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At least add some attribution (the original quote was by George Bernard Shaw)

It wasn't until the 14th Amendment that what you said was true. The major rights in the BoR have been "selectively incorporated" via the 14th to apply to the states. Before the Civil War, a state that didn't give you freedom of speech in its own constitution didn't have to obey the Constitution's 1st Amendment.

You're right the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th amendment barred stated from abridging privileges or immunities. However Article IV - The States Section 2 - State citizens, Extradition says "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States." That sounds like what's a right in one state other states have to honour.

Madison staunchly opposing a national bank

That I didn't know but I know his friend Thomas Jefferson had a big problem with banks saying they were more dangerous to liberty than standing armies. What I find ironic about TJ is that he had his own standing army, the US Marine Corp. And about 100 years before Teddie Roosevelt did he sent them to Tripoli in the Med to fight the Barbary pirates in the First Barbary War.

Falcon

Unfortunately, Biden is making Dan Quayle look like a Rhodes Scholar

I think you're being a little hyperbolic. I don't think Biden has ever suggested that we could breathe on Mars.

Here's some -isms for you...

I fear progressive authoritarianism operating under the guise of a liberal democracy. I fear those who would tear down our current society to enforce a raw democracy, guided by the "enlightened" elite, using propaganda via the media to steer the masses, creating a perception of "have-nots" so they can hate those that don't like where the system is taking us. Those that don't follow are run over; it's not a new concept, after all, these tactics have been around since "Philip Dru: Administrator", 1917.

We're being steered away from the republic, because a republic represents the freedom to get away from bad decisions made by others. "Why do we need an electoral congress when we can just let the people decide?" No... we have a democracy where you only need a majority to decide that someone else should pay for what you want, a fear that the Founding Fathers voiced often. There's a reason why they call it a progressive tax code, such that today 90% of the public pays 30% of the federal tax. Our "closing the loophoole" will end up chasing away the 10% that actually generates the cash for our society.

We have the media in league with the POTUS, in 100 days reporting favorable stories in a 2:1 ratio over the last president, yes 42% vs 20% favorably biased stories. And it's just not NBC or CNN... They steer the national conversations, and under the guise of entertainment (ComedyCentral, of Viacom, which lest we forget owned CBS up until 2006), they ridicule those that don't fall in line with their political ideology. John Stewart rips apart Cramer thanks to his NYSE executive brother, then falls back on "I'm just an entertainer" when his beliefs are cornered...

It's not socialism, no, because at least there they told you up front that the system was being run by the elite to forcefully equate the masses, except for those at the top of course. It's not fascism this time around either, because under fascism the corporations run the government, when today the government is itching to run the corporations (another $4.5 billion 1 hour ago). It's authoritarianism, chipping away our freedoms, our options, our future. Spending money they don't have today, telling us what we can't believe, then using the 1920's progressive tactics of criticising and ridiculing the non-believers.

I just liken it to someone that buys an electric vehicle, and then is flabbergasted and confused that there aren't charging stations all over the place. Why do people understand that, but not software? I'm firmly of the opinion that computers are indistinguishable from magic for "ordinary users", so they simply switch their brains off and bitch when it doesn't do what they expect, even if it's doing exactly what's right and what is intended.

There are also plenty of countries with guns and a fairly low rate of criminal activity.

If you put aside suicide (suicide is a crime, what a joke that is) then gun crime is waning in the USA - and not just per capita, but by the numbers. Guns are clearly not the problem. The thing though is that lots of people are completely fucking insane (by Einstein's definition, which I quite like.) They will keep trying the same stupid, ineffective shit over and over again. You don't stop violence by making violence more difficult. You stop violence by making life less difficult. I think most people, given a chance, will seek to better themselves. If you keep them in a perpetual state of having to fight to survive, you don't usually see the best in people...

His words contribute little to the discussion, and aside from the accidental limelight of being very marginally associated with the President, he really has no significance today. He is effectively one of the senile Old Guard, still fighting the battles of the 1960s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ayers He is now a professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, holding the titles of Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar.

You think the "Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar" at the College of Education at the University of Illinois has no significance in education? I suggest you give that some more thought. He may not usually be in the public consciousness but his ideas are carried by his students into the classrooms. He directly influences the education system. He doesn't need to get your attention to do it.

Capitalism won the battle. Accept that you don't have to fight that one any more.

