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Actually, I don't find the parent's post funny either. What I really don't find funny is the fact that this man has had a history of lying/exaggerating. Of course, lying politicians are as old as well -- politics. The big problem is that Al Gore was just so bad at it. In fact, even as Al Gore ran for office in Tennessee, he began to exaggerate for effect. During one campaign stop, Al Gore made a point to a largely farming community that he himself was a farmer and he had been involved in every part of the tobacco farming process. This was significant, because even senior members of his campaign began to warn him about his tendency to exaggerate in his public speeches.

Sure, Clinton didn't exaggerate. He outright lied. He lied very well. So much so, that we elected him twice. Of course, when Bill lied, it was for a reason. Perhaps that's the big difference. Bill Clinton got away with it because he always lied in a calculating fashion. He lied about things he hid anyway, and if the bigger scandal were to come out, no one would remember the lie.

I also think the jokes are legitimate. Bill Clinton is the Nixon of my generation. Al Gore is Clinton's Agnew. I've become cynical about the political process under his watch. Maybe that's just me coming of age or maybe it was his fault. I don't know.

This Tennessee farmer lie was featured on a PBS special that covered both the 2000 candidates. Frankly, I think it was some of the best journalism on the 2000 election. It was brutally fair in a truly bi-partisan way. It was a great piece of video journalism. IIRC, I believe the PBS program was Frontline: the choice2000.

Incidentally. I've included links to some articles about Mr. Gore's questionable quotes. The "Free-Republic" article contains other quotes relating to Gore's lies. To each site's credit, they refer to the Internet quote in the proper contextual manner.

A story about Gore's lies in general
A defense of Gore's Internet comment

for some values of "proven", like "Bill Gates said he didn't say that". and we all know Billy is trustworthy. :p

I mean, after all, he wouldn't completely miss the internet in his grand vision of the future of technology and then try to correct the oversight after the fact in a revised edition.

nah, that could never happen.

An astounding number of people assume that what they see is what I get. This leads to (for instance) poor web design. People assume that everyone browses the web with IE or Netscape, so they base their information on images, assume the screen is several hundred pixels wide, make assumptions like
if (browser != IE && browser != Netscape) // can't use JavaScript
and don't even think to check how a blind person would experience the page, whether it'll look like crap on a PDA browser, or whether anything will break with an off-the-wall browser like iCab.

This isn't a poor assumption just at the web level. It's easy to fall into the trap of designing a product so that you can use it without thinking "How might users differ from me?"

Nor is the problem limited to computers. A famous example (though I'm not sure how true it is) was trying to market cars in Japan with a steering wheel on the left side. A harder example to get right is asking undereducated girls whether they have "vaginal secretions" instead of the clearer "cunt juice."

The lesson is: there's no perfect substitute for real users.

• Absense of deep or sophisticated thinking (If anyone has any information about George W. Bush showing evidence of sophisticated thinking, please write to me.)
• Polarized thinking (Bush's "you are either with us or against us" is an example. Another example is his statement, "Look my job isn't to try to nuance. I think moral clarity is important... this is evil versus good.")
• Rigid thinking
• Lying (A June 18, 2002 article in Salon says, Losing the "trifecta" says, "It takes a brazen politician to make up a story that can be proven false and then to keep lying about it after being busted repeatedly." Also see the October 8, 2002 CounterPunch article, Bush's Leaps of Illogic Don't Answer People's Questions About War.
• Anger ("... why is Bush so eager to engage in violence and so incapable of explaining why?" See the Sept. 24, 2002 American Politics Journal article and Addiction, Brain Damage and the President -- "Dry Drunk" Syndrome and George W. Bush )
• Obsessive repetition (On August 7, during his "working vacation" at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, Bush used the word "home" six times in a minute of conversation with reporters: "It's nice to be home ... This is my home ... It's good to be home ... This is where you come home ... This is my home," etc. In a five-minute speech later in the month, Bush mentioned values at least seven times and "neighbor" or "neighborliness" or "neighborly" six times. In a twenty-minute speech the next day he used "character" eleven times. -- Some of the examples here are drawn from a September 6, 2001 article in The Atlantic magazine, The Bumbling Communicator. Not only was Bush repetitive, he was lying. The article says, "Bush lived in the Texas governor's mansion and vacationed in swank resorts and at Kennebunkport before the campaign began.")
• Inability to perceive the needs of others, inability to understand someone different from oneself
• Grandiosity, believing that one's own ideas are all-important. (Bush, and the oil and weapons people who support him, say the U.S. has the right to take military action before the adversary even has the capacity to attack.)
• Impatience ("If we wait for threats to fully materialize," President Bush said in a speech he gave at West Point, "we will have waited too long.")
• Incoherence. Things don't make sense in the mind of an alcoholic. An alcoholic's pattern of speech sometimes reflects his or her inner chaos.

