brainless

you're cheating, hiaito ^_^my understanding of power goes along with spectre's,"Power is to be able to make people do something they don't want to do [in some cases, add: without them noticing that they didn't even want to do this]"

it somehow occurs to me that some people here only read the topic but not the first post or any posts in here at all o_Owell, for studying social networks this is really a great idea - there's no way you can get such detailled data by using questionnaires. I might participate in such a study myself if I know that it'll be hard to find out which cell phone I got - "participant #1234 was near participant #5678 in the morning and spent the evening with this person" would be an acceptable brach of my privacy if noone can connect #1234 to me.For supervising a company's employees or even the citizens of a country (or, come to that, all people who've got mobiles) this would also be great - or scary, depending on your point of view. yeah, most of the people here probably won't be of any interest to the average intelligence agency, but guess how great it would be to be able to find out whom a person has contact to with the effort of analyzing log files? that would be even better than people carrying mobile phones which are always on stand by [due to some laws which are about to pass legislation and a discovery by the EFF, I (and some other people) assume that it's not only possible to use a mobile phone to spy on people (after all, you're carrying a microphone around with you) in theory but is already possible. Did you know that many color laser printers add informations about the time and the printer's serial number in a regular pattern on whatever print job they get?]...

you forgot the option of using Cannabis (or whatever that plant's name is in english) to build (minus engine and stuff like that) and, more important, power cars. In the early years of car production those were actually in use - but then gov'ts began banning growing Cannabis completely, even though there are some breeds with a very low amount of THC (the psycho-active substance in cannabis) in them ... my favorite magazine's got an article about that online but unfortunately it's only in german...

...and you're totally right about the rest ... I'm always happy to see people venting about this, somewhen soon there'll be enough people upset about this that they'll actually meet each other - and, to quote the lyrics of a favorite song of mine:

...'cause when the masses of the world unite, it's a force they can not fight...

First of all, why do we call those who are FOR abortion, PRO-CHOICE? We call people against abortion, ANTI-ABORTIONISTS. So why not call people for it PRO-ABORTIONISTS?

Because it's about women being allowed to choose whether they want to have the child or whether they want to abort their pregnancy. Pro-Abortionist would mean as much as aborting pregnancies should become the rule while keeping the child would become an exception. Anti-Abortionists, however, are not necessarily Pro-Life since in some cases the mother's life is endangered due to pregnancy.

I would say that the equivalence of abortion is throwing an infant off a bridge into a freeway.

This is not true, an abortion in late weeks of pregnancy would rather be like giving an infant a lethal injection; throwing it off a bridge on a freeway would not only be followed by a charge of murder but also by a charge of dangerously disturbing traffic (well, at least in Germany throwing things off bridges on freeways is considered disturbing traffic).
In early weeks of pregnancy however, an embryo is nothing like an infant - organs and limbs are not really formed until the infant in spe is a couple of weeks old; I'm not sure when there is something like detectable brain activity. In this phase of pregnancy, an abortion would rather equal a scientist destroying a culture of cells he's been researching on than a fully-formed (though not grown up yet) human being being killed.
(I'm not going to declare a point at which the heap of cells ends and when a child begins since I haven't dealt with this topic in a long time ... but I'll stick to my opinion that there is a difference between early and late pregnancy...)

I wrote an essay on this in school. I had to look up the facts, the methods of abortion. Some of them are the most gruesome things you'll ever see, hear, etc. I won't expound on this as this is an open board.

wait until you have to deal with Female Genital Mutilation as practiced in some central african tribes (just one hint 'cause I don't want this debate to be led off topic: getting a new, clean razor blade is something most females being subject to this can consider themselves lucky...).
There is, however, no way destroying/killing something/someone can not be gruesome.

I think that people need to THINK before they act.

And people need to act when they have thought things through.

Like you said, abortion is nothing but legal murder.

I'd say it's rather a legal killing than a legal murder, though it might be murder under those circumstances which make the difference between a killing and a murder. Abortion to protect the mother's life, for example, would not be murder - or would you call a cop who kills someone to prevent this person from killing others a murderer?

well, the short form of this post has already been posted by brandice (though a world without rape/life threatening conditions is not necessarily a perfect world ... but it's closer to perfect than a world in which people tend to think black and white only or prefer not to think at all...)

