Re: US Retardation of Free Markets (was Airport insanity)
Mr Donald wrote... A claim that presupposes that the west is just as totalitarian as its enemies, that well known reality is not to be trusted, that newsmen and historians are servants of the vast capitalist conspiracy, so in place of obvious truths, we can substitute any ridiculous fantasy that we find politically conforting, for example Tyler Durden's fantasy that the US attacked Korea, and attacked to impose poverty on Koreans so that the US can be rich Once again you make the mistake that, because YOU are drinking from a spigot of hype, that because I disagree with you I must be drinking from some other spigot. There are plenty of counter-examples to the benefits of US interventionism, particularly throughout central America. But I don't really want to debate that point, but instead focus on Iraq. In Iraq this philosophy of saving the locals from tyrrany has taken a new turn. In this case, I actually believe that George W, Dick Cheney and the whole cabal believe that: 1. The best thing for the Iraqis would be a western-style free-market economy. (Check?) 2. An Iraqi free market would slowly stabilise the whole middle east region. (Check?) 3. Iraq has resources (ie, oil) that could be utilized to kick-start a true industrialized economy (Check?) 4. The US has the ability to extract that oil and then turn those dollars into local goods-and-services, thus kickstarting forementioned Iraqi industrialization (Check?) 5. Meanwhile, Saddam was really, really bad and a terrorist and he's got all sorts of scary WMDs. 6. It is therefore in everybody's best interests for the US to kick out Saddam and get this party started. 7. Oh, and the US will benefit too (as we should) as we help ole' man Iraq get back on his feet. But apparently, the locals are not particularly happy about the unilateral decisions we've been making in their benefit. Of course, you might chalk this up to fanaticism/Islam or whatever, but I suspect they just don't trust us (Abu Ghraib), and remember the fact that it was the US that propped up Saddam as long as he stuck to the script. Who knows? If Bush Co are able to steal this election, maybe in a year or two (after the death toll hits the 5 digit mark) we'll start hearing about how Saddam wasn't so bad after all, and why don't we give him a second chance? (We'll watch him closely, so don't you worry!) -TD --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG AErjoTRu9URKg4L+F5xjlOq35GQBD2reuyMhDJ5b 46ur5/+9ZCqnZu8EDgtmmeUH93ImKPyfT6+Pj/QUE _ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
Re: US Retardation of Free Markets (was Airport insanity)
On Tue, 2004-10-26 at 21:10 -0700, James A. Donald wrote: -- James A. Donald: Moral equivalence, the rationale of those who defend tyranny and slavery. Roy M. Silvernail Moral superiority, the rationale of both sides of any given violent conflict. The winner gets to use the victory to proclaim the correctness of their interpretation. A claim that presupposes that the west is just as totalitarian as its enemies, that well known reality is not to be trusted, that newsmen and historians are servants of the vast capitalist conspiracy, No claim in evidence. Just the observation that any justificaton for a violent conflict is necessarily subjective. -- Roy M. Silvernail is [EMAIL PROTECTED], and you're not It's just this little chromium switch, here. - TFS SpamAssassin-procmail-/dev/null-bliss http://www.rant-central.com
Re: US Retardation of Free Markets (was Airport insanity)
-- James A. Donald: Moral equivalence, the rationale of those who defend tyranny and slavery. Roy M. Silvernail Moral superiority, the rationale of both sides of any given violent conflict. The winner gets to use the victory to proclaim the correctness of their interpretation. A claim that presupposes that the west is just as totalitarian as its enemies, that well known reality is not to be trusted, that newsmen and historians are servants of the vast capitalist conspiracy, so in place of obvious truths, we can substitute any ridiculous fantasy that we find politically conforting, for example Tyler Durden's fantasy that the US attacked Korea, and attacked to impose poverty on Koreans so that the US can be rich, or the widely popular fantasy that the CIA trained Osama Bin Laden. Seeing as Bin Laden's contribution to the revolutionary war against the Soviets was merely roadbuilding, did they train him in roadbuilding? --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG AErjoTRu9URKg4L+F5xjlOq35GQBD2reuyMhDJ5b 46ur5/+9ZCqnZu8EDgtmmeUH93ImKPyfT6+Pj/QUE
Re: US Retardation of Free Markets (was Airport insanity)
At 9:10 PM -0700 10/26/04, James A. Donald wrote: fantasy that the US attacked Korea, and attacked to impose poverty on Koreans so that the US can be rich, This is actually the running fantasy in Marxism since the 1950's, when it turned out that that, instead of the workers eating the bourgeoisie by the firelight or some Glorious Revolution or another, would instead be come bourgeoisie themselves. So, seeing their utter failure to create workers paradise in the industrial West, they decided to change their unit of analysis from people to nation-states. Of course, India, various parts of broken up legislated or forcibly-conquered pseudostates, like Slovenia, the Baltics, even Mongolia and China itself, have shown that capitalism -- Marx's word for economics, or markets, or individual freedom depending on your scale of analysis -- has the same effect there that it did in the US and Europe in the 1950's. Or the 1850's, for that matter. Marxists, and their fellow-travellers of all dilutions, from actual card-carriers to liberals in the US are such worthess assholes, and such state-is-a-person analyses are so much projectile excrement from same. Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: the simian unelected is blocking the world
