Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Agree! (Score 1) 169

Boards.ie is full of idiots but I don't think it reflects on Ireland or the ".ie" suffix. In fact, the ".ie" is one of the most tightly controlled commercial suffixes available on the internet. You need to demostrate why you are entitled to the address. Pain in the arse for me because I wanted to setup a site that wasn't a business but for me and my friends as a bit of a joke site but they refused my application

Comment Re:use the same system for slot machines (Score 1) 198

And you think there isn't fraud in the voting system? The most easiest way you could do it is to register in a constituency to vote using the form thats sent out to houses in the lead up to elections without using the RFA3 form to transfer your vote from your original constituency. The reason a lot of people do this is because the form thats sent to each house just needs you to fill in the sections and then send it back in the post, postage free of charge. The RFA3 form requires you to fill it out, go to your local garda station and only your local garda station and get them to sign the form confirming you are who you say you are. Then to send it off to the local authority either in the post after paying for postage or drop it in yourself. People will generally take the path of least resistence and end up registered in two constituency. I really believe this is the only way that FF got anyone elected during the last election

Comment Re:Annoyed customer (Score 1) 155

Why would you need more than one credit card? Honestly don't see why I would need two credit cards. I only have one bank card as well. If I lose my card I will have another within 3 days. I always have enough food in my house to last me a week and I cycle everywhere so I don't need to pay for transport. Worst case scenario and go into my bank and take out money directly from my account.

Comment Re: Ex-Military (Score 1) 559

So your arguement is no longer that the US is the champion of "freedom and democracy" but simply they were not as bad as the soviets? And we have only touched modern era, when you go into pre-WWII days there is even more blood on the hands of the US government/military. The US has almost always only ever acted in its own interests, it didn't enter World War 2 because they need to stop the Nazi's, they did so because they were attacked by Japan, hell, the US didn't even declare war on Germany! Germany declared war on the US. They didn't fight in Korea to ensure democracy in Korea, they did so because they didn't want another nation which was friendly to the USSR. And by the way, not all communist countries were friendly to the USSR, just like not all capitalist governments were friendly to the US. This was less an idiological conflict, though that may be the underlying cause of the mistrust between the US and the USSR, but it primarily a game of one-upmanship between two nations. That was not a moral battle, do not attempt to portray it as a battle between good and evil, neither side was good, neither side was evil, both did good things and both did bad things.

I am not American, I am not a Russian. I am fortuante enough to be in a position where I didn't grow up hearing either sides propaganda about the other. From my point of view, both sides lied, both said they were for democratic purposes only to topple democratically elected governments simply because they didn't like the outcome of those elections. I'm also not naive enough to think that violence is never the answer, there are times when violence is required, but only when the will of the people is not being adhered to or when you are under threat in the case of minority being surpressed. But the US wasn't concerned with the democratic will of the people or if someone was being oppressed. They were willing to overthrow democratically elected governments, to supress minorities and even surpress majorities only for the purpose of suiting themselves. That is why I don't see the US as an ethical government or military, because they have made unethical decisions. I'm not arguing about who is worse, neither are ethical and that is origin of this discussion

Learning from history is so important that it cannot be overstated. It is only by examining history can the US realise they can't use force to overthrow governments, they will only be fragile and short lived and the unintended consequences usually create a worse situation. I think some people in power are starting to understand this concept, that talking to nations rather than isolate them and force them to more extreme solutions to their problems. However it is a complex answer to a simple question and the attention span of a US election cycle does not allow for complex solutions to things. Which is why the US continues to this day to attempt to strong arm the world to do what it wants.

