Slashdot Mirror

Try this one: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/06/24/tehran_seven/index.html

P.S. Is Slashdot's CSS just going to get weirder and weirder until the site can't used at all? Now the comment field is about 3cm wide.

As a person with an addictive personality, I have to say it's my opinion that legalizing all drugs is a very bad idea unless the government is willing to pump a steady stream of unlimited drugs into the population for free...all drugs

That would be cheaper than imprisoning everyone, that's for sure. But in general, legalizing or decriminalizing drugs does not cause a big increase in drug use. In fact, rates of drug use tend to decrease.

The people who cause problems for everyone else with their drug use will still be looking for a high.

People who cause problems with their drug use are losers who are going to be fucked up whether it's legal or illegal. Prohibition only deters the responsible.

Fuck all of you. You still believe that schoolboy bullshit about how the country is governed? Dream on, sleepers!

Let me spell it out for you: The United States is a "Goldman Sachsocracy" The man with the gold will sack us all over the world.

Freedom? You have more people incarcerated in your borders than any nation in history. Why? It's good for business.

I wish Americans had half the guts of 15-year-old Iranian girls! There'd have been 5 American Revolutions since 1870. Your textbook lies about the accountability of US government to the people have kept you complacent, and made you both arrogant yet ignorant and oppressed.

They just stole over a hundred billion dollars from your earnings and your next two generations, and GAVE it to a firm that prints your money, runs your fiscal policy and just paid out the BIGGEST bonuses in its 140 year history.

You live in the Matrix - and that's not a metaphor. Like George Carlin said; "They call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.

Wake up.

Perhaps someone like Gartner needs to write a TCO report on outsourced code... only then would the MBAs take notice.

Seriously though, it really sounds like a study of the TCO of MBAs is more in order -- how many outsourcing snafus, and how much of the current financial woes in the US, are due to MBAs with precisely the mentality noted by the GP:

"I cut our expenses by x%. I want a bonus. Now let me find another place to work before this decision catches up with me."

Unfortunately, we find much of this same short-sighted idiotic MBA behaviour in the US government over the past several years:

Amount of money earned by a married U.S. Army sergeant with children per day in Iraq in 2007: $170

Amount of money earned by a Blackwater military contractor per day: $600

"We support our troops," indeed. How bitter. I have good friends in the military, and these Blackwater goons are effectively stealing wages from them. Meh. Another example:

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Baghdad overseeing more than 160,000 U.S. troops, makes roughly $180,000 a year, or about $493 a day. That comes out to less than half the fee charged by Blackwater for its senior manager of a 34-man security team.

By any strict economic definition, there is another word for "profit" -- "inefficiency". Ethically speaking, one might even stretch things a bit and call it "theft". Making a living is one thing, but fleecing your customers simply because you can is a crime in all but name.

Cheers,

Ownz0red!

Fair enough, I was wrong. He doesn't think Jesus rode dinosaurs. He thinks God spoke to him in the form of a tripartite waterfall.

That's what tenure is good for, I guess. It can make the difference between being appointed to the National Institutes of Health, or being sent to a padded room. Oh, wait, that's not tenure at all... it's religion.

It's not surprising that an American company errs on the side of individual freedom while a European company is more inclined to favor an approach that relies on systems.

How fond Americans are of reductionist dualities that are unhelpful, misleading and frequently downright dangerous: American pilot with The Right Stuff in an American plane would have saved everyone; dangerous European plane and computer killed hundreds. Oversimplified sniping, or childish fantasy?

If I want real facts on flying, instead of wild-assed pseudo-political trollery, I'll go read Peter Ladkin or Patrick Smith:
  "The gist of the accident appears pretty clear: Air France Flight 447 was victimized by a terrible storm."

name 1 system with the reaction time of a human, and i will call you a liar. idiot or both

Can exercise our freedom to point out their god-damned hypocrisy.

It's not surprising that an American company errs on the side of individual freedom while a European company is more inclined to favor an approach that relies on systems.

How fond Americans are of reductionist dualities that are unhelpful, misleading and frequently downright dangerous: American pilot with The Right Stuff in an American plane would have saved everyone; dangerous European plane and computer killed hundreds. Oversimplified sniping, or childish fantasy?

It's not an "American" thing, it's an "idiot" thing.

