Looking Back From the 22nd Century: Quote of the Day #5
“Though I think she tends to skate around the edge of what America really died of.”
“Which is what?”
Yavuz shrugged, “Fear.”
Richard Morgan, Thirteen, pg 246
“Though I think she tends to skate around the edge of what America really died of.”
“Which is what?”
Yavuz shrugged, “Fear.”
Richard Morgan, Thirteen, pg 246
Regarding the Hamdan trial verdict Warren Richey writes in the Christian Science Monitor:
Even if he’d been acquitted of all charges, Hamdan was unlikely to be released from his Guantánamo cell anytime soon. In addition to the military commission charges, Hamdan is being held in open-ended detention as an unlawful enemy combatant.
Under the law of war, he can be held for the duration of the war on terror.
As the title says: “OK, so what will define the end.”
No, I’m not going to do much Apple bashing here.
My MacBook Pro has been running continuously for 9 days and 23 hours including multiple bus commutes where it is a treat to be online immediately on opening the lid while my traveling companions, using various Windoze machines (generally shiny Dell Computers), are tapping their fingers for 2-3 minutes…
The Free Software Foundation, though, thinks that you should buy their phone instead of an iPhone 3G. Here are their 5 real reasons to avoid iPhone 3G:
- iPhone completely blocks free software. Developers must pay a tax to Apple, who becomes the sole authority over what can and can’t be on everyone’s phones.
- Ed: Well this is not exactly a tax-you won’t go to jail if you don’t pay it. This is not to say I think Apple’s closed model is a good thing.
- iPhone endorses and supports Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology.
Ed: A good point.
- iPhone exposes your whereabouts and provides ways for others to track you without your knowledge.
- Ed: How is this is different from any other cell phone?
- iPhone won’t play patent- and DRM-free formats like Ogg Vorbis and Theora.
- Ed: This might be a reason to choose something else but, really, how many folks are using anything besides ACC and MP3 on their players?
- iPhone is not the only option. There are better alternatives on the horizon that respect your freedom, don’t spy on you, play free media formats, and let you use free software — like the FreeRunner.
- Ed: Yep, lot’s of choices out there. For my purposes the little Sanyo works just fine.
The sixth, and number one reason not to buy an iPhone in the US:
You will be supporting a criminal organization: AT&T.
It is clear that AT&T committed illegal acts prior to being granted immunity by a cowardly congress and it is clear that AT&T continues to commit immoral and unconstitutional acts to this day. We do not need to quietly accept the behavior of war criminals or the illegal and immoral acts of corporations.
The iPhone may be cool and, yes I want one, but I’m not buying anytime soon. Why are you supporting AT&T?
Both a boycott and picketing are reasonable first steps to reestablishing justice in the US. If enough join in perhaps even congress will mend its ways.
Via Just Well Mixed.
….ongoing increases in the defense budget.
As Henley, who is not a mean old man, says: this is not change we can believe in.
From Spencer Ackerman:
Through his blindness, his incompetence, his pathetic smallness in the face of a very big enemy, Bush was the greatest gift bin Laden could have asked for. May Bush’s last years come in a CIA black site somewhere in eastern Europe, never to be acknowledged to the Red Cross, nor to Laura, to Jenna and Barbara or his grandchildren. And may his only companion in that hideous nightmare of his own creation be his cellmate, Usama bin Laden. Because today, they have lost and we have won.
I’m torn.
While they are truly deserving of each other, complete isolation might be better. Together they will have too much opportunity to enjoy camaraderie and rehash their great achievements of the first decade of the twentieth century.
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