Comment Re: Ex-Military (Score 1) 559

-Syrian coup d'état -CIA backed coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh's democratically elected government -Guatemalan coup d'état, democratically elected government over thrown -Indonesia in the 50's had an autocratic government, after a band of rebels espousing anti communist literature, the US pumps weapons and money leading to increased deaths in the region, US later gives billions of dollars to autocratic government it previously tried to overthrow. -Cuba before uprising, US told Cuban dictatorship that the US could exercise the right to intervene in Cuban political, economic and military affairs if necessary when the US wanted, which it did to rob the Cuban people through the export of its goods and food in a form of economic slavery while General Batista, head of the government took a cut in return for his continued co-operation. This continued for nearly 30 years before uprising occurred, which took aid from where-ever it could, the enemy of the United States offered support to said uprisings, only after the rebel took power did they take the full direction of communism. -Iraq has had CIA backed coup's forming governments only to be toppled by a later CIA backed coup since the 1950's to this very day. The period of time between each overthrow has varied -Brazil in 1964 had a democratically elected government overthrown by rebels who were supported in the form of ammunition, oil, and chemical weapons as well as the US deploying flotilla of ships to be deployed in the area -Greece in 1967 had a democratically elected government overthrown by right wing military colonels which was rumoured to have the active support of the CIA, CIA refuses to comment on the matter -Chile prior to 1973 had a democratically elected government overthrown by military coup which was supported by every means available to the CIA, including black propaganda, weapons, training, money etc. -Argentina in 1976 had a democratically elected government overthrown by military coup with the support of the US, including introducing the coup leaders to public relations companies to manage their image in the US so that they could maintain their support -CIA attempted to overthrow the elected government of Nicaragua from 1981-1990 by funnelling arms via puppet Iran regime. -Military government of El Salvador is facing popular uprising and the US government supported the military government while they used death squads to stop political and economic change. -US Supports Philippines dictatorship for decades until it is no longer maintainable at which point withdraws support -Venezuela in 2002 suffers a attempted coup d'état against a democratically elected government, the coup is widely believed to have been organised and supported by the CIA, confirmed by Former US Navy intelligence officer Wayne Madsen. -Palestinian Fatah party receives $84 billion after elections showed Hamas to be the democratically elected representatives of the people, leading to a protracted civil battle between the two groups as Fatah attempts to hold onto power

That's not to mention direct interventions into Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, Zaire, Honduras...

My point is this...
You ask me if my claim of millions of deaths is accurate, in direct numbers affected by US foreign policy, yes I am. When you include the residue and the blow back which the CIA has always known about, I am wrong, its tens of millions. All of this wasn't "because they were communist" it’s because they all made a decision which would benefit their country at the cost of the United States, either economically, militarily or simply just the pantomime on the geo-political stage. All empires have done it in the past. The US is no better, they simply label it superpower and pay off locals to do their direct bidding instead of having their presence their all the time

Comment Re: Ex-Military (Score 3, Interesting) 559

And US Imperialism hasn't also caused the deaths of millions around the world? How many puppet regimes did the US install around the world, usually after over throwing democratically elected governments in one form or the other? How many assassinations have been done in the name of "supporting freedom"? Cop yourself on. Your white washing of history would be funny if it isn't that same attitude that is at the helm of US foreign policy and military control.

Comment Re:I don't do business with lowlife scum (Score 3, Interesting) 687

ajv is exactly right. There is a deep current of misogyny that runs throughout the nerd world, I think primarily because a lot of guys (and lets face it, nerds are predominately male) who believe that girls simply don't give them the time of day because they are nerds, I'm sorry but that is not the case.Some girls will, just like some guys wont give you the time of day because you're a nerd. Then when the rare event of a girl being a nerd, she is usually given so much attention by guys that she is often time put off from announcing she's a girl. Don't believe me? Look at any forum where a user is a girl and see how many of the posters fall over her every word simply because she's a girl. There are girls who love the attention and off they go. But why should every girl who doesn't like the attention be subjected to such harressment?

In the case of booth babes, I doubt all these women have the luxery of picking and choosing which events they attend. I'm sure there is fierce competition for the positions and that if you want the good modelling jobs you also have to do some of shit ones too. Everyone here seems to be treating it with a "put up and shut up" attitude without thinking beyond their own limited perception. Just because a women, or a man for that matter, is a model doesn't mean they are talentless, doesn't mean they're bimbo's, doesn't mean they're stupid and most importantly, doesn't mean they are without emotions. There is also a difference between being looked at and being leered at.

Comment Re:Illegal???? (Score 5, Informative) 212

Just a suggestion, but stop fucking up peoples shit around the world and people wont have a grudge against you and you wont have to intimidate people.

