brainless

dragonfly: I agree with you as far as credibility is concerned; I've read about this incident yesterday here (in german); this [CNN.com] is one of this guy's sources. opaque: yes, the pakistani people, at least in the area around the border to Afghanistan don't share their government's position in the war on terrorism. The number of casualties fluctuates between sources, the pakistani military says 14 people; pakistani media write about 18 killed and 6 severely injured, among the dead are said to be eight children between 5 and 10 years of age and four women. According to Sahibzada Haroon Rashid, member of the pakistani government, there were neither members of al-Qua'eda nor foreigners among the dead. A couple of days before this attack, UAVs have been seen above this village; probably information gathered by those has been used to "identify" al-Zawahiri (said to be al-Qua'eda's no. 2 - but a hierarchical naming system is not useful to describe a non-hierarchical network) and Mullah Omar (member of the Taliban). Taliban spokespersons claim that no Taliban official was in this region at the time of the attacks. -This is a shortened version of what seems to be the facts which can be gathered on al-Jazeera, CNN and several other sites; look at my german source to find a couple of links, most of those point to english sites- This is another incident which shows how much respect US officials have for the lifes of innocent persons; "friendly" governments (after all, Pakistan is a member of the Coalition of the Willing/Stupid/whatever you name them): 1) The CIA conducted an air strike on pakistani territory even though Pakistan never gave permission for US armed personnel to use force on it. By this logic, US military and secret services will use force and risk killing innocent people in Berlin, London, Paris as well if they've got "reliable information". 2) Based on what has been called "reliable information" that at least three wanted terrorists entered at least one of the three houses, these three houses have been flatted. There was no hint yet that anyone at any point in the chain of command even spent one single thought about other people who might be sleeping in these houses (they struck at around 3:00 AM local time. What do people at your place usually do at this time?) One very important question comes to my mind: Would the CIA [which has, according to US media, conducted the strike] fire missiles at villages in Germany if they had "reliable information" that someone they want dead or alive (in this order) has entered a house somewhere? And if not, why are 18 german people worth more than 18 pakistani people?

so what's the problem with a country trying to build their own nuclear power plants? that's perfectly legal under the Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty ("every member state has the right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful use"), which, by the way, has in the past been broken by the USA and most West European countries, including my own, Germany, and the violations of this treaty still go on. The irani government does not say they want to develop nuclear weapons and a well-respected muslim scholar in Iran issued a Fatwa prohibiting the development, production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons for any muslim. I suppose you remember what a fatwa is: An evil instrument of fanatic muslim priests which are binding for every muslim following them, just like laws issued by our respective countries are supposed to apply to every single one of us. well, there's a small difference between the way fatwas and laws work: Muslims are free to choose their priest, they can even stop following one if they don't agree with his teaching. We are not free to follow the laws of another nation if we don't agree with our government. So if a well-respected muslim scholar issues a fatwa and does not lose followers after doing so, this usually means that people agree with him. Kind of a problem for our propaganda people if they accuse people of developing nuclear weapons when those accused say otherwise (and have a way better reputation of doing what they say/openly admitting of being about to do something bad before doing so)... ongnoai: you've made a very good guess - China is considering to change some of its state reservers from the US-Dollar to other currencies, probably the Euro...: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

cerebral: what would they need a court for? they've got Guantanamo... * Reuters had a news about US customs and border protection [i'm not sure if there's a special agency for that, the word used in the german Reuters news was "Grenzschutz" so I translated it] opening letters from abroad. also mentioned in this news report was the case of Grant Goodman, a retired professor who received a letter from a friend of his on the Philippines and noticed that it had been opened by the customs. I'm not sure about bleeding-edge technology in this field but I doubt that terrorists have found a way to fold themselves and their weapons to sizes which fit into standard-sized envelopes. Why would they bother to smuggle weapons into the country when they can be bought with little effort right there anyways? * in late April 2003, a guy working for Medicins sans Frontieres (Doctors without borders) experienced what the Patriot Act means for anybody of the wrong origin: I quote his closing remark: http://www.alternet.org/story/15770/patriot_raid ----- I myself did believe that law enforcement does only hit those guilty of breaking laws once. Then I went to my first demonstration (something which should be covered under two main freedoms you should definitely defend: The Freedom of Speech and the Right to assemble [peacefully]), it got attacked by the police. To serve and protect... ...to serve and protect who? Obviously not us.

