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Turning Point USA is a right wing organization with chapters on many college campuses. They claim to support the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government. They also claim that the free speech of conservices is threatened and that they advovate for free speech.

In 2016, Turning Point USA created a professor watchlist that claims to be a list of faculty who promote radical leftist ideas in the classroom. Examining the list reveals a number of faculty members who have engaged in egregious conduct such as requiring their students to sign a pledge to vote for a particular candidate. Faculty should not be doing that in the classroom, and it shouldn't be controversial to remove faculty who attempt to force their political views on students, regardless of what those views are. However, many others are on the list for expressing their opinions through op-eds, Twitter posts, and television interviews. Turning Point USA appears to believe that faculty with viewpoint they disagree with should not have free speech outside the classroom.

Make no mistake, this is a blacklist, for the purpose of silencing the free speech of faculty outside of the classroom if that speech is contrary to the right-wing views of Turning Point USA. They support your free speech so long as you agree with their political views. If Turning Point USA had its way, public universities would dismiss faculty members for expressing their first amendment rights outside the classroom. This is neither freedom nor limited government.

It is every bit as troubling that some of their supporters calling for the tenure system to be abolished. The tenure system has its origins at universities that were affiliated with religious institutions. It sought to protect the academic freedom of professors to examine and conduct research on topics that would be opposed by the religious institution in control of the university. While the tenure system has its flaws, it was developed for the purpose of protecting the free speech and academic freedom of faculty. Abolishing tenure is an attack on free speech.

Tipping Point USA should have the freedom of speech to do all of these things, including running their blacklist of professors. I support their right to free speech, and I believe they should be able to speak their ideas on university campuses. However, I intend to use my free speech to expose them for the hypocritical and dangerous organization that they are. It's not their ideas of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government that I find dangerous. I don't. In fact, I even agree with some of those ideas. However, those ideas are a facade to hide the true mission of Turning Point USA, which is to censor views on college campuses that they disagree with. Let's use our free speech to expose the true mission of Turning Point USA.

Tsk Tsk...

Lincoln, Neb., is getting gigabit fiber to every home and business in the next four years. It's a wet dream for anyone in the tech world. No install fees, no modem rentals, GUARANTEED MINIMUM of 100 mbit, no throttling, etc. It'll provide phone and TV as well. I've read the entire franchise agreement and it's a very good arrangement for the city. Interestingly enough, it's largely possible because back in the 1970s, a public works guy had the brilliant idea to install conduit to all the city's traffic signals. So there's more than 300 miles of conduit already installed and leasable.

A local company, Nelnet, bought a western Nebraska company, Allo Communications apparently because the top Nelnet guy couldn't get fiber to his home very easily. So he figured, heck, I'll just buy the whole company and get fiber to the whole city.

http://journalstar.com/news/lo... http://www.nydailynews.com/new... http://www.nola.com/crime/inde... http://www.derbytelegraph.co.u... http://www.local10.com/news/mi... http://thenationonlineng.net/c... http://www.wowt.com/home/headl... http://www.nydailynews.com/new... http://ktla.com/2015/07/23/pol... http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/u... http://www.theage.com.au/victo... http://kdvr.com/2015/03/16/wom...

...blowing up ham radio equipment. This action has probably been appreciated by neighbours, but it seems that US policemen are a bit too much paranoid, isn't it ?!?

A lady in Lincoln Nebraska made up worse, and later admitted to it. She went so far as to fake a kidnapping and torture. She cut slurs into herself and claimed she was tied up for being gay.

http://journalstar.com/news/lo...

I haven't watched this gal's TED talk or any of her videos. I really don't see why anyone would get mad about a person making an opinionated video anyway. Maybe that is why I find it hard to believe that people are making crazy threats against the author of some opinionated video.

