After creating a big buzz on TV and radio here in France, faismesdevoirs.com is now shut. The homepage displays a note from faismesdevoirs.com's CEO saying that they realized that the goal of their company goes against their own beliefs on what homework and learning in general should be...
I must admit that I am quite impressed by this new kind of auto-censorship, I also thought that before fullfilling a project, and especially a business, you would think more than twice about its consequences.
Moreover, the invasion of Gaul is well described on a book called "Wars of the Gauls" (De bello Gallico in latin), written by Julius Caesar himself.
You learn that if you go to War School in any western country, it's a classic along with Clausewitz and Lao Tseu for example.
The war of the Gaul was a result of : 1/Roman expansionism 2/: a revenge and a way to stop gallic warriors to invade Rome as they did under Brennus in 390 BC (that's the one who said "Vae Victis" for latin literates).
The interesting fact about our topic and this is that we have plenty of historic testimonies from that period in th whole roman empire (war of the gauls is -48: -52 BC) and very few historical evidence about what happened with Jesus and the rest of his folks.
I was always interested in syrian politics. I've been there last year.
I have walked (yes, by foot) from Damas to Alep and it's really a beautiful and welcoming country. Their sense of hospitality is the best I've come across so far. I walked hundreds of kilometers across the country without being controlled, in fact, I didn't even see the army and hardly the Police. I was expecting much more military presense in a state that is supposed to be so much controled.
Also, I had great long conversations with a lot of syrians about almost any subject, their only taboo is the world "Israel" that you shouldn't pronouce at any time. They use the word "Occupied Palestine" instead. Otherwise, I've been talking about politics and economics and most people are informed and open minded.
There is one thing to take into consideration : the dictatorship is mostly ethnically based. The elite who holds the economical and political power comes from the Alaouite tribe/chiism wich represents 10% of the syrian population.
For example, in the syrian Army, an alaouite lieutenant might overrule a non alaouite captain's order.
A guy who believes in "Al Qaeda" and calls himself a veteran in US intelligence is a clown...or he is a Minister of Propaganda clerk...
Come on...who heard about a group calling himself "Al Qaeda" before 9/11? Where are the hi tech caves? where are the AMDs? You tell me...
Oh I love so much this new regulation about not being able to bring some liquids in the cabin.
I often travel, for leisure or business and as a trekker/walker/scrambler I often try to combine both.
I use a backpack that is small enough to bring in the plane with me, and inside is a 3 liter Camelback, with a (very obvious) blue hose coming outside of the bag. Most of the time it's half full when i take the plane, and apparently scanners and TSA don't seem to know what it is, or even see it.
I'm so amused when I see TSA guys telling an old lady to throw away her 25 cl bottle of Evian in the big bin, and then juster after they let me pass with my camelback...And i'm sure I could even carry some fuel in it, they still would let me pass. (scary uh?).
I suppose this agent is dreaming of our proudly french invented Minitel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel)...
That was secure, only companies could run a server, if they were accredited by the national telecom group. Usual mortals were "clients only" (in both senses of the term) and were paying by the minute of connexion.
In the early 90's I remember introducing Internet to some top executives in Paris, and one of them said : "Yeah, that's a Minitel but it's in color, we can do that too"...
The only pattern I can really agree on is the one where we see the US spending billions in research against something that a simple change of foreign policy could (still?) avoid.
And BTW, I thought you guys stopped relying too much on spy sats and computers an more on HUMINT?
Recently we discovered that some djihad groups are training 8 years old kids to be suicide bombers, that's were we are, the US wants to stop it? Then think with humanity.
Technically, what they have is not precisely a despotic regime, although it not really democratic either. Iran's constitution is designed to be as democratic as possible, without quite being democratic.
I think you should do politics...Are you a relative of Donald Rumsfeld?
Reminds me of this quote from him :
Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know
First of all, I must say that this "Comission" is really upseting me. How can you put at its top someone who works hand in hand with the music and movie industry and as the CEO of FNAC has the only goal and purpose to sell more discs and DVDs?? It's not at all an indepedent commission and here again or new government showed how much it wants to be close to the lobbies, and not the citizen.
I agree that something has to be done about piracy but thats starts from both ends : users should pay for content, and industry should stop ripping us off and think about a smarter system. But I'm dreaming here maybe.
Just as an example of funny laws we have here about the entertainment and art industry : radios and TV networks have quotas on how much french created content they must broadcast. This quotas ended in boosting the french soap industry a lot, and also lousy 19 yrs old french singers that just get their songs on air just so the radios can meet their quotas of proudly nationally created blurb.
An other thing that's bothering me is : we have quite strict laws about eavesdropping and wiretaping here, isn't "listening" my Internet connection a breach in the privacy of communications? Or do they intend to have this done with a court order by the Police Nationale and Gendarmerie?