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, Eugen Leitl wrote: Access to http://www.georgewbush.com/ is blocked but from US IP address ^^^ Ooops, I mangled your report. Ugh. Emily Litella Never Mind... /EmilyLitella -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 0xBD4A95BF An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core S. Plath, Temper of Time
Re: the simian unelected is blocking the world
At 12:11 PM +0200 10/27/04, Eugen Leitl wrote: Ha Ha Curious George. Just for fun, I bet the reason is economics. No need to have yew furriners hammerin' our http ports, 'cuz ya cain't vote, here, anyway. Okay. Except in Florida and Ohio. ;-) Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: the simian unelected is blocking the world
On Wed, Oct 27, 2004 at 09:02:48AM -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote: On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, Eugen Leitl wrote: Access to http://www.georgewbush.com/ is blocked but from US IP address space. Works from 204.238.179.0/24. Of course it works. For you. It's US according to ip2location.com 204.238.179.1 US UNITED STATES MISSOURICLAYTON MISSOURI FREENET Where are your coming in from? Germany, and I'm still blocked. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a __ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net pgpYkBAgx3Z21.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: US Retardation of Free Markets (was Airport insanity)
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, Roy M. Silvernail wrote: On Tue, 2004-10-26 at 21:10 -0700, James A. Donald wrote: -- James A. Donald: Moral equivalence, the rationale of those who defend tyranny and slavery. Roy M. Silvernail Moral superiority, the rationale of both sides of any given violent conflict. The winner gets to use the victory to proclaim the correctness of their interpretation. A claim that presupposes that the west is just as totalitarian as its enemies, that well known reality is not to be trusted, that newsmen and historians are servants of the vast capitalist conspiracy, No claim in evidence. Just the observation that any justificaton for a violent conflict is necessarily subjective. It does not have to be *true*, you just have to get others to believe it. Of course, the current administration has been handing them example after example to point to to make the point... -- chown -R us ./base
Fwd: the simian unelected is blocking the world
meant to send this to the list too -- Forwarded message -- From: Chris Kuethe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 08:56:45 -0600 Subject: Re: the simian unelected is blocking the world To: Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 12:11:59 +0200, Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Access to http://www.georgewbush.com/ is blocked but from US IP address space. Access Denied You don't have permission to access http://www.georgewbush.com/; on this server. Hrm. Shrub a) has now disabled the geo-ip test or b) considers .ca to be part of .us because from my cable modem (rDNS = .net) I can get to the site just fine, and I can also get to it from work (rDNS = .ca) ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144http://www.leitl.org Germany, no? Have your politicians pissed of Shrub lately? I'm surprised I can see the site, what with various provincial governments tossing around memos referring to him as Shrub. -- GDB has a 'break' feature; why doesn't it have 'fix' too? -- GDB has a 'break' feature; why doesn't it have 'fix' too?
Re: US Retardation of Free Markets (was Airport insanity)
From: R.A. Hettinga [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Oct 27, 2004 9:37 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: US Retardation of Free Markets (was Airport insanity) .. This is actually the running fantasy in Marxism since the 1950's, when it turned out that that, instead of the workers eating the bourgeoisie by the firelight or some Glorious Revolution or another, would instead be come bourgeoisie themselves. I think this bit gets at the heart of why the Islamic fundamentalists are hard to deal with. For most people I know, some notion of peace and prosperity is the thing we want from our governments. Different people differ on how to do that (like, whether the government should employ most of the doctors or the teachers), but that's the kind of goal that makes sense. And that's largely what the West has to offer. Not membership in a master race, or a date with destiny, or as vision of yourself as part of a great, centuries-old Jihad, but safe streets, working sewers, functioning markets, and a rising tide that promises to life all boats eventually, so that one day, your poor people, like ours, will be overweight from spending too much time sitting in front of the TV in an air conditioned room. The Islamic fundamentalists can't offer that. A country run by these guys is just not going to be in the forefront of technology, its economy will grow slowly, and it's likely to always be close to going to war with some infidels around it. No peace, not much prosperity, but a lot of capital-P Purpose. A place in history, a part of the Jihad. In this sense, it's a lot like Marxism was, back when it had serious adherents; it's a mass movement, like Eric Hoffer talks about. What Hayek called the liberal order (e.g., working minimal government, liberal democracy, rule of law) can't offer any of that. It offers safe streets and working sewers and peace and prosperity, but you have to come up with your own purpose. The irony is that the neocons seemed to be trying to build up a kind of mass movement mentality in the US, which clearly has caught George Bush and his top advisors--this wonderful notion that we're going to go out and civilize these heathens, bring them democracy and free markets, and then they'll stop wanting to be part of crazy mass movements that tell them to strap dynamite to themselves and blow up bus stops full of people. This seems doomed to fail. A lot of people in the Middle East clearly want what we're selling, but it doesn't take many suicide bombers to make that sort of thing break down. --John
Re: the simian unelected is blocking the world
