I know the history of the region. Your facts are pretty thin.
First of all, the US didn't 'give' anyone anything. Britain partitioned their mid-east terrtories into Israel, Palestine, and other mideast nations (incidentally, an intentionally unstable partioning. Kurds were split between a number of nations when they should have gotten a state of their own). Many jews living in Palestine at the time were murdered or forced from their homes. Most palestinians left Israel voluntarily since arab leaders at the time argued that a palestinian minority would make the complete slaughter of the Israeli population more 'complex'.
Zionism existed long prior to the existance of Israel. It began around 1919 with Theodore Hertzel, though there were Jews living in Israel for millenia before that, of course. And the people who legaly moved into the holy land under the Brittish empire, got murdered by their neighibors in waves. The Brittish did nothing to defend them, though many settlers had expected protection. Now keep in mind that Jews have lived in the area that is Israel for millenia. Those arabs who claim it as their own have it only because they killed someone else to get it, so don't even pretend that they hold some sort of high ground where 'they' lost 'their' land. They had as much right to it as the Israels, and only slightly more than the Brittish. The standard leftist line of "it's a powerful white guy oppressing a weak colored person" just dosen't fly here. Racially, Jews and Palestinians trace their roots to the same place. Some palestians respond to the accusation that they are anti-semetic with the response that they ARE 'semetic' tracing their roots back to Shem. The only difference is cultural. So don't give me any of that 'racist' bullshit.
When Israel was created, the settlements there were literally threatened with genocide. They wanted to "push the Jews into the sea". Yes, genocide. Do you think genocide is a good thing? Do you think it's not a 'human rights abuse', or do you think it's justified when committed against certain people? What was supposed to happen? People just choose to lay back and die? The golan hights and west back are crucial strategically to any nation that could be overrun with tanks in under a few hours. "half of Jerusalem" was and is impossible to defend in a millitary assault.
Given the circumstances, Israel has maintained an unprecedented amount of civil liberties for the Palestinians who choose to reside there. No other nation has faced the threat of total genocide that Israel has and still allowed as many civil liberties within the country to those who attacked it. You're welcome to try and name one. In contrast, if you're American or Israeli and walking around in the palestine you're likely to get killed. But people seldom judge arab nations with the same moral standard that they judge Israel. How many civilians have to be murdered in the streets of Palestine before it's called a "human rights abuse" by the international community? Aren't Israelis humans? Many "Human Rights" organizations are actually "Palistian Rights" organizations. They never condem atrocities commited by Arabs. Such atrocities, such as Israeli POWs being tortured for years never even make the paper.
Look at it this way, imagine if some people in the US started finding imigrants from Mexico and killing them. Those imigrants would also have a right to defend themselves, wouldn't they. They would even if they didn't have a millenia-old connection to the land as Israel does. And if the level reached that of a truly millitary assault, they would be justified forming a nation in their defense. No group of people is under moral obligation to endure genocide.
And yes, Israelis make more money than Palestinains. So that justifies murder? I don't follow. Israel has a thriving tech sector. Their biotech division is top knotch. All the other countries in the reason rip off Israeli biotech advances and Israel does nothing. So be it. Palestianians think it's Israel's duty to provide them with jobs. You cannot simultaneously attack a nation and expect it to provide you with economic assistance. This is the most twisted logic I've ever heard of.
Hatred of Israel is a political tool used by mideast states. Consider how Saddam responded to the US defense of Kuwait. By attacking Israel? The existane of Israel is what has allowed many mid-eastern dictators to keep their power. It has done the same thing for their popularity that the attack on the world trade center did for George Bush's. A common enemy unites a nation and these men know it.
>Maybe they hate us because the average Israeli >makes $20k+/year whereas the average Gaza Arab >has an annual income of more like $600! >Add to this a lot of oil money from other Arabs, >and you have a problem.
