brainless

I've never liked George but since he's your head of state, you may be forgiven for expecting too much of him, I did the same thing with our president, Horst Koehler, who dedicated an entire chapter in his book to how he would use his power as german president to change things for the better - he has signed a couple of laws which he said "might" violate the constitution by now and it doesn't seem like he's going to change that behavior :/... I'm glad that you now admit that the american people [and British and the rest of the world] have been betrayed about the reasons for the war against Iraq. Actually, not many people remember now, about 2 years after the invasion ("liberation") the correct order of the reasons ... even though everyone who was in favor of this war used all of them until the used reason was proven void. One: Saddam supports al-Quaeda and is directly linked to the 9/11-attacks. This theory was based on indications, no one ever presented a fact. Two: Saddam has or tries to get weapons of mass destruction; he even has mobile labs to produce them. A couple of weeks ago, George announced that there were no WMDs in Iraq and there never were. Three: Saddam is an evil dictator and after the "liberation" the iraqi people will be free. One name: Abu Ghurayb (aka Abu Ghraib). And a few months ago, a survey showed that about 100,000 people have been killed in the time period from 6 to 18 months after the invasion began, even though iraqbodycount.com said that about 17,000 have been mentioned in official reports or newspaper articles. The method this survey used does not give accurate information but the results of a survey done in the same style in the Kosovo have been accepted by US officials, whereas the Iraq-survey has not been accepted as accurate (probably because the Kosovo figures were way better for the NATO than the Iraqi survey is for the Coalition)... ... and about the North Korean WMDs: George does very well with not provoking the Koreans too much - They have missiles which can reach the US west coast and claims to have nuclear warheads (several "western" intelligence agencies said so even before the war on iraq began) I don't think he's not going into the DPR Korea because he/his officials prepare a war against Iran. The US army's in Iraq (on the western side of Iran) and Afghanistan (eastern side), US-friendly Pakistan south of Afghanistan, the US navy in the persian gulf and, according to an article in the New York Times, some fresh treaties with Azerbaijan (in the north) which allow the USA to use azerbaijanese (?) airports with military planes, both armed and unarmed and also to attack other nations with aircraft launched from these airports, the Iran is surrounded by nations which object its policies. But: Russian military sources said that the Soviet Union sold a few hundreds of high-end anti-ship-missiles to Iran. Anti-ship missiles which are faster than the US anti-missile-system on ships can handle; bundled with mobile launchers along the coast, these missiles can cover all the persian gulf - part of the supply route for the forces in Iraq and home for some (US) aircraft carrier groups. If the Irani government does not want the US navy to be in the persian gulf, it would be pretty easy to destroy many, many US ships (but it would be suicide for the Iranis to do so before they've been attacked by the USA or a country backed by the USA [israel? Israel does have the aircraft and weapons to destroy/damage targets in Iran but they would have to refill their tanks on aircraft carriers in the persian gulf or on iraqi airports and the Israeli government showed in the past that it's more than willing to use military power against any nation which might become a threat in the near future...] Nope, there are still people around who believe that the USA are the world's salvation (judged by the way they talk). I personally believe that the american people are not selfish but ignorant (mostly - you're not the worst thing that could happen to this board, you realized that the given reasons for the war against Iraq don't make sense). Ignorant because the average life of an US citizen does not require him or her to think about other nations. The USA are the only remaining superpower in this world, superpower not only as in size of army but also in size of economy. The US-Dollar is official currency in about 50 nations but only the USA prints dollars. This gives the USA a nearly unlimited credit line and even though the US economy exported less values than were imported during the last 25 years, the US economy is still pretty stable... back to the quote: It's not "stealing", it was an official contract between the Iraqi government established and protected by the USA until such time there is a "freely" elected government and Halliburton. A week or something ago, Halliburton officials declared that Halliburton has restored the Iraqi oil sources, refineries - even though the Iraqi government still has to import gasoline and diesel because the iraqi resistance destroyed oil wells, pipelines and refineries right after they were rebuilt by Halliburton contractors or Halliburton contractors were denied access to these areas. By the way, before the invasion, the iraqi people used gasoline to clean their floors because it was cheaper than water, now they can't afford neither water nor gasoline. And it was not only about the oil: The "freely" elected government passed a law which makes it illegal to use any seeds which were not bought from Monsanto. Iraqi farmers may not use their own seeds, no matter how ridiculous this sounds. By the way, Monsanto's aim is "to control 100 per cent of the global seed market by 2020". Iraq: check... It's not that bad that DPR Korea probably has nukes now. It's worse that the USA, which signed and ratified the non-proliferation-treaty distributed nukes to nations which can not or don't want to develop nuclear weapons on their own. Among other nations, german pilots train how to launch nukes from german aircrafts and 16 nuclear warheads are stationed on US army bases in Germany but are supposed to be used by german pilots...