If I want real facts on flying, instead of wild-assed pseudo-political trollery, I'll go read Peter Ladkin or Patrick Smith: "The gist of the accident appears pretty clear: Air France Flight 447 was victimized by a terrible storm."

Or even the news: 'unprofessional' pilot behavior related to crash (possibly because they weren't paid enough to live near the airport, and may have been tired from a long commute). There was a similar (possibly the same?) story on the TV at work, from the angle of there being several crashes related to this 'unprofessional' behavior by pilots from the same pilot school, which I guess is being investigated.

It's not surprising that an American company errs on the side of individual freedom while a European company is more inclined to favor an approach that relies on systems.

How fond Americans are of reductionist dualities that are unhelpful, misleading and frequently downright dangerous: American pilot with The Right Stuff in an American plane would have saved everyone; dangerous European plane and computer killed hundreds. Oversimplified sniping, or childish fantasy?

If I want real facts on flying, instead of wild-assed pseudo-political trollery, I'll go read Peter Ladkin or Patrick Smith: "The gist of the accident appears pretty clear: Air France Flight 447 was victimized by a terrible storm."

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality,' which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering

How about taxing carbon emissions, and letting the market figure things out?

Because by itself, taxing emissions is a rather poor solution to the problem:

1) It's reactive, not proactive
2) If a high gas tax is part of the package, it will be highly regressive

And when you've already broken the free-market cherry with a sin tax on carbon, why not skip the fiddle farting around with incentives or "public-private partnerships", and Just Do It Already:

Barack Obama's bold, ambitious budget plan proves that he is the true heir of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Consider Obama's Rooseveltian energy plan. In 1939, President Roosevelt decided to mobilize Americans to create a new source of energy: atomic power. Although he was urged to focus on government-funded R&D, FDR chose a different route. He wisely encouraged private capital to invest in atomic energy research by a variety of tax incentives. To make atomic power investment more palatable to private capital, FDR boldly chose to make all other forms of energy in the U.S. uneconomical, by slapping high taxes on kerosene and coal. With the money from the new federal Kerosene Cap and Trade system, President Roosevelt and Congress funded a small-scale federal research program, in the hope of attracting much greater private investment ...

Wait. What's that you say? FDR didn't do that? He poured federal money into the all-public Manhattan Project and created the first atomic bomb in a couple of years? He didn't tax kerosene to make it uneconomical and to encourage private investment in atomic power?

Oh. OK. Never mind.

But what about Social Security? In 1935, FDR signed the historic Social Security Act. It created a complex "retirement mandate" system, forcing all elderly Americans to buy expensive annuities from private insurance companies, without, however, imposing price controls on the insurance companies ...

What? FDR didn't force the elderly to subsidize private annuity brokers? He imposed a single, simple, efficient tax to pay for a single, simple, efficient public system of retirement benefits?

All right, then, forget FDR. He was a socialist, anyway. Let Dwight Eisenhower serve as a model for the Obama administration. President Eisenhower authorized the biggest infrastructure program in American history, when he signed the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956. The interstate highway act created an elaborate system of private tax incentives and public-private partnerships (PPPs) to encourage private corporations to build national highways. To begin with, all U.S. highways were leased to domestic and foreign corporations for a period of decades. Second, all U.S. highways were set up with toll booths, so that American drivers would be forced to repay the corporate owners of the national highways every few dozen miles. Finally, a system of high-speed lanes with higher tolls was created, so that the rich could whiz down the road while middle-class and poor Americans were stuck in traffic jams ...

It seems that the only way the U.S. can press forward with improved rail service would be following the utter collapse of other modes of transport.

It would also help if the U.S. could wean itself from the corporate cock and get back into investing in the public sector. For example, single payer health care provides better care for less money yet that option is being ignored by the Senate. Instead we get half assed, wishy washy "public-private partnership" crap. Salon had a nice editorial on the subject a while back:

Barack Obama's bold, ambitious budget plan proves that he is the true heir of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Consider Obama's Rooseveltian energy plan. In 1939, President Roosevelt decided to mobilize Americans to create a new source of energy: atomic power. Although he was urged to focus on government-funded R&D, FDR chose a different route. He wisely encouraged private capital to invest in atomic energy research by a variety of tax incentives. To make atomic power investment more palatable to private capital, FDR boldly chose to make all other forms of energy in the U.S. uneconomical, by slapping high taxes on kerosene and coal. With the money from the new federal Kerosene Cap and Trade system, President Roosevelt and Congress funded a small-scale federal research program, in the hope of attracting much greater private investment ...