In Germany it's "seinen Senf dazu geben" ("adding one's mustard") ... but I'm not sure where that comes from...

uhmm ... yeah, sounds kind of stupid

first of all ... why should I want to shop using my cell phone?I've got my comp and a couple of super-markets I can usually reach within less than 20 minutes - and that's cheaper than a wap connection......but I suppose there would be people crazy enough to use that...

my favorite's the "Protest Song", a collaboration by Anti-Flag and the Donots ... well, there are many, many songs by even more bands which point out what is bad about the system we live in - but there aren't that many songs with the message "take back the streets, back up those words you've sung"

I'm not that much into churches (I've got some problems with the catholic church in general so never mind that) but you're right, acid...I've been listening to a report about hurricane Rita approaching the US coast on the radio yesterday 'cause the CD I had in the car was totally broken and I don't want to sound cynic or something but when the reporter said that "truck loads of support packages and materials are ready to be driven into the area which will probably be affected" I couldn't help wondering whether those trucks were there anyway due to the New Orleans disaster and simply got another destination...

This sort of device might have been super handy for victims of Hurricane Katrina, but its even more practical for those with the means of quickly escaping these types of storms.

as if the people of New Orleans hadn't been warned ... just about everyone knew it was coming, even without such a thing. The problem was just that most people didn't have any means of escaping and there was next to no governmental support (be it from the city's, state or federal gov)...

anyways, I don't think I'll buy such a device or even carry it around with me all the time - with some experience on the weather at your place you can tell when a storm is approaching even without a computer in your hand...

Swim against the stream because only dead fish swim with it? Why don't people simply climb out of it?

well ... the Iraqi authorities have all the sovereignity they dream of as long as they don't try to do anything against the occupation forces (for example, the iraqi vice president keeps asking for the occupation forces to leave Iraq every now and then ... they didn't even come up with a plan other than "might take a couple of years" yet...)

anyways, this incident leaves behind more clues as to what the US and UK forces do in Iraq since there has been a statement by the office of Muqtada al-Sadr which is kind of contradictory to the UK's version:

(not too good a translation but it sounds like Mr Cole got most of its contents)

Two soldiers from the British occupation forces opened fire on passers-by in the vicinity of a religious center where the people of Basra use to go, after which police patrols have a white car and arrested two persons riding it. It was found that they are British, and British occupation forces intervened to try to set them free. The people of Basra demonstrated to prevent this from occurring, and occupation forces reacted by opening fire on the demonstrators killing and wounding many of them. In retaliation the inhabitants burned two British tanks. The two Britons that were arrested had in their possession explosives and remote-control devices, as well as light and medium weapons and other accessories.
Late this night, British forces raided the police headquarters of the Basra province, set free the two Britons as well as close to 150 terrorists, and burned the police vehicles.

-> http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

I admit that information released by iraqi resistance groups has to be treated with caution, too, but the US and UK officials did not bother to prove that iraqi resistance groups spread lies (contrary to many, many independent people who bothered to prove that US and UK officials are spreading lies by linking official statements about an incident, newspaper articles and resistance group informations on the same incident).

There are two points worth a close look in this statement:

a) The two persons who began the shooting were only identified as british soldiers after they have been arrested; it is a direct breach of the Geneva Convention when a nation's soldiers are not wearing uniforms but civil clothing and cars while they're at war (ok, officially this is not a war anymore but an occupation - the facts suggest that it's still war)

These two soldiers are accused of having been in the possession of explosives, triggers for those and weapons. Since they shot at iraqi police officers, the part with the weapons has to be true, I suppose I can safely assume that they were also in the possession of explosives. What do people in civilian clothing need explosives for when they're near a place were masses of religious people use to go? Probably they didn't intend to do something nice.
It's not that I want to talk badly about anyone but this incident leads to the conclusion that not all bomb attacks on military convois come from iraqi resistance fighters - at least some of them have been staged by US and UK forces. Yes, US forces as well - I doubt that the UK forces can do anything in Iraq without the US military knowing about that...

great to hear that you'll be back to somewhat normal in a month :ph34r:good luck with this swelling ... but when you've survived the surgery you'll probably cope with that as well

actually Bush does quite a lot of stuff ... but I didn't see him doing good stuff... :/the Democrats aren't that much better anyways...

ok, I'm not female as well but I'll give you a quote from a very good friend of mine:

well, we don't go for money, cars and good looks ... but if you don't find a girl which loves you the way you are than money, a great car and good looks are certainly something you should have if you want to get a girl - but beware: she won't be in love with you but with your money...