So i guess it has something to be with the individual comes first culture then. And also the TV culture (what the f*** am I writing??) maybe.
It is somehow strange. Because here in France everyone remembers the G8 summit in Seattle where a hell of a riot happened. Somehow it seemed, then, than american youth (once again) showed the world that it was alive. Whatever were the motives for the riot, I am rather conservative and free economy friendly but I'm not sure that the self proclaiming 8 most powerful countries in the world should decide for everyone else ("them" being maybe 80% of the planet population by the way), I think it was a good sign of health for US democracy.
Regarding the police, we have a very different system in France. I think it's more under control, but we still have those case of power abuse and force abuse. That's something you can't really avoid all the time I suppose. Yet, they can't do anything they want and anytime a bullet is shot at someone by a policeman, a court investigation is ordered.
Use of non-lethal weapons is also an issue, especially with what they call "flash balls" (it's basically big rubber bullets), but again, some abuse of that can happen in a "hot" suburb of paris for example, but never in a political meeting or a university.
If in France we would begin to "Taze" everyone who would complain annoyingly at political meetings or in any administration building we would quickly end with a power shortage:p
I went to law university in Paris and I'm familiar with several other university and I can't remember having seen any kinf of "security personnel" in any of them. If something goes wrong, the students or the administration call the police (Police Nationale) and they come, point. Like in any other place such as a supermarket, a mall or a train station. But we have a very different culture regarding violence than in the US. And even if it's not very difficult to get a gun (not an automatic maybe but a shotgun or a hunter's rifle) we never had anyone going postal like you can have from time to time. Maybe that's why.
The facts and ideas you point about french democracy coming form the street is right. You also have to remember what happen during WW2 here. People didn't speak up when "they" (they being the german but also the remainings of the french gvt and police) came for the jews...Now, we KNOW what can happen if no one speaks up and let any government do whatever it wants. It is a big trauma. Most of the time the habit of "hating" Police is compeltely irrationnal over here now, but it's also a pretty good safeguard we have regarding history, and how you learn from it.
After reading this and the other story about the poor (but annoying) guy who got tasered at Sen. Kerry meeting I'm a bit confused about something. Maybe some people form the US can enlight me. I'm french (insert your own surrender monkey joke here) and I must say that I'm quite sad to see that anyone, especially on a campus, can be abused like this by police forces without at least a few people protesting.
In both incidents in Florida University last week and this one in UCLA library apparently no one seems to even try to stop the cops, or only even seems to be shocked by what's happening. Is it the sheep effect? "As long as it's not me I won't speak up"?
In France, there are no such thing as "Campus Police" and even the state police cannot enter a campus without the authorization of the dean. And I believe that if such things were to happen in a library or a meeting with a Senator, that would end in a riot against police.
Just talking about VISA request complexity (sorry for the offtopic). I'm french (sorry again), and I went to various countries in Africa and Middle East, and also in the Pre 9/11 USA and that was fine.
Now it's easier for me and my kids to go to North Korea, Syria or Iran than in the US. It's just amazing that my 1 year old son MUST HAVE HIS OWN passport to get in the USA. No other country in the world requires this.
Well...you would have to explain me, how come France is still the largest country in western Europe??
Also a few point to enlight your brains:
- "romans" were not "italians" though they share the same capital, Rome. Just check the size of the Roman Empire with today's Italy. And also don't forget how "Mighty Rome" ended...
- Germans: it's not really that they want to invade France every 50 years, it's just the only excuse they found to flee their awful wives.
- French revolution: don't forget the many battles won against english/dutch/austrian coalition between 1790 and 1795.
Algerian war: that's the "funniest" point...look:
1/: France lost 30 000 personel in this war - Alegerian FLN and population lost 300 000 personel.
2/: France had nothing to do in Algeria, except maybe protecting and find a better issue for french citizens that lived there.
3/: "decolonization" was the big trend at this time, and lots of french citizens didn't not agree with this war and french soldiers to stay there. Public opinion was against it.
Does it remind you of anything?
I'll help you, it begin with a "V" and end with an "N". I'm sure you've seen a movie or two about it.
To finish with this clueless topic. I don't think americans should bragg too much on the topic of "war" at this moment. I would love to see a good issue in the Irak situation, but it doesn't seem to get better at this moment.
Technical and military superiority doesn't solve everything in this little world...I'm sorry for the Bush administration.
And then we will have Iran just next to it soon...I wish you good luck "brave" Private Anonymous Coward...
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Hi, I'm just wondering what the hell can be a "clearance to watch child pornography" and who the hell is able to get or deliver one to another???
After creating a big buzz on TV and radio here in France, faismesdevoirs.com is now shut. The homepage displays a note from faismesdevoirs.com's CEO saying that they realized that the goal of their company goes against their own beliefs on what homework and learning in general should be...
