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Old 2011-09-13, 19:54   Link #16521
SeijiSensei
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Age: 74
Quote:
Originally Posted by ganbaru View Post
Taliban attack across Kabul, target U.S. Embassy
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...78B61S20110913
That will not help to accelerate the leaving of foreing troup...
In amongst the "fact checking" of last night's Republican debate in today's New York Times nestles this remarkably informative discussion about the situation on the ground in Afghanistan:
Quote:
While NATO’s efforts in Afghanistan are widely seen as a failure by many Americans and Europeans (who have played a larger role there than in the occupation of Iraq) there is little hope the country’s own security forces, whose attrition rates are high and who have little participation by ethnic Pashtuns in the most crucial and war-torn areas, can control the insurgency without enormous support from Western forces.

The Taliban is overwhelmingly made up of Pashtuns, who dominate the country’s east and south, and a combination of sympathy and fear has made it all but impossible to recruit and deploy Pashtun troops into many of these areas. While Pashtuns make up only a little more than 40 percent of the country’s population, the remaining major ethnic groups are viewed warily in Pashtun areas and there are great concerns about how effective troops made up of these groups can be and how much support they will ever get from Pashtun locals.

The Hazara, the Shiite minority who were long disadvantaged and oppressed by the country’s Pashtun rulers but who now have disproportionate over-representation in the Afghan security forces in Pashtun areas, are viewed with particular suspicion. And the fear is very mutual, as memories of massacres at the hands of the Taliban remain fresh in the minds of many Hazara.

For sure, many Pashtun even in rural areas have no love of the Taliban, but the problem is that, compared with the Western-backed and hopelessly corrupt and feckless Afghan government, many Afghans see the Talibs as a less-worse alternative for how to order society. While they may be considered “radicals” to many in the country — especially regarding the treatment of women — they are also seen by many others as less corrupt than the NATO-backed official government, and better at resolving important everyday disputes in the Pashtun countryside, such as over land ownership, a common issue that splits families and tribes.

As for Governor Perry’s hope that lots of schools and infrastructure will be built, that is optimistic. Despite funneling tens of billions of NATO dollars into the country in the past decade, little serious non-military infrastructure has been erected in the country’s Pashtun areas, and much of the Western aid money has been diverted to warlords, Afghan political leaders and power brokers, and to the insurgency.

In recent years the Talibs have shut down schools and brutally discouraged women’s education, sometimes throwing acid on schoolgirls on the way to classes. It is hard to see how that changes for the better anytime soon.

One exception has been in the country’s Hazara heartland as well as in Hazara-dominated western Kabul, where boys and girls have been receiving educations the past half-dozen years that their parents could never have imagined when the Taliban ruled the country, vaulting Hazara students far ahead of Pashtuns in terms of success at college qualifying examinations and other yardsticks. The Hazara are fearful of what will happen after NATO forces leave, and whether their gains will be wiped away. —RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
The future sounds pretty dismal once again in Afghanistan. If the West leaves it seems nearly impossible that the Taliban will be kept from returning to power, and we know what that means for those little girls attending schools today. Partition might be a solution, but I can't see any of the foreign powers that want to exert control over Afghanistan accepting that. Not to mention it pretty much occupies the same area now as it did hundreds (maybe thousands?) of years ago.

NATO reiterated that it intends to adhere to its timetable for withdrawal regardless of today's attack. Western leaders all know their publics have had it with this war and can't be convinced that there's anything worth fighting for in Afghanistan, particularly the Karzai government.

Perhaps the Afghan army might consider recruiting a few women for pat-down duty at guard posts? The BBC report (linked above) suggests that the Taliban infiltrated the area near the Embassy and NATO complex by dressing themselves in burkas. "'We don't have female police officers to search females,' General Ayub admitted."

Last edited by SeijiSensei; 2011-09-13 at 22:25.
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Old 2011-09-13, 21:06   Link #16522
Tom Bombadil
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei View Post


The future sounds pretty dismal once again in Afghanistan. If the West leaves it seems nearly impossible that the Taliban will be kept from returning to power, and we know what that means for those little girls attending schools today. Partition might be a solution, but I can't see any of the foreign powers that want to exert control over Afghanistan accepting that. Not to mention it being pretty much occupies the same area now as it did hundreds (maybe thousands?) of years ago.
Interesting that you mentioned the partition of Afghanistan. I present you the thought of none other than Dr. Kissinger on this issue.