It's not hate-filled to say that George Bush does not seem intelligent. Watch David Letterman. (For those of you not in the U.S., he is a talk show host who is on TV every weekday night.) Letterman has been regularly showing video clips, taken from that day's news, of our President, George Bush, doing something stupid.

For example, in one David Letterman clip George Bush read a speech and when he was finished gave a cough and a jerky movement that David Letterman characterized as, "That was boring. Now I'm out of here."

I'm tired of having a president that other foreign leaders characterize as an "idiot". That reference is just one example.

There is a part of the Republican party composed of people who will do anything to sell the U.S. government to those, mostly their friends, who have money. They are truly not a political party; they can rightly be characterized as criminals. George Bush is their figurehead. For example, look at this CNN article, "Vice President Cheney has a financial interest in Halliburton." Quoting David Letterman, "When you write the check for your part of the $83 billion to rebuild Iraq, remember that there are two Ls in Halliburton."

According to someone I know who was in Vice President Dick Cheney's social circle while he was at Halliburton, Cheney was (is) an alcoholic with a history of boozing and womanizing. This was not different from George Bush, of course.

I'm not the only person who is looking for an alternative to President Bush. I think that maybe Howard Dean is the best alternative.

Also, note that this post is on-topic. We are talking about the politics of the U.S. government spending billions of money it doesn't have to send people to the moon. Others have characterized this as intended to be a distraction from the serious problems the present U.S. government administration has caused.

"Got it: so if the OS and the CPU and so on are all 'Honorable'" -- Liam described quote-marks with his index fingers -- "then you can be sure that the execution environment is what the software expects it to be, that it's not a brain in a vat. Hollywood movies are safe from Napsterization."

I wouldn't be so hasty as calling india a democracy. many voices, like Arundhati Roy for instance, speak out to say that it's more like an oligarchy with a parade of democracy to cover religious intolerance & corporate maxi profits.

Then again i wouldn't call the USA a democracy so maybe i'm giving this word a strongest sense that it actually has nowadays.

-- see me run, now you're gone.

The Diamondbank link was peppered with falsehoods about NAFTA.

Prove one thing that they said was false. Only one of us so far has actually provided some supporting evidence for their claims instead of just making blind assertions.

The Reuters account was as you would expect neutral. However, it lacked a description of how it started.

How the police action started is well documented on other sites. According to the Reuters account, there were roughly 250 arrests and the use of tear gas and rubber bullets on crowds when only about a few dozen of 15,000 protesters actually acted violently.

The UPI account, however, does imply intrusions by the protesters.

The UPI account is horridly one-sided and takes most of its content from police PR, but it was included for contrast. However it does at the end (in its small space reserved for an opposing opinion) explicitly state that numerous constitutional rights were violated. This is, as the original poster stated, an example of police oppression.

The Maroon account clearly describes the violence as being initiated by the protesters.

The Maroon account also shows that police took no effort to try to distinguish the violent protesters from the peaceful ones and that excessive force was used against numerous peaceful protesters.