No, you have a solution. But of course, Israel is responsible for taking care of Palestinains and not their arab allies. A few Arab nations recently pledged over 100 million in economic aid to Palestine. It's about time they did more than simply send explosives, which don't help Palestinian civilians one bit.
I don't know where you get the whole 'media bias' riff. I've heard the media cover both sides of the mideast conflict. That 'the media supports Israel' is a pretty difficult claim to make. The Chicago tribune certainly dosen't seem to.
>These terrorists are not all whackos. They are >just tired of being fucking poor.
Of course. But noone ever got rich strapping bombs to their chest and running into a market square. Yes, Palestinians are in a terrible position. They bear the brunt of Israeli retaliation when the Mid-East power structure decides that killing Israelis is a good idea. But what's the solution?
Keep in mind, peace is what would be best for Palestians, economically. Israel wants peace. But during the beginning of the peace process, when folks thought Arafat might be serious, his supporters threatened to abandon him. He was getting locked out of conferences. Now he just wants to attack Israel as a negotiating tactic, but is surprised when they counter attack.
>So, then one of them gets smart enough to >realize that America is the cause of Israel.
Israel managed to defend itself even before America was an ally. America has helped Israel immensely, but it's worth noting that Israel endured even when America was not helping it.
>Now before you freak out, I am looking at this >from a sociological perspective.
Yes, but a sociological perspective that is rather selective about the facts it chooses to support it.
I don't think that 'all Arabs are scum' as you suggest. I do believe that a nation's first priority is to defend its citizens from attack. Israel cannot make peace before the arab nations decide that they want to make a peace that allows Israel's continued existance. And any treaty that stipulates a 'palestinian right of return' as all have does not allow that. Israelis are a minority in the middle east, and Israel, a democracy, would be flooded and would fall victim to terrorists who still believe that all Israelis should die. No nation is required to allow itself to be destroyed. I also don't support genocide of all arabs, as your post implied. Israel retaliates on an incident by incident basis, and this is the right course. When the arab states decide that violence is not the answer, the violence will end. But as it now stands, there are still many arabs who want the complete destruction if Israel. As long as Arafat is unwilling to restrain them (and he'll have a hard time doing this and keeping his position), there cannot be peace.
>In Ireland they used to say: "You cannot have a >military solution to a political problem." Guess >what? They were right.
So when do you stand up and say that you actually have a millitary problem? At what point do you say you're not going to tolerate having democratic allies murdered or threatened by dictatorships with zero respect for human rights and actually do somthing about it?
Israeli destruction of an Iraqi reactor is the only reason that Saddam didn't have nukes during the gulf war and terrorists don't now have access to nuclear material. If you're really worried about terrorism, that should be important to you.
From the people who brought you 'post modernism'... post-columbine, post 9/11 post breakfast cereal...
It used to be, people just chose one date in their past and stuck with it, be it the believed birth of a savior or the believed creation of the world. Now we dig up our axis mundi ever three or four years or so, and have the 'trial of the century' ever decade. I just love media generated sensationalism.
Part of the reason the CIA didn't uncover Bin Ladin sooner is that it's too fixated with electronic surveilance and has gotten away from actually sending in operatives to infiltrate small but radical organizations.
Remember the Unibomber? People who don't adhere to the normal regieme of society and technology fall into a blind spot, as far as US intelligence is concerned.
When some guys with box cutters hijacked some airplanes, our government responded with renewed calls for a missle defense grid.
Huh?
Technology alone isn't the solution to terrorism. But 'the best solution money can buy' tends to be a tech solution.
Well, I just think it's great we're talking in petabytes now. Hope we don't get too many coments about petafiles *sigh*. Of course, being the neder-geek that I am (that's the opposite of ubergeek, right?) I had to look it up. For the similarly clueless(call me a karma whore);
petabyte - 2 to the 50th power (1,125,899,906,842,624) bytes. A petabyte is equal to 1,024 terabytes. (i.e. 2 to the 20th power gigabytes)
terabyte - 2 to the 40th power (1,099,511,627,776) bytes. This is approximately 1 trillion bytes or 1,048,576 gigabytes.
