> On August 10, 1945 two young colonels, Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel, supervised by Brigadier General George Lincoln, working on extremely short notice, proposed the 38th parallel as the administrative line for the two armies.
So 5 days before the end of the war. The soviets had troops in Korea and the U.S. did not. While the detail of Korea's split was not done at Yalta it seems in line with the split of Germany, Austria and in line with what Stalin wanted for Japan. Is there any evidence the U.S. expected to occupy all of Korea or that Korea was even much on its mind at the time of Yalta?...and what point are you trying to make? Other than being obnoxious?
The agreements to split Korea and Germany were made well in advance. The zones were planned. In Germany the allies had to evacuate certain areas as they were in the Soviet zone. The only reason the frontline resembled the final zones was because Eisenhower did not want to waste energy taking areas that they would not be administering later on. This is why he had no interest in taking Berlin, though Churchill saw it as a potential bargaining chip.
Read up on the Okinawa campaign and how costly that was. There was no indication that the Japanese would have surrendered without the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the invasion of Japan would create a much higher potential loss of military and civilians on both sides. Morally there is no difference between a nuclear bomb and conventional bombing. Dead is dead.
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had the effect of saving the Japanese from themselves. They were preparing to have civilians attack the invaders with pitchforks, spears and machetes. Imagine how that would have gone. The "they would have surrendered without the bomb" argument is a more recent one. The U.S. expected to be fighting into 1946 and so did the Japanese. The loss due to starvation would probably have exceeded military losses.
The moral issues on the bomb came up after the war. Particularly when we realised there were enough bombs to wipe out humanity, and still are. Also, there has been a lot of whitewashing of the Japanese since the war. If you read up on their actions in China and the Pacific you will probably feel a lot less sorry for them. Their humanity was severely lacking. Luckily it is a different story today. But the Japanese do not fully acknowledge what they did in the war and a lot of the history is not taught to the young. This contrasts with Germany which basically acknowledged what was done and set about purging it from society. That is not the Japanese way, though.
My stepfather was a banana farmer and exposed to some nasty chemicals. He has parkinsons and blames the pesticides. So reading this seems to support his belief. Just one data point and proves nothing, but personally interesting.
Bitcoin is far too small a currency to have any affect on the U.S. dollar. Astroturfers on Slashdot keep posting these stories as if Bitcoin matters. It is a scam and once the governments shut down the illegal transactions it will disappear.
Payouts to the victims should reflect the loss. Punitive damages should not be in cash or if in cash should be paid to the state, just as normal fines are. The focus should be on what is being done to avoid this problem in the future. So in this case AFP would have to show that they have the process and steps in place to ensure that the issue is not repeated. Punitive damages could be in the form of them doing charity work or other non-cash forms. If the directors have to give up every saturday for a year you can bet this will never happen again, if it is cash, then the insurance company pays or it comes from profits and nothing much changes.
I am not a libertarian and don't care about people getting "above their station". This gives more insight into you, than me. And if you think insurance companies get rid of quacks then you truly are delusional. This is also a reason why the U.S. has much more expensive medical care than most other comparable countries. And more lawyers than other countries too. And it just encourages people to do frivilous lawsuits hoping to win the big lottery.
Big payouts like this are not in line with the actual loss. Was the image worth $1.2m? perhaps but i doubt it. Particularly with this being just one of many outlets that used the image. Do other photographers get that much? no. So it makes us all feel good until we realise that ultimately the costs are passed onto us. Instead the lawyers get rich and that just breeds more lawyers.
Big payouts for medical problems act as a lottery and while they look like they penalise the doctors they just penalise the rest of us. Instead provide payouts in a manner that alleviate the problems, with free medical and income replacement, instead of a massive, instant multi-millionaire payout. Which also pays for the big lawyer fees.
Was he expecting to make $1.2m on the photos in the original place? How much of that goes to lawyers on his side and how much did the other lawyers get paid?
Did AFP have suitable mechanisms to identify the source or the photos or did they have fixed compensation in place where a source is later found?
Everyone cheers these big payouts but forgets that in the end we pay. When a large insurance payout goes to someone of something ridiculous like $50 million, to people who would be lucky to make a million in their lifetime, people cheer, yet complain when it means their medical costs go up to cover the doctors insurance premiums.
It is good that the correct source was found and that he won the court case but this is not the correct way to solve these problems.
I'd be pretty sure those generals did not come out of the traditional army. They would be better than mugabe, who wouldn't, but not much better. It would not change the situation in Zimbabwe that much. If that is the only reason to hate Assange then it is fairly weak. The other suggestions of people being outed are suspect. There was such a desire to paint the release of information as being harmful that you would be sure to hear about it. Instead we didn't. Instead we heard things that said our freedoms are being severely compromised and that means we gained much much more than we ever lost.
we can't stop surveillance from every country in the world so knowing about it is the best we can hope for. In that respect Snowden, Manning and Assange have done a great job in shaking up and educating the world. We have all benefited from their actions.
