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Does no one remember the FEC threat against the owner of ... what was it, gwbush.com ? ... circa 1999? I haven't seen it mentioned here, but maybe I just missed it...

You remember: It was the FEC action that was the follow-on to the aspiring dictator's attempts to shut down the parody site?

Iirc, the sound byte was something like "There's gotta be some limits to freedom." I've got the MP3 of it around here somewhere.

When Dubya's slightly premature edict didn't take hold quite as effectively as he demanded (the site stayed up and his lawsuit was tossed out), then suddenly and mysteriously the FEC stepped in and "fined" the owner of the domain something like $25,000...

Anyone who didn't see which way the 2000 "election" was going to fall at that time was just deluding themselves.

Anyone who remembers shouldn't be surprised to see the FEC moving again on behalf of the Regime to consolidate Power.

Wow. The courts first threw Dubya's lawsuit out, concluding (apparently) that Speech was protected - even if the subject of that Speech was a fortunate son who wannabe da prez. Amazing how things can change in 4 or 5 years, isn't it?

This latest from the FEC is just one more stone in the wall of Suppression of Dissent that the Regime has been building since Day One.

"Maybe it was to take the edge off the coke." - Boondocks

And does anyone recall Doonesbury during the reign of Bush I?

"You have the Right to Free Speech ... unless you're actually stupid enough to actually try it. Know your Rights."

This one no doubt.

http://gwbush.com/ has been parodying Bush since before the last election. (unfortunately, the site is down right now as the maintainers are "too busy working to defeat george bush"). too bad.

This would be like George W. Bush trying to sue John Kerry for mentioning his name on his website or suing some random person for making the website "georgewbushsucks.com" (which probably does exist, haven't bothered to check).

He didn't sue, but Bush did complain vehemently when someone set up an anti-Bush website at http://www.gwbush.com/. It was in this context that he said the immortal words, "There ought to be limits to freedom."

Hmmmmm....four-digit UID....couldn't be could it?

People _deserve_ nothing. Sorry, it's Nature's way. If you wish to give them something, that's your prerogative, freedom permits you the freedom to give. However, if you use your guns to take from me in order to satisfy your urge to gain pleasure by giving, then you're stealing from me and I'll use my guns to protect myself.

Why does everything come down to a matter of force when dealing with Americans? "Two words. Nuclear Fuckin' weapons..." The fallacy in this thinking is that you seem to believe it's a zero-sum game. It's not: especially when you have farmers plowing their crops back into the fields to increase their moetary yield.

'random birth' is bullshit quite frankly: my families fled oppression, social theft, and/or poverty in order to come to the USA ... ...That's a self-selecting demographic

You're right, it is a self selecting demogarphic. Frightened people flee, and you still seem to be afraid of enough things to need to keep your guns around. Let's face it - you aren't going to face a military threat (you do have the most effective army), and your personal weapons aren't really going to help you against a terror attack. So tell me again, what are you afraid of? An Afghani coming over to steal your stuff?

Any other race, religion or culture can do the same. All they have to do is:
* respect each other's rights, including those of religion, speech, and property
* have a free and independent press
* have an open, multiparty democratic system with an ironclad separation of religion and state

Respect each other's rights - as long as;

you subscribe to Christianity or the cable broadcast version of it
just like yours
open multiparty democratic process as long as you can fund raise enough cash to actually run.

Smash all non-democratic nations and force them to be democratic or nuke the shit out of them. Who needs six billion people anyway? New Hampshire has it right: Live Free or Die.

And this is the crux...why do you think people hate you? Why do you think people would want to commit terror attacks against you? It's because of exactly this sort of foreign policy thinking. It's about thinking that says it is acceptable to chase profits instead of raising living standards.

The rest if the world hates you like a poor innercity person hates the landlord.

You invest nothing in the third world but expect no jealousy?

Thank God America got the Puritans and Australia got the convicts....

How can a person have that level of familiarity with Linux and the GPL, and still not get it?

Linux is released to ANYONE, ANYWHERE to use for ANY PURPOSE. That is the GPL

From the Preamble - "the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its user". Note that is does not say "for SOME of its users..." or "unless you are the United States Military in a mid-East foreign country while G.W.Bush is in Commander in Chief and the month has an 'A' in it..."