* Eugen Leitl schrieb am 2004-10-27 um 12:11 Uhr: Access to http://www.georgewbush.com/ is blocked but from US IP address space. ACK, tried it from various german ISPs. Ha Ha Curious George. Too much traffic from outside US? -- Jens Kubieziel http://www.kubieziel.de FdI#305: Inter Personnel Synergies Teamwork (Jonas Luster) signature.asc Description: Digital signature
[FoRK] Google buys Keyhole (fwd from andrew@ceruleansystems.com)
- Forwarded message from J. Andrew Rogers [EMAIL PROTECTED] - From: J. Andrew Rogers [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 10:36:38 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [FoRK] Google buys Keyhole X-Mailer: WebMail 1.25 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Finally. I've been sitting on this story for weeks, and I was looking forward to this morning because there is a lot about this deal that is worth talking about, particularly with regard to how this fits into Google's portfolio. Even though I knew about the deal, I have no clue as to the reasoning why Google bought them. All the talk about them being a map provider is a bit of nonsense, since Keyhole is a hell of a lot more than a map provider. If they wanted maps they could have gone to the source, since it isn't like Keyhole creates their own map data -- Keyhole is more of a data integrator. Salient points: - Keyhole is fussy Windows-only client software (something that won't change soon), which appears to be a departure from Google's normally web-centric applications. - Keyhole can consume some serious bandwidth, and isn't really something that will scale to average home use (in many different ways) without wholesale re-architecting of the system. - Keyhole has terabytes of very interesting databases, many of which are not public. For example, the US DoD has become fond of using Keyhole to process all sorts of reconnaissance, intelligence, and battle planning data. And more Federal agencies and foreign governments are moving to do the same. I've maintained for some time that Google is very aggressively trying to position themselves as a very deep data-mining operation, and are facilitating that by arranging that as much data as possible flow through their systems. I've stated in the past that they have the potential to be super-evil, if only because of the access they are being granted to vast ranges of data, which many people seem more than happy to grant. From that perspective, I find the above points worrisome. It will be very interesting to see what they do with this. cheers, j. andrew rogers ___ FoRK mailing list http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork - End forwarded message - -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a __ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net pgph5GrGRzlFR.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: US Retardation of Free Markets (was Airport insanity)
-- R.A. Hettinga This is actually the running fantasy in Marxism since the 1950's, when it turned out that that, instead of the workers eating the bourgeoisie by the firelight or some Glorious Revolution or another, would instead be come bourgeoisie themselves. John Kelsey I think this bit gets at the heart of why the Islamic fundamentalists are hard to deal with. For most people I know, some notion of peace and prosperity is the thing we want from our governments. [...] The Islamic fundamentalists can't offer that. [...] No peace, not much prosperity, but a lot of capital-P Purpose. A place in history, a part of the Jihad. In this sense, it's a lot like Marxism was, back when it had serious adherents; it's a mass movement, like Eric Hoffer talks about. Mass movements of this kind require the promise of inevitable victory. When communism suffered one decisive, uncomplicated, unambiguous defeat, the dominos fell one after another all the way to Moscow. The remaining communists have made some psychological recovery - see for example Tyler Durden's peculiar version of recent history, where in his universe the communists actually won and are still winning, and similarly the Islamists have made a considerable psychological recovery from Afghanistan, but the ideal of date with destiny tends to lose its appeal when you keep picking yourself off the dirt with a bloody nose. In Iraq we face a guerrila movement, and discover, yet again, that guerrilas can only be defeated by local forces - and the boys from Baghdad are not all that local. This gives the Islamicists renewed hope. So what do you do, if, like Israel, you face terrorists embedded in a local population that supports thems sufficiently they can melt into the people? Withdrawal did not work, for the terrorists keep sending car bombs and the like from their stronghold, as in Fallujah. What worked in Afghanistan was to find some local warlord we could live with, someone in no hurry to get his six pack of virgins, someone who might want to put sacks over the heads of the women of his town, but had no grandiose ambitions to stuff all the women of the world into bags, and then we cut a deal with him - we help him his slay his enemies, he helps us slay our enemies. Unfortunately the US plan to bring democracy to the middle east, and to preserve Iraq as a unitary state, keeps getting in the way of this sort of deal. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG o32eoG4KhmccNjDBkOW9upEtn8Lka3zsooGJn8lY 4dMgCNOmt5z/S3km7vma/L6RECrRaVEmnhEZ4E2hb
Re: the simian unelected is blocking the world
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, Eugen Leitl wrote: Access to http://www.georgewbush.com/ is blocked but from US IP address space. Works from 204.238.179.0/24. Where are your coming in from? -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 0xBD4A95BF An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core S. Plath, Temper of Time
Re: US Retardation of Free Markets (was Airport insanity)
