DudeAsInCool

Exactly...My cursory investigation wasnt at street level... and it came after the killings...

You want me to give an historical overview covering centuries, that refutes the author's contention that the Middle East's biggest contributions to the world today are 'Oil and Terrorism", and that harnessing technology is the answer to restoring their cultural status? I wouldn't know where to begin and I don't think a page will suffice... That said, I think the historical overview above is simplistic, and I think the modern day analysis is dead-wrong Certainly these countries have other things to offer besides oil and exporting terrorism. Otherwise, there's no hope, and I'm an optimist. Lastly, I don't think that technology is the answer to everything. More to the point, if I had an interest in the subject matter, my approach would be more scholarly and in-depth. I think the above article is simplistic at best--frankly its demogoguery at its worst. That said, I dont have the time to respond every article, and if it doesnt interest me, Im not going to respond to articles like this in the future. I simply dont have the time. You know my political point of view--its diametically opposed to whatever the Hoover Institute is touting, and I have no interest in having endless debates that dont solve anything. But others may find the subject matter more fascinating and provide more engaging conversations than me. Let them have at it...

Welcome, Jinth88 :dancin: :strumma:

Welcome to Beatking, Jinth :jammintwo:

The Hoover Institute is well known for its conservative leanings. It's an interesting article. You mean they are 'telling it like it is" from their pov. Do you have a link for the article?

Here's another article from the NY Times on the Walmart store: Wal-Mart Launches Online Music Store By REUTERS Published: March 23, 2004 CHICAGO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT.N) on Tuesday officially launched its online music store with an expanded roster of artists, and kept the price at the same 88 cents per song that it offered during a three-month test. The store, which sells digital downloads for 11 percent less than major competitors, expanded its catalog of artists by 50 percent, including exclusive songs from Jessica Simpson, 3 Doors Down, Shania Twain and others, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer said. Wal-Mart began testing the site, which allows customers to download songs from the Internet, in December. While the new store will have the brand name of the most powerful retailer behind it, it will face off against a number of companies that are better known in the online music space, such as Apple Computer Inc.'s (AAPL.O) iTunes music store and Roxio Inc.'s(ROXI.O) Napster. Apple, which said last week it has sold more than 50 million songs through downloads on its nearly year-old service, declined to comment on the pricing but said it has confidence in its iTunes service. ``We think it's going to be increasingly difficult to imagine others catching up with iTunes,'' an Apple spokeswoman said. Both iTunes, the most popular online music service, and Napster charge 99 cents per song, although Napster and several other services also offer subscription options that allow users to pay a monthly fee for downloads. Wal-Mart is the dominant force in U.S. retailing, but it was relatively late to the dot-com world and has been adding online services in hopes of boosting its Web presence. It recently started offering contact lens prescription and DVD rental services. Wal-Mart spokeswoman Cynthia Lin declined to comment on whether the service was profitable, or on how many songs had been downloaded, but said demand ``far exceeded'' company forecasts. She said the music download service means Wal-Mart can offer far more titles than it can in its stores, where shelf space is limited. Analysts have said that the goal for Wal-Mart is to bring more people to its Web site. Even if the music service sold 100 million songs, that would add up to just $88 million -- a paltry sum for a company that recorded nearly $260 billion in revenue last year. Wal-Mart said that for the next two months it would be the exclusive supplier of songs from artists carried by the Curb Records label, whose roster includes country music stars Tim McGraw and LeAnn Rimes. Like most online services, the Wal-Mart service is aimed at users of Microsoft Windows operating system, which accounts for the vast majority of personal computers. Apple's iTunes, by comparison, is compatible with both Windows and its own operating system. Shares of Wal-Mart closed up 11 cents, or 0.19 percent, at $58.21 on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. Apple shares closed off 2.20 percent at $25.59 and Roxio closed down 5.75 percent at $4.75, both on the Nasdaq. http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/...il-walmart.html

You dont need a computer to guess my vote :D

Well, you never know, MH...I wasn' there.. But I think the most fascinating thing is that these guys marketed themselves as tough guys, and as such, everything else became a self-fulfillng prophecy

Thanx for the tip, Netzero - we will check them out

I met with Suge Knight about doing a movie on Biggie and Tupak and I had a brief conversation with the officer above. After doing some research, I concluded that the killings are more a direct result of gang rivalry and I do not believe Suge Knight was involved in setting up the murder of either.