From personal experience being targeted by a pathological liar, I can say that some women really do make up crazy crap to get attention. It blows up in their face sometimes, like the one who targeted myself and a few of my high school buddies, and the woman in Lincoln. Sometimes they get away with it. Unfortunately there is actual violence happening too. Every claim should be treated as real until disproved, and if the claims were bogus, the liar should be punished. If the claims are true then obviously the bad guys deserve punishment. The one who made false police reports about myself received no punishment, but I'm content that karma will reward her throughout her life. My friends and I were the victims, and did nothing wrong. We told everyone about what happened so she will never live it down.

Also from the tweets "I want to drink blood from your C***" Seriously, who says that? I am inclined to think its a fake. But it would be best to actually prove it, or catch a seriously dumb and violent nut.

I've been posting AC for months; I might as well go ahead and login and admit that I've relapsed on Slashdot...

The job of the government is to analyze the proposal and then based on that analysis grant or deny permission preferably providing feedback regarding the proposal.

Analyzing a proposal in a vacuum creates shortsighted governance. Management of common resources like clean air or the radio spectrum or water usage require attention to be paid to other inputs into the system. If you don't, you end up with the death of a thousand paper cuts. Building a pipeline that makes cheaper the development of tar sands oil encourages its exploitation and use and puts everyone at risk of worse impact from climate change and threatens the waterways of the US due to the inevitable failure of the best constructed pipelines. (And this pipeline isn't one.)

While I'd rather see the pipeline's approval denied, offsetting its impact is a compromise. (Though, once again, Obama negotiates and make concessions with himself before negotiating with the opposition.)

The President is tying the approval of this JOB CREATING PROJECT to his political stance.

I tend to find that when all people can say for a project is that it "creates jobs" or "will contribute tax dollars to the local economy" that they damn it with faint praise. Anything you pay people to do "creates jobs." Paying someone to shovel sand from one pile to another and then back "creates jobs." Whorehouses and drug dealers "create jobs." That doesn't mean that the activity itself is a net contribution. Look up the Broken Windows Fallacy.

But, I guess it will provide lots of long-term jobs in the future if the nightmare of the Pegasus pipeline spill cleanup is any indication.

Is it inexpensive?

After being rejected from job interviews, some people are starting to find Facebook very expensive.

As have many others.

Because no one wants to copy/paste a link.

Here you go: http://journalstar.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/sheriff-looks-to-lock-down-open-internet-connections/article_3a98d107-05c6-5a11-8d09-8769e6e7dacd.html

http://journalstar.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/police-have-no-suspects-in-reported-hate-crime/article_7f7885ce-ceb6-5ced-93bc-24c101aab53b.html

What is the evidence that this was caused by Christianity?

'believers' are really the only ones who seem to hate gays.

Baseless lie. The Catholic Church condemns unjust discrimination. Violence
against homosexuals is often caused by neo-nazis, who hate authentic Christianity
as much as they hate Jews, blacks and homosexuals.

I'm not aware of any athiests that threaten bodily harm to non-athiests, though..

Marxists.

news item from today. witness the power of god and his believers:

http://journalstar.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/police-have-no-suspects-in-reported-hate-crime/article_7f7885ce-ceb6-5ced-93bc-24c101aab53b.html

'believers' are really the only ones who seem to hate gays. they are so SURE they are right and on god's side, they feel that violence is justified.

remove relgion and its dogma and this woman would not have been victimized.

the brainwashing from the extremist christianists is extremely harmful.

I'm not aware of any athiests that threaten bodily harm to non-athiests, though..

While that work looks like it'd be brutally tedious, it sure looks awesome.

If you think *building* them might be tedious, try the tedium of spending years suing a total d-bag who claimed he just rented them for a few months, but in fact continued to collect 7 figure yearly revenue while displaying them... (the rest of the time apparently was just "storage", even if he refused to return them since they were about half of his exhibits).

http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_195f0578-1da7-11df-8687-001cc4c03286.html

Basically, in artist vs. sleazy businessman in his home town, artist has no chance...

I'll be right there by your side telling them to fuck right off and do it in their own homes or outside.

Which I'll appreciate. Will you be by my side telling them to fuck off when they start lighting up in parks, beaches, apartments, hotels, and college campuses?