by now, the full research paper on the costs of the war has been published: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ (beware: 205kb plain text ... ok, minus html tags; I wasn't able to load the single image to be included in this paper due to an error 404), here's the site of the guy who wrote this: http://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/jstiglitz/ ...and here's a shortened version in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jan/07/usa.iraq

well ... they've led a war in pretty much this area a little more than 10 years before they've gone there again and it's not as if there was no enforcement of the northern and southern no-fly-zones in the time between Gulf War II and III, including bombs being dropped on iraqi military targets (the air forces did not have as much trouble recognizing the difference between military and civilian targets as they had within the last three years, for whatever reason). Not expecting stuff like sandstorms in a desert is somewhat crazy... liauce: Bush was not thinking, that's the problem...: "I had doubts about attacking Iraq but my higher father told me to..." right, it did the economy well ... but what good did it do the average american citizen, the average iraqi citizen? None. Just about every militant group and organization now has one reason more to attack US facilities or the USA itself; the average iraqi citizen lives in constant fear of being hit by a bomb (placed by the resistance or the occupational forces, they both do it; dropped by the USA or UK) or assassination through US or UK forces. Half a year ago the death toll among Iraqis was estimated to be 100,000 to 125,000 in the year after the war was officially declared to be won (that was in May 2003; https://www.iraqbodycount.org/ does only count those that have been mentioned in the news or official reports and died within 6 hours after an attack). During the Kosovo War the way this figure has been estimated [the country was divided into, I'm not sure, 33 districts and in each district some thousand households/families have been questioned as to whether they've lost a member and how many members they've lost in the time in question and how they died ... I'm mirroring the site I got this from to my computer and I'll post a link when I stumble upon this article, it was pretty interesting...) was considered perfectly legitimate by US officials. The Iraqi version did not return any comments ("We do not know of this study"). One thing you have to keep in mind about this figure: It only represents the number of people killed and does not make a difference between civilian and military targets but if you look at reports about US attacks in Iraq, the US usually says "X terrorists have been killed in an assault in city Blah", news agency and resistance reports say "X+some people have been killed in an assault in city Blah, Y of those were women and Z children" [children and women usually don't participate in man-stuff in patriarchaic (sp?) countries; fighting is man-stuff in all major muslim societies (though there are some muslim scholars who propagate equal rights; those are, however, a slim minority)] ...so with the invasion itself and the time elapsed since this study, the body count is somewhere around the 200,000. Before the invasion, President Hussein was accused of having slaughtered about 300,000 of his own people. Within all his time in power, several decades. The Coalition of the Willing needed less than two years to kill just as many...

actually there are cultures in which the woman's surname becomes the family name, not the man's :)AFAIK this has something to do with the fact that the man dealt with external issues [i.e. with matters not concerning the household] while the woman was responsible of keeping the house running [don't underestimate this job!]; until somewhat recent times, historically seen (as you might know, even in democracies women were not always allowed to vote ... in Germany, for example, women gained the right to vote in 1918; in some other european countries even later ... even though there aren't many people left challenging this right, it is a very new feature - even in ancient Greece, where the first documentated democracies were established, women did not participate in society [though they did meet with other women ... but they usually did not have more influence than what they could make their husband think])...