I thought this was cool (author unknown):

And it wont be, Umma, now that we have you

I only use smokeless email

He would know - he was there.

Blood Penguin - Play Me Here's a variation: Play Me

Here's a no-holds-barred review form our friends at the raunchy CircleOfAddiction (The following includes crude language--if that offends you, go no farther...) All whored up and nowhere to go I have to declare that Courtney Love is the nastiest, whorish and stupidest bitch on the planet. She is a diseased wreck, who will do *WHATEVER it takes to get her greasy face into the public eye. She has been a spiraling mess every since we first saw her whorish face emerge from the limelight of her late husband; Kurt Cobain. She is a no talent hack, who has been in and out of the news for years and always for something stupid she has done. She has already lost custody of her daughter, and if god willing that will be a permanent thing. She has nothing to offer anyone, other than her ass, she kind of reminds me of a crackwhore who would fuck to get a fix (we all know she has done this, so I'm not too far off the mark here). So last week on David Letterman, she tried to do her best Drew Barrymore impersonation and jump up on Dave's desk and flash her horrid tits. Later that evening she was arrested for throwing her mic stand into the crowd and striking someone with it. What a laughing stock she has become over the last 10 years. She should have just quit trying to do music and stick to doing what she probably does best; sucking, fucking and showing off her body. Now, I wouldn't pay to see her ass naked but many would, in fact I have seen many trailer trash strip clubs off of many interstates in my day and she would fit right in with the other white trash. She could dance for all the METHed up truck drivers and then give blowjobs and fuck backstage for a dollar or 2. I mean it's obvious that she is just a wrecked human being who needs attention to survive. She in fact fits perfectly into the Pamela Anderson category. Anyway, I've already wasted enough space on her ass with this article/rant so let me get down to brass tacks. My prediction of Courtney Love's future is; she will be dead of a drug overdose by the end of the year. Party at my house that night. http://www.circleofaddiction.com/courtneylove.php Join the Catcall discussion on Courtney here: http://forums.circleofaddiction.com/viewtopic.php?p=562#562

http://www.lebonze.co.uk/stuff/move.htm :P

Want some Springsteen with that Big Mac? Last modified: March 22, 2004, 3:00 PM PST By Reuters Instead of fries, how about a little Beyonce or Bruce Springsteen to go with your Big Mac? In the latest blend of e-music with the food-and-beverage industry, Japanese electronics giant Sony is working out a deal to promote the upcoming launch of its download music service through fast-food chain McDonald's, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday. According to the newspaper, McDonald's is expected to commit about $30 million in advertising to the partnership in exchange for unspecified discounts to license some songs from Sony's new download service, Sony Connect. Those songs would then be offered to McDonald's patrons for free with the purchase of certain menu items, with customers receiving codes they can use online for the downloads. Representatives of Sony and McDonald's declined comment on the report. But the restaurant chain acknowledged it is exploring tie-ins with a variety of companies “in the areas of music, sports, fashion and entertainment.” News of an impending partnership with McDonald's comes as Sony seeks to gain a foothold in the burgeoning Internet music market against such rivals as Apple Computer's iTunes and Roxio Inc.'s Napster. Sony, whose record labels are home to such acts as Beyonce, Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Gloria Estefan, and Offspring, announced in January that it would launch Sony Connect this spring, offering some 500,000 songs for downloading at 99 cents per tune. Having pioneered portable music with the Walkman, Sony is hoping to use Connect to help spur sales of its new generation of digital music players, thus reclaiming lost market share from Apple's dominant iPod. The Times said McDonald's had been in talks on a similar marketing effort with Apple but switched plans after a last-minute overture from Sony. The reported Sony-McDonald's venture comes less than a week after cafe chain Starbucks unveiled plans to offer its customers an opportunity to record five songs for $6.99, plus additional tracks at 99 cents a piece, while waiting for their cappuccino or latte orders.Starbucks is teaming up with Hewlett-Packard for that project. Last October, Apple announced a marketing alliance with PepsiCo to promote its iTunes service. Under that tie-in, Apple said it would offer 100 million free song downloads to consumers who find winning codes under the caps of their soft drinks. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said recently that iTunes was on track to sell about 70 million to 75 million songs by the end of April--short of its original goal 100 million goal. Jobs said that song redemptions for the Pepsi promotion had fallen short of the company's initial expectations. Story Copyright © 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved http://news.com.com/2100-1023_3-5177324.html?tag=nefd_top