Wait. What's that you say? FDR didn't do that? He poured federal money into the all-public Manhattan Project and created the first atomic bomb in a couple of years? He didn't tax kerosene to make it uneconomical and to encourage private investment in atomic power?

Oh. OK. Never mind.

But what about Social Security? In 1935, FDR signed the historic Social Security Act. It created a complex "retirement mandate" system, forcing all elderly Americans to buy expensive annuities from private insurance companies, without, however, imposing price controls on the insurance companies ...

What? FDR didn't force the elderly to subsidize private annuity brokers? He imposed a single, simple, efficient tax to pay for a single, simple, efficient public system of retirement benefits?

All right, then, forget FDR. He was a socialist, anyway. Let Dwight Eisenhower serve as a model for the Obama administration. President Eisenhower authorized the biggest infrastructure program in American history, when he signed the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956. The interstate highway act created an elaborate system of private tax incentives and public-private partnerships (PPPs) to encourage private corporations to build national highways. To begin with, all U.S. highways were leased to domestic and foreign corporations for a period of decades. Second, all U.S. highways were set up with toll booths, so that American drivers would be forced to repay the corporate owners of the national highways every few dozen miles. Finally, a system of high-speed lanes with higher tolls was created, so that the rich could whiz down the road while middle-class and poor Americans were stuck in traffic jams ...

We did elect Al Gore. The supreme court gave it to Bush, while Al backed down.

Oh give it a FUCKING REST finally.

I think to be fair you should also cite some of the controversies surrounding this whole mess: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Florida,_2000#Controversial_Issues. There's a whole lot Republican pushing not to count votes (well before the Supremes got involved).

My personal “favorite” is the Rent-a-Riot; the reference from Wikipedia is http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/28/miami/index.html.

I've never understood why books are (C) Author, and music is (C) Publisher

from Salon article in January 2000:Courtney Love does the math

Last November [2000], a Congressional aide named Mitch Glazier, with the support of the RIAA, added a "technical amendment" to a bill that defined recorded music as "works for hire" under the 1978 Copyright Act.

He did this after all the hearings on the bill were over. By the time artists found out about the change, it was too late. The bill was on its way to the White House for the president's signature.

That Mitch Glazier, the congresional aide? now an RIAA lobbyist
It certainly wasn't an accident.

I've never understood why they just didn't fix that.

Bill Clinton strikes again.

Has there ever been as corrupt a sack of shit in the White House? Seriously. Even Barack Obama publicly calls him a liar.

I've never understood why books are (C) Author, and music is (C) Publisher

from Salon article in January 2000:Courtney Love does the math

Last November [2000], a Congressional aide named Mitch Glazier, with the support of the RIAA, added a "technical amendment" to a bill that defined recorded music as "works for hire" under the 1978 Copyright Act. He did this after all the hearings on the bill were over. By the time artists found out about the change, it was too late. The bill was on its way to the White House for the president's signature.

That Mitch Glazier, the congresional aide? now an RIAA lobbyist It certainly wasn't an accident. I've never understood why they just didn't fix that.

Actually, there's a fairly strong argument that pot was banned because industrial hemp was a competition to wood pulp as a source for paper.

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html

Rantings, indeed.

To wit:

Are you aware of Sotomayor's dissent in which she defended the 1st amendment rights of a white NYPD employee when he was fired for having sent blatantly racist and anti-Semitic replies in response to charity requests he received in the mail?

That she ruled against the plaintiff in 80% of race discrimination cases?

That in her famous speech she also said stuff like:

I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.

There is always a danger embedded in relative morality, but since judging is a series of choices that we must make, that I am forced to make, I hope that I can make them by informing myself on the questions I must not avoid asking and continuously pondering.

The horror!

I am so sick of people taking one fragment of a speech or one ruling and rushing to judgment based on their own biases and agendas. Take a deep breath. Read Ricci. Read the Pappas dissent. Then let us know what you think.

The folks that take care of the important stuff aren't stupid and are highly paranoid.

Not sure where you're getting your facts from, but from my years in the military I'd venture to say that you're a bit overconfident. There are plenty of ways for sensitive data to find its way into the hands of outsiders.