I'm glad to hear that noone got killed and that this croatian guy will probably make it through :ph34r:Please tell us more about this incident, I wasn't at home tonight for the news and I didn't read about this on my favorite news sites yet...

I don't have anything to add/say about the other points you've mentioned (yet? I'm not that much into PayPal anyways...) except for the points 1 and 6:

 

1. There is confusion between paypa[l].com [i've added an l in paypal.com since the original URL looked like it had a typo in it] and paypal.org. The second one is a fake and I expect that it is scam.

[...]

I haven't been on paypal.org yet and my connection attempt to paypal.org just timed out. If paypal.org exists (as I said, I can't connect to it but that happens to me on other valid URLs as well) and does not redirect to paypal.com it probably is scam.

I don't think anyone paying only the slightest attention will mix up paypal.com and aboutpaypal.org since there is no positive information about PayPal to be found on aboutpaypal.org -- yet the information given on aboutpaypal.org still has to be handled with care, you can have another look at my reason for this in the first line of my first post here...

 

[...]

6. brainless answered another thread "aboutpaypal.org" and expect that all of us has visted that thread[i will visit it later]. Also this added confustion since he didn't realise or mention that paypal.org is a fake of paypal.com without mentioning that. I took some effort to discover that.

 

[...]

I believe I rightfully expect you all to have visited aboutpapypal.org since Michael referred to it in the opening post of this thread,

and there is probably a difference between paypal.org and aboutpaypal.org since those are very different URLs (but due to technical problems I couldn't have a look at paypal.org yet)

I'm favoring direct governing rather than having a government which I may try to change only once every couple of years, so I can't give you any names ... well, if I have to name my favorite president of the USA it'd probably be Nader...by the way, we had elections in Germany today and it looks like most politicians which screwed up during the last three years will be in office again - most people know that this is a bad choice but still better than what we could get if we elected the other party...

take some points off their credibility for offering their "PayPal Alternative" on every page...

[...]So, they take your money, and my 467 dollars, and put it all together in an account, or several accounts, with proper banks, and pocket the interest. You, and I, get nothing.

[...]

as of today (9-18-2005), PayPal's User Agreement states the following:

[...]If you do carry a U.S. Dollar balance in your PayPal account and do not enroll in the PayPal Money Market Fund, PayPal will pool your funds together with funds from other Users, and will place those funds in accounts at one or more non-interest bearing FDIC-insured banks ("Pooled Accounts").
[...]

I don't know about the PayPal Money Market Fund but it sounds like an additional, optional service and if I got it right, the bank where they put the money does not pay interest to PayPal...

...anyways, this website sounds like people actually trust eBay and PayPal ... don't they ever learn that pretty much every large company's goal is to earn money, in one way or another?

it's me again ... I found an article on ABC News online [1] about what Colin Powell does now and in which he talks about his infamous PowerPoint presentation to the UN:

 

[...]

Making False Case for Iraq War a 'Blot' on Record

 

When Powell left the Bush administration in January 2005, he was widely seen as having been at odds with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President *BLEEP* Cheney over foreign policy choices.

 

It was Powell who told the United Nations and the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and posed an imminent threat. He told Walters that he feels "terrible" about the claims he made in that now-infamous address assertions that later proved to be false.

 

When asked if he feels it has tarnished his reputation, he said, "Of course it will. It's a blot. I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and [it] will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now."

 

He doesn't blame former CIA Director George Tenet for the misleading information he says he pored over for days before delivering his speech; he faults the intelligence system.

 

"George Tenet did not sit there for five days with me misleading me. He believed what he was giving to me was accurate. The intelligence system did not work well," he said.

