Slashdot Mirror

The only reason that the US government has treated Manning the way it did was to break him and to try and get him to sign some fake confession that would help them to accuse Wikileaks and Assange in some form or 'espionage' or even 'treason' (which is pure nonsense, can't charge a foreigner with treason).

I agree with the latter part. As for the former, I think a good part of the reason is that they assumed he's guilty and are basically a bunch of shitheads. They don't seem to realise that there is a really good reason for the presumption of innocence: not only do you put an innocent guy in gaol, but you don't catch the bad guy either!

They obviously don't care about the innocent guy, but they really ought to care about getting the bad guy.

the rich are paying more taxes now than they have ever paid in America, regardless of the nominal marginal tax rates

Aaaah and now er have slashdot's favourite capitalista. If the government taxes the rich so hard then how come Warren Buffet's secretary pays a higher rate of tax than Warren Buffet?

Market domination isn't a goal of FOSS at all, ir shouldnt be. Software freedom is for those who want it and are willing to trade their own time and effort for it.

Funny how mindsets have changed over the years...

Back in the heydays, the rage was all about how and when FOSS would eventually wipe out commercial alternatives. Pundits, flame warriors and trolls all joined forces in predicting that it was going to be a tsunami. Because Free and Open always wins.

(Some still do, mind you... eg Noyes.)

Agent provocateur

Not to be confused with the Enfant Provocateur, who bears some similarity, but who generally lacks an overarching goal or purpose.

Sounds like you missed the whole discussion then because it was never about "smartphones" (a very shifty definition in itself) exclusively.

In any case, to cater to your artful dodge topic adjustment, here is a $40 smartphone. There are a lot of other phones that qualify as being "smartphones" for under $100 as well, but maybe you can't afford those.

Put down the remote control and look around you. The news is *OVERRATED* sensationalism tabloid trash. I would be willing to bet cold hard cash 90% of the people around you are Christians. But they are not in your face about it or blowing themselves up now are they? But in your world they at any minute will snap and kill us all.

You know what I do see? I see atheists screaming (many times a day on boards such as this one) that they are being persecuted when it is usually the other way around. You seem shocked when you push so hard eventually they stop turning the other cheek.

So 'clap clap' your an atheist. Confreekingradulations. I see people like you pushing your views on others. Then using 'religious' arguments to push their own world view. Perhaps you need to take a look in the mirror and see what you are doing is exactly what you accuse others of.

Dont know why I came into this discussion I *KNEW* I would find someone like you in here. There always is. Someone who heard something on the news and then extrapolates it to everything around him. Then treats it like it is the one end all be all truth. http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/atheist.htm

Yeah, you are right. It's not like I WAS a Christian at one point. I only know them from the news, like some exotic tribe on a South Pacific island. It's not like I have to fight, IN MY LOCAL SCHOOLS, to keep Christian preachers from using class time to teach religion to my kids. It's not like I have to fight, IN MY LOCAL SCHOOLS, to keep Creationism out. I never have had to hear Christians(who didn't know that I have rejected their beliefs) proclaim that people like me shouldn't be allowed to vote or hold office. No, I've never been on the end of Christian prejudice. It's all just shit I've read on CNN.
How about this? Go piss up a rope, you blind motherfucker.

Put down the remote control and look around you. The news is *OVERRATED* sensationalism tabloid trash. I would be willing to bet cold hard cash 90% of the people around you are Christians. But they are not in your face about it or blowing themselves up now are they? But in your world they at any minute will snap and kill us all.

You know what I do see? I see atheists screaming (many times a day on boards such as this one) that they are being persecuted when it is usually the other way around. You seem shocked when you push so hard eventually they stop turning the other cheek.

So 'clap clap' your an atheist. Confreekingradulations. I see people like you pushing your views on others. Then using 'religious' arguments to push their own world view. Perhaps you need to take a look in the mirror and see what you are doing is exactly what you accuse others of.

Dont know why I came into this discussion I *KNEW* I would find someone like you in here. There always is. Someone who heard something on the news and then extrapolates it to everything around him. Then treats it like it is the one end all be all truth.
http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/atheist.htm

One of the most wonderful things about Exchange is how they artificially limit the size of the message store in order to get you to buy the "enterprise" version.

Why pay megabucks for that limitation when others give you 256 TB or more?

Character is worth a lot. You can glean what a person's character is like from a lot of things.

Character is worth nothing. It has become a marketing term to be exploited by charlatans who know what ties to wear and which social functions and political opinions to adhere to in order to ingratiate themselves with like minded hypocrites. It's social astroturf for people with no individual virtues. When I hear the word "Character", I reach for my cluestick.

Judging the actual quality of someone else, or even yourself, is in fact a very difficult thing. You cannot appraise someone's ethereal "worth" by how often they go skydiving or haircut or "morals". The truth is, someones personality and habits can undergo tectonic shifts and random times. Eagle scouts can sometimes become Jekyll and Hyde.

Because of this, "character" should rightly be regarded as useless in judging applicants for a position. Instead, the proper metric is merit. That is; How proficient and professional someone is in their field. That's all you want. Whether the guy goes skydiving on the weekends or stays in his basement playing Doom, should be of absolutely no importance. What is important is his ability to do the job you pay him to do, and to do it well.