Quote:
Kissinger laughs even as he sketches a scenario for an Afghanistan even grimmer than anything anyone has yet imagined, where the presence or absence of al-Qaeda will be the least of its problems. What might happen, he says, is a de facto partition, with India and Russia reconstituting the Northern Alliance, and Pakistan hooked to the Taliban as a backstop against their own encirclement.

Suddenly, spring goes chilly. The prospect looms of a centennial commemoration of the first world war through a half-awake re-enactment. Not Belgium but Sarajevo. Think proxy half-states; the paranoia of encirclement; the bristling arsenals, in this case nuclear; the nervous, beleaguered Pakistanis lashing out in passive-aggressive insecurity. “An India-Pakistan war becomes more probable. Eventually,” says the Doctor, his voice a deep pond of calm. “Therefore some kind of international process in which these issues are discussed might generate enough restraints so that Pakistan does not feel itself encircled by India and doesn’t see a strategic reserve in the Taliban.” He looks directly at me. “Is it possible to do this? I don’t know. But I know if we let matters drift this could become the Balkans of the next world war.”
The full article is over at the finiancial times, although most of it was on relations with China, etc., since this was an interview for the promotion of Kissinger's book on the aforementioned topic.
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Old 2011-09-13, 22:59   Link #16523
SeijiSensei
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I've been surprised that we haven't seen an outbreak of serious hostilities between Pakistan and India since the 1965 War. Nuclear deterrence has helped to maintain stability just like it did in the Cold War. Nevertheless Pakistan, and agencies like the ISI in particular, seem obsessed with India. Their support of the Taliban is, as Kissinger says, designed to prevent encirclement were India and Afghanistan to concert their interests against Pakistan. I can't say whether this obsession is based on a realistic Indian threat, but I frankly don't see much that either side here has to gain from an all-out war.

Were war to break out between India and Pakistan it would endanger the lives of billions of people and involve all the "usual suspects" in an unpredictable and thus extraordinarily dangerous crisis. At a minimum, the US, UK, Russia, China, and Iran would be drawn in, and possibly Israel and the rest of NATO as well. I don't even want to contemplate the horror of a nuclear exchange that would spread radioactive contamination across much of Asia and Oceania and potentially around the world.

Despite all the attention we lavish on the Middle East, we should be turning our focus further southeast toward where the real danger lies.
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Old 2011-09-13, 23:19   Link #16524
SaintessHeart
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei View Post
I've been surprised that we haven't seen an outbreak of serious hostilities between Pakistan and India since the 1965 War. Nuclear deterrence has helped to maintain stability just like it did in the Cold War. Nevertheless Pakistan, and agencies like the ISI in particular, seem obsessed with India. Their support of the Taliban is, as Kissinger says, designed to prevent encirclement were India and Afghanistan to concert their interests against Pakistan. I can't say whether this obsession is based on a realistic Indian threat, but I frankly don't see much that either side here has to gain from an all-out war.

Were war to break out between India and Pakistan it would endanger the lives of billions of people and involve all the "usual suspects" in an unpredictable and thus extraordinarily dangerous crisis. At a minimum, the US, UK, Russia, China, and Iran would be drawn in, and possibly Israel and the rest of NATO as well. I don't even want to contemplate the horror of a nuclear exchange that would spread radioactive contamination across much of Asia and Oceania and potentially around the world.

Despite all the attention we lavish on the Middle East, we should be turning our focus further southeast toward where the real danger lies.
Southeast Asia? You mean where I live?

Honestly speaking, our place has those terrorists lying in wait fo too long that the people and the governments have be getting real complacent. A few auxiliary security personnel I know of complained that they don't get enough training, are told to rely on textbook profiling, and are told by their bosses to suck up to the clients, even to the extent of abandoning proper vehicle and bag checks so "their clients can get back on their business and not sue their company".