sorry, I don't know what kind of thing I have to imagine but it sounds like whatever it is is a pre-WWII-thingy with the serial number 6407 (<-- stating the obvious).maybe you could search your town for some guy who buys/sells antique things and ask him what he thinks about this?anyway, don't try ebay - if it's some rare thing, you might end up getting less than its value...

since there are so many people here who were unable to find the quotes-file (including me), could you just quote the quotes?I'll give the Banana 2000 a try when I boot my comp tomorrow and thanks for the hint to the pipes =)

I'm finally done with school - and it feels great ... though I'll have only about three months before I'll fall victim to the draft :/

I don't know how many of you are interested in this topic, but: I've ordered a copy of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe from the german "Federal Agency for Political Education" and, among other interesting things, discovered that this constitution will implement the death penalty through the backdoor. Quotes from this treaty will be translated from german to english by me but I will try not to change the meaning of them. In part II (named "The Charta of the European Union") of this constitution-to-be, it says in article II-62: This article alone sounds great. But in the annexes, which will be part of the Constitution as well, there are explanations as to what is meant by the articles. -- Article II-62 is the charta's second article, the first 60 articles of this constitution are about the basic principles of the european union. You should keep this in mind during the next part of my post... What worries me about these explanations is 3.a.III, the use of force to beat down an uprising or revolution.I've observed the news for quite some time now and every time a larger demonstration turned violent, some politicians began to talk about the threat an uprising would be for Germany. If the constitution is ratified by all member states of the European Union, this constitution with all its protocols and explanations will be official law by november 2006, just in time for the G8/WTO-conferences in Germany in 2007, where I will be on the streets of either Berlin or the place where the meetings will be - and as I have learned from reports about other G8/WTO-conferences, it's not only the protesters who use more violence than necessary [actually, zero violence would be fine for me] but also the police. In Genua, 2001, the police cleared the Media Centre and the school where most reporters slept in (most of the people in these two buildings were badly injured even though they only started resisting the police when it was clear that they would use excessive force anyway) and the next day, an italian cop killed a protester with a headshot. Afterwards noone could clearly tell whether the cop was allowed to shoot the protester by italian law or not; whereas the killing would definitely be allowed by the negative definitions I quoted above (the police can always give the story the "was necessary"-twist afterwards)...

you're a little bit too late with this question, unless Bush finds some way to convince the american people to give him a third session as president, he won't run again.Among the two options listed, Kerry is definitely the lesser of two evils (but that's just because he's a Democrat); though I'm not sure he'd be better than George W..horus: you could still vote Nader. I don't know too much about his program but I know that he promised to free Leonard Peltier (a political prisoner who would be enough stuff for an own thread) when he is elected president. Unfortunately, he only got 1.5% of the votes in the last election :/