Another POV on dating from the college crowd: A Must Read for all Non-Hermaphrodites Bobby http://www.collegehumor.com/ Mar. 20th, 2004 Have you ever found yourself under an intoxicated beguilement seeking the sordid bodily pleasures of the opposite sex? Does the auspex of alcohol have you “hollering” at people below your normal standards, yet above the weight capacity for most buses? Perhaps you’ve mistook the potentially enticing “shaking of one’s tail feather” for the frenzied flapping of a mammoth whale-fin? Do you like Pizza Hut? If you’ve answered “yes” to any of these questions you have gonorrhea; great job Thunder Lips. Regardless, the point of this article is not your dilapidated genitals, but rather the combatant of “Tall Tale Sunday” which, like clockwork, follows every inebriated weekend. I’m sick of hearing people’s euphemistic descriptions of the gross creatures they got busy with. If you hooked up with a bovine of the heifer breed I want you to admit it and supply thwarting details. I then expect you to rate it appropriately so the world can have a cheap laugh at your expense. Who can honestly say they haven’t waken the morning after a sweet bender, under the impression they snatched something pretty, only to find out that they hooked up with their best friend’s dad (this applies to both girls and guys). If it happened, don’t prance around like he/she/it was a hot number. You’re not cool. My ADD won’t sit through your elaborative fable. Where was I? Ah, yes, people putting on an embarrassing show without a truthful tell. This is partly due to the archaic hookup rating system we college students rely on. The trite numerical classification as a hookup gauge is wack. The 1-10 scale fluctuates like the weight of a bulimic sumo wrestler and is about as reliable as a nymphomaniac girlfriend (I still hate you Sarah). There’s no quality control. One man’s 9 is another man’s “MY GOD! WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED LAST NIGHT?!” which, for Michael Jackson, is a child under the age of 9. Therefore, I’m implementing a candid five-fold assessment scale ranging from the compulsive lie (The Impossible Dream) down to the most embarrassing moment of your life (The Vietnam Flashback). The Impossible Dream The world is broken into two groups: those that have never hooked up with anyone in this category and those who have lied about it. This category encompasses the Helen of Troys, the Fabios, the babester babes, and the crème de la hunks. The only mortals who do snag these prurient beings are those who do so with help of a wingman with the first name “Roof” and last name “fies”. If someone stakes the claim they lived “The Impossible Dream” a.) Polygraph their ass b.) Call the cops c.) Recommend they try out for the LA Lakers. Goin’ for the Gold This is the girl or guy who’s been on your “To Do” list since the ‘80s. A lofty endeavor indeed, your A-Game must be brought as you clock in long man-hours of tedious conversation and feigned laughter. The selfless sacrifice of your friends is crucial as they divert potential “haters” from blowing your spot up. With a bit of luck and a lot of alcohol, you may find yourself “standing” one sweet night. Fittingly, the next day you should be on a megaphone broadcasting your dissolute exploit to the immediate world. Middle Ground You decided to play it safe. While it was nothing to write home about it was nothing to enter the witness protection program over either. The Blooper Reel Ouch. Maybe you were running interference for a friend, and while they were groping someone higher on this scale, you were sucking the face off something nasty. Still, as gross as aforesaid beast was, you can still look back with friends and laugh over it. When someone says, “Remember that animal with the missing teeth you made out with. Hahahahaha.” You will be able to squeak out a “Ha”. A Vietnam Flashback The hookup you never want to relive. No matter how much alcohol was consumed, no matter how forced or comatose you were at the time, there is no excuse for a ‘Nam Flashback. Would you want to relive Charlie gutting your best bud right in front of your eyes? Well, the same goes for a ogre that falls into this category. The memory will haunt your nightmares and wake you in a cold sweat forever. In conclusion fellow college students, it’s not fair to rob us hecklers of potential laughs at your expense. If you do find yourself on the wrong end of something nasty, be honest with yourself and admit it was a “blooper”. Like the chubby chick with the midriff tube top, don’t cover it up. When your buzz rubs off and “Cinderella” turns into something that belongs in a cage at midnight, remember this article.