I wonder how they are going to go up against a car with its insides lined with makeshift cooking-oil doused blankets sandwiched between ceramic floor tiles, held together by masking tape, with their .38 revolvers and 9mm MP5s. Even a Remington 870 shotgun would have a better chance of injuring the driver.
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Old 2011-09-14, 00:01   Link #16525
Tom Bombadil
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei View Post
I've been surprised that we haven't seen an outbreak of serious hostilities between Pakistan and India since the 1965 War. Nuclear deterrence has helped to maintain stability just like it did in the Cold War. Nevertheless Pakistan, and agencies like the ISI in particular, seem obsessed with India. Their support of the Taliban is, as Kissinger says, designed to prevent encirclement were India and Afghanistan to concert their interests against Pakistan. I can't say whether this obsession is based on a realistic Indian threat, but I frankly don't see much that either side here has to gain from an all-out war.
Regarding your first sentence, please allow me to quote Sir Humphrey Appleby :

Quote:
there is some difficulty in justifiably assigning to it the fourth of the epithets you applied to the statement inasmuch as the precise correlation between the information you communicated and the facts insofar as they can be determined and demonstrated is such as to cause epistemological problems of sufficient magnitude as to lay upon the logical and semantic resources of the English language a heavier burden than they can reasonably be expected to bear.
There was a major war fought in 1971, and several other conflicts.

As for the obsession part, IMHO, the Indians has as much an obsession with the Pakistan as likewise. It almost feel that history and geo-politics has locked them in a cage duel that is going to continue in the near future.

What's remarkable (at least for me) about Kissinger's comments is the height it elevates one's understanding of problems and challenges in Afghanistan. All the media talks unceasingly about Al-qaida or Taliban, yet we learn that the outside forces are much more deep rooted, and the US faces very delicate and hard choices on the future of its presence.
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Old 2011-09-14, 00:11   Link #16526
SaintessHeart
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Can you believe Wall Street?

Yes I can. Once in a while the veil is lifted on the masse of gurus to reveal the true sages and their words of wisdom. Probably the best time to read and learn before the veil drops again.

Though there is a problem of finding them though.

Why China would love ‘President Rick Perry'

This article, although critical yet hilarious, is rather true. China is blazing ahead while the Americans are still yanking at each others' pants in a gigantic atomic wedgie competition.

However, the article missed out the fundamental principle of "What goes up, must come down". There are miniscule signs (other than the train crash last month) that China's quest for economic supremacy may be its undoing. Like one of the comments which pointed out about its "ghost mini-Shanghais" of shopping malls and other amenities, there could be a possibility that China might implode the way Japan did. Coupled with its high inflation rate and large income divide, it might serve to be a major problem in China's growth over the next decade or so.

Then again, it might only be a small drawback for the Middle Kingdom since US and Europe are still screwing themselves with their internal political warfare and stagnating economies, making it easier for the former to be ahead of their rivals in terms of technology, military and economy.
__________________

When three puppygirls named after pastries are on top of each other, it is called Eclair a'la menthe et Biscotti aux fraises avec beaucoup de Ricotta sur le dessus.
Most of all, you have to be disciplined and you have to save, even if you hate our current financial system. Because if you don't save, then you're guaranteed to end up with nothing.
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Old 2011-09-14, 00:12   Link #16527
Ithekro
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Considering the area of India and its surrounding have been in conflict or some sort for a very, very long time. It has been the subject of one empire/kingdom or other's attempt to unify the place. The only time it has been unified is under the British Crown.
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Old 2011-09-14, 00:49   Link #16528
MrTerrorist
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Jackie Kennedy post-assassination interviews released

One thing about the interview caught my eye.

Quote:
She also strongly criticised Dr King, recalling how her brother-in-law, US Attorney General Robert Kennedy, told her the civil rights leader had been intoxicated at JFK's funeral and mocked Cardinal Richard Cushing's Mass.

