requirement for everyone to have a horse infront of their carriage."
It is nice to know that these animals don't have to go around life with a long thing sticking out of they're face for nothing.
Whats up with all the shell faschists? What if I want to use an operating system without using touching the shell once?!? Coming from Windows, I thought KDE worked fine as long as you didn't have to do anything extraordinary -and by extraordinary I mean do something else than open windows and surf the web. I'm still don't know enought about GNOME to comment on that.
I spend about as many hours a day on line as I can, perhaps 10+ except the days I'm working, and I've never heard of myspace.com.
But yes, there is a definite bunch of people who are in the know about things on line.
In my age group, it was quite rare to have grown up around computers, and you can definetly tell the difference between me and my girlfriend. Though she is no technofobe or luddite, she has trouble with coming to grips with computers and technology some times. This can be easily seen in us slightly under 30 year olds, there are those who can and those who have to struggle to do so -not to mention the real computer haters who want to have nothing to do with the devils spawn.
The younger ones are an altogether different bunch, a huge majority of them are growing up with computers from the beginning. And waaaay better ones with so much more to do. I grew up around Olivettis with floppies and telnet!
Talk about a deprived childhood.
The free market is an excellent motivator for creating ...well, anything really, that makes a profit. As we all know, the free market and capitalism has made all kinds of wonderful toys for us. I'm definetly not complaining about those.
The problem of course is the stuff that the free market does not do so well, namely the bummer stuff that does not make a profit, namely feeding and clothing the poor, protecting the environment and minor things like that.
Then you my friend, are no better than Hitler.
I would not really apreaceate my mouse blinking (or vibrating for that matter) while I'm playing a game. And if I accidentally touched the IM button and it were to tab out of the game (which often crashes certain games btw) I would be really annoyed.
This is great. Combine biodiesel in cars that use less than 3 liters per 100km (3 liters per 100km = 78.4048614 miles per gallon) and you are using an incredibly small amount of fuel that does not come from the Middle East.
Perhaps driving cars does have a future, even if the gas guzzlers are out.
I think you don't understand the fundamentals of Capitalism nor Communism.
Capitalism would be where someone a long time ago got hold of the radio frequency through some means, was using it to make money and you would eventually go to jail for using it for free. As is the case now. However, if no-one got hold of some frequency, you could probably use it untill someone figured out how to make money out of it and then it would be regulated, unless the unregulated state proved MORE profitable.
Socialism would be where the state owns the radio frequency, and would do as it sees best with it. The type of state (democratic, authoritarian, liberal) would determine what it does with those frequencies.
Communism has not been defined accurately. Notice, that there has yet to be a communist society, only societies that had socialist economies run by people calling themselves communists.
I've been scanning through these replies and I haven't seen ONE mention of district heating. That is, piping hot water from a central power station to the whole city.
Not only is it super efficient, it is reliable and cheap to operate once you get over the initial investment. Also, you can use heat generated by the generation of electricity -so double efficiency.
This is obviously not a system suited for rural or sub-urban living. But why live that inefficiently anyway?
The great thing about it is, during the summer, you can reverse the system and transport COLD water to homes to cool them off.
With all these benefits, I don't see why it isn't in broader use.