Wrong! (yes, with exclamation mark but no personal offense meant ... and after I've written this post I'd dare to remove the ! since it's not the US government taking over the oil but names like Halliburton, Exxon, Shell, to name a few even though others are involved as well) Before Gulf War III, the iraqi oil industry was completely state-owned; after Gulf War II it came nearly to an end due to international sanctions against Iraq; since 1996, Iraq was allowed to export limited amounts of oil in exchange for food, medical supplies and other things needed to serve humanitarian needs, since 1999 Iraq got permission to export unlimited amounts of oil to serve humanitarian needs (and humanitarian needs only...). As a result of this, the average iraqi citizen's living conditions improved drastically. One of the first bills passed by the US-installed Iraqi interim (?) Government opened the iraqi oil market to foreign corporations, enabling them to buy tax-free (the latter might change in future) control over iraqi oil; iraqi resistance however is somewhat successfull at stopping oil production, it is currently at about three quarters of the pre-war level (fluctuating since Iraqi resistance forces are somewhat successfull when it comes to disturbing oil production). Before the war, US officials expected to be able to pay for the invasion (study recent reports ... the people don't see anything of your liberation) with iraqi oil; the estimated costs to the USA range between some hundred million dollars (direct war spendings) and several billion dollars (including estimates on how economy would have evolved without the war). well, right now the iraqi oil industry does not even support the iraqi people and the multi-national corporations involved to not earn as much as expected. One question: Which sane government would give a source of money and power into foreign hands? With the iraqi oil reserves under your control you'd have a huge influence on today's economy. What do you expect what the oil market is going to look like in ten years? [well, the worst scenario in which I personally do not believe is that the world's oil reserves will be somewhere near zero by then ... I'd say it'll last about another twenty years even though the price for it will drastically increase unless another fuel is introduced on a large scale within the next few years]

this will happen to you every once in a while, allfather ... I actually don't care that much about my hardware since I'm usually not purchasing new stuff but make claims on what my friends would throw in the garbage bin......but I can completely understand your frustration (?), that happened to me once when I made a post which was like two or three dozens of paragraphs long and every single paragraph of it contained references to up to three sources which falsified arguments or prejudices [with no source to back it up at all] voiced in the posts before - and right after my post, people just began using exactly what I had just proven wrong (I could have understand this within an hour after my post ... but days later? people should have read this and reviewed their position by then... :/ oh, by the way, this happened on a board where there was nothing to gain in return for such a long post, here I'd have at least received some weeks worth of hosting credits...

wow, that's a tough one ... I hope you get that guy......I'm not absolutely against damaging other people's property for a good reason (well, not exactly "damage" ... it's usually something that can be brought back into the regular state with no or little effort so it's more an annoyance than damage; the closest I've come to that is letting out the air of SUV-tires but I don't think they'd get far before noticing that there's something wrong) but without making it obvious and leaving a note with the reasons for the action behind, risking injuring/killing someone or even someone who isn't involved at all? no way I can accept that... (I assume that you're not a bullying type of person and did not get a fair warning with some hints how you could get in contact with the person responsible for this...)

right, because he tried to join the iraqi resistance he contacted AP instead of leaving the "Green Zone" ... and I don't think that it would matter to the US military in Iraq whether they shoot a 16-year old American with Iraqi heritage or a 16-year old Iraqi. After all I've read about the US behavior down there, I doubt that he would be called anything else than a terrorist in the official statements... ...if he tried to join the war and got caught, he'd probably be in Guantanamo now and not on his way home (well, not exactly Guantanamo Bay but one of the US torture centers somewhere in Iraq 'cause why should they make the effort of bringing him to Cuba when there's a cell ready for him a couple of miles away?)

sympatico: remember ... many does not always have to imply good quality :Danyways, I'll try to learn spanish during my 9 months of slavery this year (from early April to late December ... I don't know whether I'll be able to stick around during this time :/);I'll get gentoo running on my laptop (I've already managed to install the kernel, core tools and bootloader);I'll start drinking beer (I've let too many free beers pass; that's gotta stop ... others drink for free and I get rid of my money with the stuff I like);and I'll face a nice challenge: They can force me to appear at work for 9 months (or spend 5 years in jail ... guess what I'll choose) but they can't make me like it. I won't be nice on my way to this place (if I hadn't received a voucher for a free ride there I wouldn't have bought a ticket ... kicking me out of the train would be the best thing anyone could do for me), I won't be nice and friendly to my boss (after all, I don't want to work there), I'll let the people there know that I don't want to be there and grateful for any complaints about my behavior, I'll use any opportunity to get away from that place ... oh, and most of all: I won't do the job right. If they want to get work done, they should go for people who want to do that......so my 2006 is just about screwed before the first week is over...