Gigabyte - 2 to the 30th power (1,073,741,824) bytes. One gigabyte is equal to 1,024 megabytes.
Remember there are so many bad uses that this can be put to.
The FBI was tracking Martin Luther King Jr., trying to find somthing embarassing on him.
Clinton was looking at his opponents FBI files.
Bush was head of the CIA, for crying out loud, and his family is thick into politics.
I'm sure that information about who is buying condoms, or depends, or a laxitive could be used to embarras someone, at least. And the reason that I'm able to filter out spam now is that it obviously isn't personalized. The ability to gather large amounts of data makes mass mailings of personalized (mail merged) spam a lot more likely. And that is a threat.
On a more malicious note, why couldn't a country do economic espionage, stealing trade secrets from one corporation, possibly in another country, and selling or giving them to companies in their own country. Considering the CIA actually sold cocaine to fund its activities, this wouldn't surprise me.
Okay, so show me their supposedly secular article that has a 'christian slant' that's so irrational and I'll change my mind. I don't know what the CSM was like originally. I only know what it's like now and that's how I base my judgement.
And unless the CSM is trying to discuss some type of technical issue that they believe conflicts with their beliefs, or they start evangelizing, I really don't see the danger. Think of it as analogous to a judge who refuses to preside over a case because he knows the defendant, but is compentent to preside over other cases. Some people are only irrational or biased on particular issues, but clearheaded on others. In fact, I've found this to be true with most people.
But to answer your question, I wouldn't stand by any racism posited by the 'founding fathers' because racism is (or can be) a threat to people's well being.
An obviously extreme analogy here would be a mental institution that intends to determine whether a person is 'a threat to themselves or others', not whether their view of the world matches those around them.
In relation to the CSM, the question is whether whatever biases the reporters might have is a threat to the integrity of their secular articles. And I've been impressed enough with their reporting that I'll keep believing this until I'm shown reasonable evidence to the contrary.
I seem to recall a saying about judging books and covers. Applies to newspapers and titles too.
Their religious beliefs don't influence their secular articles.
Considering that I happen to be a citizen of a country whose "founding fathers" talked about the natural rights of mankind and then went home and had their slaves cook dinner I try not to judge the present state of institutions by their founders.
This is why Microsoft Access is a remote access system and Microsoft Outlook is designed to support webcams. Frontpage is a program for designging print media. This is also why I have to hit the start button to shut down.
There would be severe consequences for any type of forgery, if it were presented in court as authentic.
Besides, the defendant didn't argue that the e-mail was faked. He just said that it wasn't legally binding. If the defendant argued that the e-mail was faked things might have gone differently, but with his admission that the conversation was authentic, that seems to solve the problem of authenticity. Dosen't it?
Other e-mails have specified the requirements for a binding contract better than I could.
Slashdot Mirror
>my grade school English teacher is now spinning >in her grave
...can she spin at 2.4 megahertz?
There was a person who sued an online casino and won, though.
people are whining like a crack whore who misplaced her methadone. A day without news. Is it that hard?
I know the history of the region. Your facts are pretty thin.
First of all, the US didn't 'give' anyone anything. Britain partitioned their mid-east terrtories into Israel, Palestine, and other mideast nations (incidentally, an intentionally unstable partioning. Kurds were split between a number of nations when they should have gotten a state of their own). Many jews living in Palestine at the time were murdered or forced from their homes. Most palestinians left Israel voluntarily since arab leaders at the time argued that a palestinian minority would make the complete slaughter of the Israeli population more 'complex'.
