call them hobbits if you want, but there seems to have been some insular dwarfism going on in the british isles a few thousand years ago...

i keep pointing out that all of the analysis on iran is done in a vacuum, as though they're not surrounded by russia, china and india - the three biggest powers outside of nato - and as though there aren't any mutual interests in terms of defense and trade.

he's getting the right point, i think, but he's avoiding the context. the realization that's being come to is that the harder they push iran, the more they're going to integrate with america's competitors. as a "regional power"? well, let's not sell out the saudis so quickly, now. how many billions was the last arms purchase? that's a big shift in alliance, and there's really no indication it's occurring.

see, the thing is that the sanctions are an act of war to begin with. the united states is already at war with iran. it's just a different type of war, aimed at trying to influence the government. it's not just empty barbarism. i think everybody knows this. but, if those sanctions are having an opposite effect of increased military co-operation with russia, and china and india circumventing the petrodollar to buy oil, it's no longer playing into american interests. the aim is to dominate them; if the effect is they're losing them, then they're not working.

when something's not working, you don't keep doing it - you recognize as much and adjust. the west pretends to be so concerned about iran developing a bomb, but the faster and easier way to get a deterrent is to rely on russian and/or chinese protection. if the americans keep it up, the russians could act out of principle. and the chinese simply need the oil.

but, iran wants sovereignty. it might be an exaggeration to suggest it wants to be one of the four biggest powers outside of nato, but it certainly wants to be in control of it's own interests. so, becoming a fief of russia or china is no answer. that gives the americans a bit of bargaining power.

which means that what is developing is the same situation that exists in north korea, where a crafty state is finding ways to play the powers off against each other.

i had to leave my browser window open last night, and it's generally a bad idea to try and record with it open due to ram issues. it's done now, mostly. i'll have to wait until after 2 am to get back to downloading the rest of the libraries i'm looking into - i'm looking at about a 50 gb download, and...

there was a court ruling last year that put usage based billing in place, meaning the isps can charge you based on your bandwidth. there's a really bad oligopoly in canada with internet, stemming from the way the infrastructure was built. somebody might correct me (i'm not old enough to remember, first hand) but i believe the telephone and cable companies in canada were previously state operated. honestly? that makes far more sense to me, and the reason is that it doesn't make sense to have multiple lines. you want one cable infrastructure and one phone infrastructure - anything else is just wasteful. but, the result of it moving from public to private ownership was that, in any given area, there's a monopoly on the cable and a monopoly on the phone based around who owns the lines. splitting the lines up to different companies in different areas didn't really have the effect of breaking up monopolistic practices, and why would it? if you live here in windsor, cogeco owns all the cable lines (and bell owns all the phone lines) so you're ultimately forced to go through one of them if you want to use the infrastructure.

so, reacting further to the monopoly, the court ruled that the companies that own the lines have to sell service to smaller isps. so, the way it works is that teksavvy buys bandwidth from cogeco, and i buy bandwidth from teksavvy. the capitalist relation should mean that's more expensive, because there's more managers.

but it isn't. it's less than half the price. but what i like about teksavvy is that they offer very basic rates. i'm on youtube all the time, and i download a bit of music, but i don't game or watch netflix or anything like that - and there's only one of me down here, rather than a family of 5 or 6. my average monthly usage is much less than 30 gb - and usually closer to 20. nor can i download faster than the internet will let me download. so, all i need is about a 5 mbps line with a 50 gb limit. what i have is a 6 mbps line with a 75 gb limit (for $25/month) - and 99 months out of 100, i'm not going to get close to it. even if i were to download 50 gb of libraries in peak hours, i'd still only be something like 73 gb for the month.

i don't want to push it, though.

teksavvy didn't like the ruling. so, what they've done is put the download limit down (and, like i say, 75 gb is usually way more than sufficient for me) and allow unlimited downloads over night, from 2-8 am. it's a good solution for gamers, i guess, who are usually up all night, anyways.

for me, waiting until after 2 to suck this down is an isolated thing to make sure i don't hit the limit...

but, i don't need a browser for that, so i should be able to work overnight. i've got a few things to play with, hopefully one of them gives me what i want right away....

i should point out that i have youtube defaulted to the lowest quality level, though. this isn't for bandwidth reasons, it's because my internet tv is a pIII that shipped with windows 98 on it, so i'm trying not to max it out. well, that and i just use it to watch lectures and news shows...

i don't need noam chomsky's wrinkles or paul jay's bald head beaming at me in crystal clear high definition or who-gives-a-fuck p.