The Cornell link clearly describes the protesters trying to trespass into the actual place where the negotiotors were to harass them. So much for free speech: it is OK for the protesters to speak, but it is not OK for the negotiators to assemble and speak in peace.

The protest was attempting to take place immediately outside of the negotiations. Protest means nothing if the leaders responsible for making decisions are kept completely shielded from it. It has no impact and becomes impotent. This is exactly the motivation behind the Bush administration's so-called "free speech zones." The protesters weren't trying to break into the meeting, just get their voices actually heard outside.

Also, the article mentions several examples of police brutality, which you conveniently ignore.

Thanks for these accounts. They show that the problem was initiated by violent thugs trying to harass the negotiators. (except for the accounts that do not bother to explain how it started). If the protesters had limited their protest to free speech (instead of violence), there would have been no problem, and no police reaction of any kind.

Must be nice viewing the world through such filters. All of these accounts clearly show that violent protesters were a tiny minority while police actions violently suppressed a large number of innocent people attempting to exercise their first amendment rights. Of course, some of these incidents wouldn't have been a problem in the first place if protesters were actually allowed to make their voices heard somewhere near the actual site of deliberation in the first place. However, this was a scripted event in which the negotiators weren't allowed to hear dissenting voices from the people.

I do know however that they are ignorant and evil-minded. They have a right to speak based on their hatred, but they don't have a right to harass and assault based on it.

The ones who did by far the most harrassment and assault are the police. What's ignorant and evil-minded are the neo-fascists in America who like to see the police crack the skulls of people who think differently from them. We are watching America slowly turn into a police state, and you're cheering from the sidelines. How about your hatred? Should you be allowed to continue voicing it here on this forum?

No, my world view does not matter in this. It only matters if they actually are lying about the matter in question.

Sure. After all, that's why you read the above reports and concluded

Would it be OK to close the eyes and cover the ears? How about going out of the room for a pitstop or to fetch a glass of water?

Your answer is found here.

Someone explain to me how...basically ALL the problems of the world are America's fault and, China ... commits various other human right abuses, and the our "right-thinking left-wing friends" never say shit about it?

That's an easy one.

Liberals have been angry about China's human rights violations for a long time. It's old news, it's foreign (related) news. As a result, it's gets little to no coverage.

However, if someone even hints that just maybe the United States is making a bad decision, it's easy to quote the person out of context (or even never quote them at all) and paint them as being Anti-American. It's impressive sounding! It's newsworthy! It may be bullshit, but it sells newspapers!

I'm liberal. I know many, many liberals. I've never met a liberal who hated America. Every liberal I know loves America and loves the ideas it stands for. And every liberal I know feels that America should be a shining beacon for liberty. As a shining beacon, we hold America to extremely high standards. We fear that others are lowering the standards, degrading the ideals of America. And so we complain about those actions taken in the name of America. We do it because we love America and refuse to see it dragged into the mire. We're trying to maintain American's moral high ground so that we can continue to pressure countries like China to improve.

In exchange for fighting to protect what we believe is best about America, we're branded as "Blame America Firsters" (No, I don't blame America, I blame you for fucking with America), and "Traitors".

I love my country and want what's best for it.

Fuck you.

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 post

Diebold had little to do with Florida's 2000 election; if you want to blame a corporation, ChoicePoint would be a much better choice.

If you want to send him a card or something, please be aware he's asked for no flowers or visitors for now. You can read more at the hospital's own site here.

Read this and see how wrong you are!

This is the single biggest slipstream attempt at purchased legislation since then-congressional aide Mitch Glazier snuck the 'work for hire' catch into the Satellite Home Viewing Act of 1999.
Mitch Glazier was hired as the RIAA's top lobbyist 3 months later. (details)

So we all know this is outrageous.

But who do we call? Where is a list of representative's email addresses? Where is a list of senator's email addresses? Is the FSF, or EFF setting up a fund I can donate to, to work against this? Is there an email campaign going?