If you ask for extra qualities besides that, then you are essentially paying for those extra qualities, and I don't think the boss will be pleased when he finds out just how much of the pay roll is being spent on "character" instead of actual work being done.

Character is worth a lot. You can glean what a person's character is like from a lot of things.

Character is worth nothing. It has become a marketing term to be exploited by charlatans who know what ties to wear and which social functions and political opinions to adhere to in order to ingratiate themselves with like minded hypocrites. It's social astroturf for people with no individual virtues. When I hear the word "Character", I reach for my cluestick.

Judging the actual quality of someone else, or even yourself, is in fact a very difficult thing. You cannot appraise someone's ethereal "worth" by how often they go skydiving or haircut or "morals". The truth is, someones personality and habits can undergo tectonic shifts and random times. Eagle scouts can sometimes become Jekyll and Hyde.

Because of this, "character" should rightly be regarded as useless in judging applicants for a position. Instead, the proper metric is merit. That is; How proficient and professional someone is in their field. That's all you want. Whether the guy goes skydiving on the weekends or stays in his basement playing Doom, should be of absolutely no importance. What is important is his ability to do the job you pay him to do, and to do it well.

If you ask for extra qualities besides that, then you are essentially paying for those extra qualities, and I don't think the boss will be pleased when he finds out just how much of the pay roll is being spent on "character" instead of actual work being done.

if not the FBI then it will be someone like this...
http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/perv.htm

*I await the shower of invective*

Please, by all means, do your own research. Bring up taskmamager or top (well, can't really compare IE there)...

I use IE at work and Opera at home. Microsoft dosen't hold the monopoly on "New isn't necessarilly better."

With verification, the Encyclopedia becomes... hey we have one of those already, it's called Brittanica, why bother.

Like that one contractor that used a FIB agent login to get about the long time it was taking him to get the ok do to simile stuff like add a printer for the new systems that he was setting up. That was all ready running late and over budget.

Nitpick

Is this you?

Speaking as a Finn, you're right. The organization's name - Vapaa-ajattelijat - translates directly as "Freethinkers."

And this is just my opinion, but they're a bit annoying in the help-help-I'm-being-oppressed sense. Intentionally trying to get arrested for the archaic and all-but-gone blasphemy laws, that sort of thing. They got an egg on their faces in public pretty recently, after trying to ban the traditional school ending hymns as offensive to non-Christian immigrants; it turned out the immigrants were cool with it.

I'm not just trying to fuel a flame war

Go to this link. Quite funny.

http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/

Flame war? What flame war?

LOL, pwned, by a third party via quote.
It's still you who has made more grammatical fuck-ups in this thread than anyone else.

Due to your dedicated service, you have been awarded the prestigious title of Grammarian.
Enjoy it fucktard.

Ah, I see, you are one of those.

You reply with a rant about US brutlity and oppression as if that makes the corruption in the UN OK? I'm sorry you hate America so much, but what does that have to do with the UN's complete ineffectiveness in recent years?

Perhaps it has something to do with fact that the US doing everything in its power to make the UN ineffective? Following which various right-wing pundits honk their horns about how ineffective the UN is...

Responding to a tsunami with a fact-finding committee (while the US military delivered aid immediately and sustained that effort for weeks until asked to leave) didn't exactly redeem them.

Vast majority of UN members delivered some aid directly, in the beginning days, but unfortunately did it only so that the politicians in all those countries could do all sorts of photo ops posturing how great they are and thus UN was in the way and was sidelined. A lot of phony pledges were made at that time. UN is now slowly picking up the pieces, doing slow unglamorous work in still affected areas, long after the photo opportunities have passed and most of the loudly promised aid money did not materialize.

Well if that is how you see it, here is one specially for you.

You are nothing more than a flamer.

Coming from you, it must me a compliments of sorts. Why, thank you.

Pointing out that you have yet to address any real points of this argument is, undoubtedly, a worthless endeavor. Yet still I persist.

I think you are getting lost in that hulking volume of confused misinformation you so fondly labour to spread across the net as I am rather sure it was you who failed to address any of the points in question (probably due to that propensity for straw and matches I mentioned) and ended up skulking away in the end.

But hey, I don't complain, you provide almost the same amount of amusement running in cricles and chewing on footware on other threads as you do on mine. Its a cheap enterntainment. I only regret taking you semi-seriously at the beginning, a mistake I wont repeat, rest assured.

If you don't mind me interjecting, but I could not help but to recollect this from our earlier little ... ehrm ... difference of opinions of not so long ago

A small biography of you: The Artful Dodger. Perhaps mixed with a little bit of Nitpick.

You are nothing more than a flamer. Pointing out that you have yet to address any real points of this argument is, undoubtedly, a worthless endeavor. Yet still I persist.

If you don't mind me interjecting, but I could not help but to recollect this from our earlier little ... ehrm ... difference of opinions of not so long ago

A small biography of you: The Artful Dodger. Perhaps mixed with a little bit of Nitpick.

You are nothing more than a flamer. Pointing out that you have yet to address any real points of this argument is, undoubtedly, a worthless endeavor. Yet still I persist.

http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/bigdo gmetoo.htm

It's just like that, the USA is the Big Dog and Canada is "Me too!"

From the Flame Warriors:

Diplomat butts into hot disputes, presuming that the combatants will welcome and appreciate his even-handed and eminently reasonable mediation. Frankly, he gets what he deserves.