She said: "He made fun of Cardinal Cushing and [Robert] said that he was drunk at it. I can't see a picture of Martin Luther King without thinking, that man's terrible."
Well that's......interesting.
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Old 2011-09-14, 01:29   Link #16529
Fahd
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
I'm not talking about income inequality, it has nothing to do it. I'm talking about culture,
Ah, sorry; I misread the theme of your post. There is of course a rather large cultural difference between the aristocratic class and the rest. I can't actually recall talking with an aristocrat (or probably more likely their children), so either they're not that many of them around, or they keep themselves well isolated .
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Old 2011-09-14, 03:16   Link #16530
Tom Bombadil
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SaintessHeart View Post
Why China would love ‘President Rick Perry'

This article, although critical yet hilarious, is rather true. China is blazing ahead while the Americans are still yanking at each others' pants in a gigantic atomic wedgie competition.

Are you sure the article doesn't belong to a laughter a day thread? I agree with the hilarious part: it is like those animes that are so bad that the worse it gets, the more hilarious it is. Actually, the only part that's contains a fraction of truth is probably the claim that American is falling behind in education, given that such a lousy assay can appear in a major website is a statement in itself .

Here is the pattern of the above mentioned assay.

Point 1: Mr. Smith is actually a dog.
My next door neighbor, who is said to be quite knowledgeable in dogs, said that Mr. Smith is a dog. So he must have sharp teeth, and no wonder he is hairy. I am sure he pees at light poles when no body is looking, and he might sniff others butts, too. I am afraid of rabid dogs. Is he one? Even if he is not one now, he might be one in a few days. Better take care that now than later. What? He walk with two legs? Well, dogs do that sometimes. I bet he is the special kind.

repeat until you get all your 11points.
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Old 2011-09-14, 04:11   Link #16531
SaintessHeart
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil View Post
Are you sure the article doesn't belong to a laughter a day thread? I agree with the hilarious part: it is like those animes that are so bad that the worse it gets, the more hilarious it is. Actually, the only part that's contains a fraction of truth is probably the claim that American is falling behind in education, given that such a lousy assay can appear in a major website is a statement in itself .

Here is the pattern of the above mentioned assay.

Point 1: Mr. Smith is actually a dog.
My next door neighbor, who is said to be quite knowledgeable in dogs, said that Mr. Smith is a dog. So he must have sharp teeth, and no wonder he is hairy. I am sure he pees at light poles when no body is looking, and he might sniff others butts, too. I am afraid of rabid dogs. Is he one? Even if he is not one now, he might be one in a few days. Better take care that now than later. What? He walk with two legs? Well, dogs do that sometimes. I bet he is the special kind.

repeat until you get all your 11points.
While I do agree that Farrell has bad writing skills in particular to this one, points 4 & 5 are no doubt the main ideas he is trying to getting across : his rant about China being more capitalist than US is the funny part I am getting at (reminds me of Al Capone ranting about communists in his last days on Earth).

True to that China (and probably the rest of the world) outpaces US in Science and Maths and almost everything else (other than dirty but legal tricks to make money), point 5 he was making has some element of truth in it - China often uses the greenback to purchase material things overseas, thus when the dollar becomes worthless, the Australians would be technically the sad men with the empty sack. Their own currency is made "safe" through domestic circulation and consumption rather than printing more to allow it to be exchanged for other currencies - probably the cause of the unusually high Chinese inflation as money demand increases against the stagnant money supply.

Or maybe he is printing that article as a counter to the equally hilarious 2012 elections : fighting a clown performance with another.
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When three puppygirls named after pastries are on top of each other, it is called Eclair a'la menthe et Biscotti aux fraises avec beaucoup de Ricotta sur le dessus.
Most of all, you have to be disciplined and you have to save, even if you hate our current financial system. Because if you don't save, then you're guaranteed to end up with nothing.
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Old 2011-09-14, 05:36   Link #16532
Tom Bombadil
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@SaintessHeart,

The Chinese education outpacing its US counterpart is just a myth. It really depends on where you look. Take Beijing or Shanghai and compare it to some random town in US? Sure. I am sure the Singapore education is vast superior than some town in Hokkaido, but I would hesitate to pick a winner between Singapore and Tokyo. In China's vast hinterlands, the education condition is not optimistic at all. For one thing, the basic Chinese systems is only 9 years, comparing to 12 in the US, and there are a lot of drop out even at that level. The teachers are poorly paid, and hence rural areas have a huge lack of decent quality teachers. I started my 7th grade in a boarding school in the nearest city, and the same style all the way to college. The Chinese universities are not known for their merits either (it is getting better, though). The other day in a BBC documentary (shot in around 2007) says that the percentage of over all GDP that Chinese has invested in education lags behind many African countries, and I am willing to believe it.