Welcome to Armageddon • A joint investigation by Salon and Rolling Stone reveals why the Bush administration hasn't found any weapons of mass destruction: It's looking in the wrong place. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Miles Harvey March 23, 2004 | NEWPORT, Tenn. -- Say you were a terrorist in the late 1990s, around the time Osama bin Laden was planning the attack on the World Trade Center, and you wanted to get your hands on some weapons of mass destruction. You could have tried to track them down in Iraq, at one of the chemical-weapons facilities that the Bush administration accused Saddam Hussein of operating. Of course, neither the United Nations nor the U.S. military has managed to find a single chemical weapon in Iraq, so you probably would have come away empty-handed. Or you could have just paid a visit to Newport, Tenn., population 7,242. There, east of town, past the Pigeon River and the True Gospel Free Will Baptist Church and the county dump, you would have stopped near a gated drive that led up a steep slope known as Rock Hill. Beyond that gate, in a small wooden shed, you would have found what you were after. No intricate alarm system to disable, not even a padlock on the shed's door -- just a thin pine branch jammed in the hasp. And behind that door, canisters filled with PFIB, a deadly, lung-attacking gas restricted under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention. Invisible, odorless and lethal even in minute concentrations, PFIB -- or "p-fib," as some arms-industry insiders call it -- kills slowly and brutally. At first victims experience a headache, a cough, a fever, a tightness in the chest. But after six to eight hours, as fluids flood their lungs, they start to feel as though they're choking. It's known as "air hunger" -- a desperate desire for oxygen -- and for some victims it only gets worse. Soon they begin making pitiful gurgling sounds, coughing up phlegm and blood, unable to get enough air to form words. Within six to 48 hours they are dead, suffocated from within by what doctors sometimes call "dry-land drowning." Yet despite the dangers of PFIB -- short for perfluoroisobutylene -- you would have had little trouble stealing enough of the deadly gas to wreak havoc in a subway or an office building. "If bin Laden had known that there were 23 cylinders of this stuff, all he had to do was hop a fence to get it -- literally," says Dean Ullock, an official with the Environmental Protection Agency. "A lot of this stuff was stored in a little garden shack in the back of the property, and all you would have had to do is walk in." EPA officials stumbled across the shed packed with PFIB in 2000, when they were called in to shut down a private chemical laboratory on Rock Hill. As an on-scene coordinator for the EPA's Emergency Response and Removal Branch, the federal government's SWAT team for chemical disasters, Ullock has had to clean up some of the worst toxic hazards in the United States. But even he was horrified by what awaited him on that isolated hilltop in Tennessee. The lab contained about 7,000 gas cylinders and other containers -- many of them unlabeled and leaking -- filled with hundreds of potentially deadly chemicals. Among them were phosgene, the gas responsible for 80 percent of the chemical-warfare casualties during World War I, and PFIB, 10 times more deadly than phosgene. The PFIB, it turned out, had been manufactured for the U.S. Army a decade earlier for chemical-defense research. But such security risks, the Army insists, are not its problem. "Safety and security at private chemical facilities are the responsibility of that company," the Army's Research, Development and Engineering Command said in a statement issued to Salon and Rolling Stone. One of the Bush administration's main pretexts for invading Iraq was to keep such lethal substances away from terrorists -- a possibility that posed "the danger of a catastrophe that could be orders of magnitude worse than Sept. 11," in the words of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. But chemical weapons made for the Pentagon itself often have wound up in the wrong place -- or disappeared completely. The Army Corps of Engineers is currently investigating some 200 sites in 35 states where the military and its contractors cannot account for missing chemical-warfare agents. Among the weapons already uncovered is a long-lost stash of deadly mustard gas buried less than five miles from the White House. "One of the ultimate ironies is that for all of the U.S. government's finger-pointing at Iraq and other countries -- nations we're challenging to account for every one of their weapons of mass destruction -- our country is riddled with similar weapons that our government itself can't even find," says Elizabeth Crowe, an organizer for the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a coalition of citizens living near chemical-weapons sites. And those 200 military sites represent only a small fraction of the U.S. facilities where chemicals with the potential to inflict mass casualties are manufactured. According to the Army's surgeon general, industrial chemicals in the United States are second only to bioterrorism as a threat to national security. By the government's own estimate, there are 15,000 chemical plants that contain large quantities of potentially deadly compounds. Many of the facilities have been shown to employ little security, offering terrorists easy access to chemicals that could be used as weapons of mass destruction. The tale of how the U.S. government lost track of its own PFIB on a hilltop in Appalachia begins with a brilliant chemist. He wasn't a mad scientist, say those who knew him, but he was so consumed with his research, so confident in his own skills, that he never paused to consider the consequences of his recklessness. "He was just like your next-door neighbor, your friend, your buddy, your pal," says a former employee. "He didn't want to hurt anyone." It begins in a place called Armageddon. You can read the full story at Salon.com. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/...ddon/index.html (Dude says "Support Salon.com")