In regard to the Zimbabwe generals, if that is the worst that come out of the leaks then that basically confirms that little damage was done compared to the benefits. Given the number of people who were predicting dire consequences and were desperate to prove the damage, quite frankly that is fairly low on the scale.
I completely understand why Manning would be jailed,and he probably does too. But why has the New York Times suffered the same fate as Assange is likely to face if he leaves the embassy. Because they can touch him but not the NYT.
If Snowden had sent his data to Wyden then it would not have been revealed. The scandals around Australia and the U.S. spying etc is not an excuse for saying that it should not have been revealed to the world. We need to know that the NSA and others are spying on us and how they are doing it.
The CIA link with one of the Assange girls is a bit tenuous but then again the CIA is not publishing its lists of spies so it could be something bigger. Wikilinks had another internal contact who was working with authorities. The point is that the Swedish reaction is suspicious and Assange is right not to trust them. Yes, he probably did a dick thing but he is not going to get equal treatment under the law and that is a justification for avoiding Sweden.
You do know how they pursued Manning, i assume. so why are you surprised they pursued Assange? Everything they said publicly was that Assange was considered a major threat. By having him arrested or locked in an embassy they have achieved much the same result. Someone pressurised the Swedish to pursue him. Assange was allowed to leave the country when the issue was raised. The swedes could have detained him. They didn't. So why would you not be surprised that this pressure came from the U.S.?
The "rape", and i put it in quotes as it might be legally a rape and even morally a rape but the original sex was consensual and even afterwards the girls did not have a problem. One of them even hosted a dinner for him. Only after they found out about the other girl did it become a problem. So in the context of day to day crime enforcement this one is so minor that it would never come to court or even be pursued. It has been alleged but it is a "she said, he said" situation. Very difficult to determine if it DID happen. You assume it did. It may not have.
And assange pisses off the U.S. military, but what a surprise. They weren't pissed off when he revealed others secrets, just when he revealed theirs. The fact that they were doing ILLEGAL activities means that he should be seen as a whistleblower. So have the people in the military doing the illegal activities been jailed? Was not their crime many times the seriousness of Assange's? They killed people, Assange killed no one. But instead we just try to shoot the messenger.
Same with Snowden. If the NSA does its evil stuff but we all know about it then we can decide if we want them to do it. But everyone is upset that Snowden revealed it. Do you think we don't deserve to know this is going on? If someone has a webcam in your bathroom would you be happy with it as long as you didnt know?
Just like the boiled frog analogy except we are the frog and lighting the gas.
The girl was zero degrees separation or perhaps one degree separation. That is very different from three or four degrees, which is essentially meaningless.
Assange has to use probabilities. There is a high possibility that if he goes to Sweden he will be transferred to the U.S. Everyone recognises this. Nice of you to suggest he takes the risk but will you bet your house on it? since you believe it is 100%. I am sure you would not.
Sure. understood, but if the odds of failure are the same, nine out of ten, then the same rule applies. My point is that people are complaining about people expecting ten times their money but if they fail nine times out of ten, then they are just breaking even. I know plenty of people who lost everything in a startup.
He is "alleged" to have done this. Nothing has been proven. He is wanted for interviewing. Given that they have pursued this unlike any similar cases, this one is being treated as special. That is enough to tell you that it is not a normal case. What he has been "alleged" to do would have millions upon millions of Americans (and swedes) in jail. You break the law every day, we all do. This gives them the choice to prosecute you... or not.
What he did was a dick thing but they have come down on him with a tonne of bricks. So do it equally to all... or to none.
There is a youtube video of a guy showing how he could have built stonehenge. It is quite interesting how with a few tricks he can move massive blocks of stones, and position them so they put upright into the ground. Everything is impossible if you do it the hard way, finding the easy way is the trick. Finding that easy way is not obvious of course. He uses everyday items like sticks and stones that prehistoric man had easy access to. The egyptians could do it even easier and had more than one guy.
The question is when do you take the offer, when you dont have hindsight. What happens when he is offered 100k, then 1m, then 10m, then zero. If you take offer one and two you are stupid but if you dont take offer 3 then you are stupid. Hindsight makes it all easier.
Slashdot Mirror
I stand corrected on Korea. According to various sources including http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Division_of_Korea it was
> On August 10, 1945 two young colonels, Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel, supervised by Brigadier General George Lincoln, working on extremely short notice, proposed the 38th parallel as the administrative line for the two armies.
So 5 days before the end of the war. The soviets had troops in Korea and the U.S. did not. While the detail of Korea's split was not done at Yalta it seems in line with the split of Germany, Austria and in line with what Stalin wanted for Japan. Is there any evidence the U.S. expected to occupy all of Korea or that Korea was even much on its mind at the time of Yalta? ...and what point are you trying to make? Other than being obnoxious?