From the Terms and conditions for Copying, Distribution, and Modification: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."

How does this person reconcile their current actions with their past actions and beliefs? You don't (or, in my opinion, shouldn't) get to the position they were in without some idea of the nature and dedication to the OpenSource community. How can they say now that they didn't know that "Free as in Speech" meant everyone, not just those they agreed with?

Has this person taken the position of CFO for The SCO Group? Their stated position seemd to coincide with TSGs quite well. (ObSCO_Ref)

Reminds me of the Voltaire quote "I don't agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it", except this person seems to be saying "I don't agree with what you say - so shut up." This person seems to be a firm believer in President Bush's stated belief that "there ought to be limits to freedom!" which is a moron oxymoron in my opinion.

Amazing the people that CAN think but DON'T, and the ones that CAN'T think that get elected...

While Bush again supports his friends the Saudis by stating that "there ought to be limits to freedom".

Listen to him say it

or this mass murderer?

I'd ask if this meant he couldn't give a speech at a school, but he has problems with speech already.

We have to give him credit for believing in the U.S. values enough not to shut the site down.

This one took a real long time to load, but it's one of the better articles on the whole mess that hasn't disappeared to the misty voids of the 404 error. Apparently, this was said at the Texas State House in 1999 in reference to campaign parody site gwbush.com. The full quote is:

"There ought to be limits to freedom. We're aware of this site, and this guy is just a garbage man, that's all he is."

So, yeah, it's a sinister comment.

would Murphy's Law be a dictatorship, a democracy, or something else?

All of them ?

You're forgetting that there are actaully some smart people in the banking industry that will realize that having your ATM's running windows hooked up to the internet is a bad idea. The people that make these kinds of decisions are not fools.

If you must fall into the role of jingoist and ideologue by demonizing publications of vaguely defined enemies, at least try to be a little more accurate... "women aren't allowed to drive"--indeed! But only in the US supported regime.

And in other news, bacteria still run the planet.

or the "millionaires" candidate.

Yup, that never works. Perhaps that's why we got this guy.

How dare you attack our President. He has taken a stand against real threats to our country, unlike the weasels France and Germany and the rest of the UN. We have darn good evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime aspired to possess nuclear weapons, the most destructive weapons ever developed.

Ah a walking, talking tragedy... To think, I spent four years in the Army defending your freedom. Such is the state of public education in the nookyooler power known as 'merika. I mean, really--if you're going to lay flamebait on me, at least make it worthy of response.

Ken Lay (or as prezitend george likes to call him "kenny boy"), has a long history contributing to the prezitend.

I'm talking about Enron executives, not Enron. Get it? I'm talking about people directly responsible for creating the California energy crisis, who were responsible for stealing the retirement of thousands of hard working aging people, who are still walking free. I'm talking about Ken Lay in particular. A person who has been working closely with the Bush family for over a decade.

I'd invite you to discuss this, but I'm sure you'll just cry some more. It's okay, you can cry, just don't expect me to listen.

It makes sense, since the President of India is a top-level scientist (I believe he headed India's nuclear programme) and not a clueless buffoon.

Note for the humour impaired: this is a joke

Personally I feel that Ashcroft would love to test that envelope.

On the otherhand this does present a case for placing a real value on domain names as company assets.

More troublesome would be to confiscate domains like http://whitehouse.org and gwbush.com which has been critical of the present monarchy. Allege a 'drug' or 'terrorism' charge and seize the domain pending outcome of the trial. This would allow them to shut down that site without looking like they were attacking the FIRST AMENDMENT.

The regular cops do this all the time with assets like cars and land. Local Governments even use that to aid in their finances. Budgeting against predicted seizure quotas Sure they will give back it's 'Value' years later after a civil suit which is even more longer. Or let it 'expire'

If this happens expect Whitehouse.org to be seized under eminent domain.

• Browsing of terrorist or dissenting, un-patriotic, or otherwise not wholesome all-american websites.
  
  
• Use of any audio/video compression technology other than lisenced and government approved encoding protocols. No matter if you have no pirate material, If you have the ability and tools, you're dangerous enough!
  
