That rip-off hard drive manufacturers have been doing for years now with their size statements… A 160 GB drive is really only 149 GB. I mean I know that’s because they define 1GB = 1 billion bytes. But that’s the same as if a food company would redefine the kilogram and then sell a 1.5 kg package that contains 1200 grams of whatever it is that is actually inside.
Well, looks like a bomb derailed a Russian train. I would not be surprised if this is blamed on Georgia.
Leave it to China to show us what our future holds:
>SHENZHEN, China– At least 20,000 police surveillance cameras are being installed along streets here in southern China and will soon be guided by sophisticated computer software from an American-financed company to recognize automatically the faces of police suspects and detect unusual activity.
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>Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by the same company will be issued to most citizens.
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>Data on the chip will include not just the citizen’s name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord’s phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China’s controversial “one child” policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card.
This is absolutely horrible. And the worst part is that our own Government – and the American government, and especially the British government – are clearly going in that direction as well. This kind of abuse has to be stopped before it even gets that far. To quote The Prisoner: I am not a number, I am a free man!
When you hear all the current talk about how “islamsits” threaten us by means of “terrorism”, you should be aware that NATO – and thus directly or own, freedom-loving and democratically elected governments, seem to have a history of stirring up trouble at home by conducting terror against their own citizens: It is known as project “Gladio“.
According to Ganser, the secret army was behind waves of attacks in Italy in the 1970s. In Spain, it worked with Franco and may have supported over a 1000 attacks. In Germany, it had standing plans to murder leaders of the Social Democrat party in case of a Soviet invasion. It carried out terrorist actions against President de Gaulle and the Algerian peace plan in France. It seems to have been involved in the assassination of Amilcar Cabral and Eduardo Mondlane, prominent leaders in African liberation in the Portugese colonies. It was involved in the coup against Greek Prime Minister Papandreou and fomented terrorism against the Kurds in Turkey.
This was no accident either, but deliberate policy:
As one of Gladio’s operatives said, “You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security.â€
This reminds me of something Hermann Göring said. Göring was undoubtedly an evil man, but just because he committed crimes against humanity doesn’t mean he was not an intelligent man. He said:
Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. …Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
This is something that every citizen, no matter in what country, should be aware of. Always question the motives of your government. Always ask questions. Never trust those who ask for new powers. If they say it’s for your own good… it’s probably not.
Comment spammers are now parsing parts of the website in the hopes of fooling people into accepting their comments:
>I couldn’t understand some parts of this article rlds Collide | The World According to Nils, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
Nice try, but I am still smarter than a spam script. Reassuring.
The new British PM [Gordon Brown](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Brown) said that the world [owes the US a debt for waging the war against terror](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6920877.stm). Looks like they cloned the [poodle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Blair).
President Bush has [made it legal](http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3.html) to dispossess any person that:
>(i) [...] have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of:
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>(A) [threaten] the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq; or
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>(B) [undermine] efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people;
It is absolutely trivial to show that opponents of the war in Iraq – for example, the representatives who [voted to pull the American troops from Iraq](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6896789.stm) – violate some or all of those, especially (B).
This is a grim day, and I surely hope that the Americans will not stand for this.
The Marriott hotel chain is a spammer:
>Since you recently supplied your email address to Marriott, you’ll now receive advance notice of new hotels, services to save you time and money, and hotel specials and packages.
Yes, I supplied you my email address so you could send me a confirmation of my booking, I did **not** agree to you sending me advertisements.
Well, expect a whole lot of [Spamcop](http://spamcop.net) complaints in the future.
Politicans in Germany, more specifically in Hessen where I live, want to [add the biblical story about the creation of the world to biology class](http://www.welt.de/politik/article999798/Schoepfungsgeschichte_im_Biologieunterricht.html) (Link in German). At first glance their intentions are dressed up to look innocent or even productive: They are not trying to present Creationism as a competition to evolution, but rather that the biblical creation story “complements” evolution as an “allegorical explanation”.
Of course it’s easy to read between the lines, and the opposition has successfully done so: They criticize that the proposing politician (Karin Wolff) noted “strong analogies” between evolutionary theory and creationism. They also warned that the constitution of Hessen guarantees the freedom of religion, which includes the right for parents to excempt their children from religion class. Biology, on the other hand, is a mandatory class.
The attempt by Mrs. Wolff to establish religion in a science class can only be considered to be the first attempt to bring the “debate” over Intelligent Design to Germany. I put “debate” in quotes, because there really is no debate: Intelligent Design is religious, pseudo-scientific humbug and not a valid scientific theory. The “debate” only exists because Christian fundamentalists are trying to turn the USA into a religious nation.
We must guard against this in Germany, and in all of Europe: We must not allow the fundamentalists to start this unproductive campaign here. We must end this nonsense before it can take root. Therefore, I call upon Mrs. Wolff to immediately resign from her post.
A lot of people make such a fuss about freedom. Freedom to do whatever they please. But seriously, now, for a moment, have you ever considered what the consequences of freedom are? If you allow people to do as they please, law, order, and civilization will break down. Chaos and anarchy will invariably follow, and people will do all kinds of natsy, evil, and utterly immoral things.
Take Malaysia, for example. A good, modern nation. Quiet, civilized, and you never hear a bad thing about them. But now a tremendous scandal is rocking their peaceful nation: A [satirical image](http://www.tianchua.net/en/2007/07/02/french-dinner-for-3/) of the deputy prime minister has been published on the Internet. We cannot have that, and Education Minister Hishammuddin Hussein [quickly pointed out](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6283056.stm) why this would set a very dangerous precedent if left unpunished:
>Education Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that if people are allowed to make fun of Malaysia’s leaders they would use the same freedoms to insult the Prophet Muhammad as, he said, is done in the West.
And we can’t have that now – if people start to criticize religion and begin to think for themselves then all that is good and holy and pure would break down. Clearly, the Malaysians, the Muslims, no, the entirety of mankind must be saved from this dangerous path! Of course, Mr. Hussein put his foot where his mouth is, and was himself criticized for this statement. Not, as you might hope because freedom of speech is sacred, but because the Prophet is sacred and mere humans aren’t:
>Mr Hishammuddin stressed that he was not trying to put Malaysia’s leaders on the same level as the Prophet.
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>However senior members of the conservative Islamic party, PAS, said that by linking the two, he had in effect done just that.
So that just proved again that freedom of speech will always be used to insult the Prophet Mohammad. It would probably best just to forbid people from speaking altogether, lest they commit heresy.