John Kelsey wrote... The irony is that the neocons seemed to be trying to build up a kind of mass movement mentality in the US, which clearly has caught George Bush and his top advisors--this wonderful notion that we're going to go out and civilize these heathens, bring them democracy and free markets, and then they'll stop wanting to be part of crazy mass movements that tell them to strap dynamite to themselves and blow up bus stops full of people. This seems doomed to fail. A lot of people in the Middle East clearly want what we're selling, but it doesn't take many suicide bombers to make that sort of thing break down. Let's remember that any regime is only temporary, no matter how fundamentalist. The main flaw in the whole save the world logic is that it assumes that some regime (Islamist, Communist or whatever) would actually be able to hold on to everybody in perpetuity, and I think history is now at the point where we have a good indication that this ain't the case. In the case of China, Vietnam and, to some extent, the Islamists, I don't get the impression that a hatred of free markets was he underlying reason for the adoption of commusim (or whatever). Communism was merely a political pole that could be held on to so as to crystallize a movement whereby outside influences could be pushed out, and then the internal issues resolved. I would argue that the more we proclaim ourselves to be the evanglists for free markets throughout the world, and then ram our cocks up Abu Ghraib inmates asses, to the same extent what we have to offer looks tainted and foul. They need to puish us out so they need to reject free markets. They need to reject free markets so a new pole is created. Mr Donald woul think that I argue against free markets, but instead what I am arguing against is methodology which retards free markets. -TD _ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/
Re: US Retardation of Free Markets (was Airport insanity)
-- On 27 Oct 2004 at 9:55, Tyler Durden wrote: There are plenty of counter-examples to the benefits of US interventionism, particularly throughout central America. We saw that when the Soviet Union fell, the US lost interest in central America, and peace and democracy broke out in central America with the victory of those forces that had formerly received US backing, and the defeat of those forces that had formerly received Soviet backing, showing that US meddling in central America, was, as it was claimed to be, a defensive response to Soviet meddling, a defensive response that had the support of the people of central America, and that the suffering of central America was in substantial part caused by Soviet meddling. But apparently, the locals are not particularly happy about the unilateral decisions we've been making in their benefit. Of course, you might chalk this up to fanaticism/Islam or whatever, but I suspect they just don't trust us (Abu Ghraib), Sure they don't trust us, but observe that in the Afghan election, Karzai got 56% of the vote, and the soft-on-the-taliban guys got much the same vote as the supposed representatives of the oppressed masses in Central America - down in the asterixes. I predict a very similar election outcome in Iraq. Sadr may get a dangerously large vote, possibly as large as the Nazis got in the Weimar republic, but anyone who looks aligned with the car bombers will be down in the asterixes. and remember the fact that it was the US that propped up Saddam as long as he stuck to the script. Another tale from your odd parallel universe where the US attacked Korea. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG zEWlCJhdBBReeJ2Tnl5midyyezqcb0uz+y18EzpX 4OAEBY/Hw5iw7juSxIfTFKJsXQRt7junqQKOiLZ07
Re: US Retardation of Free Markets (was Airport insanity)
The remaining communists have made some psychological recovery - see for example Tyler Durden's peculiar version of recent history, where in his universe the communists actually won and are still winning, Again, you live in a world that's evenly divided between black and white. Since I'm not white you figure I must be black. To reiterate a point your world view does not seem prepared to understand, communism (like Whabism these days) is a fleeting ideological counter-pole to the perceived evils of America and capitalism. To make an analogy, let's say someone on the street tried to force-feed you the most healthy food in the world at gun point. There's a good chance that, after that, you will not eat that healthy food any longer because you perceive it to be evil. Likewise with Imperliasm and free markets: The more we try to shove it down the throats of the Islamic world the more they will reject both us as well as whatever we're trying to give 'em. -TD From: James A. Donald [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: US Retardation of Free Markets (was Airport insanity) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 10:41:39 -0700 -- R.A. Hettinga This is actually the running fantasy in Marxism since the 1950's, when it turned out that that, instead of the workers eating the bourgeoisie by the firelight or some Glorious Revolution or another, would instead be come bourgeoisie themselves. John Kelsey I think this bit gets at the heart of why the Islamic fundamentalists are hard to deal with. For most people I know, some notion of peace and prosperity is the thing we want from our governments. [...] The Islamic fundamentalists can't offer that. [...] No peace, not much prosperity, but a lot of capital-P Purpose. A place in history, a part of the Jihad. In this sense, it's a lot like Marxism was, back when it had serious adherents; it's a mass movement, like Eric Hoffer talks about. Mass movements of this kind require the promise of inevitable victory. When communism suffered one decisive, uncomplicated, unambiguous defeat, the dominos fell one after another all the way to Moscow. The remaining communists have made some psychological recovery - see for example Tyler Durden's peculiar version of recent history, where in his universe the communists actually won and are still winning, and similarly the Islamists have made a considerable psychological recovery from Afghanistan, but