I must have missed that. In my country (Australia) many of the goals of the communists have been implemented and from here it seems like that in the US too, though perhaps to a lesser degree. Perhaps. Granted, some of these, like centrally controlled banking systems, are not exclusively desired by communists. We have a centrally controlled credit supply and "money" that only has value by government edict, leaving only the appearance of capitalism. We have a money supply that is created out of thin air and backed by government force. If you or I did such a thing it would be called counterfeiting and we would be sent to prison. Other things that have traditionally been used as currency in the event of economic collapse, such as alcohol, are tightly regulated or even illegal to produce for most people. How anyone can think that the current problems are a failure of capitalism is beyond me. Ok, it isn't really, I'm aware of the propaganda, but seriously, Jefferson warned about the effect the banks would have, how is it that people don't understand?

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

We need a restoration of the free enterprise system, not its destruction. That's quite difficult to achieve if people believe they've been living in a free market system when they are actually in a planned economy.

1. Let people own businesses and buy and sell, but control the currency of all transactions and manipulate the market by taxes, regulation, inflation and the mass production of consumers/employees through 12 year compulsory indoctrination. This leaves the appearance of capitalism as a veneer over a planned economy.
2. When problems occur in your planned economy, blame capitalism.
3. Increase controls and regulation

It's painful to see how easily people are manipulated.

My favorite quote pertaining to this topic:

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

        -H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/29591.html

To paraphrase the great Mel Brooks, a travesty, and an unconstitutional abuse of the justice system is when I get a parking ticket. Kind of sad is when ten cops anally rape you to death with a broom handle.

Benjamin Franklin said it best, and I couldn't agree more.

Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do. - Steve Jobs

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Steve_Jobs

The really rich thing is that people are defending Apple's advertising by comparing it to ads from a Hamburger Stand.

But anyways, Steve Jobs has been 'selling sugared water' (iTunes) for about a decade now....

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
Richard Feynman, US educator & physicist (1918 - 1988)
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26930.html

You cannot hide from the chemistry. The energy to do this MUST come from *SOMEWHERE*.

Chemistry?? I think you mean Physics. I can hide from your stamp collecting at the center of a black hole, if need be.

I think you mean mathematics.

You of course are aware that Physics is to Mathematics what sex is to masturbation. But hey, given this is slashdot...

Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.
        Dan Quayle, 8/11/89

Turns out Dan was right ;)

This is obviously a variation of the word 'safe' that I wasn't previously aware of.

I agree and if Douglas Adams was alive, I am sure he'd agree too.

You should try citing your sources. It would add integrity to your post, regardless of your initial intent.

Moderation in everything you do. I believe these words of wisdom are mentioned in the Psalms as well.

Actually, it was Aristotle or Andria Terence who first came up with this idea, and it was paraphrased two hundred years later in the New Testament. (I point this out only to help religious people understand that there is wisdom outside of their holy books.)
http://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/sayings.html#moderation
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/24302.html

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." -Sir Winston Churchill. http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Sir_Winston_Churchill/ Sure, democracy kinda works. But it wasn't democracy that gave us the constitution, which in my eyes, is so much more important than a "majority vote". democracy, as soon as it gets down to simplicities, is 51% oppressing 49%. just to put that in words: the majority fucks over any minority as they please. over here in Europe, we're not even so sure that our representatives are actually acting on behalf of the 51%. What say you, America? as soon as the majority can be coerced (I study advertising, it really isn't that difficult), we're back to who has the most money and who can throw the best parties, sucking up to those people who donate the most money. ya, this ain't news. but too many act like they don't know this. anyhow, my favourite quote of the parent's link: "It is proposed that government can be successful, and even vastly superior, if it has the direct participation of all of the governed. Open source governance incorporates the best features of direct democracy and tempers the drawbacks by use of a superior participation model and community structure." Are we talking about a Grassroots Democracy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grassroots_democracy oh, I get it! it's a government that lets the populace take part in it's decisions! Kinda like how democracy is (supposed to be). Open source government is a government that listens to it's people.. in contrast to democracy (..?!) I'm not bashing you personally, parent, but democracy isn't the A & O it makes out to be. well, in soviet russia, I give you negative karma.

I wasn't either, had to look it up. Glad I did tho.

Obviously this is a "bad thing" but I predict "good things" for consumers out of this. Consumers will learn they can avoid extra ads by using https. Content providers will learn they can improve their customer's experience by removing ISP ads by using https. Sites will have to have signed certificates, and users will have to import them. Phishing ends (well of course not because of Cook's Law and the web becomes a much safer place, because no more unencrypted traffic!

