Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Taristin on May 11, 2005, 04:59:11 pm
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http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/46379.htm
(I was just looking for a witty title, BTW; I'm not supporting murdering anyone. :nervous: )
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Damn people; they get such a golden opportunity and can't even be bothered to scrounge up a working grenade. That's just lazy is what it is.
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Regaurdless of my disdane for bush, I kinda agree with the sentiment in regaurd to the baltic nations.
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Originally posted by Rictor
Damn people; they get such a golden opportunity and can't even be bothered to scrounge up a working grenade. That's just lazy is what it is.
Immigrant labour I tells ya...
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Bush is unpopular in countries like France and Germany
Though this is quite true, it's interesting to put this in context of an attempted assassination. Or whatever it was. :blah:
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Bush is unpopular in countries like the United States of America, and Canada.
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Originally posted by Raa
Bush is unpopular in countries like the United States of America, and Canada.
:lol:
So true :p
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Originally posted by Raa
Bush is unpopular in countries like the United States of America, and Canada.
:lol:
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I'm still amazed that someone who's so unpopular can be elected democratically. If he's like John Howard, it's probably because he's good at convincing the people that "non-core promises" (i.e. promises that the government doesn't have to keep) are legitimate. :sigh:
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it's squarely because his opposition is even more incompetent than him. the only diference is that there incompotence is in winning elections his incompotence is in governing. couple that with roughly 50/50 split of the nation and you can see it, the fact the Bush one is more a statement about how bad his opposition is at the game of politics than how popular he is.
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Actually, since this happened in Georgia it's more of a reflection on Bush's popularity with "all those other people" than with his electorate, though I think Bob pretty much nailed it. Bush probably wouldn't have been possible 30 years ago, because at that time the Republican Party hadn't yet "discovered" how to mobilize the God, Guns, Glory crowd, and the Democrats weren't quite so ridiculously incompetent.
Though it's certainly ironic that someone flung a grenade at him in a country which was recently "liberated" with Washington's open support. Well, at least he still has...uh...Poland.
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That's pretty horrendous. However, it is a little reminiscent of the Australian scene... the Liberals (and particularly, John Howard) have been in power for three successive terms now, while Labour has been floundering around with party infighting for the past few years. They just go through opposition leader after opposition leader... I think we're back to the one we had a couple of years ago, and back then he'd been kicked out twice already.
I keep on thinking of how screwy the system is, where such leaders get to the top. Am I wrong to expect that the whole thing will come crashing down on our heads soon enough? How long will the USA last before it does a Rome and crumbles from the inside? No doubt when the US goes down, Australia will go down with it... however many decades or centuries that is down the line.
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Thank god for two term limits.
I can only prey Hillary Clinton isn't elected next. :sigh:
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Um, does anyone else find it disturbing that people are pretty much supporting assasination/murder here??? :nervous:
I don't care if you don't like someone's opinion, that's too far.
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Never said we support it. In fact, i explicitly said I'm not supporting it. :p
Go back to whoring M$ :p
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I was thinking about Rictor, not you.
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Yeah, but you know Rictor... :rolleyes:
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Hey, I'm not ashamed to say I fully support assassination, when appropriate. It all depends on the person. If they've done enough harm, and deserve it, or are likely to inflict harm in the future, and need to be stopped, why not?
Are you honestly going to tell me that you wouldn't take a shot at bin Laden or whoever, if you had the chance?
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Only if I could put both Bin Laden and Bush in the same room with Kim Jong Il and remove the air from the chamber all three are in. :)
Cheney, Rumsfeld, Blair, and the Ayatollahs of Iran would be dealt with by HK protocol droids in the meantime. ;)
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You all forget that despite how ****ty things are in and with America right now, and assassination of Bush would only serve to make the situation worse. Not only would it throw the government into temporary chaos, it's not like his replacement would be any more preferable.
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Originally posted by Rictor
Damn people; they get such a golden opportunity and can't even be bothered to scrounge up a working grenade. That's just lazy is what it is.
blame the bastard who sold it to me
Originally posted by Deepblue
Um, does anyone else find it disturbing that people are pretty much supporting assasination/murder here??? :nervous:
I don't care if you don't like someone's opinion, that's too far.
Our president does.
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Originally posted by Bobboau
it's squarely because his opposition is even more incompetent than him. the only diference is that there incompotence is in winning elections his incompotence is in governing. couple that with roughly 50/50 split of the nation and you can see it, the fact the Bush one is more a statement about how bad his opposition is at the game of politics than how popular he is.