the ideal of date with destiny tends to lose its appeal when you keep picking yourself off the dirt with a bloody nose. In Iraq we face a guerrila movement, and discover, yet again, that guerrilas can only be defeated by local forces - and the boys from Baghdad are not all that local. This gives the Islamicists renewed hope. So what do you do, if, like Israel, you face terrorists embedded in a local population that supports thems sufficiently they can melt into the people? Withdrawal did not work, for the terrorists keep sending car bombs and the like from their stronghold, as in Fallujah. What worked in Afghanistan was to find some local warlord we could live with, someone in no hurry to get his six pack of virgins, someone who might want to put sacks over the heads of the women of his town, but had no grandiose ambitions to stuff all the women of the world into bags, and then we cut a deal with him - we help him his slay his enemies, he helps us slay our enemies. Unfortunately the US plan to bring democracy to the middle east, and to preserve Iraq as a unitary state, keeps getting in the way of this sort of deal. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG o32eoG4KhmccNjDBkOW9upEtn8Lka3zsooGJn8lY 4dMgCNOmt5z/S3km7vma/L6RECrRaVEmnhEZ4E2hb _ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
Inadvertent Iraqi anarchocapitalism (Re: US Retardation of Free Markets (was Airport insanity))
At 10:41 AM -0700 10/27/04, James A. Donald wrote: What worked in Afghanistan was to find some local warlord we could live with, someone in no hurry to get his six pack of virgins, someone who might want to put sacks over the heads of the women of his town, but had no grandiose ambitions to stuff all the women of the world into bags, and then we cut a deal with him - we help him his slay his enemies, he helps us slay our enemies. Unfortunately the US plan to bring democracy to the middle east, and to preserve Iraq as a unitary state, keeps getting in the way of this sort of deal. Except, apparently, in Iraqi Kurdistan: http://www.livejournal.com/users/giantlaser/58953.html Wherein Ryan Lackey's boss has left Baghdad for a nice hotel upstate... :-) Ryan, apparently remains downtown where all the fun is... http://www.livejournal.com/users/giantlaser/59447.html page down to see Ryan in all his former dry-suited Sealand glory... I recommend Tyler http://www.livejournal.com/users/giantlaser/ and Jayme's http://www.livejournal.com/users/slownewsday/ Iraq Livejournal blogs as a wonderful example of inadvertant anarchocapitalism in action. Inadvertent, because, of course, they *really* wanna be statists, liberal ones in fact, in spite of evidence all around them to the contrary. I still think they're heroes. Hell, as far as I'm concerned, *Ryan's* a hero at this point. Nick Berg lives. Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: Cyclotrimethylene trinitramine
Generously, the US government offers a complete set of photos, drawings, process diagrams and descriptions for an RDX manufacturing plant. Library of Congress has the info in its Historic American Engineering Record. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/habs_haer/ Search on RDX. Now it could be disinfo to get a wild bunch to blow themselves up, but that happens pretty often with the USG plant too. See the prolific explosion barriers and escape chutes throughout the groundbreaking, heh, facility.
Re: US Retardation of Free Markets (was Airport insanity)
-- James A. Donald: The remaining communists have made some psychological recovery - see for example Tyler Durden's peculiar version of recent history, where in his universe the communists actually won and are still winning, Tyler Durden Again, you live in a world that's evenly divided between black and white. Since I'm not white you figure I must be black. Whatever you are, you have told us a story of the world where the Koreans bravely repelled the evil capitalist American attack, and enjoyed prosperity and progress thereby. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG EqHk0rek72pGIAIvZCiBmJDtn1yvQHDXnJ/0n/ks 4jknM3llghisRUJE2X+8tiw6yn8yqEdesC8+Fy4HC
Re: Donald's Job Description
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, Bill Stewart wrote: And MoveOn seems to have mostly disappeared. So, I'm not the only one who's noticed this? Obviously, Kerry was coming a bit too close to an actual win...:-( -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 0xBD4A95BF An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core S. Plath, Temper of Time
Russia tied to Iraq's missing arms
I'll see you one fizzled October surprise, and raise you... Are we having fun, now? Cheers, RAH http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20041027-101153-4822r The Washington Times www.washingtontimes.com Russia tied to Iraq's missing arms By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published October 27, 2004 Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned. John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, almost certainly removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad. The Russians brought in, just before the war got started, a whole series of military units, Mr. Shaw said. Their main job was to shred all evidence of any of the contractual arrangements they had with the Iraqis. The others were transportation units. Mr. Shaw, who was in charge of cataloguing the tons of conventional arms provided to Iraq by foreign suppliers, said he recently obtained reliable information on the arms-dispersal program from two European intelligence services that have detailed knowledge of the Russian-Iraqi weapons collaboration. Most of Saddam's most powerful arms were systematically separated from other arms like mortars, bombs and rockets, and sent to Syria and Lebanon, and possibly to Iran, he said. The Russian involvement in helping disperse Saddam's weapons, including some 380 tons of RDX and HMX is still being investigated, Mr. Shaw said. The RDX and HMX, which are used to manufacture high-explosive and nuclear weapons, are probably of Russian origin, he said. Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita could not be reached for comment. The disappearance of the material was reported in a letter Oct. 10 from the Iraqi government to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Disclosure of the missing explosives Monday in a New York Times story was used by the Democratic presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, who accused the Bush administration of failing to secure the material. Al-Qaqaa, a known Iraqi weapons site, was monitored closely, Mr. Shaw said. That was such a pivotal location, Number 1, that the mere fact of [special explosives] disappearing was impossible, Mr. Shaw said. And Number 2, if the stuff disappeared, it had to have gone before we got there. The Pentagon disclosed yesterday that the Al-Qaqaa facility was defended by Fedayeen Saddam, Special Republican Guard and other Iraqi military units during the conflict. U.S. forces defeated the defenders around April 3 and found the gates to the facility open, the Pentagon said in a statement yesterday. A military unit in charge of searching for weapons, the Army's 75th Exploitation Task Force, then inspected Al-Qaqaa on May 8, May 11 and May 27, 2003, and found no high explosives that had been monitored in the past by the IAEA. The Pentagon said there was no evidence of large-scale movement of explosives from the facility after April 6. The movement of 377 tons of heavy ordnance would have required dozens of heavy trucks and equipment moving along the same roadways as U.S. combat divisions occupied continually for weeks prior to and subsequent to the 3rd Infantry Division's arrival at the facility, the statement said. The statement also said that the material may have been removed from the site by Saddam's regime. According to the Pentagon, U.N. arms inspectors sealed the explosives at Al-Qaqaa in January 2003 and revisited the site in March and noted that the seals were not broken. It is not known if the inspectors saw the explosives in March. The U.N. team left the country before the U.S.-led invasion began March 20, 2003. A second defense official said documents on the Russian support to Iraq reveal that Saddam's government paid the Kremlin for the special forces to provide security for Iraq's Russian arms and to conduct counterintelligence activities designed to prevent U.S. and Western intelligence services from learning about the arms pipeline through Syria. The Russian arms-removal program was initiated after Yevgeny Primakov, the former Russian intelligence chief, could not convince Saddam to give in to U.S. and Western demands, this official said. A small portion of Iraq's 650,000 tons to 1 million tons of conventional arms that were found after the war were looted after the U.S.-led invasion, Mr. Shaw said. Russia was Iraq's largest foreign supplier of weaponry, he said. However, the most important and useful arms and explosives appear to have been separated and moved out as part of carefully designed program. The organized effort was done in advance of the conflict, Mr. Shaw said
Re: Attention Alif: RDNS is a bitch...
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, J.A. Terranson wrote: On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, J.A. Terranson wrote: Sorry for the open channel, folks. Yes - let me restate that for the record: My personal apologies. RAH: Try it now. I saw the bounce, and found the line I missed. Try it one more time :-) -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 0xBD4A95BF An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core S. Plath, Temper of Time
Attention Alif: RDNS is a bitch...
--- begin forwarded text Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 22:42:05 -0400 (EDT) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mail Delivery System) Subject: Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Description: Notification Content-Type: text/plain This is the Postfix program at host bullae.ibuc.com. I'm sorry to have to inform you that the message returned below could not be delivered to one or more destinations. For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster If you do so, please include this problem report. You can delete your own text from the message returned below. The Postfix program [EMAIL PROTECTED]: host mx1.mfn.org[204.238.179.8] said: 554 user-119ac85.biz.mindspring.com[66.149.49.5]: Client host rejected: We do not accept mail from .biz (in reply to RCPT TO command) Content-Description: Delivery error report Content-Type: message/delivery-status Reporting-MTA: dns; bullae.ibuc.com Arrival-Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 22:42:02 -0400 (EDT) Final-Recipient: rfc822; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Action: failed Status: 5.0.0 Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; host mx1.mfn.org[204.238.179.8] said: 554 user-119ac85.biz.mindspring.com[66.149.49.5]: Client host rejected: We do not accept mail from .biz (in reply to RCPT TO command) snip... --- end forwarded text -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: Cyclotrimethylene trinitramine
John Young [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Generously, the US government offers a complete set of photos, drawings, process diagrams and descriptions for an RDX manufacturing plant. Library of Congress has the info in its Historic American Engineering Record. It's not all too hard to make from hexamine (although quite inefficient, the bulk manufacture isn't done that way) for someone with access to a bit of chemical equipment. I couldn't believe the fuss they're making over this, it's just another HE, although more brisant than most. The story is about as interesting as Stick of dynamite discovered in Baghdad parking lot, the media is making it sound like someone's absconded with a live nuke. I guess they couldn't spend the necessary 30 seconds or so it'd take to look it up somewhere and see what was involved. Peter.
Re: Attention Alif: RDNS is a bitch...