And seriously -- we've got the bandwidth -- why not encrypt it all now? Maybe not mobile bandwidth, but ok, we'll live. Maybe this is the draconian kickin the ass we need to get more serious about our own privacy??

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26032.html Einstein... should've guessed that one ;-)

if a sizeable-enough proportion of the population ignored them so effectively that advertising cost more than it gained in sales, so that any advertising at all was a profit-losing proposition.

I find the chances of this slim.

... and counting other people's money...

What happened to the famous Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere?

I mean, if it is wrong to watch a movie without paying its makers, does it really matter, whether 1% or 30% of the makers' money is lost to them?

I want magic !
(In my lifetime)

When Thomas Edison said that "Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration", he was one to know, since he had hundreds of other people on staff helping thinking up inventions and doing practically all the sweatwork to make a patentable version.

And even there he left out the bankers and lawyers geniuses require to protect every innovation from further innovation that could threaten some of the profits.

That whole ingenious system took years to hammer out and perfect.

If only he'd patented it, others couldn't have just copied his way of extracting every possible penny from any possible invention. Instead of just getting the biz model in a flash, they'd have had to maintain a stable of pros to come up with it for them.

Instead of '44 percent of the industry's domestic losses' owing to their piracy, it's 15 percent

To which I reply:

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963 US black civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 - 1968)

I agree, as did Mark Twain, but he said it better.

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.

-Mel Brooks

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26965.html

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

        Isaac Newton, Letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Isaac_Newton/

Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything. - Frank Dane

Quote from Albert Einstein: "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Just about anyone that has got things done has been, at some level, an asshole. Politicians, military generals and even geeks.

The trick to being a successful asshole is to be in control and use that as a tool. Darl just had no control.

Wrong! Carter didn't let them all out. Reagan cut all the fed budget for mental institutions and that forced all them out onto the streets.

AC gets it exactly right, and I'll add that Reagan 'practiced', as Governor, on California, first. Market Street 'screamers' anyone? I knew a majority of my fellow Californians were out iof their trees, but, at the time, never dreamed that a huge majority of Americans were also bona fide mental midgets... and it's been all downhill, with only brief mirages of 'hope', ever since.

It figures that anybody 'crazy' enough to familiarize themselves with "stupid things" like facts, here where the 'smart' guys hang out, on Slashdot, would have to go the AC route... the World's a mess.

Anyway - this is a clear case of not acceptable use of another persons work. What really worries me is that one of the president candidates, namely Mike Huckabee is outspoken anti-science, anti-abortion, and anti-homosexual. One of his complaints is that scientists changes their theories all the time but God does not. Not too far-fetched from this infringement, and what will we see if he gets elected?

Using the word of the bible as an argument in the debate is not really smart - it still relies on the interpretation. Science is also interpretations and evolving theories. The problem with creationists is that they doesn't seem to realize that even the interpretation of the bible has to evolve - sometimes the text is even incorrect because the text in the bible has been unintentionally incorrectly translated. This makes them no better than other fundamentalists in other camps.

If we all were created - then we all should be walking around having the same thoughts and opinions as well, in which case there would be only one religion.

And don't complain that science changes the theories sometimes. The mechanics of Sir Isaac Newton works fine for everyday use, but when things get a little tougher the adaptations added by Albert Einstein will start to be important. At the other end of the spectrum it's the theories added by Werner Karl Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger that starts to be important. (don't forget to let out the cat...). Much of today's everyday features can be explained or are a result of the works from these persons. (many more persons have also contributed)

These theories gets more and more refined or even confirmed. Hardly anybody may oppose the formulas that Newton did set up, most accept that Einstein made things a lot better. The cosmological constant first introduced by him to compensate for a steady universe is still a possibility - even if it may not stabilize the universe, it's more a question of the size of the parameter, which may end up being not a constant at all.

God is not dead but alive and well and working on a much less ambitious project.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Voltaire (1694 - 1778), (Attributed); originated in "The Friends of Voltaire", 1906, by S. G. Tallentyre (Evelyn Beatrice Hall)

Link.

Uncorrection.
Unless you deliver a source for your claim, that is.
He did say "There's many witty men whose brains can't fill their bellies..

"Before God we are all equally wise -- and equally foolish."

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."

"We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality."

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

"At any rate, I am convinced that He [God] does not play dice."