I thought about answering to some of your suggestions first but then I decided that it would be hard to make the change from giving my opinion about other's most important issues to mine, so here's mine:I think the biggest regional issue right now is the European Constitution, which will, de facto, replace most national constitutions. My problem with the european constitution is, among other things, that it makes upgrading the military abilities compulsory for all member states ("each member state has to increase its military power on a regular basis" or nearly like this) and that a not too well-known additional protocol to this constitution, which is supposed to be ratified by all member states in the same process as the consitution is ratified, includes the death sentence, even though the consitution clearly says that the death sentence is abolished in all member states: "Violent protests may be shut down with the use of force. This includes the use of both non-lethal and lethal weapon systems by the police forces."Hopefully, the french referundum on this constitution results in the french people objecting this constitution as the polls say they'll do (from 52% up to 63% against and rising), even though this amount of people against it could not be reached without the European Nationalist Front [strange, huh? So many nationalist parties work together on an international level...], which I dislike almost as much as the constitution-to-be.On a worldwide level, I think it's the Globalization which we have to be most concerned about. I truly believe that it's not bad that it's so easy to have contact to people from all over the world, to travel to the other side of the world and spread informations all over the world (well, at least most parts of it. This exlcudes most people in "third-world" countries and the poor people in the "western world").The bad side about this process is that national governments, which are basically restricted to their own, small piece of land, lose their influence on laws, even though they are supposed to do what's good for their people, while huge, multinational corporations gain more and more power [according to Naomi Klein's researches in No Logo!, among the top 100 economic powers, there are only 49 nations but 51 corporations]. Corporations like Nike [or Adidas or Reebok or Gap or ... or ...], which let contractors produce their clothes by child labor in the Export Production/Free Trade Zones at costs of about $2 per piece (and wages of $2 per 14 hours working-day) really aren't the worst in this process. Even worse are corporations like Monsanto, which wants to control "only" 100% of the market for seeds by the year 2020. They achieved this for Iraq with a law passed by the "souvereign" Iraqi government, which forbids Iraqi farmers to use their own seeds and explicitely forces them to buy seeds from Monsanto.But there are also some small rays of hope in this: Monsanto's corn seeds have been forbidden by the government of the Indian state Arda Pradesh (I hope I got the name right. The spelling might be a bit different but I'm sure about the Pradesh) because these seeds have a negative influence on local plants and are a financial risk to indian farmers. I hope that the decision of a democratically elected government on this issue will have a positive influence on the way other governments deal with this. Unfortunately, if the government of entire India does not agree with this decision, it might make Arda Pradesh look like a rogue state :/Another positive thing about "the globalization" is that there are some people who use those things which enable the big corporations to conquer the world in a creative way - and resist the "corporate world" with websites like Indymedia or Wikipedia; cellular phones to coordinate different parts of large protests and comparatively cheap methods of transportation to travel to protests in a neighbouring nation, or, as a guy from an american organization for better/cheaper social serivces in the USA did, even to other continents -----inspired: yep, pharma corps actually invent illnesses when they discovered some new stuff while researching on a cure for a different disease. Some years ago, people got some sessions with a psychologist when they had depressions, nowadays they get some anti-depressants which make them feel comfortable for some time - but a not too well-known study showed that the suicide rate among people who were supposed to take these drugs is even higher than the suicide rate among normal people with depressions. Another thing is that people treated with antidepressants are more likely to be aggressive, because the pills just make them feel non-depressed without influencing into which kind of mood they switch. I'll stop here before I give away too much wrong informations because it's been some weeks since I read about this study...iarkalwen: it's a great thing what you've done for this cancer cure thingy. keep it up [and I think it's not only necessary to do something about an issue one is concerned with but also to encourage people who are doing something to keep it up]nexdesign: well ... I don't worry too much about gas prices because I'm usually going by bike (and therefore I'm more concerned about food prices). But if you think $2 per gallon is much: we spend about $1.50 per liter (-> about $6 per gallon, if I'm not completely mistaken) in Germany - and most people didn't stop going by car, even though we paid only $4 per gallon a few years ago. There's a reason why there are small cars which burn less than a gallon per 100km. Actually, our government gives tax advantages to people who use these cars and also give money to car producers so they keep on developing cars which burn even less...

