September 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Geopolitical Darwin Awards
by Tyler Durden 21 Sep '04

21 Sep '04

Who, the Iranians? Which ones are fanatics? I'll grant there are some fanatics left in Iran, but Iran seems increasingly dominated by fairly sleezy clergy/judges. Like any government, theirs is deteriorating into a mere racket. And if you ask me, fanaticism never lasts very long anywhere, only for about a generation during turbulent times. Iran in particular is a special case...seems to me their cultural momentum will always outweigh any temporary fanaticism. A country that has a small but thriving prostitution industry can't be all that fanatical. -TD >From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd(a)echeque.com> >To: "cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net" <cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net> >Subject: Re: Geopolitical Darwin Awards >Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 10:50:37 -0700 > > -- >On 15 Sep 2004 at 2:38, Thomas Shaddack wrote: > > Maybe they are playing a different game. They [Iran] couldn't > > use the eventually produced nukes anyway, without being > > showered back with the same kind > >They are fanatics. They expect to get a six pack of virgins. >And they will say "Hey, it was not us, it was these terrorists >who happen to have somehow stolen some nukes from persons >unknown. We are completely opposed to terrorism, and are fully >cooperating with foreign investigations." > > > --digsig > James A. Donald > 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG > /Y5bZ5vcTSLqigJSE6PrHkJplrE/rkCOv5ZqjTCd > 4hlcKGlAs6dJgsGrsyIqiOz5Qfdc2wMId/LdnAnXG _________________________________________________________________ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/

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Re: Geopolitical Darwin Awards
by Major Variola (ret) 20 Sep '04

20 Sep '04

t 11:38 PM 9/20/04 -0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote: >At 8:11 PM -0700 9/20/04, Major Variola (ret) wrote: >>2. UBL's mom was a low-caste yemeni, dig? > >Actually, UBL's *dad* was a low-caste Yemeni, too. > >And your point is? That you can be wealthy and still find something of the underdog in you, which you can resublimate... >-- Islam is a dead >religion. It just doesn't know it yet. Lets hope that's true for all of them...

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But they were using 3DES!
by Major Variola (ret) 20 Sep '04

20 Sep '04

September 20, 2004 ATM Stolen in Third Such Theft in a Month An automated teller machine was stolen from a gas station early Sunday, the third such theft in Orange County since mid-August, police said. The machine was stolen from an Arco just before 4 a.m., using the same method as in the earlier incidents, sheriff's Lt. Ted Boyne said. "They come, and in 30 seconds, they have the ATM in back of an SUV." http://www.latimes.com/news/local/orange/la-me-ocbriefs20.2sep20,1,6358360.… Moral of the story: do the math.

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Re: Geopolitical Darwin Awards
by Major Variola (ret) 20 Sep '04

20 Sep '04

At 05:07 PM 9/19/04 -0700, James A. Donald wrote: > >I don't recall the American revolutionaries herding children >before them to clear minefields, nor surrounding themselves >with children as human shields. The yank minutemen were not above taking children as soldiers, any more than Dan'l Boone was above taking a 14 year old as a wife.

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Re: Geopolitical Darwin Awards
by Major Variola (ret) 20 Sep '04

20 Sep '04

At 04:57 PM 9/19/04 -0700, James A. Donald wrote: >But the Saudi Arabian elite, of among which Bin Laden was born with a >silver spoon in his mouth, are not getting screwed over. 1. you don't get religion 2. UBL's mom was a low-caste yemeni, dig?

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Re: Geopolitical Darwin Awards
by Major Variola (ret) 20 Sep '04

20 Sep '04

At 08:46 PM 9/19/04 -0700, John Young wrote: >Today, even the US uses children in war, 17 being the minimum >age to enlist. Others sneak in by lying about their age, some as >young as 14. Recruiters look the other way when the kids >and their parents lie. Been there, done that. Enlisted in the >army at 15, served months before being kicked out when a >relative ratted on me. Went in again at 17. Not that it matters, but you have tipped your motivations far more than your bailey-bridge erections... Still, good things come from twisted sources... look at the GNU projekts :-)

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FSTC Project Update
by R. A. Hettinga 20 Sep '04

20 Sep '04

--- begin forwarded text

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FSTC Project Update
by Jim Salters 20 Sep '04

20 Sep '04

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FSTC Project Update
by Jim Salters 20 Sep '04

20 Sep '04

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Re: Academics locked out by tight visa controls
by Anne & Lynn Wheeler 20 Sep '04

20 Sep '04

At 08:03 AM 9/20/2004, John Kelsey wrote: >I guess I've been surprised this issue hasn't seen a lot more >discussion. It takes nothing more than to look at the names of the people >doing PhDs and postdocs in any technical field to figure out that a lot of >them are at least of Chinese, Indian, Arab, Iranian, Russian, etc., >ancestry. And only a little more time to find out that a lot of them are >not citizens, and have a lot of hassles with respect to living and working >here. What do you suppose happens to the US lead in high-tech, when we >*stop* drawing in some large fraction of the smartest, hardest-working >thousandth of a percent of mankind? in '94 there was report (possibly sjmn?) that said at least half of all cal. univ. tech. PHDs were awarded to foreign born. during some of the tech green card discussions in the late '90s ... it was pointed out that the internet boom (bubble) was heavily dependent on all these foreign born .... since there was hardly enuf born in the usa to meet the demand. in the late 90s there were some reports that many of these graduates had their education paid by their gov. with directions to enter an us company in strategic high tech areas for 4-8 years .... and then return home as tech transfer effort. i was told in the late 90s about one optical computing group in a high tech operation .... where all members of the group fell into this category (foreign born with obligation to return home after some period). another complicating factor competing for resources during the late 90s high-tech, internet boom (bubble?) period was the significant resource requirement for y2k remediation efforts. nsf had recent study on part of this http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/infbrief/ib.htm graduate enrollment in science and engineering fields reaches new peak; 1st time enrollment of foreign students drops http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/infbrief/nsf04326/start.htm -- Anne & Lynn Wheeler http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

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