I feel this is an oversimplification. There are certainly elements in both societies that want peace. Then there are elements who want peace in the sense of getting rid of the other side by whatever means they deem appropriate. This isn't so much a results of forces conspiring to do anything as the result of significant stupidity and lack of effective leadership on both sides.

It's actually a lot more complicated than that. My advice when people ask me about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that if you think either side is right, it's because you don't know anything. Spend any time really studying the issues and you realize that there's nothing but shades of grey in this conflict.

The Black Adder, too.

Just goes to show that there's nothing you can't fix by sprinkling enough Hugh Laurie on it. Medical drama? Check. Meatloaf album? Check.

Yeah! Absolutely! If the drummer shows up, that is. And the singer can carry a tune. And the other guitarist doesn't get too drunk to play. And the bass player's ex-girlfriend didn't just throw all his belongings out of their 3rd floor window just before the show, and she happens to be the singer.

Oh, hell - even then, you're absolutely right. There's nothing like playing live, when you can do it. But still, I thinking of getting Rock Band 3 just so I can play the drums in pro mode, because no one in his right mind would let me play drums in their band.

Google harder: http://www.trs--80.org/world-power-systems-fraud/

Third result from the top.

You don't have to swallow to taste it.

The reason this is bad is that they're trying to extend the idea that you don't own the stuff you paid for from the realm of software, where as you point out this is already a pretty common practice, to physical objects that you paid for. People's expectation is that they own something they paid for, and that they can do whatever they want with it. For Intel's scheme to work it would have to be illegal for me to try and unlock the features they want me to pay for, even though I paid for the CPU.

This is all hypothetical. I won't be buying one of those. Actually, if Intel gives starts giving them away for free I might.

Besides, if your employer wasn't amused by CDC doing this, why should anyone else be amused?

You can release the source code. You just can't distribute the binary, since you can't satisfy the conditions of the GPL and of the statically linked platform libraries.

Although there is an exception in the GPL to allow linking to libraries that are part of the OS, or are normally distributed with it. Things like the standard C runtime library fall under that. Maybe this applies here.

Putting the glasses in front of the camera is actually the proper way to film a movie. It's not going to be in 3D, but since 3D is just hype, who cares, right?

I believe they also paid some of the performance-based earn-out, which if paid in full ($1.4 billion) would have made it a loss. They would have had to pay less than $300 million or so to make the recent transaction a profit, ignoring Skype's profits. I don't know how much they actually paid, but I know it wasn't the full amount.

OK, you're right - they still hold about 30% of Skype. They sold 65% at a loss, although figuring how much they lost is giving me a headache. Skype has been profitable while it was owned by eBay, making the math even more headache inducing. And eBay never paid the full purchase price of $4 billion, either.

At this point, I'm glad I'm not an accountant.

Somebody is going to make around $3 billion on this, but it isn't going to be eBay, who sold Skype last year for $2 billion, which was less than what they paid for the company when they bought it.

Drop what you're smoking and step on it.

Now take a deep breath.

Your rhetoric doesn't make sense. You're making the argument that the Iranian government's crackdown on demonstrators last year doesn't justify an invasion, which would have been a valid argument had someone actually suggested that the crackdown justifies an invasion - which no one has. So it's a non sequitur, if using big words makes you happy, or just plain bullshit if it doesn't.

A friend off mine was killed by a policeman at a gas station in Ohio last year, actually.

It wasn't part of a coordinated effort by the US government, though. You somehow think that the two are comparable. They're not.