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality,' which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering

Andrew Leonard has an interview with a corporate finance law professor who points out that the money going to the union would not be there at all in a normal bankruptcy proceeding. The government is providing that money to the newly reorganized Chrysler to pay off the union members for making contract concessions, but if that money were not there the company would still have had to declare bankruptcy and reorganize and the pension shareholders would still have to take some loss, regardless of whatever happens with the union.

If Verizon were truly afraid of what the federal government says, they would respect president Obama's opinion and not risk being found guilty of a hypothetical future manslaughter.

Now, let's see who has given Verizon a reason to be afraid.

If only there was some country that had already experimented with this... Oh wait. There is.

In 2001 Portugal did just this. They decriminalized everything. and 7 years later it's working better than imagined.

Everyone caught using is suggested to go to a class (but it's not required.). Sure they're a bit smaller than the US, but there's no reason it couldn't work here.

Hey, That was a very interesting read m8, thanks.. i had no idea there was any such things in the move. As a casual smoker of weed, i for one would like our politicians to open they bloody eyes for once and realize we need some other approach than the current in ALL countryes.. not just USA or one or 2 european countryes. If not legalizing it, atleast decriminalize.. it makes so much sence!

If only there was some country that had already experimented with this... Oh wait. There is.

In 2001 Portugal did just this. They decriminalized everything. and 7 years later it's working better than imagined.

Everyone caught using is suggested to go to a class (but it's not required.). Sure they're a bit smaller than the US, but there's no reason it couldn't work here.

Portugal decriminalised all drugs in 2001. On all measures it has been a resounding success: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/14/portugal/

I'll pick a few here:

Teh GAYS are coming to steal yer marriages!!!!11

Never heard this from a Republican

You are a liar. Bush's "re-election" (his first actual election) was won primarily because they snuck so many anti-equality laws on the ballots. The bigoted wingnuts came out of the woodwork and voted for Bush while they were there.

We're the party of fiscal responsibility!

I would have agreed with this last year. But since the current party has tripled the deficit, it turns out that it's true!

Yes, I am absolutely certain that Obama, in 100 days, managed to triple the deficit, compared to 8 years of Bush spending like a drunken frat boy.

I totally believe that, because, apparently, I am an idiot.

They're not prisoners of war, so the Geneva Convention doesn't apply!

Were any of these guys wearing a uniform? No? then the Geneva Convention does not apply. Why is this so hard to understand?

Because I have a soul, and the idea of shoving flashlights up little kid's asses in front of the kid's mother is abhorrent to me.

Oh, and here's a POW being waterboarded:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-13/cheneys-role-deepens/

Iraq had something, anything to do with 9/11!

I have never heard a Republican say this, yet it keeps getting repeated over and over as if it's true. And what do you know, many of the exceedingly ignorant and borderline retarded believe it.

Liar.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3119676.stm

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/08/21/bush-on-911/
http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/bush-team-peddles-911-iraq-link-torture
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-durang/lieberman-peddles-the-old_b_77198.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0314/p02s01-woiq.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10164478
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0511/S00247.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0321-02.htm

Not only that, it turns out we were torturing people to death and shoving flashlights up children's bums specifically to try and GET a fake link between Iraq and 9/11. Whoops!

Finally, news where I can actually stand up proudly and say take a page from the United States on this one, Canada [whitehouse.gov]:

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

That's Obama talking, right?

Obama blocks release of torture photos

Obama administration invokes 'state secrets' claim to defend Bush's wiretapping program.

Obama administration threatens Britain to keep torture evidence concealed

I certainly hope Obama follows through.

You have your answer.

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality,' which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality,' which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering

And what are you going to do when we're all charging for access?

I'll probably ride my unicorn up over the rainbow into the clouds, because that will never happen.

The fact of the matter is that (porn excepted) people don't pay for online content. Period. If that means we only get "amateur" news reporting, then that's what it will mean.

Show me one successful online news source that pays for a large investigative staff off of walled-off subscription content. One.

I know my local paper tried allowing online access only to subscribers (print subscription worked). It failed. There are just too many other places to get free news (even if its inferior). They eventually had to make everything free to try to generate some kind of revenue off of it. Salon tried the same thing when their VC money initially ran out. They hemoraged readership. Within a few weeks they felt the need to provide public access again with annoyance ads that you could buy away. Eventually those were gone too.

Perhaps Mr. Murdoch thinks he has some grand business theory that nobody on the web has ever thought of before to make pay content work. But unless porn is involved, he's wrong.