well ... I'm not finished with thinking this through but as long as a government and the people of a nation call it a democratic nation, it should not be possible to make a difference between the people's will and governmental actions since the people, by the meaning of the word "democracy", "ruling of the people", is the government. Therefore a democratic government which hungers for power is always backed by a people which wants this power. I know that there's <strike>always</strike> sometimes some kind of discussion whether a governmental action is "right" or "wrong" and I'll be glad about any corrections made on this theory but up to now, I think that this theory applies at least when you look at a country from the outside... There was a time when I thought just like that but: Does being part of a hierarchy really relieve you from the need to use your own common sense? I mean, the soldiers in Abu Ghurayb did only what they had to do (didn't they?). The german Wehrmacht, SA and SS 70 years ago did only what it had to do, didn't they? Does this make them innocent? (ok, the Wehrmacht was a draft army so that's kind of an excuse...)

seer: don't worry, there are always better things to do than joining an army...horus: congratulations to your decision to throw those war"toys" away but there's quite a difference between playing children and killing machines. A children's game is interrupted when one is injured, war continues. Children are not as stupid as many people think they are (well, at least some ... there are always some who blindly follow their leader...)evangelion: I hope this was a joke. A somewhat bad one... fasdsffasda: I hope there won't be such a war ... but if there is, I'll definitely keep the promise I made to the germany army when I wrote my letter asking to be recognized as conscious objector: "No matter whether you accept my decision to refuse serving in any army other than the Rebel Clown Army, I will do my best to disturb any army which tries to operate from the area around me. If you turn my request down, I swear that I will do my very best to destroy as much of your war machinery as possible..."by the way, did you know that during the last year, the local army training ground was disturbed by someone shooting red signal ammo into the night? [at least in the germany army that means something "everyone stop doing whatever you're doing and wait for orders"]

surprise this shouldn't be too much of one or did anyone really believe that a clause like "you may not use these techniques against our own people" would stop an agency which is only sparcely controlled by a hand full of people which are probably going to keep their mouths shut for quite a while?this isn't going to be too much of a problem for german secret services: Our Secretary of State says that he'd like to get a law passed which requires every ISP, every mobile phone network provider, every phone company, every webmail-provider etc etc to save all user data (connections made; numbers dialled; numbers they were called from; duration of connection; emails sent and received...) for at least one year _and_ provide a software interface which officials can use to access this data without having to contact the company(ies) involved......oh, and by the way, police and agencies are supposed to be allowed to access these data pools without having to ask for permission by a judge (though this is already a farce 'cause usually they get their requests for wiretapping a phone passed within a couple of minutes...)

yay, that sounds like a nice thing ... though it wouldn't help me at home 'cause there is a cell phone signal all around our house but as soon as you reach the front door, the connection dies (maybe we didn't pay the bill? ;D)ejay: if your access point has an antenna plug, you might want to try to get one ... or increase the ap's sending power, though I don't know how to do that...as for a world-wide WiFi network: that's a nice idea and you'd best start with your city there's a project at the local university by some guys who're trying to set up a city-wide wireless network where everybody who can afford the equipment sets up an access point and if you need help, they come over to increase the default sending power from about 28mW to 100mW (the maximum sending power you may have in Germany without having to get a licence). AFAIK they've got the campus area and some pieces of the city centre covered already and the best thing: it's absolutely free to use ... you might not always get a real broadband connection but it's fast enough to check your mails and stuff ;)

