9/13    Volkswagon sold more cars in China than in Germany
        http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/12/business/worldbusiness/12cars.html
        \_ old news.  China already passed Germany as 3rd largest auto
           market in the world.  Mind you, that when that stat was taken,
           China has not open up market for auto-finance yet.  I am a
           Chinese, and I am deeply concerned with the way this is going.
           Most of China's city is not equipped for millions of cars, not
           to mention environment impact.
           \_ China has always been deeply concerned about the environment.
              \_ Yeah that's why they're building the 3 gorges river dam and
                 have been destroying their own rice paddies to the north of
                 Beijing for 20+ years with unsound farming methods.  The real
                 concern is we're down wind.  If they put enough shit in the
                 air from cars and heavy industry, it's going to blow right
                 over the pacific and settle in the pacific northwest and
                 parts of northern CA.  (The part of CA where Berkeley is for
                 those light on geography skills).
                 \_ hmm, ever heard of the Hoover dam?
                 \_ hopefully some smart guy in the gwbush admin has
                    realized this and is cooking up some great free
                    market scheme to deal with this problem, but
                    i really doubt it
                    \_ Um.  GWBush admin.... saving CA... yeah, right.  They'll
                       probably encourage China to drop emissions controls.
                     \_ I think they'll tell China about how they can
                        fix the environment by emitting deplted uranium.
                \_ Building?  It's completed.  Humans have been building dams
                   since 4000BC.  Last time I checked the Colorado is still
                   dammed.  Maybe you prefer that those Chinese provinces
                   (several hundred million people) continue to burn coal
                   instead?
                   \_ It's not fully operational.  They're still flooding out
                      the upriver areas, dislocating 10 million people and
                      wiping out big chunk of their own history.  And then
                      when the fault line they built it on goes, a few hundred
                      gazillion tons of water is going to wash out everything
                      down river to the ocean wiping out another few hundred
                      million people, but hey, as long as they don't burn coal
                      it's ok, right?  If you knew *anything* about this
                      project you wouldn't be so flip about it like it's yet
                      another random dam.  It isn't and you'd know that if
                      you knew anything, but you don't.  I notice you're also
                      completely ignoreant of the wide spread devastation
                      they're inflicting on their own food basket in the north.
                      \_ You are the one who mentioned "the real concern is
                         we're down wind".  Well, I can see how burning coal
                         would cause problem down wind, but not Yangtze
                         flooding.  In any case, now every two years,
                         millions of people get dislocated WITHOUT damming
                         due to flooding of the Yangtze.
                         \_ Maybe, but our environmentalism is more important
                            than Chinese flood dislocation.  They've been
                            flooded for thousands of years, and they should
                            be used to it by now.
                         \_ Their coal burning isn't an issue.  A few hundred
                            million cars and the heavy industry required to
                            make, maintain, and replace them is.  The 3 gorges
                            project is one example of how the environment is
                            not a concern there in any way, shape, or form.
                            The fact that they're destroying their own food
                            producing areas in the north is more than just bad
                            farm science, it's sheer insanity.  I wonder what
                            the next Five Year Plan will be.
           \_ You are a Chinese, but are you from China?
                \_ what differences does it make? -- heart in the motherland
                   \_ The person mentioned that he is "a Chinese".  What
                      differences does that make? -- heart for the humankind
        \_ Does VW manufacture cars in China now?
           \_not "now."  VW has been in China for almost a decade, if not
             more.
             \_  Go to Shanghai, the joint venture between VW and the local
                 manufacturer (forget their name), have the largets market
                 share in China currently.  I think their main $$$ maker is
                 the Santana.
        \_ Good thing China is in Kyoto - oh wait...
           \_ look at who is talking... the biggest pollutor in the damn
                world.

9/13    Any idea why my post regarding to Iran its its nuclear program being
        deleted by MOTD Censor?
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3106488.stm
        I love this.  There is no incentive for Iran to cooperate
        regardless, as even if nothing was found, it would get invaded
        anyway.
        \_ Marg Bar Amrika, jew lover.  -John
        \_ Did you post in English?
        \_ The problem is they're building (or trying to) nuclear weapons.
           Why does an oil rich nation with minimal energy needs develop
           a high tech nuclear power industry for civilian use?  So they're
           in a catch-22.  They either come clean in which case they'll be
           forced to give up their weapons program or get invaded, or they
           don't come clean and get invaded and then give up the weapons
           program.  The last option is they build their nukes, destroy
           Israel who then launches the rumored 300-500 nukes they might
           have and wipe out a billion Arabs in response.  There's a reason
           the 3rd division hasn't come home.  It doesn't take an Iranian
           rocket scientist to figure it out.  (heh, that part was funny,
           laugh!)  As far as why were you censored?  Some people will delete
           anything on the motd that isn't nerdy enough for them.  World
           affairs is on the not-nerdy-enough list unless it has something to
           do with MP3 rulings in other countries or linux.
           \_ The problem is the iraq war has destroyed our ability to use
              war as a way to get countries to back down.  We have shown that
              dismantaling your weapon progrmas just makes you unable to
              defend yourself when you get attacked, while, as in the case
              with North Korea, having a strong weapons program gives you
              some bargining power.  Not to mention Iran knows full well that
              the United States doesn't have the military power right now
              to keep Iraq under semi-control AND threaten Iran.
              \_ Yea, Iran has like 5 times the population and land area
                 of Iraq, and their mullahs are all crazy unlike the very
                 moderate Iraq.  The land is also more rugged, lots of
                 mountains.  Besides they were the descendants of Darius
                 the Great, who was known as the Rod of God by the
                 Israelites for destroying Israel's enemies, and who was
                 very nice to the ancient Israelites.  Talk about being
                 ungrateful.
                 \_ Ungrateful?
                 \_ Huh huh..  He said 'rod.'
           \_ Jews and Arabs destroy each other with nukes.  Sounds like
              an excellent solution to the world's problems.  Didn't know
              Iranians are arabs.
              \_ hey i don't want radioactive gas in my car
              \_ They're not but who do you think they're going to nuke in
                 response to an Iranian first strike?  Argentina?  Nuking
                 the middle east will make current issues look easy.
                 \_ Yea, but he said 1 billion.  Arabs << 1 billion.
                    \_ So nitpicky.  After 300+ nukes land the world will be
                       lucky if only 1 billion die.  We're talking the end of
                       the world and you're concerned with demographics.
              \_ Iranians are persians.  Ancient scourge of western
                 civilization, dating back to the greeks.
                 \_ Jews, ancient troublemakers for western civilization?
                    \_ Genius, without Jews there wouldn't be a western
                       civilization.  I know!, let's push them all into the
                       sea.  Solidarity with our Muslim brothers!  All Praise
                       Allah!

