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| What if Google Morphed Into GoogleOS? |
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| What if Google expanded on its search-engine (and now e-mail) wares into a full-fledged operating system? |
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| [via Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley ] |
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| (And, by the way, is anybody else just a little nostalgic for the days when that was a good thing?) |
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| This BuzzMachine post argues that Google's rush toward ubiquity might backfire -- which we've all heard before, but it's particularly well-put in this post. |
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| Google is a nice search engine. |
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| Does anybody use it for anything else? |
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| They own blogger, of course. |
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| Is that a money maker? |
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| I'm staying away from the stock. |
| s-11
| I doubt the very few who actually read my blog have not come across this yet, but I figured I would put it out there anyways. |
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| John Donovan from Argghhh! has put out a excellent slide show on what was actually found and fought for in Fallujah. |
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| Click here To view it. |
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| He makes some good observations on a few of the pic's. |
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| One of the pictures shows a flag that was found in Fallujah. |
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| On the next two pictures he took screenshots of two beheading video's. |
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| Compare the flags to the Fallujah one. |
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| You have to see these slides....they are amazing. |
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| This Fallujah operation my turn out to be the most important operation done by the US Military since the end of the war. |
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| Let me join the chorus of annoyance over Google's new toolbar , which, as noted in the linked article, commits just about every sin an online marketer could commit, and makes up a few new ones besides. |
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| I'm not fond of the Google-hates-privacy argument |
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| (You don't need to use their site, you can opt-out of sharing your information, you don't need to send stuff to anyone with a Gmail account, and if -- wonder of wonders -- you're worried that you might send something to someone who would forward an excerpt to someone who would then store it on a Gmail account... you have far, far too much time on your hands). |
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| However, this toolbar is really bad news. |
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| On the other hand, it looks pretty cool. |
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| Iran says it is creating nuclear energy without wanting nuclear weapons. |
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| The United States doesn't believe the Iranian Government. |
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| One can suspect the Iranian Government. |
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| But there is no proof . |
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| I read an Article in Time magazine accusing the Iranian Government of being willing to start a nuclear war and I sympathise with the Article. |
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| They are certainly being nasty to the United Nations Security Council in connection with the anti-proliferation treaty. |
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| The President has also said he would like to see Israel wiped off the map which he couldn't even begin to try without nuclear weapons. |
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| But he has insisted that he wants nuclear power for peaceful purposes. |
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| Many people want to use diplomacy with Iran rather than military pressure. |
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| But will diplomacy work? |
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| And can anyone use military pressure without proof? |
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| One reader pointed out that the President watched the Americans in the embassy when they took them hostage. |
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| He has denied this. |
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| We don't have to believe him. |
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| But we can't prove it. |
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| It does seem that Iranians frequently make statements and then hide behind lack of proof. |
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| Angry crowds chanted anti-American slogans in the western city of Falluja (pop. 256,000) as the security police killed in a friendly fire incident by US troops were buried on Saturday. |
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| Reuters reported that 'Sunni clerics in the town issued a 'Declaration by the people of Fallujah' condemning the deaths of the security guards and police, announcing three days of mourning, and calling for a general strike today.' |
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| It read, 'The people of Fallujah condemn the massacre which was committed on Friday against people dedicated to the protection of Fallujah. |
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| Let aggressive (American) leaders and soldiers know that we are capable of protecting the city's security and safety, and ask them to lift their hands from the city.' |
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| The clerics demanded talks with local US commanders. |
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| Falluja has long been roiled by tense relations with the US soldiers there, since local Sunnis either remain committed to Arab nationalism or have become Sunni fundamentalists or even radicals. |
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| Cities such as Falluja received special treatment from Saddam and enjoyed a disproportionate share of the country's wealth and power. |
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| They know that the American advent implies for them a demotion, and an elevation of the Shiites and Kurds, and they refuse to go quietly. |
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| See http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=97508 |
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| The Supreme Court announced its ruling today in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld divided along idelogical lines with John Roberts abstaining due to his involvement at the D.C. Circuit level and Anthony Kennedy joining the liberals in a 5-3 decision that is 185 pages long. |
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| The actual vote is a little confusing. |
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| Stay with me now: John Paul STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I through IV, VI through VI-D-iii, VI-D-v, and VII, in which KENNEDY, SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER joined, and an opinion with respect to Parts V and VI-D-iv, in which SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER joined. |
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| BREYER filed a concurring opinion, in which KENNEDY, SOUTER, and GINSBURG joined. |
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| KENNEDY filed an opinion concurring in part, in which SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER joined as to Parts I and II. |
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| SCALIA filed a dissenting opinion, in which THOMAS and ALITO joined. |