Pepsi-Cola announced Friday that the labels of its Aquafina brand bottled water will be changed to make it clear the product is tap water.

The new bottles will say, "The Aquafina in this bottle is purified water that originates from a public water source," or something similar, Pepsi-Cola North America spokeswoman Nicole Bradley told CNN.

Pepsi will change current labels on water bottles to say the water comes from a public water source.

The bottles are currently labeled: "Bottled at the source P.W.S." Americans spent about $2.17 billion on Aquafina last year, according to Beverage Digest, an independent company that tracks the global beverage industry. The U.S. bottled water business in 2006 totaled roughly $15 billion, it said.

This whole Eau de P.W.S. saga brings to mind H.L. Mencken's quote:

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.

My dad used to say, 'The US Government is the worst, except for all the others.'

Your dad was Winston Churchill?

You're making Dan Quayle look good!

Otherwise, all you do is make yourself look like a fool and alienate yourself from the rest of the world, including people who used to be strong proponants of the community until it started acting more and more like this.

My favorite quote regarding this:

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

Abraham Lincoln
16th president of US (1809 - 1865)

As you can see, I am horribly bored this evening, but I am doing a test:

I'm running the linux OS you see in the Screenshots link below on a SanDisk 2 GB Cruzer Micro, partitioned like this:
SDA1 700 MB for Knoppix (the CD itself)
SDA5 700 MB for Persistent Home Directory
SDA6 400 MB for GIMP and K3B swap, additional storage also.
SDA7 150 MB linux swap.

Here is the output from TOP:
Tasks: 42 total, 1 running, 41 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 5.5% user, 3.9% system, 0.0% nice, 90.6% idle
Mem: 385800k total, 218864k used, 166936k free, 6456k buffers
Swap: 155192k total, 0k used, 155192k free, 130392k cached
(Uptime not shown, is 2:05)

This PC is a HP Pavilion 8250, Celeron 267 MHZ.
To get the USB drive booted up, I use a small HDD with MSDOS 6.21, and these files.
The small "boot" drive only runs for about 20 seconds, the Menu comes up, you make a choice, then the Linux OS runs entirely from the USB drive. The necessary "loadlin" command line is:
loadlin vmlinuz initrd=miniroot.gz BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix xmodule=s3virge fromhd=/dev/sda1 home=/dev/sda5

Browser is Firefox 2.0.0.4

Thanks for listening...

Rapidweather

Why would you want to tax someone without letting them have representation.

A corporation is not a "someone." You and I are each a "someone." Corporations are financial entities established to consolidate and control capital for a specific purpose, pooling responsibility and profitability. At least, they were, until successive dubious interpretations of Santa Clara County v. South Pacific Railroad Company established the legal fiction that a corporation is a person in some important respects.

Isn't that one of the rallying cries of the revolutionary war? No taxation without representation?

Yes, referring to the "natural rights of man." Thomas Jefferson, for example, was certainly no corporatist.

When you tax a company, person or whatever, it should be able to receive representation of some sort. and if this means funding a politician who favors their position, I don't see the difference.

Sorry, but the only method of influence over government provided for by the Constitution is the electoral process. And legal entities are not granted the franchise. That right is reserved by "the people," an entity whose bounds have been increased by the 15th and 19th Amendments.

Other wise, stop taxing them.

Why, because they'll stop using the public and natural resources of the country? The owners and employees of corporations already have the vote. Suggesting that money should equal political power is to deny the role of rights-based democracy in the United States government. There's already a term for a government run by a small, moneyed ruling class, and it ain't "democracy," no matter what the news might want you to believe.

People who accuse the United States of trying to "conquer" Iraq or Afghanistan don't know what true conquest is.

Only those here in the US; those abroad (and especially local to those areas) do know what it is, but don't think we have the balls to outrage the whole world by doing it. The complaints are a political ploy.

People who accuse the United States of trying to "conquer" Iraq or Afghanistan don't know what true conquest is.

Only those here in the US; those abroad (and especially local to those areas) do know what it is, but don't think we have the balls to outrage the whole world by doing it. The complaints are a political ploy.

Of course, we should never get that far in the first place. The fact that a healthy adult can be made to feel so isolated as to not seek help for their violent delusions until it's too late is the real problem.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 - 1962), 'This Is My Story,' 1937

(Offtopic, mod down if you like)

Your .sig is "The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool."

I was always under the impression that the original quote was "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. (George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903)).

The GBS version rings truer as well, IMHO.