diypower - Slashdot User

Comment Lessons from Northern Irish IRA (Score 3, Insightful) 737

by NigelJohnstone on Sunday July 30, 2006 @04:27PM (#15812927) Attached to: Cyberwar on NASA Websites

"As many prior posters have quoted, the difference between Israeli citizens and Lebanese citizens is that "Israeli citizens are sleeping in bomb shelters; Lebanese citizens are sleeping with bombs."

Nice soundbite, it makes it sound like the children are complicit in missle launches, but of course they were just innocent victims. Did they choose or even know who was next door? You are using the vague phrase 'Lebanese citizens' to try to blanket transfer blame from SOME terrorists to A WHOLE COUNTRIES POPULATION.

This strategy can never work. Consider the case of the IRA in Northern Ireland. We faced their bombs regularly in Britain, yet we never did anything so foolish as to bomb huge sections of ireland in the hope of flushing them out. It would be counter productive, it would simply create more terrorism.
In the same way this strategy can't possibly ever fix the problem Israel has with its northern border. It will simply increase the terrorism, and decrease their security.

DOJ To Claim National Security in NSA Case 337

Posted by Zonk on Saturday April 29, 2006 @05:54AM from the nice-idea-now-its-mine dept.

deblau writes "Wired is reporting that the federal government intends to invoke the rarely used 'State Secrets Privilege' in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class action lawsuit against AT&T. The case alleges that the telecom collaborated with the NSA's secret spying on American citizens. The State Secrets Privilege lets the executive branch step into a civil lawsuit and have it dismissed if the case might reveal information that puts national security at risk."

The Continuing American Decline in CS 727

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday April 25, 2006 @10:02AM from the computer-science-not-counter-strike dept.

abb_road writes "America's recent dismal showing in the ACM Programming finals may be more than just a bad year; a BusinessWeek article suggests that the loss is indicative of the US's continuing decline in producing computer scientists. Despite the Labor Dept's forecast of a 40% increase in 'computer/math scientist' jobs, planned CS enrollments have plummeted from 3.7% in 2000 to just 1.1% last year. Other countries, particularly China, India and Eastern Europe, are working hard to pick up the slack, with potentially serious long-term effects for the US economy. From the article: 'If our talent base weakens, our lead in technology, business, and economics will fade faster than any of us can imagine.'"

When Free Speech and Foreign IP Law Collide 217

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @03:21AM from the don't-get-caught-in-the-middle dept.

segphault writes "Ars Technica has an interesting look at a recent intellectual property case where foreign copyright law conflicts with American freedom of speech rights. In this particular case, Sarl Louis Feraud International v. Viewfinder Inc., American enforcement of the French court's judgement on the basis of comity could establish a dangerous legal precedent that could lead to extensive censorship of the Internet. The article includes analysis of a relevant friend of the court brief filed by the EFF."

Microsoft Claims Worlds Best Search Engine Soon 536

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday March 02, 2006 @09:06AM from the google-fight dept.

kw writes "Microsoft will introduce a search engine better than Google in six months in the United States and Britain followed by Europe, its European president said on Wednesday. "What we're saying is that in six months' time we'll be more relevant in the U.S. market place than Google," said Neil Holloway, Microsoft president for Europe, Middle East and Africa. That timing would presumably coincide more or less with the launch of Vista."

Comment QWERTY (Score 1) 263

by diypower on Monday April 05, 1999 @12:56PM (#1949292) Attached to: The Myth of QWERTY

For a longer article on the myth of the inferiority of the QWERTY keyboard (and lots of other good stuff on economics), see http://wwwpub.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html.

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