  
• Any expression of dissenting or un-patriotic views or opinions in your messenger histories, message board/newsgroup postings, emails, or slashdot poll votes.

I hate almost all americans, not just the few who can read english ;)

nah its true. can't post properly just now coz my karma is too low, but check this link out.

want to be friends?
--
--

jumbie

This site run by Zack Exley began offering a a subscription for "The Great Crash Will Burst Your Bubble in 200X" t-shirts every year until the stock market crashed for $35.

He shouldn't have stopped printing them and offering that deal -- the crash will happen very, very soon if we attack Iraq.

They've been selling that bumper sticker at GWBush.com for months now.

Actually I think the quote is

"There ought to limits to freedom"
--at a Press conference at the Texas State House, May 21, 1999, referring to
gwbush.com

Now the government wants to give businesses the right to DOS P2P networks without considering the accepted legal standpoint (that DOS attacks are illegal).

The one question you've got to ask is, how is this in any way suprising? The government has learned that it can basically ignore issues of rights and legality so long as it's dressed up as being against evil bad people (how long before the RIAA renames Pirates (who were never actually committing piracy) Terrorists?). Sadly, we sold out our rights in order to have cute, safe, little doggies.

Don't get me wrong... I love America and what it's supposed to stand for. But, to do that, I don't have to love a bunch of politicians who're scaremongering for their own benefit.

Despite President George's inclusion of Iran in the Axis of Evil, Iran has actually become a relatively moderate state. Women have the right to vote and can own businesses. There are actual free and fair elections. It's got a lot of fundamentalists with power, but the same can be said of the U. S. of A.

i thought you'd dig this:
http://www.gwbush.com/copies/trans.html

George bush is a moron.

I guess I just feel the need to feed your karma (or else this provides an excellent diversion from actual work).

I'm wondering exactly how it is that you feel the MS cesspool, to use our term for it, was collected if not for favorable tax laws allowing its collection under the theory that it was better for the economy to allow MS to "make the pie higher," as the only President we have says. We may call MS a person in contemplation of law, but that "person" is largely defined by what the IRS will allow it to get away with.

I truly don't have the time to debate this further, for reality intrudes. Take care, and drink a toast to the debt ceiling when Congress increases it this spring.

I bet the producers voted for George W. "There ought to be limits to, uh, to freedom" Bush.

Oh, thanks BBC for ruining the fun we webloggers try to have.

Anyway, it's time to start our own bombs.. repeat after me..

Idiot - troll forum - Evil empire - gay pr0n

Bush made the comment because his legal team filed suit against a comedy website, so, you be the judge.

Damn straight. Some things I know I'll never be able to do that Bush Jr. has pulled off:

• Wiggled out of Vietnam by joining the Air National Guard
• Wiggled out of hard duty at the Guard by getting trained for an obsolete plane that was being phased out of combat
• Wiggled out of the last two years of his Guard duty by just not showing up
• Bought a baseball team low and sold high, with a little help from his friends
• Got a bachelor's degree in snorting white powder up your nose
• Beat Reagan out of the Guinness Book of World Records for most malapropisms caught on tape
• Said that this site was evidence that we have too much freedom of speech

There's plenty more, of course, but you can just follow the link and browse.

Some things (and not all that many) are best done by majority vote, but some things are better left to individual discretion.

OK,
- B
--

You forgot their biggest ally.

Bush criticizes Web site as malicious
Owner calls it a parody of White House bid
05/22/99

By Wayne Slater / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN - Saying "there ought to be limits to freedom," Gov. George W. Bush has filed a legal complaint against the owners of a Web site that lampoons his White House bid.

The designer of the unofficial Bush site described it on Friday as a parody and said the governor is trying to limit what is written about him on the Internet.

But Mr. Bush, a front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, had harsh words Friday for the site (www.gwbush.com), which offers mock interviews and policy initiatives on drugs and crime.

"There's a lot of garbage in politics, and, obviously, this is a garbage man," said Mr. Bush.

Attorneys for the Bush presidential exploratory committee have filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission seeking to have the owners post a disclaimer identifying who built the site and who is paying for it.