Contrary to popular opinion in the US, the reason for extremists from the middle east and areas of asia isn't because "they hate freedom", its because US foreign policy over the past 70 years has been screwing over whole populations of people in order to have 'friendly governments' available to them. If these governments were not willing to do anything the US wanted, a new government was installed by any means necessary. Generally speaking, if you surpress a population for that length of time, you'll have a backlash. I don't know if your politicians are either grossly ignorant of these basic facts or they are simply misleading the population, but the US isn't known around the world for freedom and democracy, they are known for oppression and tyranny. So tell me, if you knew a country known for oppression and tyranny, what would you do? Oh yeah, we've already seen that, you'd bomb the fuck out of them, be damned how many civilians you kill until "democrats" crawl out of the rubble and promise to be good little boys and girls. I swear, how people don't see the cause and effect in all this is beyond me...

Comment Re:Mandatory (Score 4, Informative) 155

Wrong, Germany suffered from a low trade surplus prior to the introduction of Euro in 2001, have a look at the historical balance of trade for Germany here. You can see very noticable climb in trade surplus. This was a direct result of the introduction of the Euro.

Comment Re:Mandatory (Score 4, Insightful) 155

The Nice Treaty, which formalised the two tier Europe, the introduction of the Euro and its centralised monetary policy, the aborted EU Constitution which was then morphed into the Lisbon Treaty, the Fiscal Compact treaty which will reduce a governments ability to adopt fiscal policy. These are just off the top of my head. Now, member states government have had to approve them and in my own national case, a referendum was put had to be run, but in each of them(bar the last one which is due to be voted on at the end of the month), the Irish people voted No, until they were told, no that was the wrong answer, vote again.

Government are so terrified by the loss of structural loans and trade loss that they are unwilling to challenge the EU on these thing, why run the risk of losing out on revenue, we'll sell our sovereignty instead, that has a far less tangible impact on our budgets... until now. Again in my own national case we're told, you have no choice, you need another bailout, do what we want or we pull the trigger on the economic gun to your head. Whatever about the individual directives the EU issues, the macro effects of EU policy is killing national sovereignty and soon we really will have no choice, that "the man in Brussels/Frankfurt" says we have to do it so we have to do it.

Comment Re:Mandatory (Score 4, Insightful) 155

Germany is actually quite powerful economically at the moment, mainly because in the last 17 years its had an excess of capital due to the enormous trade surplus which its had thanks to the Euro and smaller nations now having the ability to buy German goods without having to worry about exchange rates between the Deutsche Mark and the Italian Lira, the Irish Punt, the Greek Drachma or the Portuguese escudo.

Now the problem for Germany came when their banks tried to use that surplus cash, they lent it out to institutions for practically nothing. These institions then could then lend to riskier and riskier prospects because the cost of the risk was so reduced by the cheap and availability of money being provided by German and other major European banks so that even if those risky loans collapsed, they could simply avail of the cheap money to correct for such fluctuations.

The EU didn't make Germany weaker, it made Europe stronger as a whole, until they started some high risk enterprises. I'm willing to say that I don't think the EU was designed from the start to become what its become today, but certain financial interests have a way of corrupting things to their way of thinking

Comment Re:Mandatory (Score 4, Insightful) 155

I've become very skeptical of the entire EU project of the last few years. I thought it was democratically based, making rational decisions in the common interest of the people. Introducing common laws to help life easier for people across the EU by identifying areas where individual nations might not be as effective as a unit. But now in the last 5 years I've seen measure after measure which are raw power-grabs by the EU to try an mitigate the sovereignty of individual member states.

Now we have yet another measure to "save the children" because anyone who might be against such a measure is an evil kiddy fiddler. I highly expect this to become mandatory and sprawl into not just children but everyone needs to be on this system. Perhaps I've just become skeptical of my own government and politicians willingness to sign over our hard fought independence that anything the power hungry EU puts down now is another attempt to control the people of Europe under a single entity.

The article itself states that this is likely to become mandatory but that there no clear definitions regarding the limits of the system.

Slashdot Top Deals

Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?

Working...