Don't forget all the fear-mongering they have been doing during the past few years.
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Actually, both parties played the fear card, but the conservatives use it more than the liberals for the most part, and it's very disturbing to see it used as much as it has by either party. They're all idiots and we're even bigger idiots for playing into the system.
Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos.
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I don't like this incident.
Just another excuse for Bush to point to the terrorists and cry out that they need to be stopped. :sigh: It's like fighting shadows, and everyone is convinced that they can somehow defeat them by running at them and hammering away.
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While i'm totally okay with an assasination attempt on Bush, i'm surprised nobody has even thought about the many innocent Georgians and US Secret Service & FBI agents present (is it their fault they work for a crappy administration?) who would have likely been hurt/killed had the Grenade gone off (one can only dream).
...I mean, I'm okay with the idea of someone trying to "get rid" of Bush, but it'd like it a lot more if it had been a more precise method, one that didn't harm a lot on innocent people...
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Granade...pff...
The idiot should have used a sniper...or one of those american made guided missils (or maby not...they have an astounding abiltiy to miss their target)
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yeah
"hey abdual we managed to buy one of those afgahn stingers"
"wow, realy? I didn't think Al Qeda was willing to part with those things, man this'll be just great irony, we'll kill there presedent with there own weapons!"
/*hours later*/
"ok, I've got it locked on to Bush"
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"hmm, it just veered up into the sky for no reason... awww cra /*static*/"
now in all honesty you guy do not want Bush assassinated, the last thing you want is Darth Chenney in comand with the image of martyrBush to lead the rallying cries, but, it seems to me this is probly enevitable, he was elected in a year that ended in three zeros afterall :)
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Originally posted by Setekh
That's pretty horrendous. However, it is a little reminiscent of the Australian scene... the Liberals (and particularly, John Howard) have been in power for three successive terms now, while Labour has been floundering around with party infighting for the past few years. They just go through opposition leader after opposition leader... I think we're back to the one we had a couple of years ago, and back then he'd been kicked out twice already.
I keep on thinking of how screwy the system is, where such leaders get to the top. Am I wrong to expect that the whole thing will come crashing down on our heads soon enough? How long will the USA last before it does a Rome and crumbles from the inside? No doubt when the US goes down, Australia will go down with it... however many decades or centuries that is down the line.
Beazley's going to win the next election. Latham was the wrong choice at the wrong time, but coming off Simon Crean made him look a hell of a lot better. Beazley's got what it takes though - we'll have a labour government by 2008... I hope.
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I'm so glad we don't have to worry about Cheny running. He's even more corporate than Bush.
Can't we just arrest the bastard for crimes against humanity try him, and lock him up. Impeach him!
If you really wanted to overthrow the powers that be with violence, you'd have to kill a lot more than just the president. You'd have to kill Cheney, the speaker of the House, Senator Pro-tempt, and probably a few Cabinet members.
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Quite frankly, no-one has any more obligation to rid the world of Bush than they had to rid the world of Saddam, you cannot attack him like this without, in some way, conding his own tactics.
Change in Iraq should have come from within, not without. the same goes for the US.
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honestly I wouldn't care if Bush got nailed, but it wouldn't get you what you wanted, he'd be replaced by someone worse, and it'd be like 9/11 all over again, we WOULD invade at _least_ one other nation, and the republicans would get unbeleveable hegemeny, probly an 80% controle at least... actualy, now that I think about it, if Bush gets nailed I'm gona be uberpised.
odds are our current state of running around the world bombing nations arbitraraly will die down by the next election and things will go back to the way they were before, for the most part. at the least we aren't going to do anything like Iraq again. unless something major happens.
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Originally posted by EtherShock
If you really wanted to overthrow the powers that be with violence, you'd have to kill a lot more than just the president. You'd have to kill Cheney, the speaker of the House, Senator Pro-tempt, and probably a few Cabinet members.
"I am Echelon! I am all powerfull. I see all, and hear all. Prepare to meet your doom. Resistence is futile."
:nervous:
Seriouslly, for words like these, people are bound to be paid a little visit by the MIBs. The Echelon program (that they deny exists, but everybody knows about), listens and reads stuff like this. There was a news article a couple of years back of this guy who spoke about hypotetical plots to bump some president off on a chat room, and got arrested a week later.
For us who live on real democratic countries where freedom of speech still rules, it´s ok. But for people who have to live under such BS like the patriot act, you better take care. Guantanamo isn´t very nice this time of the year. Or any time, for that matter...
:p
With that said, it is still not known wether it was a real grenade or a simple toy. The georgians are keeping a big lid on it.