Zionism existed long prior to the existance of Israel. It began around 1919 with Theodore Hertzel, though there were Jews living in Israel for millenia before that, of course. And the people who legaly moved into the holy land under the Brittish empire, got murdered by their neighibors in waves. The Brittish did nothing to defend them, though many settlers had expected protection. Now keep in mind that Jews have lived in the area that is Israel for millenia. Those arabs who claim it as their own have it only because they killed someone else to get it, so don't even pretend that they hold some sort of high ground where 'they' lost 'their' land. They had as much right to it as the Israels, and only slightly more than the Brittish. The standard leftist line of "it's a powerful white guy oppressing a weak colored person" just dosen't fly here. Racially, Jews and Palestinians trace their roots to the same place. Some palestians respond to the accusation that they are anti-semetic with the response that they ARE 'semetic' tracing their roots back to Shem. The only difference is cultural. So don't give me any of that 'racist' bullshit.
When Israel was created, the settlements there were literally threatened with genocide. They wanted to "push the Jews into the sea". Yes, genocide. Do you think genocide is a good thing?
Do you think it's not a 'human rights abuse', or do you think it's justified when committed against certain people?
What was supposed to happen? People just choose to lay back and die? The golan hights and west back are crucial strategically to any nation that could be overrun with tanks in under a few hours. "half of Jerusalem" was and is impossible to defend in a millitary assault.
Given the circumstances, Israel has maintained an unprecedented amount of civil liberties for the Palestinians who choose to reside there. No other nation has faced the threat of total genocide that Israel has and still allowed as many civil liberties within the country to those who attacked it. You're welcome to try and name one. In contrast, if you're American or Israeli and walking around in the palestine you're likely to get killed. But people seldom judge arab nations with the same moral standard that they judge Israel. How many civilians have to be murdered in the streets of Palestine before it's called a "human rights abuse" by the international community? Aren't Israelis humans? Many "Human Rights" organizations are actually "Palistian Rights" organizations. They never condem atrocities commited by Arabs. Such atrocities, such as Israeli POWs being tortured for years never even make the paper.
Look at it this way, imagine if some people in the US started finding imigrants from Mexico and killing them. Those imigrants would also have a right to defend themselves, wouldn't they. They would even if they didn't have a millenia-old connection to the land as Israel does. And if the level reached that of a truly millitary assault, they would be justified forming a nation in their defense. No group of people is under moral obligation to endure genocide.
And yes, Israelis make more money than Palestinains. So that justifies murder? I don't follow. Israel has a thriving tech sector. Their biotech division is top knotch. All the other countries in the reason rip off Israeli biotech advances and Israel does nothing. So be it. Palestianians think it's Israel's duty to provide them with jobs. You cannot simultaneously attack a nation and expect it to provide you with economic assistance. This is the most twisted logic I've ever heard of.
Hatred of Israel is a political tool used by mideast states.
Consider how Saddam responded to the US defense of Kuwait. By attacking Israel? The existane of Israel is what has allowed many mid-eastern dictators to keep their power. It has done the same thing for their popularity that the attack on the world trade center did for George Bush's. A common enemy unites a nation and these men know it.
>Maybe they hate us because the average Israeli >makes $20k+/year whereas the average Gaza Arab >has an annual income of more like $600!
>Add to this a lot of oil money from other Arabs, >and you have a problem.
No, you have a solution. But of course, Israel is responsible for taking care of Palestinains and not their arab allies. A few Arab nations recently pledged over 100 million in economic aid to Palestine. It's about time they did more than simply send explosives, which don't help Palestinian civilians one bit.
I don't know where you get the whole 'media bias' riff.
I've heard the media cover both sides of the mideast conflict. That 'the media supports Israel' is a pretty difficult claim to make. The Chicago tribune certainly dosen't seem to.
>These terrorists are not all whackos. They are >just tired of being fucking poor.
Of course. But noone ever got rich strapping bombs to their chest and running into a market square. Yes, Palestinians are in a terrible position. They bear the brunt of Israeli retaliation when the Mid-East power structure decides that killing Israelis is a good idea. But what's the solution?
