And they're here to make money. There seems to be a large market for people who want pretty appliances with certain "limitations" that work painlessly. Limitations is in quotes because it's a limit to myself and many on Slashdot, but not to most casual users.

With the recent spurt in the stock price, Microsoft's market capitalization has reached nearly $600 billion, putting it back in first place ahead of General Electric's $475 billion market cap.

Tech stocks are a bit more volatile than that of oil companies. Back then, Microsoft looked even better than Apple does today, virtually unstoppable.

are you really telling me that since OS X has gotten two instances of malware, after being in use for over a decade, is the same as what has happened with windows? Really?!?

No I'm not. That is not what I said at all. Did you reply to the right comment?!

"It's reasonably trivial to remove MacDefender," said Wisniewski, using the name for a growing family of scareware. "It's not burying itself in the system, not compared to some of some of the crap that we see on Windows."

So the "no malware/virus on Mac" has now changed to "We have malware, but it's better than the ones on Windows"? Wonder what the defence would be when they inevitably start getting more complicated.

If in your impossible and rather ridiculous example the UK military started bombing cities one by one, I don't see any problem with UN going in to prevent slaughter. Why do you think that situation is any different?!

They are stepping in to help overthrow Gadhafi. Regardless of whether you like him or not; regardless of whether you are happy with his rule in Libya, he holds that position of power, and you cannot apply your own constitution to overthrow his.

I highly doubt Libyan constitution condones a genocidal maniac mass murdering Libyan people. Nobody's constitution is being applied here, at least I didn't here one being referred to during the security council proceedings.

There are days when I hate being a westerner.

This wasn't even unilateral action by the west. The Arab league has already supported a no fly zone and even two of its members will participate in implementing it. Couple of countries attacking Iraq by making up evidence is a shameful act. International community intervening in Libya to prevent mass murder is legitimate and proud act. Should be pretty easy to tell the two apart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews

Well, I'm sure Safari would be pulled next because it makes the same information accessible.

Not really, unlike RIM, it's not practical or even commercially sound for Facebook to abide by KSA's "conservative values". There is also no inherent benefit on Saudi Arabia's part to have Facebook operate there. Except maybe monitoring citizens, but they already have full control over any means of communication so that's just unnecessary.

The only reason I can see for them calling this a temporary measure is a PR move. They are shifting the blame on Facebook, saying they would unblock it as soon as it's compatible with their values. Of course everyone knows what's going on, but that's how PR works. They opened a university or two to women and last week they got elected to UN's women's rights agency. Maybe now their shooting for a position on Internet Freedoms board.

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Consider smaller modern powers like Iran, Pakistan, or North Korea. If felt like their regime was going to collapse and their leaders killed or sent to the Hague, why not launch for revenge? Its not like dictators or theocrats are known to be especially rational or compassionate. Most likely we'll see nuclear war in the mideast sooner than later. I'd be willing to bet within 20 years.

You just managed to contradict yourself in those two lines. The fact that North Korea and Iran are not attacked is exactly because of their power to defend themselves. Hint: Iraq and Afghanistan among couple of dozen countries that have experienced the "peacekeeping" and "democratizing" forces of the US in the past 5 decades. You can't take the leaders of nuclear power to Hague either, because you can't get their hands on them. So it never comes the time when the need to use such weapons.

If North Korea and Iran were to use any WMDs they would have used chemical weapons which they both had for decades. Hell, for eight years, Iran didn't use chemical weapons against Saddam even in retaliation. Maybe if you stop watching Fox News, you'd notice the leaders portrayed as demonic figures bent on bringing hell on earth are actually very pragmatic people and that's exactly why they manage to stay in power.