arachne-digest wrote:
>>Europeans think that bush has a very small IQ. (it's common believe here ..
>>i don't want to say if it's true or not ... but that is what people
>>believe)
Well, AFAIK IQ tests were invented for American Army during WW I to
quicky decide, who is about to become commander and who
"cannnen-fodder"... I think that the IQ was only quessed by "experts",
not oficially meassured, so this doesn't mean anything. I don't believe
in IQ at all...
> American people complain about how expensive gas is .... here in austria
> it's at least twice as much !
> And IMHO it is not necessary to have engines that use more than 6-8 liter
> gas/100 km.
>
> climate issues have to be taken much more seriously.
> (not only by america ... but the whole world)
> But america causes most of the pollution. (because of its size, and because
> it is behind in economic use of ressources)
But this is not only question of pollution. This is the root of all
global problems. Islam is not more or less aggresive than any other
religion (except buddhism and taoism, which are both nowhere near being
real religions with god). But Islam is religon of people living in
region which is making awful amounts of money by selling oil, and these
countries are very close to countries which are extremely poor (like
Afghanistan), and together, the flow of money, power, resources,
workforce, etc. in this region is totaly chaotical and "turbulent", as
described by non-linear math...
Entire oil-industry is obsolete and irrational already for years. Even
without major technology upgrade, there are many alternative fuels -
during WW II, Germany was producing gasoline synteticaly, and they were
using many other alternative fuels, Brasilia some time ago converted
about one million cars to be powered by alcohol made from sugar cane
(before they discovered their own oil), and in my country, you
can routinely buy so called "bio-diesel", made from ordinary plant
called "rape" (or colza ? I used online dictionary...). There are
alternatives, and sometimes they are as easy to get, as downloading
Arachne instead of upgrading your PC, or installing Linux on your new PC
instead of installing Windows. Which means, these alternatives are just
one step away from ordinary customer, but psychology of masses is
irrational, and most people just feel most comfortable doing exactly the
same things as their neighbours - even me. I am maybe experimenting on
certain fields, but I always prefere to be surrounded by extreme cases,
who "exagerrate" certain activites, while I am the "balanced one"...
hmmm...
If our civilization was buing less oil from Middle East, there would be
no psychopatic billionaire like Bin Laden to subsidize terrorist
attacks. If there were no weapons being exported from countries capable
of producing them, there would be no need for these countries to use
these weapons. The problem is, world is chaotic system, and whatever you
invent will probably sooner or later end in hands of someone nasty
enough to use it as weapon - even passenger airliner.
I always considered computers and Internet should allow homeworking,
which would reduce need for energy, fuel, office buildings, etc. But it
is also very hard psychologicaly. You start trying to build your life
differently, and after few years you find yourself dancing on
technoparty, surrounded by cult of syntetical materials, music, and
drugs... which is maybe better from ecological point of view, than
driving your car everyday from home to work ;-0 but it also makes clear,
that the reasons why western civilization behaves as it does are
cryptical and deeply irrational, maybe as irrational as islam religion...
> Outlaws will be able to send messages uuencoded or base64-encoded, made to look
> like a graphic image or executable, maybe a device driver to fool the snoopers
> when it's really an encrypted message, or maybe an executable file that runs to
> produce a message in some devious way.
There is another interesting aspect of using encryption - only few
people use it, so the simple fact that you use encryption makes you
look suspicious. I know very few people using encryption in everyday
communication.... so "steganography" - sending encrypted messages hidden
in image or binary files - is necessary anyway. Security is one thing,
but you always need some "obscurity" too - because it always helps if
interceptor misses the fact, that there is something to decrypt. It
looks good if you manage to make the message look like white noise...
> Bush was elected because he was a better politician than Gore and
> was able to overcome Gore's advantages in the states that mattered
>From my point of view, Bush was so far the first politician elected by
random choice of blind Fortune. Which doesn't mean anything wrong, of
course...
> No, no, no. Intelligence gathering consists of ALL activities
> undertaken to collect and study and analyze information about
> something or somebody or some organization. Intelligence may
> be gathered covertly, as by spying and snooping, or it might be
> done overtly, as by going down to a public library and reading
> newspapers and magazines and books. Most people in the
> intelligence community operate overtly. The greater part of all
> intelligence gathering consists mainly in just doing research in
> the same manner as a typical college student. Only a very few of
> the intelligence people are the undercover operatives and cloak
> and dagger spooks of the type romanticized in the movies and novels
> and reported upon in some documentaries.
I have found link to very good article about that, wait a moment, ...
I have read Czech language translation, but fortunately, it included
link to English original...
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/07/gerecht.htm
"Operations that include diarrhea as a way of life don't happen." -
well, I spent voluntarily 6 weeks in India and Ladakh (part of Kashmir),
I know it is nowhere near Pakistan - but the reasons why I am neither
agent of CIA nor terroris are definitely not the fear of diarrhea...
