Iraq war : How much longer?

The war in Iraq has now entered its fifth year and the violence shows no signs of abating. More people now recognise the war has been a disaster. The war was not justified and everything the US Government said has proved to be a lie, It has not brought peace or stability to Iraq or the Middle East and it has made this country the most unsafe in the world.

A rundown country has been further weakened by a bloody terrorist campaign, an explosion of atavistic hatreds, virtual civil war and the mass exodus of its ablest citizens....A tyranny was overthrown - but at a great cost.
What if Saddam Hussein had not been toppled? Would Iraq be better or worse off? Would the Middle East be more or less stable, the United States safer or in greater danger?
Saddam and his thugs would have continued to kill innocent people—but the victims would have been different, and it is doubtful they would have been as numerous as the victims of the war(more than 1.000.000 victims). Nor would 4 million Iraqis be displaced. Nor would millions more have such severe shortages of health care, electricity, and clean water, or be afraid to walk their own streets.
To date, nearly 4000 American soldiers have been killed and some 29,000 have been injured in the war. Despite its considerable losses, the U.S. military still does not control the country, not even the 16-kilometer-long highway that separates the ultrafortified 'Green Zone' at the heart of the capital from Baghdad's airport on the outskirts of the city.

The world learned that American personnel had been torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, irrevocably damaging the United States' image and credibility

In the other side, Bush, in a speech at the Pentagon, offered some of his boldest assessments of progress and said the war's legacy is absolute:

"The world is better, and the United States of America is safer."

So, thank you Mr. Bush :)

Tibet: Who will stop China

Protests by Buddhist monks in Lhasa, capital of Tibet, against Chinese rule last week worsened into the most serious social unrest to hit the Himalayan territory, which China administers as an “autonomous region”, in nearly two decades.
After sealing the city with a large military and armed police presence, Chinese authorities claim that situations have stabilised. The official death toll was 16, although Tibetan groups said scores and possibly hundreds of Tibetans had been killed.
Tensions began last week as Tibetans staged protests in India, Nepal and Greece to mark the 49th anniversary of the uprising in which the Dalai Lama fled to India, and draw attention to the Tibetan cause in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics.

In Memoriam of Rachel Corrie (1979 - 2003)

On 16 March 2003 in Rafah, Rachel Corrie was killed when she was run over by an Israeli bulldozer. Rachel was trying to stop the bulldozer from demolishing the home of a Palestinian doctor in the Gaza Strip.
She was an american volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the Occupied Territories. Rachel has chosen non-violent, direct-action methods and principles to resist the daily brutality of Israel's 36-year-old military occupation and its ongoing and illegal land confiscation and settlement of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Rachel was clearly identifiable and non-threatening in both her nature and approach. Rather, Rachel did put her life on the line to stand up against a policy that is inhumane.
Rachel said:

We Should be inspired by people ... who show that human beings can be kind, brave, generous, beautiful, strong - even in the most difficult circumstances.

Photos of the crime:

PlayList of the Week-End : Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd : Hey You


Pink Floyd : Time


Pink Floyd : Money


Pink Floyd : ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL


Pink Floyd : Shine On You Crazy Diamond


Pink Floyd : Goodbye Blue Sky


Pink Floyd : Comfortably Numb

Hard to be a developer....

Object Orientation (Part II)

Encapsulation, IS-A, HAS-A

• Encapsulation helps hide implementation behind an interface (or API).
• Encapsulated code has two features: Instance variables are kept protected (usually with the private modifier) and Getter and setter methods provide access to instance variables.
• IS-A refers to inheritance it is expressed with the keyword extends.
• IS-A, "inherits from," and "is a subtype of" are all equivalent expressions.
• HAS-A means an instance of one class "has a" reference to an instance of another class.

Inheritance

• Inheritance is a mechanism that allows a class to be a subclass of a superclass, and thereby inherit variables and methods of the superclass.
• Inheritance is a key concept that underlies IS-A, polymorphism, overriding, overloading, and casting.
• All classes (except class Object), are subclasses of type Object, and therefore
• they inherit Object's methods.

Polymorphism

• Polymorphism means ‘many forms'.
• A reference variable is always of a single, unchangeable type, but it can refer to a subtype object.
• A single object can be referred to by reference variables of many different
• types as long as they are the same type or a supertype of the object.
• The reference variable's type (not the object's type), determines which methods can be called!
• Polymorphic method invocations apply only to overridden instance methods.

Overriding and Overloading

• Methods can be overridden or overloaded; constructors can be overloaded but not overridden.
• Abstract methods must be overridden by the first concrete (nonabstract) subclass.
• final methods cannot be overridden.
• Only inherited methods may be overridden, and remember that private methods are not inherited.
• Overloading means reusing amethod name, but with different arguments.
• Methods from a superclass can be overloaded in a subclass.
• Polymorphism applies to overriding, not to overloading
• Object type (not the reference variable's type), determines which overridden method is used at runtime.
• Reference type determines which overloaded method will be used at compile time.

Gaza : Earth of Death