Keep in mind, peace is what would be best for Palestians, economically. Israel wants peace. But during the beginning of the peace process, when folks thought Arafat might be serious, his supporters threatened to abandon him. He was getting locked out of conferences. Now he just wants to attack Israel as a negotiating tactic, but is surprised when they counter attack.
>So, then one of them gets smart enough to >realize that America is the cause of Israel.
Israel managed to defend itself even before America was an ally. America has helped Israel immensely, but it's worth noting that Israel endured even when America was not helping it.
>Now before you freak out, I am looking at this >from a sociological perspective.
Yes, but a sociological perspective that is rather selective about the facts it chooses to support it.
I don't think that 'all Arabs are scum' as you suggest. I do believe that a nation's first priority is to defend its citizens from attack. Israel cannot make peace before the arab nations decide that they want to make a peace that allows Israel's continued existance. And any treaty that stipulates a 'palestinian right of return' as all have does not allow that. Israelis are a minority in the middle east, and Israel, a democracy, would be flooded and would fall victim to terrorists who still believe that all Israelis should die. No nation is required to allow itself to be destroyed. I also don't support genocide of all arabs, as your post implied. Israel retaliates on an incident by incident basis, and this is the right course. When the arab states decide that violence is not the answer, the violence will end. But as it now stands, there are still many arabs who want the complete destruction if Israel. As long as Arafat is unwilling to restrain them (and he'll have a hard time doing this and keeping his position), there cannot be peace.
>In Ireland they used to say: "You cannot have a >military solution to a political problem." Guess >what? They were right.
So when do you stand up and say that you actually have a millitary problem? At what point do you say you're not going to tolerate having democratic allies murdered or threatened by dictatorships with zero respect for human rights and actually do somthing about it?
Israeli destruction of an Iraqi reactor is the only reason that Saddam didn't have nukes during the gulf war and terrorists don't now have access to nuclear material. If you're really worried about terrorism, that should be important to you.
From the people who brought you 'post modernism'... post-columbine, post 9/11
post breakfast cereal...
It used to be, people just chose one date in their past and stuck with it, be it the believed birth of a savior or the believed creation of the world. Now we dig up our axis mundi ever three or four years or so, and have the 'trial of the century' ever decade. I just love media generated sensationalism.
I'm curious, why do you say people feared that the printing press would wipe out the art of story telling? What's your source?
Part of the reason the CIA didn't uncover Bin Ladin sooner is that it's too fixated with electronic surveilance and has gotten away from actually sending in operatives to infiltrate small but radical organizations.
Remember the Unibomber? People who don't adhere to the normal regieme of society and technology fall into a blind spot, as far as US intelligence is concerned.
When some guys with box cutters hijacked some airplanes, our government responded with renewed calls for a missle defense grid.
Huh?
Technology alone isn't the solution to terrorism. But 'the best solution money can buy' tends to be a tech solution.
Dude, this is like living spam.
I copied some of the text into the wrong section.
:P
It should read;
This is approximately 1 trillion bytes or 1,048,576 gigabytes.
under petabytes, not terabytes.
Slashdot regrets the error.
I could care less.
Well, I just think it's great we're talking in petabytes now. Hope we don't get too many coments about petafiles *sigh*. Of course, being the neder-geek that I am (that's the opposite of ubergeek, right?) I had to look it up. For the similarly clueless(call me a karma whore);
petabyte - 2 to the 50th power (1,125,899,906,842,624) bytes. A petabyte is equal to 1,024 terabytes. (i.e. 2 to the 20th power gigabytes)
terabyte - 2 to the 40th power (1,099,511,627,776) bytes. This is approximately 1 trillion bytes or 1,048,576 gigabytes.
Gigabyte - 2 to the 30th power (1,073,741,824) bytes. One gigabyte is equal to 1,024 megabytes.