As for resources, what can I say? It is a quite complicated issue. The nation has a huge population, what can you do about it? Start the third world war to kill part of it? Per capita, I am sure the numbers will be far below average. There is yet another aspect to it. China needs a lot of resources to fuel its export sector, so part of the resource are not destined for China: they just pass through China with limited added value and go to a more developed nation. Think about all those dirt cheap spoons you can get in Walmart. They need either crude oil or iron ore to produce. China is doing some dirty job for the developed world while large internationals gets the bigger pie (google up the profit margin of Walmart and Chinese manufacture). I know this economical model is flawed. The longer it lasts, the worse the crash will be. But it won't change over night, and there are active oppositions from both sides (multinationals in the US and exporters in China, for example). Even changes are accompanied by sinophobia alarmists like Mr. Farrel.

By the way, I absolutely hate a particular term Farrel has used: "economic warfare". That enrages me more than anything else. The word he is looking for is "symbiotic". The two economies are so dependent on each other that if one fails, the other one is sure to fail. Hell, the US is the world's largest example of "too big to fail".

Quote:
money demand increases against the stagnant money supply.
I am not sure what the correct economic principle is. But inflation sounds like a problem of excessive money supply.
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Old 2011-09-14, 07:33   Link #16533
SaintessHeart
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil View Post
@SaintessHeart,

The Chinese education outpacing its US counterpart is just a myth. It really depends on where you look. Take Beijing or Shanghai and compare it to some random town in US? Sure. I am sure the Singapore education is vast superior than some town in Hokkaido, but I would hesitate to pick a winner between Singapore and Tokyo. In China's vast hinterlands, the education condition is not optimistic at all. For one thing, the basic Chinese systems is only 9 years, comparing to 12 in the US, and there are a lot of drop out even at that level. The teachers are poorly paid, and hence rural areas have a huge lack of decent quality teachers. I started my 7th grade in a boarding school in the nearest city, and the same style all the way to college. The Chinese universities are not known for their merits either (it is getting better, though). The other day in a BBC documentary (shot in around 2007) says that the percentage of over all GDP that Chinese has invested in education lags behind many African countries, and I am willing to believe it.
The last time I checked, Singapore's schools are still lauding Keynesian Economics as a modern marvel and every other economists' idea is negligible.

However, what I am bringing up is that China is getting better while US is getting worse at their education system. Education has to be consistent throughout the ages and constantly adapt to the newest ideas and methods in every field. If I am not wrong, US schools tend to have a too relaxed standard of teaching, whereas China has a more stringent one.

The Chinese put alot of emphasis on Maths and Science - it is unfair for my local kids to even compete with them in the Secondary level maths Olympaid when they are only 1 year older and have known the entire calculus at the back of their hand. To train scientists, researchers and inventors, a strong background in the sciences must be present, as well as a powerful imagination for logical ideas. China already has the former, whereas US, mostly, has neither.

Quote:
As for resources, what can I say? It is a quite complicated issue. The nation has a huge population, what can you do about it? Start the third world war to kill part of it? Per capita, I am sure the numbers will be far below average. There is yet another aspect to it. China needs a lot of resources to fuel its export sector, so part of the resource are not destined for China: they just pass through China with limited added value and go to a more developed nation. Think about all those dirt cheap spoons you can get in Walmart. They need either crude oil or iron ore to produce. China is doing some dirty job for the developed world while large internationals gets the bigger pie (google up the profit margin of Walmart and Chinese manufacture). I know this economical model is flawed. The longer it lasts, the worse the crash will be. But it won't change over night, and there are active oppositions from both sides (multinationals in the US and exporters in China, for example). Even changes are accompanied by sinophobia alarmists like Mr. Farrel.
So are my Malaysian and Indonesian neighbours sewing Nike shoes and footballs for $10 each, and the MNCs selling for $300 in Singapore. This is a serious sweatshop issue, but for some reason, part of the $10 used to pay taxes aren't used to build schools or hospitals, but rather, going into the extragravant lifestyles of the abovementioned government. The only winner is Big Corp.