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, R.A. Hettinga wrote: Sorry for the open channel, folks. At 10:16 PM -0500 10/27/04, J.A. Terranson wrote: Thanks for the heads up though :-) Tell ya what. You send me (directly, I think. :-)) pointers to how to bash RDNS out of earthlink's hands and into mine, and I'll buy you a beer. If that's your dns, I'll whitelist it. But I can also send you the requested info ;-) I know, I know. You drink downstream beer... :-). Know what? I'm a pussy when it comes to beer! One 40oz and I'm ready for the hospital! Hard drugs are another story though smirk... Cheers, RAH -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 0xBD4A95BF An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core S. Plath, Temper of Time
Re: E-Vote Vendors Hand Over Software
R.A. Hettinga wrote: The stored software will serve as a comparison tool for election officials should they need to determine whether anyone tampered with programs installed on voting equipment. IIRC during the last set, the manufacturers themselves updated freshly-minted software from their ftp site onto the machines mere hours before the polls opened.
Re: Donald's Job Description
Tyler Durden wrote: I'm sure there are several Cypherpunks who would be very quick to describe Kerry as needs killing. but presumably, lower down the list than shrub and his current advisors?
Re: Doubt
Tyler Durden wrote: Yet what of your blindness, which doubts *everything* the current administration does? 1. Abu Ghraib 2. WMD in Iraq 3. Patriot Act 4. Countless ties between this administration and the major contract winners in Iraq Hum. Seems a decent amount of doubt is called for. For that matter - a healthy dose of doubt is called the scientific method - its how you actually find things out. Mind you, that would be reality based which is shunned by the current administration - presumably in favour of fantasy based
Re: Attention Alif: RDNS is a bitch...
Sorry for the open channel, folks. At 10:16 PM -0500 10/27/04, J.A. Terranson wrote: Thanks for the heads up though :-) Tell ya what. You send me (directly, I think. :-)) pointers to how to bash RDNS out of earthlink's hands and into mine, and I'll buy you a beer. I know, I know. You drink downstream beer... :-). Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: Donald's Job Description
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 6:14 PM -0700 10/27/04, Bill Stewart wrote: Kerry's a content-free stuffed shirt *I* coulda told you that. I'm from Massachusetts. Here's what I wrote about the War Hero (2.0) on another list: A guy just like, say, John Kerry, back-door preppie turned social-climber turned military opportunist medal-fabricator turned communist (Viet Cong) turned dishonorably discharged gigolo ($300 million) turned Democratic ward-heelling coatholder turned Dukakis snot-wipe turned Kennedy snot-wipe turned car-living beer-bummer turned Liveshot camera-hog turned gigolo (just south of a billion) turned crocodile-teared POW-sop turned communist (Sandinista) turned do-nothing Senator, whose accent went from Yiddish to Brahamin to Southie Irish to middle-america received pronounciation to (apparently last week) redneck get me a huntin' license, all of which, just like his opinion on any issue you could name, turned on a dime to give you nine cents change, depending on who he was talking to at the time. In the immortal words of Mr. Parker, Kerry's a pussy who's so full of shit he might as well be an asshole. In a lot of ways, he's just Dukakis, stretched out on the Marxist rack, only his voice got lower. who no longer has the guts that he had during his anti-war days Sorry. Even then, he was a pussy. He had Karl Marx and Uncle Ho shoved so far into both lower orifices he had sticky fluid coming out all of his *upper* ones... In the meantime, Bill, I um, feel your pain. He's *my* senator. And the *liberal* one, too. Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQYBQ7MPxH8jf3ohaEQKPdwCfbtTso0OyuD107uKvdNMfwpCd61sAmwW0 b4f4lRRmsks7KQsF9drn/QVD =ARaU -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: Donald's Job Description
At 05:11 PM 10/27/2004, Dave Howe wrote: Tyler Durden wrote: I'm sure there are several Cypherpunks who would be very quick to describe Kerry as needs killing. but presumably, lower down the list than shrub and his current advisors? Oh, definitely much lower(even if he wins :-). And if he loses, he ought to take Nader's place as the spoiled the election guy, or at least Dukakis's. They say we've got the best politicians money can buy, but we sure should be able to buy better politicians than him. Kerry was one of the worst runnable Democrats they could find. Edwards was worse, and at the time I thought Gephardt was worse, though Kerry's chickened out enough that he might not win, which would be worse than Gephardt winning. Kerry's a content-free stuffed shirt who no longer has the guts that he had during his anti-war days, which is a big problem in a campaign about emotions and values and Fearmongering, and Edwards is all pretty face with no apparent soul either. He's thoroughly failed to propose anything positive or concrete (saying Help is on the way just doesn't cut it, especially if you don't have anything to offer except not being Bush) and he's let his I'm a war hero stance get in the way of bashing Bush's incompetence in the war and bashing Bush's fundamental dishonesty. He's let Karl Rove dominate the emotional campaign, and failed to take the high road aggressively but tried to fight back against Rove on Rove's territory, which is futile. The only time he really got anywhere emotionally was during the parts of the debates where he would talk about how Bush's father did x/y/z and Bush Jr. wasn't up to it, which left Bush squirming at his podium, and he failed to catch on to the fact that Bush-o-nomics is the same Voodoo Economics that Bush Sr. criticized when he was running against Reagan. Howard Dean would have been fun, but he was enough of a threat to the establishment that they had to stop him (especially the Democratic establishment, because he was rebuilding an actual political party with some grass roots in it as opposed to the current pure astroturf.) And MoveOn seems to have mostly disappeared.