since you're posting here I assume that you already have got a PC at home, probably a desktop system.Here's what I've done: While I've been at school, I did not need a laptop since I've already had my desktop system and actually, my bank account usually didn't allow me to buy a laptop. Since I'm at university I'm able to afford a laptop and it's pretty nice to have a desktop "server" [AMD Athlon 1800+; 512MB RAM; 255GB HDD; 64MB geForce 4200Ti; DVD-recorder; Gigabit-LAN / compiled from my friends' spare parts and cost me about 100 Euros] at home and I shot a special offer laptop a month or something like that ago at 870 Euros: AMD Turion 64bit 3000+; 512MB RAM; 60GB HDD; ATI Radeon Xpress 200M (shared memory); Gigabit-LAN; WiFi; Memory Card Reader; USB2.0; FireWire...when it comes to performance, UT2004 works just as good on this laptop as on my desktop system [at least that's the impression I've had while playing it and obviously you'll have to get an external mouse instead of using the built-in touchpad-thingy if you're going to play more than the one or other game every once in a while] and it's actually more convenient to sit on the bed with the laptop to do some work than sitting in front of the desktop system.The laptops portability is another huge plus since 60GB are enough for a couple of mp3s and most other files you think you might need (and of course your school/studies/work data);one point against the laptop are the small speakers which don't reach my stereo linked to the desktop in terms of sound quality [but there's a remote control-plugin for winamp which enables you to control winamp through the network or even the internet if necessary]....my advice is: Don't go for one, get both ... but rather a laptop since they perform just as well as desktop systems combined with easy transportation...

thanks for that paper I'm living in Germany and I've always wondered what those three green LEDs on cash machines are for since they serve no obvious purpose (by the way, they're running some flavor of WinNT according to the blue screen I've seen on one). But now that I've read that there might be a cam hidden behind one of those I know where the dome cams with the label "To protect your privacy we take pictures of you, especially while using cash machines" have gone or better: the cams are gone, the labels are still there... anyways, here are some more useful hints to protect your privacy on your own: 1) Always have some stickers with you to stick over a lens or something you think might be a lens (it's possible to get some cheap "anti-CCTV"-stickers [most groups don't want more than they spend on printing] but any other sticker works just as well) 2) If you don't have stickers or fear that those will be removed too fast, one of those small color spray cans like sprayers use will work even better, though there won't be any message to other people, they'll only see someone having tested their new can. The best cans for this are barely larger than a hand. By the way, you don't have to stand around in front of the cam for too long, you can just as well spray a little dot on the lens while walking along... 3) You think you might be recognized if someone has a look at the cam's tape to find out who disabled it? a hooded shirt and a piece of cloth to cover your face might do the trick, sun glasses are a nice feat but not necessary [yet? in movies like Minority Report they identify you by scanning your iris]. 4) If you need to do something rather extreme: Cut the cable. This obviously does not work on wireless cameras. And you should be careful not to get yourself electrocuted, if I had to choose between no privacy or being electrocuted, I'd rather give up my privacy... Remember: I'm not asking you to break any laws. While you might get away with #1 and #2, #4 is definitely damaging someone else's property. In some situations even #3 might be illegal. If you like laws, you probably shouldn't try to protect your privacy. But hey, if you obey laws, you probably don't even care about your privacy since you've got nothing to hide. well, those hints obviously only help t fight the beginnings [like some people here in Germany do] and not in places where there already is a pretty tight network of <strike>spy</strike> security cams... though there are about no politicians who understand that it's pretty much impossible to prevent a crime by simply observing it - and the latest arguments in favor of worldwide CCTV networks is that you can stop terrorists from blowing themselves up with those cams... anyways, if you can't stop the flood of cameras ... print yourself a "CCTV Superhero"-T-Shirt I've still got the image I've created to print on those transfer-an-image-from-a-foil-to-a-shirt-Foils but I've got problems connecting to my image hosting site right now :/ (it's basically just a camera I copied out of a "CCTV in operation"-sign from a CCTV cam-vendor's site with "CCTV" above the camera and "Superhero" below it, both in Comic Sans MS [i like that font if it's not for a pretty serious issue...]

freesoul: what about a throat malfunction? I'm pretty sure it happened to you before that you were eating and drinking smething and suddenly had to choke 'cause your food's gone down the wrong lane. Now imagine what would happen if for some reason the choke-reflex does not kick in and you simply feel how something's stuck in your air tube?well, there are actually two kinds of drowning, wet and dry drowning (though it's more a technical issue since you'll die anyway): When there's some liquid (e.g. water, tea) in your lungs it's called wet drowning and when your throat closes the air tube because there's something which would get into your lungs if you'd start breathing [mostly liquids; it's usually possible to breathe when there's some solid stuff around, as long as you don't swallow - but during swallowing, your air tube's closed anyway] it's called dry drowning. An interesting fact about dry drowning: A couple of seconds before you finally die, your body releases endorphines so technically seen you die happy - but don't try this at home, you'll be unconscious before this happens so even if you realize that you've got to get breathing again you wouldn't be able to do so...