The agreements to split Korea and Germany were made well in advance. The zones were planned. In Germany the allies had to evacuate certain areas as they were in the Soviet zone. The only reason the frontline resembled the final zones was because Eisenhower did not want to waste energy taking areas that they would not be administering later on. This is why he had no interest in taking Berlin, though Churchill saw it as a potential bargaining chip.
Read up on the Okinawa campaign and how costly that was. There was no indication that the Japanese would have surrendered without the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the invasion of Japan would create a much higher potential loss of military and civilians on both sides. Morally there is no difference between a nuclear bomb and conventional bombing. Dead is dead.
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had the effect of saving the Japanese from themselves. They were preparing to have civilians attack the invaders with pitchforks, spears and machetes. Imagine how that would have gone. The "they would have surrendered without the bomb" argument is a more recent one. The U.S. expected to be fighting into 1946 and so did the Japanese. The loss due to starvation would probably have exceeded military losses.
The moral issues on the bomb came up after the war. Particularly when we realised there were enough bombs to wipe out humanity, and still are. Also, there has been a lot of whitewashing of the Japanese since the war. If you read up on their actions in China and the Pacific you will probably feel a lot less sorry for them. Their humanity was severely lacking. Luckily it is a different story today. But the Japanese do not fully acknowledge what they did in the war and a lot of the history is not taught to the young. This contrasts with Germany which basically acknowledged what was done and set about purging it from society. That is not the Japanese way, though.
My stepfather was a banana farmer and exposed to some nasty chemicals. He has parkinsons and blames the pesticides. So reading this seems to support his belief. Just one data point and proves nothing, but personally interesting.
Not really. It is an imaginary currency mainly set up by crooks. I see no need for it and no trust in it.
Bitcoin is far too small a currency to have any affect on the U.S. dollar. Astroturfers on Slashdot keep posting these stories as if Bitcoin matters. It is a scam and once the governments shut down the illegal transactions it will disappear.
Because we dont pass the costs on...
And in any case i dont agree with the IP Barons exploiting us any more than i agree with lawyers exploiting anyone.
These payouts get positioned as "justice" but they are not really.
Payouts to the victims should reflect the loss. Punitive damages should not be in cash or if in cash should be paid to the state, just as normal fines are. The focus should be on what is being done to avoid this problem in the future. So in this case AFP would have to show that they have the process and steps in place to ensure that the issue is not repeated. Punitive damages could be in the form of them doing charity work or other non-cash forms. If the directors have to give up every saturday for a year you can bet this will never happen again, if it is cash, then the insurance company pays or it comes from profits and nothing much changes.
I am not a libertarian and don't care about people getting "above their station". This gives more insight into you, than me. And if you think insurance companies get rid of quacks then you truly are delusional. This is also a reason why the U.S. has much more expensive medical care than most other comparable countries. And more lawyers than other countries too. And it just encourages people to do frivilous lawsuits hoping to win the big lottery.
Big payouts like this are not in line with the actual loss. Was the image worth $1.2m? perhaps but i doubt it. Particularly with this being just one of many outlets that used the image. Do other photographers get that much? no. So it makes us all feel good until we realise that ultimately the costs are passed onto us. Instead the lawyers get rich and that just breeds more lawyers.
Big payouts for medical problems act as a lottery and while they look like they penalise the doctors they just penalise the rest of us. Instead provide payouts in a manner that alleviate the problems, with free medical and income replacement, instead of a massive, instant multi-millionaire payout. Which also pays for the big lawyer fees.
Was he expecting to make $1.2m on the photos in the original place? How much of that goes to lawyers on his side and how much did the other lawyers get paid?
Did AFP have suitable mechanisms to identify the source or the photos or did they have fixed compensation in place where a source is later found?
Everyone cheers these big payouts but forgets that in the end we pay. When a large insurance payout goes to someone of something ridiculous like $50 million, to people who would be lucky to make a million in their lifetime, people cheer, yet complain when it means their medical costs go up to cover the doctors insurance premiums.
It is good that the correct source was found and that he won the court case but this is not the correct way to solve these problems.
I'd be pretty sure those generals did not come out of the traditional army. They would be better than mugabe, who wouldn't, but not much better. It would not change the situation in Zimbabwe that much. If that is the only reason to hate Assange then it is fairly weak. The other suggestions of people being outed are suspect. There was such a desire to paint the release of information as being harmful that you would be sure to hear about it. Instead we didn't. Instead we heard things that said our freedoms are being severely compromised and that means we gained much much more than we ever lost.
we can't stop surveillance from every country in the world so knowing about it is the best we can hope for. In that respect Snowden, Manning and Assange have done a great job in shaking up and educating the world. We have all benefited from their actions.
