Genesis of A Moron

"they hate us for our freedoms"

Since the awful events of last Thursday many of us have been turning events over in our minds, trying to comprehend what could make a human being wipe out innocent life on such a wholesale level. The conclusion of the analysis of many a radio pundit, tabloid journalist and ordinary Joe on the street has been that these extremist "monsters" carry out unspeakable acts of terror against the West because they "hate us for our freedoms".

Unpacking this conclusion a little, the argument which arrives at it runs roughly as follows: we in the west live in freedom, enjoying all the trappings of a 21st century democracy, while the uneducated muslim ragheads fester in some undeveloped medieval backwater. This makes them (the muslims) jealous and leads them to strapping bombs to themselves in subways during rush hour with the solitary aim of wiping out as many of our freedom-loving arses as possible.

Now it is my view that this conclusion is a little simplistic (not to mention just plain wrong). So with a view to redressing the balance I would like to take a minute to dip into a few things that might be cheesing off muslims other than our own glorious magnificence.

For decades now we in the West have been sticking our noses into the running of nearly every country in the middle east. US dollars prop up dictatorships like the House of Saud, US military bases are all over the middle east (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Uzbekistan, Qatar).

Remember these terrorists are the same guys who fought tooth and nail to get the commies and Russians out of Afghanistan. What you thought they were going to step aside and let the West call the shots in Saudi Arabia, a country much more significant to muslims than Afghanistan?

In every speech he makes Bin Laden rants about the presence of infidels in Saudi Arabia and US support for the Saudi dictatorship. Of course what Bin Laden and Al Qaeda actually want is never mentioned in mainstream media which prefers to run with the propaganda line of "they hate us for our freedoms".

Then add to the inflammatory situation in Saudi Arabia the slaughter in Iraq which has been going on, not for two years but since the early 1980's when the West and every other country which could make a quick buck was helping Saddam murder as many Kurds as possible. Then in the 1990's 500 000 Iraqi children were estimated killed because of Western led sanctions which strenghtened Saddam. Facts like these may quickly dissapear down the memory hole in the west, but you can bet muslims remember them.

Then of course, there is the old issue of reflexive US support for Israel in the occupied territories, where Palestinian civilians, including large numbers of children are killed daily by the IDF. Every time a plane or helicopter attacks and kills Palestinians it is a US plane or a US helicopter. Sure the pilots are Israeli, but the technology comes free of charge from Uncle Sam. Maybe not many people in the west know this, but you can bet muslims are acutely aware of it.

These are important issues, but in some ways it is the tip of the iceberg, other muslim countries where the west has been heavily involved (and not in a positive way) include Egypt, Libya, Turkey, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain. All part of an agenda which is aimed at controlling the most economically vital region in the world and making the area safe for the mighty dollar; regardless of what the locals want.

People can bury their head in the sand and continue to believe asinine banalities like "they hate us for our freedoms" and "you're either with us or against us" but the truth is much more complex than us being the good guys in the white hats and the muslim extremists being the bad men in the black hats.

Muslims have some genuine issues with the west which need to be addressed as a matter of urgency if we want to stem the tide of recruits to Al Qaeda and other organisations, and find a long term solution to middle eastern terror.

Firefox sucks.

Firefox is the lamest browser currently doing the rounds. People think it's "cool" and "1337" to use firefox at the moment because it's open source, free and not microsoft.

But pay attention suckers, and I'll bust some of the myths currently disseminated by the average firefox user.

Firefox user says: "LOL... these extensions rilly r0xxor d00d!!11"

I say: Sure, extensions might be a reasonable way to extend browser functionality. But think about it. More and more extensions are being farmed out to third party sites, so every time you download an extension which isn't on the mozilla web site you run the risk of some dickwad slipping a trojan onto your system...then where is your famous firefox security ?
Plus most of the firefox extensions are either useless or choc full of bugs. Adblock is ok, but apart from that I can’t think of a single worthwhile extension.
Also consider this: a plain firefox download weighs in at 4.7mb. A download of opera which is equivalent to firefox plus a crapload of extensions, plus an email client, plus a newsreader, plus an IRC client takes up 3.2mb. Can you say bloatware? There I knew you could.

Firefox user says: “OMG… firefox is teh secure d00d!!!!1111”

I say: Oh yeah? Says who? Not leading security experts who report that firefox had “60 percent more vulnerabilities in the last half of 2004 than Microsoft's Internet Explorer.”
http://www.techweb.com/wire/security/159905537
Also if firefox is such a bastion of security, how come they released 1.0.1 which fixed no less than 17 security vulnerabilities, then a couple of weeks later 1.0.2 which patched according to their own site, 3 “critical” vulnerabilities? All of a sudden IE looks much less insecure.

Firefox user says: “WTF!!!11….tabbed browsing r0x0rz j00r s0x0rz ph00!!!!!!111111”

I say: Tabbed browsing is a neat concept, but firefox was hardly the first browser to implement it; opera were there years ago, and their implementation is still better. You can also get tabbed browsing for internet explorer by installing a simple browser shell like maxthon or avant. As well as adding tabbed browsing these browser shells also add a shitload of functionality which frankly makes firefox look Spartan in comparison.

Firefox user says: “OMG!!11….teh firefox speed pwnzerz ur a$$”

I say: Firefox is slow. In fact firefox is the slowest browser on windows. Opera is the fastest, followed by internet explorer. Firefox is even slower than the original mozilla browser.http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html#winspeed

Also bear in mind: Firefox uses the gecko rendering engine which is notoriously poor. The firefox developers aren't alchemists. Just as you can't turn shit into gold, likewise you can't turn a rubbish browser into something good just by adding a few extensions.
Just my humble opinion.