Re: the simian unelected is blocking the world
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 8:57 PM -0500 10/27/04, J.A. Terranson wrote: Yours, From Sunny Wonderful Missouri... A great place to be *from*. Go Sox. Cheers, RAH BA Philosophy, Mizzou, '81(okay, '84...) -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQYBZRMPxH8jf3ohaEQIytACgxMf5ibxVt2BzW2XjyRuuZpgIQAIAoOr0 WjrGsiJfqdh2OBlFN/73P0qQ =yosl -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: the simian unelected is blocking the world
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, R.A. Hettinga wrote: At 8:57 PM -0500 10/27/04, J.A. Terranson wrote: Yours, From Sunny Wonderful Missouri... A great place to be *from*. You didn't finish it :-) And a great place to *leave*! Go Sox. Rah! Rah! Cheers, RAH BA Philosophy, Mizzou, '81(okay, '84...) You graduated after all that beer??? -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 0xBD4A95BF An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core S. Plath, Temper of Time
Re: the simian unelected is blocking the world
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, Steve Furlong wrote: Missouri and Illinois also have a good record for registering children, the dead, and other people who would normally not vote. In Missouri you'll find that dead people are quite real - hell, we elected a dead guy recently :-) As for *kids*, we recently had an 11 year old bride (legal here with parental consent) who was on the news for being the youngest *divorcee* at 12! Why not give her the vote? She can't do any worse than the rest of these rednecks. Yours, From Sunny Wonderful Missouri... -- J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 0xBD4A95BF An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core S. Plath, Temper of Time
Re: Attention Alif: RDNS is a bitch...
Interesting: although it triggered for the wrong reason, it did trigger appropriately - I do not accept generic rdns. You want to be seen as legit, you need to have fdns==rdns on your mx. Yes, I run extra-tight here, since (a) there's less than 700 users, (b) they are all free accounts, and therefore have to live at *my* tolerance level (it is good to be king :-), and (c) I don't believe email is all that important, and I'd rather toss real mail in error than allow crap in error. Sigh... Thanks for the heads up though :-) //Alif On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, R.A. Hettinga wrote: Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 22:43:58 -0400 From: R.A. Hettinga [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Attention Alif: RDNS is a bitch... --- begin forwarded text Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 22:42:05 -0400 (EDT) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mail Delivery System) Subject: Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Description: Notification Content-Type: text/plain This is the Postfix program at host bullae.ibuc.com. I'm sorry to have to inform you that the message returned below could not be delivered to one or more destinations. For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster If you do so, please include this problem report. You can delete your own text from the message returned below. The Postfix program [EMAIL PROTECTED]: host mx1.mfn.org[204.238.179.8] said: 554 user-119ac85.biz.mindspring.com[66.149.49.5]: Client host rejected: We do not accept mail from .biz (in reply to RCPT TO command) Content-Description: Delivery error report Content-Type: message/delivery-status Reporting-MTA: dns; bullae.ibuc.com Arrival-Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 22:42:02 -0400 (EDT) Final-Recipient: rfc822; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Action: failed Status: 5.0.0 Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; host mx1.mfn.org[204.238.179.8] said: 554 user-119ac85.biz.mindspring.com[66.149.49.5]: Client host rejected: We do not accept mail from .biz (in reply to RCPT TO command) snip... --- end forwarded text -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 0xBD4A95BF An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core S. Plath, Temper of Time
Re: Attention Alif: RDNS is a bitch...
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, J.A. Terranson wrote: Sorry for the open channel, folks. Yes - let me restate that for the record: My personal apologies. RAH: Try it now. -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 0xBD4A95BF An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core S. Plath, Temper of Time
Re: Turtles all the way down... (was Re: Attention Alif: RDNS is a bitch...)
To all of you who have been forced to witness this shameful exhibition of open channel abuse - my apologies. But it's over now, so we now return you to your regularly scheduled, um, Hr... Nothings ever regular around here -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 0xBD4A95BF An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core S. Plath, Temper of Time
Re: Attention Alif: RDNS is a bitch...
At 10:29 PM -0500 10/27/04, J.A. Terranson wrote: RAH: Try it now. 'mkay... This work? Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: Donald's Job Description
On 2004-10-25T22:32:48+0200, Eugen Leitl wrote: On Mon, Oct 25, 2004 at 03:20:28PM -0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote: *Nobody* was a counterbalance to Tim, me or anyone else. Simple fact, no matter how much he pissed on my shoes, or anyone else's. What's he up to these days? It seems he got tired of of USENET, too Maybe an assassin got past his home defense network?
Re: the simian unelected is blocking the world
At 9:33 PM -0500 10/27/04, J.A. Terranson wrote: You graduated after all that beer??? Beer *and* philosophy. I must be a genius, or something. :-). Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: Turtles all the way down... (was Re: Attention Alif: RDNS is a bitch...)
At 10:55 PM -0500 10/27/04, J.A. Terranson wrote: Nothings ever regular around here Er, regular means nothing around here? Thanks everyone. Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