9/13    I'm trying to download legal mp3s using
        wget -nc -r -l3 -A"*.mp3*" \
'http://www.subpop.com/scripts/main/multimedia.php?key=format&value=mp3
        but it doesn't work. I haven't used wget much; what am I doing wrong?
        \_ maybe you can set your refererr value to something innocuous like
           'Netscape 4', read the wget manpage.
           \_ you have "referer" and "user-agent" mixed up.  But setting the
              user-agent value in addition to the referer one is a good idea.
        \_ Your ISP probably blocked all mp3 files because they have the evil
           bit set.
        \_ the host probably disallows direct linking to files.  If so, you
           need to specify a referer.
        \_ It wasn't referrer or user-agent, but rather something about
           the option I think.  At any rate, I parsed the page manually
           and came up with a list of hrefs to d/l, and that worked fine.
           Thanks for the help.

9/13    http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/search.asp
        RIAA radar -- enter label or artist name and find out if they're evil
        or not.
        \_ Evil?  Meaning what?
           \_ Suing some of the 60 million file sharers for not being good
              little moral-less music buying consumers.
              \_ Huh?  you're not making any sense.  I think you're lost in
                 your own self justifying little world.

9/14    http://moveon.org/pac/recall/register
        Absentee ballot registration for the October special election.
        There will be far fewer polls open than you're used to, so signing
        up for a mail-in vote is a Good Thing.  Applications must be rec'd
        by September 30. -- mjm
        \_ yeah, it's from an unbiased site.
                \_ Who cares.  Everyone with an axe to grind registers
                   absentee voters.  That doesn't mean you are obliged to
                   vote for their agenda.  -John
                   \_ I registered for my absentee ballot through the Join
                      Ahnuld campaign, even though I'm voting No/Cruz.
           \_ Go back to jerking off to plumper.
              \_ you've taken a look at these anti-globalist chicks lately?
           \_ it's obviously extremely biased, but just for kicks, I'm going
              to get my No on Davis, Yes on Arnold forms through them.  It's
              funny that they feel the need to say that whichever side gets
              more people to vote for their side will win.  Uhm, duh?  Civics?
              \_ The recall only needs a simple majority.  But if the recall
                 goes through, the candidate with highest votes does in fact
                 win.  Your point?
                 \_ My point is that they feel the need to explain this very
                    trivial concept as if the reader was a 2nd grader.  I made
                    the point clearly enough to the English speakers here.
        \_ http://moveon.org... hey op, haven't you realized communism
           is a failure?
           \_ like say Sweden?
           \_ FYI, capitalism, aside from the few developed nation,
              is a failure as well.
                \_ Could it be that those 'failures' were never
                   capitalist to begin with?
                   I can tell you are just dying to
                   mention China.  Well all I can say is good luck
                   to China, I hope they don't end up like the Weimar
                   Republic.
                \_ Hmmm, so we can compare a few developed nations where, as
                   you say, capitalism wasn't a failure vs. every single
                   attempt at communism on the planet, ever, which were all
                   big fat universal failures.  I'll take the thing that works
                   some times over the thing that has *never* *ever* *not*
                   *once* *ever* worked *anywhere* at *any* time.  Thanks for
                   putting the final nail in the capitalism vs communism
                   debate.
                   \_ Capitalism goes a long way to crushing the success of any
                      fledging nation, communist, capitalist, adventist, or
                      otherwise.  The "few developed nations" point goes deeper
                      than you seem to realize.
                      \_ Oh do tell!  Please explain and let us know what your
                         choice is for a non-capitalist fledging nation to
                         grow and become econimcally or otherwise successful
                         today if not capitalism.

9/14    What is the hourly rate of a decent tax attorney?
        \_ Any type of lawyer is going to charge you a minimum of 180/hr on
           up.  If they're charging less, you're a charity case or they suck.