In regard to the Zimbabwe generals, if that is the worst that come out of the leaks then that basically confirms that little damage was done compared to the benefits. Given the number of people who were predicting dire consequences and were desperate to prove the damage, quite frankly that is fairly low on the scale.
I completely understand why Manning would be jailed,and he probably does too. But why has the New York Times suffered the same fate as Assange is likely to face if he leaves the embassy. Because they can touch him but not the NYT.
If Snowden had sent his data to Wyden then it would not have been revealed. The scandals around Australia and the U.S. spying etc is not an excuse for saying that it should not have been revealed to the world. We need to know that the NSA and others are spying on us and how they are doing it.
The CIA link with one of the Assange girls is a bit tenuous but then again the CIA is not publishing its lists of spies so it could be something bigger. Wikilinks had another internal contact who was working with authorities. The point is that the Swedish reaction is suspicious and Assange is right not to trust them. Yes, he probably did a dick thing but he is not going to get equal treatment under the law and that is a justification for avoiding Sweden.
a simple google can find the connection with the CIA... such as
http://my.firedoglake.com/kirkmurphy/2010/12/04/assanges-chief-accuser-has-her-own-history-with-us-funded-anti-castro-groups-one-of-which-has-cia-ties/
You do know how they pursued Manning, i assume. so why are you surprised they pursued Assange? Everything they said publicly was that Assange was considered a major threat. By having him arrested or locked in an embassy they have achieved much the same result. Someone pressurised the Swedish to pursue him. Assange was allowed to leave the country when the issue was raised. The swedes could have detained him. They didn't. So why would you not be surprised that this pressure came from the U.S.?
The "rape", and i put it in quotes as it might be legally a rape and even morally a rape but the original sex was consensual and even afterwards the girls did not have a problem. One of them even hosted a dinner for him. Only after they found out about the other girl did it become a problem. So in the context of day to day crime enforcement this one is so minor that it would never come to court or even be pursued. It has been alleged but it is a "she said, he said" situation. Very difficult to determine if it DID happen. You assume it did. It may not have.
And assange pisses off the U.S. military, but what a surprise. They weren't pissed off when he revealed others secrets, just when he revealed theirs. The fact that they were doing ILLEGAL activities means that he should be seen as a whistleblower. So have the people in the military doing the illegal activities been jailed? Was not their crime many times the seriousness of Assange's? They killed people, Assange killed no one. But instead we just try to shoot the messenger.
Same with Snowden. If the NSA does its evil stuff but we all know about it then we can decide if we want them to do it. But everyone is upset that Snowden revealed it. Do you think we don't deserve to know this is going on? If someone has a webcam in your bathroom would you be happy with it as long as you didnt know?
Just like the boiled frog analogy except we are the frog and lighting the gas.
i would pay to see that.
The girl was zero degrees separation or perhaps one degree separation. That is very different from three or four degrees, which is essentially meaningless.
Assange has to use probabilities. There is a high possibility that if he goes to Sweden he will be transferred to the U.S. Everyone recognises this. Nice of you to suggest he takes the risk but will you bet your house on it? since you believe it is 100%. I am sure you would not.
True. i know i was playing roulette wrong. i should only put on winning numbers.
The payoff from this one for the VCs has to underwrite the losses you never hear of.
check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYQBDhkBfr0
Sure. understood, but if the odds of failure are the same, nine out of ten, then the same rule applies. My point is that people are complaining about people expecting ten times their money but if they fail nine times out of ten, then they are just breaking even. I know plenty of people who lost everything in a startup.
He is "alleged" to have done this. Nothing has been proven. He is wanted for interviewing. Given that they have pursued this unlike any similar cases, this one is being treated as special. That is enough to tell you that it is not a normal case. What he has been "alleged" to do would have millions upon millions of Americans (and swedes) in jail. You break the law every day, we all do. This gives them the choice to prosecute you... or not.
What he did was a dick thing but they have come down on him with a tonne of bricks. So do it equally to all... or to none.
There is a youtube video of a guy showing how he could have built stonehenge. It is quite interesting how with a few tricks he can move massive blocks of stones, and position them so they put upright into the ground. Everything is impossible if you do it the hard way, finding the easy way is the trick. Finding that easy way is not obvious of course. He uses everyday items like sticks and stones that prehistoric man had easy access to. The egyptians could do it even easier and had more than one guy.
This is too low for VCs. They expect a higher multiple. If the failure rate is 90% then a 5x payoff will lose you money.
The question is when do you take the offer, when you dont have hindsight. What happens when he is offered 100k, then 1m, then 10m, then zero. If you take offer one and two you are stupid but if you dont take offer 3 then you are stupid. Hindsight makes it all easier.