 

Nonetheless, Powell said, some lower-level personnel in the intelligence community failed him and the country. "There were some people in the intelligence community who knew at that time that some of these sources were not good, and shouldn't be relied upon, and they didn't speak up. That devastated me," he said.

 

While Powell ultimately supported the president's decision to invade Iraq, he acknowledges that he was hesitant about waging war. "I'm always a reluctant warrior. And I don't resent the term, I admire the term, but when the president decided that it was not tolerable for this regime to remain in violation of all these U.N. resolutions, I'm right there with him with the use of force," he said.

 

[...]

Actually, those people in the "intelligence community" did speak up, under the protection of anonymity, but were not believed.

One more thing which is interesting to notice: Mr Powell is ashamed of the "blot on his record" but does not explicitely mention the many thousands of lifes he helped to erase. Does this mean he's more concerned about his record than about other people's lifes?

 

[1] http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Politics/story?id=1105979&page=1

either I didn't read the page right or someone's mixing up the air engine's and the gas engine's top speed ... I remember something like 60km/h top for the air engine and "a gas engine for the open road" which kicks in at speeds above what the air engine can do. Attention: There are two versions of this car, one with an extra gas engine, one without ... so if you buy the one without gas engine don't come complaining "but brainless said..." :Pby the way, 50km/h is the general speed limit in german [and other european?] cities; the real average speed in cities like Berlin, London, New York is something like 30km/h so you probably won't notice that your car doesn't make more than 60km/h

shadow: you might want to try using the "report"-button and ask a mod to insert the quote-tags for you, might be better for your hosting credits and the warning you receive (or don't receive if you report it yourself and apologize for not quoting )

 

well, Linkin Park and SOAD have great lyrics, too, but I suppose my favorite song's "Seattle was a riot" by Anti-Flag:

 

Anti-Flag - Seattle was a riot

 

Why must we riot,

Why must we protest,

just to be heard - by the world?

 

Seattle was a riot, they tried to pin on us

but we didn't show up, with gas and billy clubs.

An un-armed mass of thousands, just trying to be heard

but there are no world leaders that want to hear our words.

 

Why must we riot,

Why must we protest,

just to be heard - by the world?

 

The World Bank's greed and lies, digs graves in 3rd world lands

and fills them with the remains of exploited workers

or displaced native peoples, and destroyed ecosystems

under the guise of progress, relief, and tech assistance.

 

Why must we riot,

Why must we protest,

just to be heard - by the world?

 

Since the dawn of history - the few who own control

Have bent and rewrote history - how they want it to go

They try to control what we learn - and take away our rights,

'cause when the masses round the world unite - that's a force they can not fight!

 

We'll fight for our

We'll fight for our

We'll fight for our

We'll fight for our rights!

 

Why must we riot,

Why must we protest,

just to be heard - by the world?

 

[off-voice]

Sitting in what was designated the "Cooperation Zone" by Seattle Police Sergeant Richard Goldstein, they sat heads bowed, listening as the police methodically shot pepper spray -one eye at a time- into the eyes of their passive brothers and sisters

***** like police, playing judge, jury, and executioner for their pimp like bosses in the World Bank and the W.T.O.

This is not justice. This is not the role of "The Servants of the People".

Such tyranny brings ruling classes crashing to the ground and contemporary societies to an end...

One question: How in the world are the iraqi people supposed to use nuclear weapons? There aren't any WMDs in Iraq [except for those imported and used by the USA but that's use of chemical weapons by the USA, not Iraq] and definitely less nukes. When President Bush, that person who started a war <strike>over links between Saddam Hussein</strike <strike>over WMDs in Husseins possession</strike> <strike>"Oil for Food"-Program abuse backed by the USA</strike> <ins>an evil dictator</ins> admits that President Hussein did not possess any WMDs, I dare say that this was already true when many people tried to raise their voice against this unjust, imperialist war.

wild20, ashiezai: There is currently no nuclear weapons program running in Iraq nor was there one during the last few years. Right now, the Iraqi people have better things to do than developing WMDs, things like ... struggling to get their freedom back...

milo: AFAIK Israel does not even deny having nuclear weapons (but does not have plans to use them except for last resort-defence). I'm ashamed that I have to admit that the german government decided that it's ok to sell some submarines to Israel for a symbolic fee even though it's known that they will be upgraded to be able to launch nuclear missiles once they've arrived there :/ Peaceful protest did not help...