I think it wasn´t a grenade.
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Originally posted by Black Wolf
Beazley's going to win the next election. Latham was the wrong choice at the wrong time, but coming off Simon Crean made him look a hell of a lot better. Beazley's got what it takes though - we'll have a labour government by 2008... I hope.
I'm glad you're so confident - I'm afraid I feel a lot more shaky about Labour at the moment. However, I do hope that you're right - the mere idea of John Howard having a fourth term just gives me the jibblies. Though you have to wonder about Peter Costello... I wouldn't write him off just yet.
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
With that said, it is still not known wether it was a real grenade or a simple toy. The georgians are keeping a big lid on it.
I think it wasn´t a grenade.
Was probably a hard roll.
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Nah, probably something small, round, and green like a lime.
Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
"I am Echelon! I am all powerfull. I see all, and hear all. Prepare to meet your doom. Resistence is futile."
:nervous:
Seriouslly, for words like these, people are bound to be paid a little visit by the MIBs. The Echelon program (that they deny exists, but everybody knows about), listens and reads stuff like this. There was a news article a couple of years back of this guy who spoke about hypotetical plots to bump some president off on a chat room, and got arrested a week later.
For us who live on real democratic countries where freedom of speech still rules, it´s ok. But for people who have to live under such BS like the patriot act, you better take care. Guantanamo isn´t very nice this time of the year. Or any time, for that matter...
:p
With that said, it is still not known wether it was a real grenade or a simple toy. The georgians are keeping a big lid on it.
I think it wasn´t a grenade.
People were talking about using violent methods. I just wanted to clarify that they were incomplete. I don't condone violence. That just makes things worse. He may be a terrible president, but there are better ways of changing things and serving justice. I support more civil methods.
Last I recall, the country with the most freedom of speech--until the Patriot Act--was America. They might as well wipe their ass with the ****ing Constitution now. :hopping:
What the hell is the Echelon program? You mean there actually is an MIB?
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The Echelon program is an array of antenna scattered around the planet with the purpose of listening in on all types of electronic communications (including forums and chat rooms). It runs a particular alghorythm searching for key words, like "terrorism", "assassination", "America", anything that could lead the computers to a conversation worth listening in.
Very illegal, but they couldn´t care less, right?
:rolleyes:
@Raa
A hard roll?? The point is, no one knows what it was, except for the georgian inteligence. The more reliable media even refers to it as a "possible" grenade. It could be just a lemmon. Or one of those grenade shaped lighters. Untill someone steps up and actually explains what happened, i won´t believe it was a dud grenade.
Besides, if anyone wanted to kill Bush in that rally, all he had to do was step up to the plateau and shoot at point blank. The security was simply apalling. Just check the photos.
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
The Echelon program is an array of antenna scattered around the planet with the purpose of listening in on all types of electronic communications (including forums and chat rooms). It runs a particular alghorythm searching for key words, like "terrorism", "assassination", "America", anything that could lead the computers to a conversation worth listening in.
Very illegal, but they couldn´t care less, right?
Ah, so, what you're saying is, everyone who's posted in this forum should expect their door to be broken down by G-Men and have Special Forces fastrope through their windows any minute now...? :doubt:
I mean, i know the US Government is paranoid to all hell, but we're talking Stalinist Russia style paranoia here. What next, early morning pickups by the Western equivalent of the NKVD or Gestapo...?
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Echelon is reportedly run by the USA primarily, in conjunction with the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I'm not sure how much information was ever declassified, but the system was initially created as a method to monitor Soviet communications during the Cold War.
Apparently it's essentially a giant keyword based system that sifts through text and perhaps even voice searching for combinations of words - such as Allah, bomb, President, nuclear etc in the same text. This stuff is then sent to analysts (obviously highly filtered due to the volume of traffic). I think it's more about identifying specific patterns of message rather than reading the individual ones, however.
Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands have however confirmed that Echelon does exist, although not the specifities of its operations. Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey admitted using the system to uncover information about foreign companies using bribes to win contracts, as a specific example.
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Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
@Raa
A hard roll??
A hard roll, yes. A kaiser, or portugese roll left sitting a day or two too long. :nod:
Hard as a rock, they are.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
Echelon is reportedly run by the USA primarily, in conjunction with the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I'm not sure how much information was ever declassified, but the system was initially created as a method to monitor Soviet communications during the Cold War.
Apparently it's essentially a giant keyword based system that sifts through text and perhaps even voice searching for combinations of words - such as Allah, bomb, President, nuclear etc in the same text. This stuff is then sent to analysts (obviously highly filtered due to the volume of traffic). I think it's more about identifying specific patterns of message rather than reading the individual ones, however.
Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands have however confirmed that Echelon does exist, although not the specifities of its operations. Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey admitted using the system to uncover information about foreign companies using bribes to win contracts, as a specific example.
Ohh, I think I heard of something like that. Alright, we're one step closer to 1984!
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The funniest part of that any organisation with half a brain would not be using most of the keywords that Echelon was originally designated to pick up, and used transplant words that would rotate from one conversation to another, so a simple conversation arranging to go out for a drink in, say, Manchester, could actually be a coded description of where and when a bomb was going off in London.
Thus, Echelon has, for the main part, proved to be a massive waste of resources for capturing all but small-time operations.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
Echelon is reportedly run by the USA primarily, in conjunction with the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I'm not sure how much information was ever declassified, but the system was initially created as a method to monitor Soviet communications during the Cold War.
Apparently it's essentially a giant keyword based system that sifts through text and perhaps even voice searching for combinations of words - such as Allah, bomb, President, nuclear etc in the same text. This stuff is then sent to analysts (obviously highly filtered due to the volume of traffic). I think it's more about identifying specific patterns of message rather than reading the individual ones, however.
Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands have however confirmed that Echelon does exist, although not the specifities of its operations. Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey admitted using the system to uncover information about foreign companies using bribes to win contracts, as a specific example.
Actually, and I may be completely wrong here, the basic premise is that because all the member nations (Canada, US, UK, Australia etc) are legally not permitted to spy on their own citizens, they just ask one of the other countries to do it for them, and pass on any useful information, while they turn a blind eye. AFAIK, Echelon is more directed towards domestic spying, political leaders and such, which is why its so secret, rather than spying on "the enemy", which they can do quite openly.
I know there's a "Jam Echelon Day" where people worldwide send messages with as many suspicous words as possible, to screw with the system. Actually, I just do that every once in a while anyway, cause having the NSA listen to my phone calls makes me feel all important 'n ****.
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Originally posted by Rictor
Actually, and I may be completely wrong here, the basic premise is that because all the member nations (Canada, US, UK, Australia etc) are legally not permitted to spy on their own citizens, they just ask one of the other countries to do it for them, and pass on any useful information, while they turn a blind eye. AFAIK, Echelon is more directed towards domestic spying, political leaders and such, which is why its so secret, rather than spying on "the enemy", which they can do quite openly.
I know there's a "Jam Echelon Day" where people worldwide send messages with as many suspicous words as possible, to screw with the system. Actually, I just do that every once in a while anyway, cause having the NSA listen to my phone calls makes me feel all important 'n ****.
Well, I wouldn't be too surprised atall if Echelons' main purpose is currently and was initially to spy domestically; the only thing is that to use it to allow other nations to spy upon your own country is itself creating a security risk - friendly nations still spy on each other after all. Other thing is that domestic spying might be illegal, but that doesn't matter if noone catches you.
However, the justification for the intial creation would certainly have been the Soviet threat, particularly as IIRc the UKUSA treaty/agreement (involving the 5 mentioned nations) was signed in something like 1948 as the Soviet army settled in across Eastern Europe.
The reason for the secrecy over it, either way, is obvious - to make sure people (domestic, Soviet, Islamic militant, etc) don't know how to try and circumvent it. Whilst you may 'openly' spy on a hostile nation, you never ever reveal the methods you use.
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Not only are they spying on private citizens, they are corporate spying aswell. Lots of secrets were stollen. The countries envolved in running Echelon are using it also to spy on each other for corporate gain. It´s a brave new world, fellas!
And Rictor, you are absolutelly right. Because the constitution forbides them of spying on their own citizens, they simply "ask" one of the partners to do it for them, since they are not legally held accountable. It´s a loophole that they use shamelessly.
Latelly, the biggest victim of Echelon has been France. Lots of corporate secrets were stollen to harm France´s industry abroad, because they opposed the war...
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After the Cold War was effectively over, America had a whole pile of Spy Satellites that they didn't really have much to do with. So they hovered them over Europe and used them to spy on Industry with an eye to boost their own.
Such is the wonderful relations of the modern world :)
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Originally posted by Rictor
Though it's certainly ironic that someone flung a grenade at him in a country which was recently "liberated" with Washington's open support. Well, at least he still has...uh...Poland.
I find it much more ironic to see Bush praising people for removing a president who oly got in due to vote-rigging.
You'd think he'd be against that sort of thing. :D