I know how to cook but I'm not that skilled since my parents share the job of making a meal once every couple of days (and then enough so it lasts through some days so we only have to warm it up)...

wild20: I've never spoken in favor of driving cars or even driving under the influence of any drugs ... whenever I use mind-affecting drugs (whatever it is ... be it cannabis, be it alcohol, be it caffeine...) I make sure that I've got at least one day off before I get behind or on a wheel again (ok, I might go for a ride on my bike again in the evening or if I know that I ride on roads which are seldom used by cars/seldom used at all ... but any car I'm supposed to drive would have to wait for the next morning... there's a very nice poem about that but I've never seen it in english yet so I'll translate it for you: Notice from jhaslip: Replaced with newer translation

yay, another point for special teas ;)sql: you wouldn't have to hide if you simply improve tea with some grass here in Germany it's somewhat easy to get your hands on stuff and as long as it's a small scale the police won't do too much about it...

welcome to real life ... it's bad when you get pulled over by the cops every once in a while because they're somewhat bored [i've rather got problems with those cops who are desperate to get some bikers to pay] but hey, it's pretty easy to get away from them if the street is busy enough so they can't get after you with their van but free enough for you to go faster than they can run ;)but I feel worse when we're out with some two hundred people, accompanied by two hundred riot cops on either side of us just because we might do something which is not covered by the right to assemble peacefully... that's just like asking for trouble, isn't it?

you might want to have a look at amnesty international's Death Penalty-Campaign: https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/ -> https://www.amnesty.org/en/ a must-read for everyone who's writing about death penalty, be it in favor or against [if you're in favor of capital punishment, there's certainly a way to show how stupid the "reasons" against it are]: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

be happy with your newly gained capitalism and shut up ... just kidding :PI'm one of those Germans who had the luck to visit parliament quite a few times during the last years (I guess it's something like 4 or 5 times within the last 4 years) and you can learn some really interesting things: The debating in front of the cameras is almost completely staged; the real debate happens behind closed doors (so it's not surprising that the main hall is mostly empty and those who are there usually have better things to do than paying attention)......a democracy which is supposed to be "good" (whatever that means ... that's stuff for another thread) can, temporarily, a strictly hierarchical democracy, with one institution creating rules for the entire state and perhaps some institutions for smaller regions [here in Germany we have the federal government; the states; counties and communities; most of the power is shared between federal and state-governments].well, there's the problem: Many politicians make politics their job and lose contact to the real world. It's not hard to do so with a salary of about 10,000 Euros per month [that's about ten times as much as the average working person gets and about 40 times what is considered to be the poverty line].On the other side, there are people who actively participate in groups which aim for the common good, not for the good of a few - but as it happened, those who plan to create a grassroots democracy [i.e. a democracy in which the people rule and are not being ruled by a few] usually act on the edge of illegality. People who actively participated in such groups can, even though they were never in contact with police, be denied access to government jobs (such as teaching at public schools) :/We learn: Legality does not mean justice. Justice often equals illegality...

what would you need broadband for? I've been on a 64k ISDN-line (slightly faster than dial-up) at home ever since we got our internet access 5 years ago and I never had any problems with that, neither in my everyday surfing habit nor when downloading large files (I've got friends who can afford broadband for that) - and for surfing, there's not that much of a difference between my verybroadband line at university and my ISDN line at home......well, I've made the effort to download a linux dvd image while at university today but I could have gotten that from a local linux user group as well......lacking imagination's situation is something worth complaining about...