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| THOMAS filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA joined, and in which ALITO joined as to all but Parts I, II-C-1, and III-B-2. |
| s-57
| ALITO filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA and THOMAS joined as to Parts I through III. |
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| It will take me a little while to read the whole thing, but I rarely agree with a John Paul Stevens opinion. |
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| I'll post highlights from the opinion and dissents when I'm finished. |
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| Important news such as President Bush's miniscule calibrations on his marriage amendment/anti-gay (update: he's not against gays in the bedroom, just at the altar, where of course their relationships should not only be frowned upon but should be constitutionally excluded) has pushed Sudan not just off the front pages, or the A section, but out of the NY Times and Washington Post completely. |
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| I had to go to the BBC for this report . |
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| It's symptomatic, I suppose, of our fast-paced, 24 hour news-cycle lives, that the biggest short-term humanitarian crisis in the world would quickly be eclipsed, once our Secretary of State was finished with his whirlwind tour, from the newspapers. |
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| It's just disappointing. |
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| Most troubling, however, is the fact that the political will to end the crisis expressed a few short weeks ago seems to have ebbed. |
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| At that time, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan demanded steps be taken to end the ethnic violence in Darfur within 48 hours. |
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| Two weeks later, and the violence continues. |
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| The African Union is clearly not up to the task of keeping the peace, pledging 300 troops to an area that will need 15,000, according to analysts. |
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| And international donors have given only half of the relief aid that Darfur needs, according to the local UN officials. |
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| So hear we are, two weeks later, after that dazzling PR display two weeks ago by Powell and Annan, and the situation on the ground in Darfur appears basically unchanged. |
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| Warren Buffett is giving away 85% of his wealth , mostly to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. |
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| It's a move that really worries me; Buffett's usual justification for keeping most of his money was that he was still compounding the value of his fortune at a pretty high rate, so any gifts now would mean significantly less money for the foundation later. |
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| It's a little hard to parse, but at this point his ostensible view is that the Gateses are very good money-redistributors, and he wants them to have the money as soon as possible. |
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| Which essentially sounds like he's worried that Bill or Melinda are going to die soon. |
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| I assume his actual reason is that he's worried that Berkshire Hathaway just can't grow quickly enough to justify his usual charity policy. |
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| I'm not sure how the market will react. |
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| It doesn't change the company's intrinsic worth, and as the article notes, the company might be added to a major index once the shares get more liquid. |
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| On the other hand, this is essentially a statement that the company is overpriced from the guy who knows it best -- and happens to be the best investor of the last century. |
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| em ... no ... the Gates foundation mainly invests in medical research and education, that means donating now adds a tremendous value compared to donating in ten years. |
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| Because the 10.000.000 people dying from malaria will otherwise be dead. |
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| i.e. |
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| He's not giving 85% away, he's giving a number of shares each year that decrease in number at the rate of 5% a year (until gone?). |
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| He mentions his wife's death having an effect on him. |
| s-83
| It sounds pretty rational that he's saying that Bill and Melinda are at a prime spot, so starting the money hose now is a good idea, but Buffet is still keeping most of his donation inside of Berkshire where it will compound. |
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| Bill over at The Fourth Rail has an excellent essay on how the MSM and the UN, even the leftist countries in Europe, are basically accepting terrorist organizations as legitimate forms of a political party: |
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| On the same day Palestinians protest in support of Hezbollah and Syria , the terrorist group Hamas has indicated it will participate in the scheduled upcoming Parliamentary elections . |
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| To the north in Lebanon, there is serious debate within Hezbollah about entering the Lebanese political process in light of Syria's promised withdrawal. |
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| Syria has agreed to withdraw under the conditions set forth in UNSC Resolution 1559 , which has already begun . |
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| UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has indicated it is time to 'recognize Hezbollah' after easily being duped by 'the message on the placards they are using'. |
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| This acceptance of blatantly terrorist groups as legitimate freedom movements is a cancerous tumor on the United Nations and the media. |
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| Over three years after 9-11, the United Nations, despite their attempts to project strength in fighting terrorism , still cannot properly define the word 'terrorist' , waffling over the issue of whether the murder of innocent civilians are terrorist acts. |
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| The media routinely obscures the lines between terrorism and legitimate resistance, as the recent article by Daniel Okrent of The New York Times demonstrates . |
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| ... |
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| The decision to sidestep the obvious to satisfy the need to avoid confrontation does not bring peace, but only delays the eventual conflict as the predators of Hamas and Hezbollah exploit the inherent weakness of the internationals and the media. |
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| I've been fuming over this fact for a few weeks now, ever since some organizations and governments suggested we need to accept the fact that Hezbollah will get involved in running Lebanon. |
| s-95
| Wtf is this? |
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| This is a terrorist organization plain and simple. |
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| This is the organization that bombed our Marine barracks in 1983, took Americans hostage throughout the 80's and now they should be considered a legitimate organization? |
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| This is just another reason to never trust the MSM, and certainly not the Europeans. |
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| The Iraqi Islamic Party lead by Muhsin Abdul Hamid, has been among the few Sunni Muslim groups willing to cooperate (even if rather lukewarmly) with the Americans. |
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| It is now threatening to pull out of the Allawi caretaker government. |