I haven't bought the RIAA's musical offerings in years, so I've already cut off my funding for these domestic, economic terrorists -- but is there someone I can give support -to- that has a voice to tell our government congress how asinine this is? how asinine Orrin Hatch is?

I mean, Orrin Hatch is a songwriter who works for an RIAA member label, isn't this at the least a clear-cut case of conflict of interest?

Nope. Those of you who don't go to the polls are absolutely 100% giving your implicit consent to the winners. They are completely utterly happy to let you be a sheep. If you don't like the big two, or even the next few guys, you can always write in. Vote for your mother, or your boss, or yourself.

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose free will.

The 2000 election, as far as Florida was concerned, was a sham. In addition to the people who weren't allowed to vote, you had a supreme court picked by Bush's brother making a decision to stop a recount that could have changed everything. There has never been a full hand recount, any sources that claim they have a figure are extrapolating from limited samples of the votes that did get counted.

Jesus, I know more about your political system than you.

the knowledge that the current results are very close to each other (think Gore-Bush) might have an influence on who decides to actually go voting later in the day.

In the 2000 election, Fox News was the first network to call Florida (and thus the presidency) for Bush. All the other networks had been waiting for official word. Is it a coincidence that the person in charge of Fox News' Election Night Decision Desk was John Ellis, cousin to both George W Bush and Jeb Bush?

"Fox guarding the henhouse"

.

...and this one is with the man himself... ;-)

Breathed was also interviewed in Salon last week, and in The Onion's A.V. Club in 2001. He gets to swear in these interviews, too.

In some parts of the world, where penis stealing is a real problem, this could be a valuable service.

kuro5hin had this piece on it.

There is a vast amount of evidence that large numbers of people were denied the right to vote because they had a similar name to that of a known criminal

So how come the US Civil Rights Comission failed to find a single person who was denied to vote on this basis?

Those running the election (Katherine Harris) employed a company now owned by Diebold (I believe) to construct the list used

No, Katherine Harris didn't employ ChoicePoint (formally DBT Online). She wasn't even in office when Choicepoint was comissioned. They were hired in 1997 by Ethel Baxtor, who was the Florida Director of Elections (and who is also a Democrat).

This list included people from other states who had prior criminal records but were allowed to vote under FLORIDA law - however they were removed from the voter's role.

No, this list did not remove anybody from the voters role. That was the responsibility of the local county election officials after they had verified the names on the list and given notice to those who were ineligible to vote. This is how the state law was written.

this deliberate policy of ignoring FLORIDA state law by it's governer and the electoral commitees disadvantaged the Democrats as most poor and black voters vote democrat.

Lets go back to Government 101. The Executive Branch (i.e., the Governor) do not write the laws. In this case, the Florida Legislature passed chaptor 98.0975 in 1997 (before Jeb Bush was elected to office) requiring the list to be compiled, (ironically it was the Democrats who were calling for this list because of supposed votor irregularies in the 1997 Miami Mayoral race). No laws were ignored. The list was compiled because the legistlature passed a law requiring it.

You might want to check a few facts before you start foaming at the mouth trying to discredit the Bush presidency.

You know, that old mis-quote is getting about as old as the "Beowulf cluster.." joke.

Gore never claimed to invent the Internet. He claimed to have assisted in the legislation which allowed it to come into being. Here's a nice writeup on that little bit of history.

Misquoting that comment was just the beginning of the 4-Year-Lie which is the Bush administration.

I agree that you can live on a lot less. But you should try being married and rasing children.

Who paid your tuition when you went to college? What about your medical insurance?

There is an article in Salon about what Americans are spending their money on. The bulk of it is mortgages and medical insurance.

Do you know that a private medical insurance policy costs about $1000/month for a basic family insurance? If your $28,000/year employer does not provide insurance, you're out on your own. A flu shot costs $80...

