The Wall
søndag, juli 11, 2004
Israel says it doesn't respect the International Court of Justice. Israel says in it's statements that the court consists mainly of Europeans, and that these arn't actually known for being "pro-Israel". (eg, dont like occupation, but thats another matter is it?)
Sure enough, 5 of 15 judges are from european countries. (Two from the middle East, two from Africa, two from South America, one from Russia and two from the far East. One is from the USA) Obviosly, the vote on the legitimacy of the Israeli wall came out 14 to 1 in favour of it being ilegal. Guess who voted against it; who couldn't separate politics and humanitarian issues? Thats right, the USA judge Thomas Buergenthal. Interestingly, he was in a German concentration camp during world war 2 and came to the US from Slovakia.
The Iraqi flag
søndag, juli 04, 2004
I remember reading about the CPA making a new flag for iraq that would indicate "new times". But noone has yet started using the proposal, and it is disputed wether there actually was a competition about the design at all, although both the competition and the new flag was announced by reuters. I guess reuters got it from "official channels" in the CPA.
According to The Independent, the flag was designed by a London resident Iraqi named Rifat Chadirji. He is the brother of a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, and says he never heard about any flag design competition: "My brother just called me and asked me to design a flag on behalf of the IGC. Nobody told me about a competition".
The flag symbolizes "a new iraq", eufrat and tigris, and the kurdish population of iraq. IT has colors that are not in the arab tradition, rather it has Israeli colors which is not very welcome... The kurdish part is certainly interesting, and says something about who designed it, and possibly the reason for designing it. The kurds have been suppressed by Saddam Hussain, but they are not by any means a majority in Iraq. (Although they are the biggest minority.) - If you were to design a new Norwegian flag, would you include a reference only to the minority sami population? Thought not.
Getting desperate
søndag, juli 04, 2004
The George W. Bush /Dick Cheney election campaign-aratus is getting desperate. They are sending leaflets that contain a list of 22 Coalition Coordinator duties (does the term Coalition Provisional Authority mean anything to you?) church leaders should perform on their behalf:
- Send them a list of all members of their church.
- Tell them about at least one more church they can instruct.
- Recruit 5 more people that can help in the memeber registration effort.
- Talk to the pastor about holding a church meeting regarding the election.
Soon Bush will ask the same from democrats, I'm sure. (Maybe they are already? What do I know about American elections)
Microsoft France thinks source code is a password
fredag, juli 02, 2004
Paris City hall is buying new computer systems, concidering various software vendors, among them Microsoft and various Open Source alternatives. The Open Source software is so cheap to install and run that Microsoft has let its resellers in France cut prices by as much as 60% to get a deal.
Paris says price, ease of modification (because of open source-code) and more importantly, security is the main reason to go the open source way.
Security is something MS has never been very good at. Or at least, they haven't taken it very seriously until late, when they have started saying they care more, even though security holes still pop up like mushrooms in the autumn. (I had to download something like a whole CD-ROM worth of upgrades for a three month old basic Windows XP home system a year ago)
So what is MS saying about Open source and security? From the referenced article:
"'If I have a safe in my room and I give the code to everybody, will it be safer? I don't think so".
How is it that they can compare source code to passwords and security codes?
The valid comparison would be
"'If I have a safe in my room that is built in a known way making it hardened by contantly letting people try to break it, will it be safer? I think it would".
I get pissed when the press leaves such false statements uncommented.
The Fox, an intelligent yuropian-hunter
torsdag, juli 01, 2004
Just a little quote from FOX news, which claims to be "Fair and balanced"
Bill O'Reilly "interviews" Charles Kupchan, professor International Relations at Georgetown University about why France doesn't want to send NATO troops to Afghanistan but EU troops instead:
FOXNews.com - The O'Reilly Factor - Interview - France Is At It Again: Hurting America's War on Terror:"O'REILLY: Isn't the reason he [Chirac] doesn't do that in Afghanistan and Iraq and gives us a problem whenever we try to provide security for new governments because he doesn't like Bush? It's simple as that. It's personal. He doesn't like the Bush administration; he wants to embarrass America?
Professor, I've got 10 separate incidents in the last year-and-a-half right here, 10, where the French have either lied to the United States or embarrassed us unnecessarily because they disagree with our policy. Isn't that the truth?"
I know FOX news is bad stuff, but has he been smoking George Bush' after-a-public-speech-socks or what?