I must admit that I am quite impressed by this new kind of auto-censorship, I also thought that before fullfilling a project, and especially a business, you would think more than twice about its consequences.
Oh que j'aime mon pays!
Moreover, the invasion of Gaul is well described on a book called "Wars of the Gauls" (De bello Gallico in latin), written by Julius Caesar himself.
You learn that if you go to War School in any western country, it's a classic along with Clausewitz and Lao Tseu for example.
The war of the Gaul was a result of : 1/Roman expansionism 2/: a revenge and a way to stop gallic warriors to invade Rome as they did under Brennus in 390 BC (that's the one who said "Vae Victis" for latin literates).
The interesting fact about our topic and this is that we have plenty of historic testimonies from that period in th whole roman empire (war of the gauls is -48: -52 BC) and very few historical evidence about what happened with Jesus and the rest of his folks.
I was always interested in syrian politics. I've been there last year.
I have walked (yes, by foot) from Damas to Alep and it's really a beautiful and welcoming country. Their sense of hospitality is the best I've come across so far. I walked hundreds of kilometers across the country without being controlled, in fact, I didn't even see the army and hardly the Police. I was expecting much more military presense in a state that is supposed to be so much controled.
Also, I had great long conversations with a lot of syrians about almost any subject, their only taboo is the world "Israel" that you shouldn't pronouce at any time. They use the word "Occupied Palestine" instead. Otherwise, I've been talking about politics and economics and most people are informed and open minded.
There is one thing to take into consideration : the dictatorship is mostly ethnically based. The elite who holds the economical and political power comes from the Alaouite tribe/chiism wich represents 10% of the syrian population.
For example, in the syrian Army, an alaouite lieutenant might overrule a non alaouite captain's order.
A guy who believes in "Al Qaeda" and calls himself a veteran in US intelligence is a clown...or he is a Minister of Propaganda clerk... Come on...who heard about a group calling himself "Al Qaeda" before 9/11? Where are the hi tech caves? where are the AMDs? You tell me...
Oh I love so much this new regulation about not being able to bring some liquids in the cabin.
I often travel, for leisure or business and as a trekker/walker/scrambler I often try to combine both.
I use a backpack that is small enough to bring in the plane with me, and inside is a 3 liter Camelback, with a (very obvious) blue hose coming outside of the bag. Most of the time it's half full when i take the plane, and apparently scanners and TSA don't seem to know what it is, or even see it.
I'm so amused when I see TSA guys telling an old lady to throw away her 25 cl bottle of Evian in the big bin, and then juster after they let me pass with my camelback...And i'm sure I could even carry some fuel in it, they still would let me pass. (scary uh?).
I suppose this agent is dreaming of our proudly french invented Minitel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel)...
That was secure, only companies could run a server, if they were accredited by the national telecom group. Usual mortals were "clients only" (in both senses of the term) and were paying by the minute of connexion.
In the early 90's I remember introducing Internet to some top executives in Paris, and one of them said : "Yeah, that's a Minitel but it's in color, we can do that too"...
The only pattern I can really agree on is the one where we see the US spending billions in research against something that a simple change of foreign policy could (still?) avoid.
And BTW, I thought you guys stopped relying too much on spy sats and computers an more on HUMINT?
Recently we discovered that some djihad groups are training 8 years old kids to be suicide bombers, that's were we are, the US wants to stop it? Then think with humanity.
Thanks a lot! Actually I had understood what you meant but that makes it even clearer.
Thanks for your point of view but I still hear that sentence as a mockery on his audience (the american people) and maybe a lack of vocabulary.
He was adresssing american people in a TV news program, that wasn't an Intelligence briefing.
I think you should do politics...Are you a relative of Donald Rumsfeld?
Reminds me of this quote from him :
First of all, I must say that this "Comission" is really upseting me. How can you put at its top someone who works hand in hand with the music and movie industry and as the CEO of FNAC has the only goal and purpose to sell more discs and DVDs?? It's not at all an indepedent commission and here again or new government showed how much it wants to be close to the lobbies, and not the citizen.
I agree that something has to be done about piracy but thats starts from both ends : users should pay for content, and industry should stop ripping us off and think about a smarter system. But I'm dreaming here maybe.
Just as an example of funny laws we have here about the entertainment and art industry : radios and TV networks have quotas on how much french created content they must broadcast. This quotas ended in boosting the french soap industry a lot, and also lousy 19 yrs old french singers that just get their songs on air just so the radios can meet their quotas of proudly nationally created blurb.
An other thing that's bothering me is : we have quite strict laws about eavesdropping and wiretaping here, isn't "listening" my Internet connection a breach in the privacy of communications? Or do they intend to have this done with a court order by the Police Nationale and Gendarmerie?