I don't have a crystal ball, but my guess for where we are all headed is a web full of independent investivate reporters with their own websites. Here's a local example

Some of the same things can be said of the New York Times.

Some perhaps, but not many. The venerable grey lady is a pale shadow of her former self and doesn't really hold a candle to the WSJ which is a much meatier paper with much more information value for the money.

No, something else besides level of technicality needs to explain why people are willing to pay for the WSJ.

The Wall Street journal has good original articles on many non-technical and even non financial subjects (their political opinion page, for example, is often witty and insightful). In fact, I would argue that if one were interested in a strictly technical paper then there are even better (and more terse) papers out there that basically cater only to the financial services industry, The Financial Times for example. Also, the audience of the WSJ tends to be upper middle class and higher income which means that they have money to spend and like spending it on fine living so the WSJ attracts more and better high-end advertisers who will pay premiums for access to that upper-crust audience.

Here's a possibility: as another reader pointed out, you are allowed to access WSJ's premium content if you have been referred from another site.

This has been tried before so its not a new idea. The folks at Salon once tried "24 hour day passes" if users would view an ad from one of their advertising sponsers. This was back when Salon was trying to position itself as an "ultra-premium" online magazine that was "paying members only". They no longer do this, so it must not have been too successful.

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality,' which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering

> The real problem is that liberals can't own up to the fact that rest of > the cable news clique panders to their political sensibilities. Do you define "liberals" to mean people who want only Pentagon operatives to analyze foreign conflicts on TV? The Pulitzer-winning investigation that dare not be uttered on TV http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/21/pulitzer/ Pentagon military analyst program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_military_analyst_program http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pentagon_military_analyst_program Y'gotta love the United States, where Barack Obama is considered a socialist and corporate media is considered liberal.

I'm puzzled by the Overton Window theory.

What is there to be puzzled about. The right wing jingoistic conservative from 20 years would be a lefty today. If the Republican party keeps on it's current path, even Cheney will be a "lefty" in another 20 years. Nixon would be a veritable anarchist in today's GOP.

The way it's presented in some places -- like this one -- the US is an extreme right-wing country.

It is compared to the rest of western nations.

If we've got the various governments of the US confiscating an estimated "30.8% of the nation's income for 2008" [Wikipedia] and providing food, housing, education, pensions, and medicine to millions of people, is that really an extreme ultra-capitalist system?

If extreme superficiality is your cup of tea, sure. Otherwise, no. In Europe, no one loses their house because they have an accident or get cancer. In Europe, if bankers loot the economy, at least they aren't paying a paltry 15% tax rate while they do so. In Europe, people don't commonly finish school with $100,000 in student loans for a masters degree because the government picks up far more of the tab.

You don't see Canada's right wing president conducting mass warrantless wiretapping not just on normal citizens, but members of the press and other politicians.

In Australia or New Zealand, you don't find the government insisting it has the right to lock anyone up indefinitely without warrants, trials or attorneys.

And of course, you have to go to third world dictatorships to find governments that openly insist they have the right to torture people.

especially now that everyone knows what bluetooth is because of cell phone headsets (even though those make you look stupid ;) ).

You insensitive clod! Some of us think it looks stylish.

Ah, but this is exactly where government can help: by passing laws requiring monopoly utilities to provide such services to even the most remote users.

But why fiddle fart around with "private-public partnerships" when the government can do a better job for less money:

March 6, 2009 | Barack Obama's bold, ambitious budget plan proves that he is the true heir of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Consider Obama's Rooseveltian energy plan. In 1939, President Roosevelt decided to mobilize Americans to create a new source of energy: atomic power. Although he was urged to focus on government-funded R&D, FDR chose a different route. He wisely encouraged private capital to invest in atomic energy research by a variety of tax incentives. To make atomic power investment more palatable to private capital, FDR boldly chose to make all other forms of energy in the U.S. uneconomical, by slapping high taxes on kerosene and coal. With the money from the new federal Kerosene Cap and Trade system, President Roosevelt and Congress funded a small-scale federal research program, in the hope of attracting much greater private investment ...

Wait. What's that you say? FDR didn't do that? He poured federal money into the all-public Manhattan Project and created the first atomic bomb in a couple of years? He didn't tax kerosene to make it uneconomical and to encourage private investment in atomic power?

Oh. OK. Never mind.