What if you live somewhere without public transportation? I live in the suburbs (because I can afford a house there), but the nearest grocery store is 3 miles away and there is no public transport.

At Penn State University, electrical consumption in October was 33 million kilowatt hours, up from 27 million in October 1996. The school's electric bill is about $1 million a month. Paul Ruskin, with the university's physical-plant office, said power use by the 13,000 student residents contributed to the increase. Some officials say higher energy costs, campus expansions, lighting and the addition of computer labs and other energy-eating facilities are more to blame for increased power demand than student appliances.

Steve Albini's The Problem With Music is a good essay about the dangers of signing with a major label. For a more inside look, Courtney Love did a pretty insightful interview at Salon a while back.

Actually, although it may have been a misstatement, it is grounded in some truth. Certainly, the internet as we have come to know it did not exist at that time.

Some other articles on this issue: 1 2

The Helpful Invisible Hand of Capitalism

Plus, this guy was mentioning hollywood people who actually obtained office as repbulicans. As opposed to your weak observation of some folks who simply vote democrat. So, his example has teeth, yours has, well, nothing.

I suggest that you fuck yourself.

Most links are to info on the y2k election, but I don't think that much has changed since then. If you RTFA, you will note far, far more names that the eight I thought of off the top of my head earlier today. And no, they don't "just vote". They give huge bucks and they lend their celebrity to the causes, which is something that business leaders mostly can't do. Hollywood is money *and* celebrity, and the latter is essentially a circumvention of campaign laws, as it is a significant "in-kind" contribution. Like it or not, people (sadly) care what Oprah thinks. Or Fat Rosie.

GF.

P.S. You'll note that I only linked to "conservative" mouthpieces like Salon, Opensecrets.org, and CNN, but you have to remember that I'm just a sheep who follows the orders of a drug-addled Rush Limbaugh. Sorry I can't meet your high standards.

I find the naked honesty of some Republicans more tolerable than the lies of the Democrats

HUH?!?!?

So let me get this straight. You prefer the Republicans because they're honest, and not Democrats because they lie? Could you POSSIBLY have this more backwards?

There is a big difference between Democrats and Republicans, imho. Republicans are scape-goaters. They blame anything that goes wrong on someone else (Clinton, Gays, minorities, foreigners) and avoid personal responsibility themselves (look at how every Republican chickenhawk in the administration managed to avoid service in vietnam, yet they're so swift to commit other people's sons and daughters to die in war). Sure they TALK about taking personal resopnsibility, but like most things Republicans talk about, what they say and what they DO are completely different things.

But yes, Democrats think businesses should pay a fair wage, provide fair benefits, and that this leads to a better society as a whole, with a larger middle class, a greater standard of living, and more opportunity. Republicans only seem to care about "cheap labor"... cut benefits and pay and regulation -- SCREW the long term consequences! -- and maximize corporate profit and the incomes of the CEO, boardmembers, and share-holders while breaking the backs of the workers.

If you really want to support that, I can't imagine how you can possibly claim "socially moral" superiority in other areas.

Bush and the current adminsitration has put more lives in danger with their repealing of environmental protections and their backing off of investigations into corporations responsible for horrible environmental disasters (see This article on How Bush and his coal industry cronies are covering up one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history for an example).

There is a reason and a purpose to environmental protection law. But Republicans just see it as an impediment to short-term profit, and are actively doing away with it. And our country is suffering massively because of it. Our future will suffer. Future generations will suffer.

And I think the naked power-grab that the Republcians pulled in the Texas Redistricting fight proves that for Republicans, it really is ONLY about power and money to them. For Democrats, it may be about power and money too, but they also want to do the right thing (most of the time).

I was never really much of a partisan before, but after watching Bush in power for only three years, and the damange he has done, and the lies he has told, and the budget he busted, and seeing how the economy has been savaged, jobs lost, wars started, etc... it's just reprehensible. Bush must be voted out in 2004, or this country is in for some serious hurt. Freedom is suffering. Rights are suffering. The environment, our health, or society and economy are all suffering... as direct result of Bush's policies. It's insane.