National software giant Microsoft is suing a Lincoln company, QuickTEQ Computers, alleging that it has been selling reproductions, copies or imitations of Microsoft's copyrighted materials."

http://journalstar.com/business/local/article_34265f5e-7e42-11df-8512-001cc4c002e0.html

The articles I can find don't have much detail. Sorry.

You find me ONE news story of ACTUAL ham assistance from a REPUTABLE news source in the last year. Just try it! (Oh, and getting chased off Haiti by the locals doesn't count!)

Hams help with emergency service coordination during major Windstream 911 outage. http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_84aba07a-3d9b-11df-8d7a-001cc4c03286.html

Put that in your hippie HAM-hating pipe and smoke it!

There was a time when HAMs were known as the "High And Mighty" and CB'ers were known as "Chicken Banders" (because they were too lazy or afraid to get an amateur license.) The GP is apparently in the latter category.

You find me ONE news story of ACTUAL ham assistance from a REPUTABLE news source in the last year. Just try it!
(Oh, and getting chased off Haiti by the locals doesn't count!)

Hams help with emergency service coordination during major Windstream 911 outage. http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_84aba07a-3d9b-11df-8d7a-001cc4c03286.html

Put that in your hippie HAM-hating pipe and smoke it!

Normally I don't feed the trolls, but sometimes the trolls just beg to be fed a little bit of humble pie. It took all of about 20 seconds to find an article showing actual ham deployment, at the request of a local emergency agency, in the US. http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_84aba07a-3d9b-11df-8d7a-001cc4c03286.html A local news source including video from officials involved. Is that "reputable" enough for you?

And ham radio isn't just using "ancient analog technologies" to chat with each other about the bad conditions in nursing homes. While there is a lot of analog technology still in use, hams are also at the forefront of digital (extremely) narrow bandwidth communications development. The other thing to consider is that old analog technology doesn't stop working because one ham's clock is set a little off from another's, essentially what happened in Nebraska to take the 911 systems offline.

Ham radio is also not slowly dying as all the "old fogies" die off. The number of newly licensed hams is actually on the increase. http://www.ah0a.org/FCC/Graphs.html That data is sourced from the FCC license database if you want to go compile it yourself. There was a decline for a few years, but it is increasing in popularity again and is almost up to the pre-decline numbers. More and more young people are getting involved in ham radio. I know personally of several licensed hams who are 7 and 8 years old! The younger hams are very passionate about the hobby and more importantly the public service provided by hams.

As Random Coward pointed out above, if you think if the ham bands were suddenly taken away from hams that the spectrum would all turn into "part 15" unlicensed spectrum, you must not have taken your meds for a while. You said yourself how valuable the spectrum would be if it were to be auctioned off. Do you think the FCC and the rest of the government is going to donate those billions of dollars worth of spectrum to the public domain? They'll go the the highest bidders and they will be defended from illegal users (what "the people" will be) without end.

If you want "the public" to use the ham spectrum, nothing is stopping you from getting your license. It costs $14 to cover the expenses of the VOLUNTEERS who will administer the exam to you. Study materials are available at no charge all over the Internet. Once you have your license you'll be out a couple of hundred bucks for some radio gear to get started using the spectrum as you see fit (within the legal boundaries of course.) Ham radio is not about the "rich" people at all. It is just like any other organized hobby or service, you can do it relatively inexpensively or you can literally spend as much money as you want on it, depending on what you want to do and how far you want to take it.

Say what you will, but your argument doesn't hold water against verifiable facts.

Think about it: most people, if paid as much as a Fortune 500 CEO, would retire after one year.

The personality and attitude that are required to become a Fortune 500 CEO are the reason they keep working and seeking more wealth. Similarly, most lottery winners squander their winnings in a few years. (Source) Basically, people who would retire after one year will never put themselves in the position to be paid as much as a Fortune 500 CEO.

Ham radio operators recently stepped in to assist in Lincoln, NE after a failure of Windstream's 911 service.