1/9671406556917033397649408 yottabyte = 1/9444732965739290427392 zettabyte = 1/9223372036854775808 exabyte = 1/9007199254740992 petabyte = 1/8796093022208 terabyte = 1/8589934592 gigabyte = 1/8388608 megabyte = 1/1048576 Megabit = 1/8192 kilobyte = 1/1024 Kilobit = 1/8 byte = 1/4 nibble bit = 1 bit
Remember there are so many bad uses that this can be put to.
The FBI was tracking Martin Luther King Jr., trying to find somthing embarassing on him.
Clinton was looking at his opponents FBI files.
Bush was head of the CIA, for crying out loud, and his family is thick into politics.
I'm sure that information about who is buying condoms, or depends, or a laxitive could be used to embarras someone, at least. And the reason that I'm able to filter out spam now is that it obviously isn't personalized. The ability to gather large amounts of data makes mass mailings of personalized (mail merged) spam a lot more likely. And that is a threat.
On a more malicious note, why couldn't a country do economic espionage, stealing trade secrets from one corporation, possibly in another country, and selling or giving them to companies in their own country. Considering the CIA actually sold cocaine to fund its activities, this wouldn't surprise me.
I prefer to have my power generated by Newton rather than Archemedies.
To this end, I have designed a generator which derives all its power from falling apples.
Fool! Haven't you ever seen Armegeddon?!
We fire Bruce Willis at it.
Okay, so show me their supposedly secular article that has a 'christian slant' that's so irrational and I'll change my mind. I don't know what the CSM was like originally. I only know what it's like now and that's how I base my judgement.
And unless the CSM is trying to discuss some type of technical issue that they believe conflicts with their beliefs, or they start evangelizing, I really don't see the danger. Think of it as analogous to a judge who refuses to preside over a case because he knows the defendant, but is compentent to preside over other cases. Some people are only irrational or biased on particular issues, but clearheaded on others. In fact, I've found this to be true with most people.
But to answer your question, I wouldn't stand by any racism posited by the 'founding fathers' because racism is (or can be) a threat to people's well being.
An obviously extreme analogy here would be a mental institution that intends to determine whether a person is 'a threat to themselves or others', not whether their view of the world matches those around them.
In relation to the CSM, the question is whether whatever biases the reporters might have is a threat to the integrity of their secular articles. And I've been impressed enough with their reporting that I'll keep believing this until I'm shown reasonable evidence to the contrary.
I seem to recall a saying about judging books and covers. Applies to newspapers and titles too.
Their religious beliefs don't influence their secular articles.
Considering that I happen to be a citizen of a country whose "founding fathers" talked about the natural rights of mankind and then went home and had their slaves cook dinner I try not to judge the present state of institutions by their founders.
No, seriously. The Christian Science Monitor has a very good reputation. The name is not indicitave of the content.
It's not the size of your code, it's how you use it that counts.
an e-mail based contract isn't worth the over million dollar fiberoptic cables it's transmitted over.
I'm not sure if this proves her wrong.
This is why Microsoft Access is a remote access system and Microsoft Outlook is designed to support webcams. Frontpage is a program for designging print media. This is also why I have to hit the start button to shut down.
It all makes perfect sense now.
I liked how the Chevy Nova wasn't selling in South America. Eventually they figured out what "No Va" means in Spanish.
Yeah, last time I tried getting somthing out of a minor the cops almost got me.
I wonder if Prince actually puts that thing on contracts.
There would be severe consequences for any type of forgery, if it were presented in court as authentic.
Besides, the defendant didn't argue that the e-mail was faked. He just said that it wasn't legally binding. If the defendant argued that the e-mail was faked things might have gone differently, but with his admission that the conversation was authentic, that seems to solve the problem of authenticity. Dosen't it?
Other e-mails have specified the requirements for a binding contract better than I could.
And they'd probably rename it somthing lame like
A-EOM The Audio English Object Model.