As to the Iranian nuclear program: This quite an interesting story:
Mr. Bush threatened Iran with war for the case they don't stop their program for the <strike>production of nuclear weapons</strike> <ins>civil use of nuclear energy</ins> (which, by the way, is completely legal according to the Non-Proliferation Treaty).
As everyone who followed the propaganda should know, muslims are dumb people who blindly have to follow their religious leader who issues a Fatwa every now and then on a current or not-that-current issue which this leader's followers are bound to.
well, here's the catch:
a) yes, muslims are bound to fatwas issued by their chosen leader - but: they're free to choose to be led by someone else if they think their leader's stupid.

Iran Daily reports[1] that

[...]The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, has issued the fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that Iran shall never acquire these weapons, [...]

So where's the problem?

anyway, the CIA stated earlier this year that the Iran will definitely not be a threat in terms of nuclear weapons within the next 10 years ... acusing the Iran of developing or even possessing nuclear weapons is unfair.

North Korea, however, does possess nuclear weapons (the last reports I've read talk about at least 6 [China is reported to have 10, just as little hint so you've got something to compare that to]) and is, according to an article on globalsecurity.org, going to test missiles which are supposed to be able to carry a nuke to the USA's west coast and Kim Jong Il said that he would not hesitate to use these options if the USA were to attack North Korea. If you ask me, this is a way bigger threat to the world than Iraq was in the last 14 years. That this would happens was already known before the War for Oil began but for some reason, Mr Bush decided to go after President Hussein...

[1] http://www.iran-daily.com/1384/2347/html/

hehe when you're lucky it doesn't suck too long that you didn't come to go steady with the person you wanted... here's my 2 cents:About 9 years ago [good that I've figured that out now so I've got another year to prepare for our 10th anniversary ], in the 5th grade, I met this girl whom I really liked. We hung around during school breaks and eventually began spending some of our spare time together. When I told her that I had a crush on her she told me that she thought it was nice of me to finally admit that (finally? so she knew it before I knew? well, girls...) but it wouldn't work out. After the 6th grade, our ways split for some years.Since we've met again in 11th grade, we've developed quite a close relationship and eventually she asked me out for the saturday night ... after all, I think it's not that accurate to say that I didn't get her - I've been with her through a couple of boyfriends to which she doesn't have contact anymore and actually I've spent more time with her than her current boyfriend, whom she's going with since 2 and a bit years now :Panyways, she tried to couple me with some of her friends but we always ended up being friends (and one told her that she didn't want to be her friend anymore if she hangs around with people like "that guy"), those friends thought I need a girlfriend as well and I ended up knowing like half of the girls in town but still single

I suppose Michael's right ... if you're going to donate to the Cross, you might want to do so via the national red cross website (US: http://www.redcross.org/)

 

acidify: well, due to the events right after the storm hit New Orleans I dare say that it's not the Crossies' fault that they were unable to do anything. I don't know about the US Red Cross but here in Germany, some hundred Crossies, 200 Johanniter members [another organization like the Cross] some national THW troops [tech assistance ... they brought a couple of high-powered pumps along] were already prepared to fly there but did not get the permission to do so until days after it all began. In Sweden, there was a system to make the water drinkable [urgently needed] ready to be brought to the USA by a plane. Other helpers were on their way but did not get the permission to enter US airspace, so they had to fly on to Canada/Mexico/Cuba and wait until they were allowed to enter the US - once again: several days after it all happened... (ok, it's kinda stupid to start flying before you have the permission to go where you want to but it's just as stupid to deny help when there's more work than your people can cope with)

 

anyways, I'm not that much into donating money since I'm working hard for my bucks ... if you think the same way: you can just as well donate time and some work - get involved with your favorite social organization (by the way, that will give you a better understanding on how the stuff works than donating money ... but I don't want to say that it's not important that there are also people who donate money since you can't have enough of that when you're helping people out...)