Quote:
By the way, I absolutely hate a particular term Farrel has used: "economic warfare". That enrages me more than anything else. The word he is looking for is "symbiotic". The two economies are so dependent on each other that if one fails, the other one is sure to fail. Hell, the US is the world's largest example of "too big to fail".
Given how some of the PLA generals speak (i.e to build up and make US smaller that it is unable to be big again), I doubt the politicians in the CCCP will push for a "symbiotic" relationship, and attempt to settle for a "US is China's lapdog" one.

Quote:
I am not sure what the correct economic principle is. But inflation sounds like a problem of excessive money supply.
My mistake. I was referring to the nominal interest rate, which is supposedly tied to inflation. But I do know that the demand for money drives the cost of goods up too as interest rates goes up, banks lend at a higher cost, and businesses rack up their costs accordingly too. Demand pull inflation leading to cost push inflation, resulting in a significantly higher inflation rate.
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When three puppygirls named after pastries are on top of each other, it is called Eclair a'la menthe et Biscotti aux fraises avec beaucoup de Ricotta sur le dessus.
Most of all, you have to be disciplined and you have to save, even if you hate our current financial system. Because if you don't save, then you're guaranteed to end up with nothing.
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Old 2011-09-14, 08:38   Link #16534
ganbaru
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Moody's cuts French banks, eurobond talk lifts markets
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...78B24R20110914
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Old 2011-09-14, 09:40   Link #16535
SaintessHeart
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ganbaru View Post
Moody's cuts French banks, eurobond talk lifts markets
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...78B24R20110914
Something tells me that the Euro is long overdue bust. Maybe the French are keeping it alive so they don't have to bicker with the Swiss over the name of their currencies.
__________________

When three puppygirls named after pastries are on top of each other, it is called Eclair a'la menthe et Biscotti aux fraises avec beaucoup de Ricotta sur le dessus.
Most of all, you have to be disciplined and you have to save, even if you hate our current financial system. Because if you don't save, then you're guaranteed to end up with nothing.
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Old 2011-09-14, 11:01   Link #16536
Rising Dragon
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Has this been posted already?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/se...king-teenagers
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Old 2011-09-14, 12:03   Link #16537
AnimeFan188
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Actor to Plead Guilty to Leaking Black Swan to BitTorrent

"A Screen Actors Guild member who leaked the Oscar-winning Black Swan and
other first-run films to BitTorrent has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal
copyright-infringement charge, according to court records.

Wes DeSoto had his Los Angeles apartment raided by FBI agents earlier this
year, after a Motion Picture Association of America piracy officer advised tipped off
the feds that high-quality digital copies of five feature films had shown up on The
Pirate Bay while still in theaters.

The bootlegs were review screeners provided through the iTunes store to
members of the Screen Actors Guild. The authorities pinpointed DeSoto as the
culprit through digital watermarks in the movies, according to an FBI affidavit.
(.pdf)

DeSoto, who recently played a small role in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,
agreed Monday to plead guilty to one count of breaching the Family
Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005, which makes it a crime, punishable by
up to three years in prison, to release a work online that is “being prepared for
commercial distribution.”"

See:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...eener-seeding/
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Old 2011-09-14, 12:38   Link #16538
Jinto
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil View Post
Interesting that you mentioned the partition of Afghanistan. I present you the thought of none other than Dr. Kissinger on this issue.
You mean the same guy who oversaw the de-installment of Salvador Allende? Well, you have picked a connoisseur of anti democrats - of course he is an expert in such matters (irony intended ).
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Last edited by Jinto; 2011-09-14 at 12:47. Reason: something was missing
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Old 2011-09-15, 04:41   Link #16539
Sides
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The Fonz gets an OBE !, source BBC News
Henry Winkler gets a honorary OBE for his educational work on dyslexia in the UK.
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Old 2011-09-15, 07:10   Link #16540
ganbaru
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Pakistan says U.S. warning on militants hurts ties
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...78E22A20110915
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