They are. Even noted leftists Walter Cronkite and Camille Paglia admit it.

Bush's was 1206. Here is an effort to correlate SAT performance to IQ. Clearly, anyone who says Bush is a moron is incorrect. It's simply defamation.

GF.

Ahem, she did.

Ahem, Not according to Salon
Or, if you don't want to access the "premium" content, search for DiDio in this page

Introduced to a full-timer with relative power whose star would crash and rise again before I left, I stuck my hand out to shake his. He ignored it, gave me a sideways glance and said, "Do I need to know you?" I laughed nervously and returned to my den.

If you need proof of George Ws cocaine bust, it is mentioned here . The story was confirmed by 3 sources close to the Bush family and has YET TO BE REFUTED. Naturally, such an allegation would be considered slander... but no one has yet to be sued for it. Instead, in one instance, they discredited the author by pointing out he had previously been convicted, not that the story was UNTRUE, but just that he had been convicted. And severe pressure from the Whitehouse was placed on the publisher to pull the book.

Hatfield said it was 3 sources close to Dubya and when pressed, he named Karl Rove.

hopefully you'll come back and take a poke at those two links. As for tubesteak, its a joke, i'm glad you got it.

we have the US: protector of political free speech

Hurrah for the USA!

Story goes something like this ... Katzenberg worked at Disney for ten years, but like many others, didn't get on too well with Michael Eisner, and vice versa. He quit in 1993 to create Dreamworks SKG.

When Shrek was created, Dreamwork's first real feature animation, the character of Farquad (or Fuck-wad) was supposed to be Eisner, and Duloc (Farquad's Castle) is modelled on Disneyworld.

Well, if you believe Gore Vidal, the better spoiler would be "It's Marion Davies' clit, and I just saved you two hours of mindfucking that was only designed for one specific person in such a way that he couldn't sue them without embarassing himself."

Hmmm....a $100 refundable tax credit that I can give to a "creative worker". In exchange for getting my tax credit, they give up their copyright to the music I like.

Let's see....Do I give it to my favorite band on the radio? Nope. CEPR estimates that a big label musician would be giving up their copyrights for approximately $40,000. Bands getting regular rotation on Clear Channel probably don't want the voucher because they might loose money if they give away their hit song. (Yes, I know what Steve Albini and Courtney Love have to say about record contracts. I also know that big label musicians can easily make beyond $40K/yr, even with a bad contract. I saw a "Behind The Music" on VHI that said the female rap group TLC, who filed for bankruptcy after having a notoriously crappy contract, was already making $40k/yr. Their lifestyle would have caused bankruptcy on a $40k/yr income regardless of whether the money came from vouchers or copyrights.) For professional musicians, vouchers are not worth the risk.

What about my favorite indie band? Nah. They are probably waiting to be discovered and hit the big time. If they took the voucher money, someone who is already famous could use their song without paying them. If they want to let someone else sing their song, they would probably make more money selling the song. Besides, as we already know, it is possible to make a decent living without a big label or radio play.

What about that guy who sings at coffee houses on open mic night? Yeah, he'd definitely take the voucher. He's certainly not getting any money for his singing. Oops! You don't know about that guy, so I'm the only one signing a voucher for him. He may want it, but how does it benefit the public to have his songs in the the public domain? How many people will want to sing songs written by Joe Coffeehouse?

This is not a solution to the copyright problem.

Copyright didn't originate with feudalism, but as an attack on feudalism.

The attack failed. Copyright only helps the artists if they never sign a contract. If artists never sign, the artists keep the money, and the labels, professional middlemen, get nothing. Unfortunately, the labels now hold the copyrights (by contract), and artists receive only a tiny percentage of the revenues from their work.

Until recently, though, the best way to promote your music was with a contract. The artist provided talent and the label provided promotion. If artists could find a method of promoting their own material without the labels -- something with low overhead and access to customers all over the planet -- the labels would slowly start to lose their source of income.