Modern printing system can print billions of pages in a row and yet, damn authors still write chapters !
What makes me sad is...where the h*ll was my mum when I bought Windows ME?
Thanks a lot.
:p
So i guess it has something to be with the individual comes first culture then. And also the TV culture (what the f*** am I writing??) maybe.
It is somehow strange. Because here in France everyone remembers the G8 summit in Seattle where a hell of a riot happened. Somehow it seemed, then, than american youth (once again) showed the world that it was alive. Whatever were the motives for the riot, I am rather conservative and free economy friendly but I'm not sure that the self proclaiming 8 most powerful countries in the world should decide for everyone else ("them" being maybe 80% of the planet population by the way), I think it was a good sign of health for US democracy.
Regarding the police, we have a very different system in France. I think it's more under control, but we still have those case of power abuse and force abuse. That's something you can't really avoid all the time I suppose. Yet, they can't do anything they want and anytime a bullet is shot at someone by a policeman, a court investigation is ordered.
Use of non-lethal weapons is also an issue, especially with what they call "flash balls" (it's basically big rubber bullets), but again, some abuse of that can happen in a "hot" suburb of paris for example, but never in a political meeting or a university.
If in France we would begin to "Taze" everyone who would complain annoyingly at political meetings or in any administration building we would quickly end with a power shortage
I went to law university in Paris and I'm familiar with several other university and I can't remember having seen any kinf of "security personnel" in any of them. If something goes wrong, the students or the administration call the police (Police Nationale) and they come, point. Like in any other place such as a supermarket, a mall or a train station. But we have a very different culture regarding violence than in the US. And even if it's not very difficult to get a gun (not an automatic maybe but a shotgun or a hunter's rifle) we never had anyone going postal like you can have from time to time. Maybe that's why. The facts and ideas you point about french democracy coming form the street is right. You also have to remember what happen during WW2 here. People didn't speak up when "they" (they being the german but also the remainings of the french gvt and police) came for the jews...Now, we KNOW what can happen if no one speaks up and let any government do whatever it wants. It is a big trauma. Most of the time the habit of "hating" Police is compeltely irrationnal over here now, but it's also a pretty good safeguard we have regarding history, and how you learn from it.
After reading this and the other story about the poor (but annoying) guy who got tasered at Sen. Kerry meeting I'm a bit confused about something. Maybe some people form the US can enlight me. I'm french (insert your own surrender monkey joke here) and I must say that I'm quite sad to see that anyone, especially on a campus, can be abused like this by police forces without at least a few people protesting.
In both incidents in Florida University last week and this one in UCLA library apparently no one seems to even try to stop the cops, or only even seems to be shocked by what's happening. Is it the sheep effect? "As long as it's not me I won't speak up"?
In France, there are no such thing as "Campus Police" and even the state police cannot enter a campus without the authorization of the dean. And I believe that if such things were to happen in a library or a meeting with a Senator, that would end in a riot against police.
Are American students scared? or what?
Just talking about VISA request complexity (sorry for the offtopic). I'm french (sorry again), and I went to various countries in Africa and Middle East, and also in the Pre 9/11 USA and that was fine.
Now it's easier for me and my kids to go to North Korea, Syria or Iran than in the US. It's just amazing that my 1 year old son MUST HAVE HIS OWN passport to get in the USA. No other country in the world requires this.
Statistics from 2002: * Heart Disease: 696,947 * Cancer: 557,271 * Stroke: 162,672
If I get it right, the only and real enenmy of the USA is bacon!
Well...you would have to explain me, how come France is still the largest country in western Europe?? Also a few point to enlight your brains: - "romans" were not "italians" though they share the same capital, Rome. Just check the size of the Roman Empire with today's Italy. And also don't forget how "Mighty Rome" ended... - Germans: it's not really that they want to invade France every 50 years, it's just the only excuse they found to flee their awful wives. - French revolution: don't forget the many battles won against english/dutch/austrian coalition between 1790 and 1795. Algerian war: that's the "funniest" point...look: 1/: France lost 30 000 personel in this war - Alegerian FLN and population lost 300 000 personel. 2/: France had nothing to do in Algeria, except maybe protecting and find a better issue for french citizens that lived there. 3/: "decolonization" was the big trend at this time, and lots of french citizens didn't not agree with this war and french soldiers to stay there. Public opinion was against it. Does it remind you of anything? I'll help you, it begin with a "V" and end with an "N". I'm sure you've seen a movie or two about it. To finish with this clueless topic. I don't think americans should bragg too much on the topic of "war" at this moment. I would love to see a good issue in the Irak situation, but it doesn't seem to get better at this moment. Technical and military superiority doesn't solve everything in this little world...I'm sorry for the Bush administration. And then we will have Iran just next to it soon...I wish you good luck "brave" Private Anonymous Coward...