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The thing that truly bothers me is that I'm old enough (64) that I know this is largely my, and my generation's, fault. I wish I knew where we went wrong. That we did is obvious... that we can't correct our error is also obvious (old men grouse about things - it falls to young men to act). I wish I could recommend a course of action, but I suspect we (my generation) actually threw it all away, without noticing.

We sure didn't teach one damn thing to our (collective) kids about standing up and bucking the system - we seem to have taught them to go for the Bright Shiny and to have the "I'm a victim" attitude about hard choices.

So blame me - I do.

It should be noted that all participants opted-in to the survey through a site run by Democrats, making the results non-random and therefore highly suspect

Or is it Motorola that counts as "The Democrats" for this particular campaign?

Or is this just a "Republicans would never encourage people to vote, therefore it's those lousy Democrats that are behind it" thing?

Democrats and Republicans are planning to restore the draft with House Resolution 162 in the House of Representatives

Remember the debate where he talked about "rumors on the Internets" when asked the draft?

I guess there are lots of other Internets that only Bush can access, and they may have rumors. But us reality-based people only get one, and the talk of the draft isn't a rumor. If Bush gets in, there's a good chance that everyone aged 18-34 will be sent to kill and die.

I think what motivates people's unease is a gut sense of the numbers - since Dick Cheney gutted the military, we don't have the numbers required for an indefinite occupation of two countries. We're only where we are now thanks to an unprecedented callup of the National Guard and Reserves - if we need more troops, where are they going to come from?

I'll grant you that by itself, re-appointing people to draft boards is no big deal. However, it is the height of foolishness to take this administration's word that everything is rosy - particularly given their track record with WMD and the economy. We're in a situation now where the US is delaying ground action in Fallujah until after the US election, for domestic political reasons.

Are you familiar with a "special skills draft"? I think it's even shown up on Slashdot. Take a look at the slightly contorted statements Bush is making - he's not ruling out a special skills draft, or even mandatory national service (military service optional).

Did you know that the chairman of the RNC threatened legal action against Rock the Vote for trying to use a threat of a draft to motivate college students? Do you feel comfortable with political parties deciding what is or isn't acceptible speech?

Of course, the mainstream media wasn't bothered by the chairman of a party that controls all branches of government threatening legal action for stating an Unfact. I think that proves my point, which was that you can't be educated paying attention to the mainstream media.

Right. And that's why Donald Rumsfeld's signature is on the fake draft card on their site.

MTV sure as hell fell for it: proof

One of MTV's huge reasons to get kids to vote is to scare them with the draft. Wonder if MTV will stop, now that the issue's dead. Somehow, I doubt it.

In Change the Law I point out that while the Constitution allows for Congress to enact copyright laws, it doesn't actually require it to do so. Copyright could be repealed tomorrow if we could get enough votes in Congress to do so.

If you don't think this could happen, consider that there are more Americans sharing files via peer-to-peer networks than voted for George Bush in 2000.

In my article I detail a number of steps you can take to bring about much needed copyright reform. My suggestions are that you:

• Speak Out
• Vote
• Write to Your Elected Representatives
• Donate Money to Political Campaigns
• Support Campaign Finance Reform
• Join the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Practice Civil Disobedience

If you're a US citizen and 18 years of age or over, you can vote in November. But to do that, you must be registered to vote in your state. The voter registration deadline for most states is just a few days away, October 2nd for most states. So register today! Rock the Vote can help you with registration.

If you're a US citizen residing in a foreign country like me (I live in Canada), you can register to vote with the form you can obtain from the Federal Voting Assistance Program. You can register to vote in the last state you resided in in the US. But again, your registration must be received by your state by the deadline, so either express your application, or fax it, if a fax number is available.

(If you've never lived in the US, but one of your parents was a US citizen, then you're a US citizen too and you can register in the last state your parent resided in.)

If you want to make a campaign donation, a good choice would be Representative Rick Boucher. Rick Boucher has worked tirelessly for copyright reform, as you can see from his article Time to rewrite the DMCA.

sorry for the repost, but i hit the HTML Format in the drop down list, so I am reposting so it looks better.

Meanwhile MTV has their bullshit voting campaigns where they brainwash millions of already-mindless american youths to vote a certain way...

Uh, I work for MTV Networks and that is not true. Their campaign along with other ones (like http://headcount.org/, http://www.rockthevote.com/home.php/, and many others are doing a good job of sending the message that young people's votes count and they do have a voice. I think its great.

And MTV is not biased in their coverage and at all. I think you are just making broad comments about the sterotypical people who are viewers of MTV.

Just because people don't dive into the records of the canidates doesn't mean they don't have the right to vote. My dad does not do that - he votes purely for the party. Hell the benefit of being in this country is that we have the right to vote for whoever we want for whatever reason. I can vote for Bush becuase I love Texas or I can vote for Kerry because I love Ketchup.

The point should be that people are actual voting it doesn't matter who they vote for.

But then again maybe my opinion doesn't count on this issue either becuase I must be a "already-mindless american youth" becuase I sometimes watch any of MTV's networks or worse I work for their IS&T department.

Meanwhile MTV has their bullshit voting campaigns where they brainwash millions of already-mindless american youths to vote a certain way... Uh, I work for MTV Networks and that is not true. Their campaign along with other ones (like http://headcount.org>Headcount[headcount.org], http://www.rockthevote.com/home.php/[rockthevote.c om], and many others are doing a good job of sending the message that young people's votes count and they do have a voice. I think its great. And MTV is not biased in their coverage and at all. I think you are just making broad comments about the sterotypical people who are viewers of MTV. Just because people don't dive into the records of the canidates doesn't mean they don't have the right to vote. My dad does not do that - he votes purely for the party. Hell the benefit of being in this country is that we have the right to vote for whoever we want for whatever reason. I can vote for Bush becuase I love Texas or I can vote for Kerry because I love Ketchup. The point should be that people are actual voting it doesn't matter who they vote for. But then again maybe my opinion doesn't count on this issue either becuase I must be a "already-mindless american youth" becuase I sometimes watch any of MTV's networks or worse I work for their IS&T department.

As a member of Generation X, I was stoked to see that wearable computers are now available ("Hey Gen-Xers: Wearable Stuff!", Maxim, March 2002). ThinkGeek would have taken two days to deliver, so I hopped in my X-Terra and cruised down to Brookstone with my S.O. (she wanted to check out the genital jewelry).

That night while I was fisting her ("How to fist anyone!", Maxim, July 2001) our nipple ring walkie-talkies touched each other briefly, long enough to send an arc through all of our body piercings (I have 13, she has 22). Bummer! My roommates wanted to know what all the commotion was, so we told 'em someone got eaten by a croc on Survivor ("Lie--it's okay!", Maxim, January 2001). Yeah. Anyway we now have to get the burn marks taken out of our tribal tats, get some piercings redone, buy a new snowboard (bummer!), and replace the American flag that got burnt when my girl exploded--gotta support the troops so we don't have to start speaking Afghani! Although I would like to smoke some Afghani right about now...Huh huh.

Just want to remind all my peeps to play it safe when your fisting your girl, and don't forget to vote