hey, this slogan is nice ... ADIDAS - Impossible is nothing defaces to Fair Wages - Impossible is nothing well, this sounds like the first set of shoes which is not manufactured for about $2 (1.98 raw material, 0.02 cents wages) but I don't think that the increased maufacturing cost will do the workers any good :/ anyway, who needs shoes like these? I can adjust my walking/running style to the surface I'm moving on without a computer's help, I can tell how far I've walked/run by having a look at the sign posts along the streets - and if someone gives me $250 to buy shoes, I wouldn't have to worry about my shoes for the next 10 years or something like that. not to mention that there's nothing like a worn-in set of $15-sneakers, I've got mine since three years and I'm not going to let them down...

I don't like the "real" classical music that much but Yann Tiersen's soundtrack of the movie "Am?lie" is great

marion: I think the personal information you're not allowed to publish here is stuff like your phone number, address, etc (like "Hi, I'm Mike Example, 123 Evergreen Terrace, 12345 Springfield and my phone number is 123-456789")...Disorder Rating Paranoid: High Schizoid: Very High Schizotypal: High Antisocial: Moderate Borderline: Low Histrionic: Low Narcissistic: Low Avoidant: Low Dependent: Low Obsessive-Compulsive: Moderate... and I thought "I've been schizophrenic but since the therapy, we're both doing fine" was just a joke...

wyllt: I hoped you would clarify your position in a way like this. Before my parents allowed me to attend my first demonstration, they acted as if they were totally against what the protest was for and forced me to talk the whole issue over with them. After we were done with the talking my mom told me she was glad I knew what I was about to do and not just being an action tourist :(sub: yelling slogans can be fun, too but you should not be afraid to keep your mouth shut when someone starts yelling a slogan which you don't like, if necessary: make up an answer and start yelling that...

*wants an edit button* The sign looked nearly like this one, just spread on two separate signs: http://www.i-mockery.com/goodpics/water-on-road.jpg

hey, Italian Pasta sounds ok to me ... but guess what we had in school a couple of days ago: Vegetarian Meatballs [being no absolute vegetarian but interested in making trouble, I asked whether those meatballs are made from meat or made from vegetarian-compatible stuff. That girl who gave out the food couldn't tell me so I took them to be able to tell my vegetarian friends whether they could eat in school or not...]and, another funny thing I discovered in Google's image search quite a while ago: A picture of a road sign which read "Water on Road". Underneath this, there was an additional sign, reading "When Raining"...

If you think that's much for a democratic nation, have a look at Italy - their head of state, Berlusconi, is also owner of a huge media empire...... but at least he publicly announced that this is going to be his last term in office and he won't run for it again, so the italian media will be different from the government again :(anyway, I think I've heard the abbreviation FCC somewhere, but in the context of electronic devices which are tested for home and office use (like my keyboard and mouse ), I think that's not an FCC which can censor any artists, can they? Could one of you please explain who or what the censoring-FCC is?(sorry, I'm running short on time but I'll be back tomorrow)

according to this test, I'm gonna live for 84 years ... I'm 19 now, so this makes about 65 years to go o_OI hope I find some interesting things to do during all this time

I know I should turn my comp off when I'm going out for an hour or the afternoon but sometimes I'm just too lazy to do so (but I turn off the screens).by the way, did you know that several studies estimate that the USA's energy consumption could be decreased by 50% and the energy consumption in the "western" world by about 40% if people would just turn off their computer screens while they're not using them and shut down the comp over night or when they're not using them for a couple of hours?