But what about Social Security? In 1935, FDR signed the historic Social Security Act. It created a complex "retirement mandate" system, forcing all elderly Americans to buy expensive annuities from private insurance companies, without, however, imposing price controls on the insurance companies ...

What? FDR didn't force the elderly to subsidize private annuity brokers? He imposed a single, simple, efficient tax to pay for a single, simple, efficient public system of retirement benefits?

All right, then, forget FDR. He was a socialist, anyway. Let Dwight Eisenhower serve as a model for the Obama administration. President Eisenhower authorized the biggest infrastructure program in American history, when he signed the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956. The interstate highway act created an elaborate system of private tax incentives and public-private partnerships (PPPs) to encourage private corporations to build national highways. To begin with, all U.S. highways were leased to domestic and foreign corporations for a period of decades. Second, all U.S. highways were set up with toll booths, so that American drivers would be forced to repay the corporate owners of the national highways every few dozen miles. Finally, a system of high-speed lanes with higher tolls was created, so that the rich could whiz down the road while middle-class and poor Americans were stuck in traffic jams ...

This is from Glenn Greenwald:

blahblahblah

What do Socky McSockpuppet's sock-puppets think? Inquiring minds want to know!

Glenn Greanwald says it well:

The idea that Specter is a "liberal" Republican or even a "moderate" reflects how far to the Right both the GOP and our overall political spectrum has shifted. Consider Specter's most significant votes over the last eight years, ones cast in favor of such definitive right-wing measures as: the war on Iraq, the Military Commissions Act, Patriot Act renewal, confirmation of virtually every controversial Bush appointee, retroactive telecom immunity, warrantless eavesdropping expansions, and Bush tax cuts (several times). Time and again during the Bush era, Specter stood with Republicans on the most controversial and consequential issues.

In my opinion, what the DemocratIC party needs more of isn't warmed-over has-been Republicans but, rather, liberal Democrats who are actually, you know, LIBERAL.

-S

Arlen Specter is one of the worst, most soul-less, most belief-free individuals in politics. The moment most vividly illustrating what Specter is: prior to the vote on the Military Commissions Act of 2006, he went to the floor of the Senate and said what the bill "seeks to do is set back basic rights by some 900 years" and is "patently unconstitutional on its face." He then proceeded to vote YES on the bill's passage.

With a little effort. refspoof allows one to view the normally subscriber only articles: http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/03/21/wsj/

I will leave this: http://www.salon.com/media/1997/11/04media.html

After 9/11/2001, Bush enjoyed astronomical approval ratings.

Then you must have forgotten the vitriolic hate:
http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/01/20/protests/index.html

Police would not estimate the size of the crowd, but many thousands of protesters were in evidence

They came out in scores, co-existing on the parade route with supporters of the new president and lining Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House. Interspersed between Bush-Cheney signs and Texas flags were thousands of protest placards, bearing inscriptions such as "Bush Cheated," "Hail to the Thief," "Selected not elected," "Bushwhacked by the Supremes" and "Golly Jeb, we pulled it off!" There were also plenty of R-rated signs, like "Dick and Bush" and "George Wanker Bush." One poster included a caricature of a metaphorically toothless Bush in the image of Alfred E. Neuman.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0121-01.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/images/0121-01.jpg

Others were not so diplomatic. At Freedom Plaza, a protest space along the parade route at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, thousands of protesters held up signs calling Bush such epithets as "thief" and "pig." When Bush's motorcade passed, they booed and jeered and yelled obscenities. Some held up middle fingers.

Hint: when you grow up you'll find there's more to world than the press...An opinion, not a fact. Learn to tell the difference.

Place both hands on top of your shoulders, palms facing up, and push as hard as you can. Once you've pulled your head out of your ass, look up Bush's approval numbers after 9/11/2001 and through the invasion of Afganistan. They were astronomical, and that didn't change until him and Cheney and Rove decided that they would use the attacks for partisan gains and lie us into an invasion of Iraq.

In 2000, we knew Bush was a fool and a tool. In 2004, we knew Bush was a fool and a tool, had lied us into Iraq, violated habeaus corpus and the Bill of Rights, and an all around asshole. But that wasn't a problem for the wingnuts, anymore than Bush's draft dodging was an issue when they attacked Clinton for it in 1992. Like the gun nuts who said they voted for Bush over Kerry because they couldn't vote for a politician that supported gun control - nevermind that Bush said he supported existing gun control laws and would re-sign the assault weapons ban. But IOKIYAR.