"It [the site] is filled with libelous and untrue statements whose aim is to damage Governor Bush," the campaign said in its letter to the FEC. "The headline of the site is, 'Just Say No to Former Cocaine User for President.' This site's innuendoes and false statements attack the governor's positions on tough standards for convicted drug dealers."

Karen Hughes, a Bush campaign spokeswoman, said the site so closely resembles the official Bush campaign site (www.georgewbush.com) that people could be confused. Ms. Hughes said the unofficial site urges people to vote against Mr. Bush, making it subject to federal disclosure requirements.

Sites that are strongly critical of candidates but do not urge voters to take action are exempt from federal rules.

Frank Guerrero, a spokesman for the designer, said the site is meant to poke fun at Mr. Bush by comparing what he calls his "youthful indiscretions" with his tough-on-crime policies as an adult.

He said the site does not advocate the defeat of any candidate and is such a clear parody that no one would confuse it for the real Bush campaign Web page.

"We're not affiliated with any other campaign," said Mr. Guerrero of the site's designer, Rtmark, a loose-knit group of corporate critics. "In fact, we see ourselves as completely nonpartisan."

The FEC confirmed Friday that it had received a complaint but declined to discuss the case, citing agency rules.

Ron Harris, an FEC spokesman, said the commission has not dealt with many Internet-related complaints and the current case could break new legal ground on how the Web is governed under campaign laws.

The unofficial Bush site has a photo of Mr. Bush and a banner that reads, "Presidential Exploratory Committee."

It includes a mock initiative dubbed "Amnesty 2000," which suggests Mr. Bush would pardon prisoners convicted of drug crimes if they have "grown up."

As a potential presidential candidate, Mr. Bush has declined "to catalogue my youthful indiscretions," saying that he has learned from his mistakes.

The site also pokes fun at Mr. Bush's characterization of himself as a "compassionate conservative."

"G.W. Bush has indeed been forgiven again and again by others. First there was his rambunctious youth," the site says.

"Then, as an unsuccessful Texas businessman, he was bailed out with millions of dollars from friends of his vice president father. As president, G.W. Bush wants to create an America in which everyone gets as much forgiveness and as many chances to grow up as he had."

The Bush campaign filed an initial complaint about the look-alike Bush site in April. Mr. Guerrero said changes were made so it would look less like the official site, but Bush campaign lawyers filed a second complaint with the FEC this month demanding a disclaimer and disclosure of funding sources.

"We appreciate humor. We appreciate parody. George Bush is known for his sense of humor," said Ms. Hughes. "But there's a difference between expressing opinion, poking fun and breaking the law."

Mr. Guerrero estimated about $70 had been spent to construct the site. He said the money came from Zack Exley, a Massachusetts computer consultant who initially registered and maintains the gwbush.com site.

Bush campaign political consultant Karl Rove has purchased at least 60 domain names that include the Bush name in an apparent attempt to curtail other anti-Bush site-makers.

"We've put out a request for domain names for [Vice President Al] Gore as well," said Mr. Guerrero. "We're trying to be bipartisan."

Staff writer Andy Dworkin in Dallas contributed to this story.

Where did you get that from? It sounds like (according to the link) he grabbed the source and some pics from the legit site to make a parody on his own site.

Sorta like W tried (and failed) to take down gwbush.com for calling him a crackhead. My guess is the salem police dep't is going to face a huge lawsuit from this guy if his only 'crime' was to make fun on the police.

you cannot simply drive from the US to get an operation.

And you'd better bring a birth certificate with you, cause they require more than just your driver's license nowadays. And if you come from Texas (like me and George "Wuss" Bush (who ain't no true texan, ain't ne'er had no rattlesnake in his crib)) or New Mexico, you'd better make sure it's a Long Form Birth Certificate, cause they don't accept short form ones anymore, due to forgeries.

that's what I get for not previewing. The second man link should have read burn.

In other words:

The man must burn.

Does that make more sense?

the man must man two ways. You can vote for Nader in safe states - if you're in a Bush state, you will infuriate both GOP and Dems by increasing the Green vote. And you can vote for Gore in swing states - which will infuriate the Independents and GOPs by letting them win the popular vote but losing the Electoral College vote - this will make them stew for months.