Generally the american public feels they are entitled to never ever be offended / bothered / or belittled in any way. If someone should talk back to a character in the theaters, or be seen smoking within 50 feet of a nonsmoker, or have a plane fly over their well house and wake the baby up, the feel personally affronted.

http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=132339&ran=146893

Whereas people in less degenerate societies are able to deal with these 'affronts' in stride, we can not. I blame our legal system that has grown like a cancer for 40 years now. Our legal system has more then anything else created a public that feels it is entitled to live a perfect harmonious life free from any 'nuisance'. And if something offends you can make money by suing. We are even suing God.

http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2007/09/18/news/politics/doc46ef102aa68ed928664526.txt

P.S. I love my country, but it is time we realize that our run has run out. All societies go through moments of glory, and then sink again into the dust. Just as China was once great, then fell, and is now great again, perhaps so to with America. Maybe it will take 1300 years though. In some ways our space program can be considered an analogy to their blue sea fleet in the 14th century. Just as they forgot why they needed an to spend all this money on the sea, we see no reason to for going out in space when we have so many problems at home. Just my 2 cents. But be sure all you smug Europeans, that americans are no different then anyone else. Transplant someone form Poland, or Germany and stick them in american society today, and they will end up just as 'fat and stupid' as everyone else. We are not genetically inferior, we have just had it too easy, and been lied to for too long.

Followup, here is a story about the problems where me Warner spokeswoman Ann Shrewsbury said "I think the software is stable now. We're ready to move on." (Jun 22, 2007) Today, problems with their "OCAP Digital Navigator" are still ongoing. I can try to test it again (there was another update last night turning off all three cable boxes) but I have no confidence that the TiVo-defeating bugs have been addressed.

My only relief is that installing CableCARDs in a Series3 TiVo have apparently avoids the problematic software, at least for now.

Locations subjected to the unannounced "beta test" (PDF) are New York City; Milwaukee and Green Bay, Wisconsin; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Waco, Texas.

Well said. You should send that along to the Lincoln Journal Star , the Omaha World-Herald and the Daily Nebraskan .

Hey Slashdot! Want to have fun? Read (and reply to) some of the comments in the Journal Star articles about UNL and the RIAA (available here and here.)

Well said. You should send that along to the Lincoln Journal Star , the Omaha World-Herald and the Daily Nebraskan .

Hey Slashdot! Want to have fun? Read (and reply to) some of the comments in the Journal Star articles about UNL and the RIAA (available here and here.)

I read about this in the paper this morning. Interestingly, in a sidebar they interview a student from Wesleyan (a neighboring school), who came onto campus specifically to download music, because they have all the popular download sites blocked at her school. I wonder if "visiting" student contribute in any meaningful way to UNL's stats?

blind Gamer

He was also profiled over the summer in the national media

google cache of CNN story

Homegrown Fuel Supply Helps Brazil Breathe Easy http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ethanol15jun 15,0,3313642.story?track=tothtml

Brazil's ethanol effort helping lead to oil self-sufficiency http://ethanolmarketplace.com/061705_news6.asp

Brazilian drivers love ethanol - Fuel costs half price of gasoline http://www.detnews.com/2004/autosinsider/0408/27/e 03-254552.htm

Brazil embraces ethanol http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2005/06/26/bus iness/doc42bc788738c34906117023.txt

A technical explanation on potency, performance, etc - I leave it to you to Babelfish it. http://www.webmotors.com.br/wmpublicador/Reportage ns.vxlpub?hnid=33796

Shut up. You're being brainwashed. Again. Go vote for Baby Bush.

a) if you bought a car and did not put on a safety belt...would you be considered stupid if you go in an accicent?

Survey says... yes!

I'm a fire fighter, and we are constantly cutting dead and fucked up people out of cars, the worst ones are the idiots who don't wear seatbelts.

This last summer was the 12th coldest summer in a hundred years, here in Nebraska. (http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2004/09/23/lo cal/10055198.txt)

Not enough proof that global warming exists, and there's less proof that we're to blame. Anyone have stats on how much pollution released from a single eruption vs pollution caused by industrialized countries?