Well, I give up - because it isn't Democrats or Republicans either.

Liar.

The practice has been described as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional.

My 10 year old daughter uses that excuse. 'I didn't mean to throw cookie dough at my friend.

'For 10 minutes.'

Joe Klein at Time Magazine says the bad news is that 'the NSA apparently has been overstepping the law,' but the good news is that 'one of the safeguards in the [FISA Reform] law is a review procedure that seems to have the ability to catch the NSA when it's overstepping -- and that the illegal activities have been exposed, and quickly.'"

Yeah, quickly. They were exposed almost 5 years [1] ago. An entire term of office for the US chief executive, for those of you keeping score. The FISA Reform act was not required to expose the activity. It was required to stop the activity. Maybe Time Magazine doesn't remember history very well, but we do. And we prefer not to implicitly lie with our choice of verb.

Nor do we believe for a moment that the activity actually was stopped. Secret (kangaroo) courts and secret meetings and the utterly worthless assurances of the US Justice Department. Of course it's still on-going. I don't even have to wear a tin-foil hat to proclaim that. I don't sound the least bit nutty, saying that, because even major media reported the story, in detail, for months, and nobody cared.

You think they're going to stop now? Of course they're not. Nobody was shot for treason when they endorsed a program that raped the US Constitution. Nobody was sent to jail when they designed a spying program that raped the US Constitution. Nobody lost their job when they implemented a surveillance program that raped the US Constitution. Nobody had their pay docked for listening to the phone calls of random citizens. Nobody got their knuckles rapped with a ruler for reading the email of random citizens. No, instead, they got condemned in the press. Oooooooo. The horror.

They got away with it. Completely and utterly and totally. So why would they stop? When there are no negative consequences whatsoever, there's no reason at all to stop.

The saddest part of all is that it can not be stopped. If Congress chose to do something about it, the members who led the effort would be pilloried as partisan and would lose reelection. Daring to stand on principle would result in losing their job, because that's what the voters think is right.

Oh my people...

there's a difference between delegating part of your work for part of the profit or delegating part of your work for all of the profit. The second one is called being ripped off. It's morally fraud and you know it.

And I'm sure that Rush Limbaugh is a far nicer, more compassionate, more lovable person than the character he portrays on the radio, on TV, in interviews and in every other public speaking appearance. Off-mike, Rush is probably a very down-to-earth and friendly guy, just like Colbert.

So what?

They both say stupid, offensive things, labeling their corrosive vitriol as satire. They and the hardest core of their fans wrap themselves in condescending self-congratulation, and twiddle their fingers at those who "don't get it".

Rush and Colbert are not normal character actors, and they shouldn't be treated as such. These guys have chosen to inhabit their characters completely. Rush IS El-Rushbo. Colbert IS Colbert. It lends a great deal of verisimilitude to the portrayal, but the downside is that there is nothing else for them to be judged by. If either one of them suddenly decided to start portraying a different kind of character, then it would be possible to separate the "real" person from the person he pretends to be all the time.

Sooooo Muuuuch Smarter, Hipper And Rational than Bible-thumping Young Earth Creationist conservatives that you'd think they'd care a smidgen about reality.

Um, they do, Mr. Pot. But I suppose dealing with reality isn't as much fun as riding a high horse.

Obama now claims that HR 6304 does not permit investigation into illegalities by the Executive after all, as he's pushing a strengthened version of Bush's executive immunity theory.

Economists have us bailing out our banks, again, to the tune of how many trillions? Whatever they say is efficient, I think, we should be tempted to do the opposite.

Bankers wanted the banks bailed out. Many economists opposed the bank bailout. Economists got together to write the White House opposing the bailout.

Falcon

4chan? Terrorists? Yeah, they terrorise people with pictures of cats with bad grammar skills. Sometimes they post foolish people's personal details. Clearly a threat to the free world as we know it.

For the thousandth time, this isn't about "terrorists". As you can clearly see quoted in TFS and elsewhere where there have been acts such as raiding protest group homes, disruption of peaceful protesting by force and the occasional arrests(check Google/youtube), fucking COINTELPRO, wiretapping/framing/blackmailing of political activist leaders all the way back to MLK Jr., and that's just a tiny fraction of what's been going on.
This is about suppressing dissident activity.

Get your heads out of your asses already with that terrorist propaganda bullshit.