Antitrust Fine for Microsoft Said to Be $613 Million By PAUL MELLER Published: March 23, 2004 BRUSSELS, March 22 - Antitrust regulators will fine Microsoft 497 million euros ($613 million) on Wednesday, when the European Commission formally rules that the company abused its monopoly in computer operating systems, people close to the company said on Monday. The fine, which was set late last week after settlement talks with Microsoft broke down, was endorsed by regulators from the 15 member nations of the European Union on Monday. Advertisement Microsoft said the fine was too big. "In view of the absence of a clear legal standard under E.U. law, a fine of this size isn't warranted," said Tom Brookes, the company's spokesman in Brussels. On Tuesday, the fine is to be discussed by senior aides to all 20 commissioners before being brought up at the European Commission's final meeting on the case on Wednesday morning. Microsoft would then be officially informed of the fine and sent a summary of the ruling by fax, shortly before Mario Monti, the competition commissioner, holds a news conference to announce the decision. Under the European Union antitrust laws, the commission can set a fine of as much as 10 percent of a company's global sales, which in Microsoft's case would be more than $35 billion. European antitrust regulators, however, have never fined a company the full 10 percent, and Brussels-based lawyers and officials had expected the fine against Microsoft to range from 100 million euros to 1 billion euros. The biggest previous fine imposed by the commission was 462 million euros, or about $406 million at the exchange rate at that time, against Roche of Switzerland in 2001 for its role in several cartels that fixed prices and market shares of vitamin products in the 1990's. (Seven other vitamin makers were fined lesser amounts.) Still, some people close to Microsoft had been speculating over the weekend that the commission would not impose a fine at all. But Amelia Torres, a spokeswoman for Mr. Monti, said: "We have already told Microsoft many times that a negative ruling will incur a fine. A small company could claim it didn't know the rules, but not one the size of Microsoft." The commission is expected to rule that Microsoft abused the monopoly position of its Windows operating system in two ways. By withholding vital information about Windows from rival makers of software for servers, the company gained an unfair advantage in the separate market for server software. It also competed unfairly by including its Media Player audio-video software as part of Windows. The commission is expected to announce remedies to restore competition in these markets, requiring Microsoft to sell two versions of Windows to PC makers in Europe, one of them with Media Player stripped out. It would also have to share more Windows code to allow rival makers of server software to compete with Microsoft more fairly, according to people close to the case. Computer servers drive networks of PC's. These remedies would have more of an impact on Microsoft than a fine, because the company has more than $50 billion in cash reserves and has already set some of that aside for covering legal costs. After negotiations toward a settlement of the charges collapsed last week, Brad Smith, the chief lawyer for Microsoft, said the company would appeal any ruling at the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/technology/23soft.html

Pretty COOL...

Good goin' Jack. I'd love to see the government try and tell the movie industry to censor itself... lol... that'll be the day...

Lol. Just to set the record straight, Medusa, I dont like our government's policy, and I introduce myself as being left of McGovern. But sometimes, I think the American critics go to far, and seem to think that the government represents the point of view of the rest of us - which it doesn't

This one's hot! (I wonder if this is Slum Goddess's website?) http://www.greenseek.de/internet/index.php...News/Headlines/