I think the real issue is that the owner of Marz bar doesn't want to lose his license to serve liquor, not nebraskans being prude. The citation wasn't for the images; the citation was for public nudity as per section 9.16.230. 9.16. 240e appears to make it illegal for business owners to knowingly allow "any person," not just employees, to engage in sexual acts, defined in section c at their business, because if this were allowed, it could create kind of a legal loophole and allow prostitution-like activities to go on. If owner Jerry Luth were to allow these kinds of activities at his establishment, he could get in some serious trouble.

The issue isn't the nudity, it's the location of the nudity. I agree with your attitude towards sex and the human body, but the place for it is in private, not at baseball fields, not in bars. Drunk people + naked people is kind of a recipe for disaster. Even if you do feel it's ok to mix sex and business, you still have to agree that it's any business owner's right to decide whether or not he or she wants to run that kind of a business. Melissa's pictures were taken without the owner's consent, and therefore, she is not only in the legal wrong, but also the ethical.

And really, there actually isn't much better for Nebraska police to do. Check out the police blotter for lincoln. Crime is not that high here, and this is relatively important to Jerry Luth anyway, as it could mean the loss of his livelihood.

I think the real issue is that the owner of Marz bar doesn't want to lose his license to serve liquor, not nebraskans being prude. The citation wasn't for the images; the citation was for public nudity as per section 9.16.230. 9.16. 240e appears to make it illegal for business owners to knowingly allow "any person," not just employees, to engage in sexual acts, defined in section c at their business, because if this were allowed, it could create kind of a legal loophole and allow prostitution-like activities to go on. If owner Jerry Luth were to allow these kinds of activities at his establishment, he could get in some serious trouble.

The issue isn't the nudity, it's the location of the nudity. I agree with your attitude towards sex and the human body, but the place for it is in private, not at baseball fields, not in bars. Drunk people + naked people is kind of a recipe for disaster. Even if you do feel it's ok to mix sex and business, you still have to agree that it's any business owner's right to decide whether or not he or she wants to run that kind of a business. Melissa's pictures were taken without the owner's consent, and therefore, she is not only in the legal wrong, but also the ethical.

And really, there actually isn't much better for Nebraska police to do. Check out the police blotter for lincoln. Crime is not that high here, and this is relatively important to Jerry Luth anyway, as it could mean the loss of his livelihood.

Anyway, I'm going to stop arguing with you, as you're obviously an overly-Christian zealot who is blinded by a book that was written a few thousand years ago by some people who we don't even really know wrote it.

It's people like you that get evolution banned from being taught in states like Kansas.

University's geology field camp out in Southwest Utah early tomorrow morning. Perhaps we can have this discussion again when I return after 5 weeks of observing and describing rocks in the region.

I would like to see more political stories. I would love to see Slashdot used as a mobilization force for the geek voters of the world.

The problem is that there is no such voting bloc. There is no such thing as the "techie vote". I've noticed that a lot of the /. crowd seems to lean Libertarian or Green. Personally, I lean Constitutionalist, which is a totally different (though not necessarily completely opposite) direction. "Tech" isn't a fundamental issue that bonds people together. Political motivations always have been and always will be shaped mostly by two things: 1) what you think about a person's relationship to God, and 2) what you think about a person's relationships to other people. How you feel about the nature of those two fundamental kinds of relationships will pretty much determine your political stance. Tech is just a tool. Life is still about relationships to others.

About the only commonality you'll find among geeks (like the /. crowd) is that they're disaffected by the current system. We're big into 3rd parties, and being the active minority voice. That's a good thing, if for no other reason than it keeps the big guys on their toes — at least a little more than otherwise.

If you want politics, there are other good places for that. I don't want Slashdot to turn into a "catch all" board for anything that happens across CmdrTaco's brain after eating too many bean burritos. Keep it limited to tech-oriented issues. I'll go to Liberty Rally (or my own board once I set it up) to discuss politics and freedom.

Posted with NN6PR3.