(which is natural part of traveling through Asia, naturaly...) (not
speaking that the cultural barrier would be of course inpenetrable)
Interesting fact is, that one friend of my friend, singer in a punk rock band
formed by various ex-students and computer techies, was thought to be in
Afghanistan on 11th Septeber, later, when he got online in some internet
cafe, we learnt that his group of travelers just moved from China to
Pakistan, and now they are heading home through Iran. They omitted visit
to Afghanistan as being really too much crazy these times ;-) You would
probably consider such travelling to be strange hobby for holiday. But
many Europeans just found out, that they liveon same continent as Asia,
and that normal people in these countries are not even nearly as
hostile, as TV describes them. Most of them are normal, peaceful people,
working hard to feed their families, doing dull jobs, traveling by
overcrowded buses and trains, like my own nation did in communist era.
From my point of view, there is no difference between terrorist attack
in Indian part of Kasmir, and terrorist attack in NYC. I have seen both
places. I have seen people living there. They are equal in my eyes. The
only difference is, that India won't start bombing let's say Mexico,
when they experience terrorist attack. I don't know exactly why. In
Europe, terrorist attacks occur in Spain (Basques), Ireland, Corsica...
again, there is no easy target for bombing.
When traveling in India, we have met lot of Israelis. Usually those who
just ended military service (it is compulsory for both men and women in
Israel, AFAIK). I am avoiding military service as hard as I can (as
everyone in my country - maybe you have heard about Svejk ? Czechs had
lost last real war in 1620, and since that, evolution learnt us to be
really good in surviving lost wars - well, at least those who haven't
moved to America...) They were usually smoking lot of marihuana and
reading lot of Herman Hesse. We have also met lot of Germans, and
individuals from all over the world, including Argentina, Korea and
Japan. We have met very few Americans (one New Yorker in Ladakh),
usually very confused, and one Canadian (retired).
>>>>A 'college' of bin laden was killed by the soviet, while he was
>>>>phoning via a GSM mobile phone. They traped his communication, and
>>>>launched a rocket at the position they got ...
I didn't know GSM was around already in 80's...
> In knowing only in which cell the subject is located might get you
> within a mile of where he is. Radio direction finding triangulation
> can easily pin one's location down to a 10 meter grid square. During
> the Vietnam war the enemy could often drop a mortar round on anyone
> who was transmitting on a radio from the same location for a period of
> over 17 seconds. The enemy used very primitive RDF equipment and they
> were very, very fast at getting very accurate bearings and then solving
> the trigonometry for determining the grid coordinates for where the
> lines would intersect on a map. The VC learned to do their math
> amazingly well and very fast.
Well, I guess it was because they were fighting for bare survival, at
least in later phases of the war. They had nowhere to retreat.
I guess this would probably force me to do my math amazingly well and
fast... of course, maybe I would avoid military service even if I was
born in Vietnam, but who nows.
I think wars are entirely stupid, as well as terrorist attacks and
any kind of inter-human violence. I hate the fact that sometimes I am
violent myself, or at least I am thinking about agression, fighting,
etc. I have read some books explaining it from different points of view,
but I still don't believe there was no other way for human race to
evolve (well, I may occasionaly be force to accept the fact that this
universe is the best possible universe, but this is pure philosophy,
which can't tell you *what to do next*). All religious systems were
originaly attempting to control the aggresivity, but during the time,
almost all of these systems perverted themselves into aggressive ideologies.
Although deep in my hert I am anarchist, and I belive that that free
people would be able to live peacfuly without any enforced laws, it
seems, that for next few thousands of years, the idea of laws,
definition of crime, investigation of crime, and justice independent on
executive power seems to be the only solution. It just needs to be
applied globaly - I don't know, why we call person which kill another
person "murderer", but we celebrate those who have killed thousands and
millions as "heroes". And I am not talking only about current terrorist
attacks - any war is legalisation of murder, and each war has roots deep
in past, mujahedins were originally funded and trained by CIA, they just
grew "out of control" (have you seen this video by Chemical Brothers ?).
It is clear, that supporting any side of military conflict in order to
benefit from it politicaly or economicaly leads to "blowback",
which means that finaly you got back the agression you tried to
externalize to someone else somewhere else. Some European countries
choosed policy of neutrality - which is not bad, but it still won't help
you to avoid terrible ethical questions when people are dying in
neighbouring countries. You get involved anyway - you open your
territory for money, spies, reguges, etc., it is the same old idea "if
only everyone behaved like us"...
I think that some cure for problems of today's world would be _real
economical and political globalisation_ - which would mean anyone would
be allowed to travel and _work_ anywhere, anyone would be able to elect
representatives to "parliament of United Nations", anyone would be
punishable for crimes against humanity, like killing other people, the
crimes against humanity would be investigated and judged equaly never
mind if they happen in Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo or New York. It is
question of delivering information which can be trusted (encryption,
certificates, digital signatures ...) to those, who care.
People behind Open Source Movement cry for decentralization of
civilization. I agree with them. In India, Bill Gats would be probably
rather running small Internet cafe on Paharganj in Delhi, rather than
building huge monopoly. Western civilization is very good in creating
irrational, hierarchical, useless vertical organizations and generally
_structures_. Unfortunately, violent attacks make the situation only
worse...
--
Michael "xChaos" Polak
+420 603 872631 / +420 2 33355668 / ICQ# 40434104
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