That method is the internet.

The hookers-and-blow crowd might still prefer going with a major-label contract, but the labels no longer have their de facto monopoly on distribution. That's why the RIAA and others are desperately trying to portray all downloading as a criminal act. They're engaging in a campaign of psychology to create an unthinking aversion to non-label distribution -- not copyright violation, that's just an angle.

The oft-referenced Courtney Love does the math is recommended reading.

I'll be surprised if it stacks up with the best of the Star Wars spin-offs:

The Star Wars Holiday Special!

If this doesn't have 20 minutes of unintelligible wookie-jabber, I'll be sorely disappointed.

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 [microsoft.com] is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman [geocities.com], spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox [microsoft.com] 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 [goatse.cx] 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 [microsoft.com], 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 [salon.com] 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 [comp-u-geek.net] slut [rotten.com]!

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 [goatse.cx] perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children [slashdot.org]. 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 [rotten.com] 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 [goatse.cx] 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

Being a long time fan of animation, I've enjoyed the new ways that the medium is being used on the web. But what I haven't seen mentioned on here (yet) is Flash's use off-line. My company has created numerous presentaions in Flash and Director, because there's so much more that we can do in those applications than we can in PowerPoint. It's certainly not perfect, but I have enjoyed the ability to create more interesting and in-depth animations in a GUI rather than notepad.

As for some sites that have "good" Flash, I can't speak for anyone else, but here's some spots that I've enjoyed:

NASA's home page. They mixed in the Flash rather well, IMHO.

I don't see it anymore, but Tron 2.0's website used to have a link to their "fCon" mock site, which had been built in Flash (IIRC). This was about as well-put together of a teaser site for a game that I've seen.

Atomfilms's animation section has boatloads of Flash animations, both interactive and non-interactive, and also -- not surprisingly -- some great, some not so great.

Finally, Salon every now and then has some editorial cartoons built in Flash, which, to me, is probably one of the best uses of the application.

Oh, and on my company's Intranet we have several online demos/tutorials/examples that have been created in Flash, which make "distance learning" much easier.

Personally, I enjoy working in Flash because of my background in animation and video. I've seen it used well. and I've seen it used poorly. Just like HTML, it's nothing more than a tool that is only as good as the person who uses it.

Matt

And don't give me a lot of crap about "someone will figure out a better business model", unless you can actually point to a particular website with that model, that is succeeding.

Salon.com. They provide a sample of their content, then require you to look at a brief Flash ad before you can see the whole thing. They can charge premium prices of their advertisers, because they can guarantee people are at least looking at the ad. Customers get to read quality content for the price of a minute or two of their time (like /., there's also a subscription option where you pay to avoid the ads).

Oh, right, Salon is dying, blah blah. They've been dying for years now... at this rate they'll expire about the time Duke Nukem Forever comes out.

Sean

-FL

I've been reading slashdot for about 4 years or more (check my uid if you don't believe me), and while I've certainly seen this sort of thing said often enough, I don't remember ever seeing any hard data, with sources, to back up the claims.

The Problem With Music (Steve Albini)
Courtney Love Does the Math

Is Bush bringing back the Draft? Salon is saying so.

Replying to my own post - I forgot to mention that in THIS world, I'd probably be have to turn the guy into a pariah, because I'd be at risk of losing my kids to the state if I didn't make them deathy afraid of him and a social worker found out I knew he was a pedophile.

BTW, for an interesting and depressing example of how modern society handles sex and kids, read this Salon article.

Here's a follow up on this non-story.

Matt Groening says he was only joking about Fox News suing the Simpsons.

So it was a story that was completely made up by one person, and all the lefty blogs were up in arms over it.

Where are the slashdotters complaining that Fox News was thin-skinned, censoring or plain evil now? Hopefully you would think they'd be man enough to apologize and admit they were wrong.