I've learned that in school a couple of years ago but even without knowing this I never was the type to take pills every day - I believe my mom was right in teaching me that there might be as many pills on the market as pharma corporations want to make money but that a really good diet can only be achieved by eating fruits and vegetables instead of sweets and pills. Next time you're going to buy a stack of pills: Try a good variation of fruits instead, you might have to eat more in mass but most of them is water, so don't worry, you won't grow fat by eating the good stuff instead of Fast and/or Junk Food with some pills (and: Fruits taste way better than those pills )

I usually ride my bike for distances up to 100km and more, the only problem with this is to explain people why you're late and that it has been great ride -_-other than that I occasionally take the bus into the city or take a train into other regions of germany, though I miss my bike when I'm there :/

when I first heard this song, I noticed that I agree to most of the points I understood right from the start and the guys from Anti-Flag simplified the way these kind of things work quite well - I adapted these rethorical figures for the english lessons in which we were going to talk about wars and why/how they work (well ... we did all of that in other classes as well but in those times we did that in german...). My english teacher thought himself to be quite educated (ok, he is) but when he said something like "hey, the muslims are all bad for these and these reasons", I couldn't accept this generalization and asked him why he thinks that all muslims are bad just because some of them do bad things and whether he truly believed that he had the right to put the label "educated" on himself in this case. He didn't like me anymore after I said that... ;D

-_-they're not celebrating yet, the first machine that will bring money into their pockets is something like number 250, but some guy from airbus I've seen on tv yesterday said they will probably receive more orders after the first flight and that only the big airlines which knew that they're going to have to have some of those planes ordered them already a couple of years ago and that, once there are enough airports where they can land with this plane, the demand is going to increase.by the way, I've got a question for you people: They showed a map on tv with all the airports where this plane can land now and within the next two years. One of those airports was a couple of miles into the indian ocean from the coast of Madagascar. Who wants to fly into the indian ocean?

munchie: sorry for destroying your illusions but the pics you posted show the high-end-features, which will probably be ordered by those who pay this kind of toy out of the pocket. The average airline will probably have the max-seats-version with up to 800 seats or only 550 seats but a bigger first class...anyway, I'm glad that this plane's first flight succeeded since two people I know work for one of the companies (EADS) which are part of the production chain (that's so great for them - their boss announced today that they won't have to sack people for the next couple of years since there are already orders for 154 of these giants and they hope to receive more orders =))

a few years ago, I belonged to those persons who say they definitely don't do any sports at their own free will but after some time I've realized that I'm way happier in a healthy body. That does not mean that I'm a sports freak or something like that, it's just - I like being active and I need to be trained somewhat during the summers 'cause it would be pretty embarassing when I, the lifeguard, jump into the water just to have to be rescued, too -_-Nowadays I'm excercising quite much - I'm going to school by bike every day (16km [a little bit more than 8 miles] in the morning and 16km after school), 90 minutes judo on mondays and thursdays (though I'm not going every thursday), 60 minutes swimming on fridays, up to two hours free judo excercising on saturdays and up to two hours free swim excercising on sundays; plus some games of frisbee every once in a while when there's someone who plays with me. Frisbee's actually a great sport, you can play it almost everywhere - in school (even within the building, thanks to my soft rubber frisbee ), on public places (remember the soft frisbee - hitting a bystander's head with a hard frisbee is a bad idea), on the fields around my home and about everywhere =)

I thought about buying one of those a couple of months ago and the 12V-car adapter was just a great thing - but they're too expensive :/anyway, my thought about playing around with the car adapter: it's 12V, about the size of the yellow lines from your computer's power supply. Having a mini fridge at the next LAN party must be something great to show off, if your case doesn't do it

I'll PM you in a second, though this violates the rules. well, I hope the mods see why I've violated the rules in this case (and yes, I will bear the punishment for this...)

I've read all of these books, cookies ... and they're all great for their genre =)Michael: Tell me more about Wyrm, I just noticed it in the stack of books I'm going to read when I'm done with my exams