It's the equivalent of tossing a lighted match on the man. Or, even better, breathing fire to light a torch, and tossing the torch onto the Man of the Two Party System. Burn, baby, burn!

"If you don't turn on to politics, politics will turn on you."
That's the smartest thing to come out of Ralph Nader's mouth in oh, 25 years. Nader is a great guy, but not presidential material and he doesn't have a chance, but he tells it like it is. Don't vote for him this year, he doesn't want your vote, he wants you to think. Not about intellectual property or income taxes, but your own life. So do it. Put your vote in the place that will get what you want. Forget about Open Source and Linux and DeCSS and the DMCA for five minutes and think about real people. Dubya has killed almost 150 people in Texas. How many have been killed by the MPAA? This election isn't about "Geek" issues, it's about people, and people will benefit from a president who isn't a murderer, isn't an idiot, isn't an addict, and is willing to protect the freedoms that count. You can have my fucking MP3s, you can shutdown Napster, you can block DeCSS, I don't need them. But give me liberty, the right to walk down the streets and say what I want, to not live in fear of violence, to not have my life cut short by the air I breathe or the water I drink, to make my own decisions about my health and my body, to do some good around the world. Get out there, vote. I won't tell you who to vote for here, but I will tell you who I am voting for. Politics is a game, and I'm putting my voice behind the blue square. I don't love Al Gore, but he will speak for me, for my rights, my freedoms. The country is changing, don't let it revert to what it was.

Stop Bush 2000
GW Bush.com

Don't worry! Bush has a plan to export our surplus internet freedom to China! (mp3)

I can't imagine why anyone who enjoys Slashdot would think GW Bush would make an OK president.

blessings,

Don't worry! Bush has a plan to export our surplus internet freedom to China! (mp3)

I can't imagine why anyone who enjoys Slashdot would think GW Bush would make an OK president.

blessings,

I guess George W. Bush is the forefather of the modern geek movement.

Of course, the question now becomes, how would you get from Fast Company to F*cked Company while looking at the first site. It is obvious how someone could get to the Bush satire site. But it seems like you would have to make too many typos to mistake F*cked Company for Fast Company. Similarity of graphics aside.

- - - - - - - -
"Never apply a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem."

You should see some of the parody pages that Bush has (www.gwbush.com, look at the listing of parody sites on the page). He tried to have the sites pulled, and is talking about there being 'limits to freedom' and calling for registration of all political websites.

Now, that's actually scary. If this man gets elected, it just might become law.

http://www.algore-2000.net

http://www.gwbush.com

http://www.bush-cheney.net

Essentially, it seems like the whole "I've got a good looking domain name" philosophy is easily obtained and used to manipulate uneducated computer/Web users (probably using WebTV).

So as long as there are suckers out there who view vitriolic/false websites as legitimate sources of information, there will be the capitalists ready to make use of them. Oh I almost forgot. IMHO. So there.

------------

http://www.rtmark.com

The purpose of rtmark is to perform acts of corporate sabotage, among other things. It accomplishes this risk-free by, among other things, bribing workers for target corporations with the money it receives from rtmark's members. RTmark's executives are free of liability for any of the actions of the corporation thanks to the limited liability inherent in a corporation.

Some of their past projects include:

The etoy Fund: rtmark helped to organize the massive 'virtual sit-in' against eToys, Inc., when that company sued the tiny art site etoy.com for copyright infringement or some nonsense due to the similarity in the name.

GWBush.com: rtmark helped to set up and also provided content for parody site GWBush.com, which pissed off good old W. enough that he committed one of his (many) vocal blunders, saying that "There ought to be limits to freedom." (Audio at the rtmark site) Well, sure, there should be limits to freedom, but certainly not when it comes to having the freedom to express ones' opinion of a presidential candidate.

And, perhaps most famously, the B.L.O., where, in 1993, RTMark channeled $8000 from a military veterans' group to the Barbie Liberation Organization, which used the investment to switch the voiceboxes of three hundred BarbieTM and G.I. JoeTM dolls.

Lots of interesting stuff at the site.
---------------