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I voted straight Republican, because I think they are unfairly being blamed (by folks like you) for the current mess, which properly lies on the head of ONE man (Bush).

So George Bush Jr. is really a brilliant mastermind that was able to corral his entire party and remold them into his personal vision then march them blindly off a cliff? That's absurd. He was put into power by Republican stalwarts like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest of the Republican machine. Four of his cabinet members were convicted felons pardoned by Reagan and Bush Sr. after the Iran-Contra hearings.

W. and the Neo-Con movement are a direct extension of the vision set out by Ronald Reagan. Perhaps the movement has been caricaturized a bit over time, especially by ideologues like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, etc. pushing the right ever farther to the fringe, but it's still the same blue print.

1. Cut taxes

2. Spend like mad

3. Use war to whip up patriotic fervor

4. Profit

And finally the Democrats held Congress for two years; did anything improve? Nope.

You underestimate just how ineffective at governing the Democrats are. First of all they had a very slim majority in congress but were still unable to get anything past "Mastermind Bush" and his bully pulpit. They're still going to be incompetent as long as Pelosi and Reed are at the cameral helms in congress.

Until citizens can stop being blinded by partisan stupidity and start trying to hold the people they vote for accountable, regardless of party, our government is going to be defined by these wild swings in power as we blame parties for not solving our problems. The first thing we need is a move toward the center and to drive away the extremist influences of the right and left.

Bah! Socialism vs Fascism. And I voted for Fascism!

Hmmm... is there a voters remorse clause? I'm beginning to regret that....

Nah seriously. As caricatures of the candidates Obama is a Socialist, McCain is a Fascist.
The reality is of course not so extreme, but as a general rule I agree with more of McCain's positions than Obama's and the economic policies of both have a lot to do with that, as do their positions on the second amendment.

Do you have any proof of this? (Note: That was a rhetorical question; I know you don't have any.

Hmmm, I come from Florida... have I met any racist republicans who are worried about Obama because he's black. Well, maybe I have. Hell, I'm related to some of them. You maybe should have waited to declare what I have or have not seen until you heard back from me, eh?

Note, this isn't being presented as proof, just anecdotal evidence. Note that that's still more than you actually present for your racist Obama fanclub theory.

And, again, I'm not actually saying that there's some huge racist THING going on. I'm saying that, at worst, the Democrat side is balanced with the Republican in this.

Now, I've seen people vote Obama because they want a black man as president, but of course, that is perfectly fine, as racism only works one way.

Racism does work both ways. It exists on both sides. And given the relative numbers (remember that black people are a minority), I think it's entirely possible that more racists are voting for McCain than Obama. I certainly think that more racial and cultural attacks have been made by McCain's supporters than Obama's, such as the "Obama is a Muslim" rumor, or the "Obama bucks Food stamps," or the waffle mix with him as a racist caricature. Whether that's opportunity or malice, I can't say, but hell, it sure is racist.

perhaps it's time to think about how those 'funny Europeans' got those ideas in the first place. Smoke, fire, etc.

For a country that seems to subsist mainly from marketing you have managed to ruin your image in the rest of the world quite well. (Yes, another caricature. Perhaps you should read something into the fact that those bloody, non-native english speaking Europeans, speak English just as wel as you do, too?)

Oh. I'm sorry. I shouldn't be putting you all into on basket. It's all Bush's fault. 'You' voted Bush into office. The first time, that was a mistake that could be labled as such. The second time... Well, suffices to say that you can't complain about impressions Europeans have of Americans. You brought it onto yourselves. I hope 'you lot' vote in Obama tomorrow. Not because he's better than Mc Cain, but because the rest of the world in majority sees him as better. Consider it a PR offensive.

Lament the behaviour of your governement all you want. Don't lament 'Europeans' for their lack of respect for you, change our view by being better again.

I'm getting of my high horse again, but I'll mount it any time if you keep up this crap of blaming 'your governement' for all the shit the US has been pouring all over the world in the name of 'justice'. You're also blaming our governements for being socialistic, not supporting you in Iraq, etc etc etc. You lot _are_ to blame. You should have voted Bush out 4 years ago.

How to make a joke with free software?

Seems to be quite difficult on Slashdot. It is like showing a caricature of Mohammed to a muslim. They shurely won't laugh and some of them want to behead you.

The Real Deal on the Current Economic Crisis

So who is to blame? There's plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn't fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn't do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of "layered irresponsibility ... with hard-working home owners and billionaire villains each playing a role." Here's a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:

The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.

Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.

Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.

Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.

The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.

Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.

Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.

The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.

An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.

Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.

The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.

Sorry, skippy, your political spin is silly. The Bush administration did not allow financial institutions to create Mortgage Backed Securities... they've been around since about 1938.

If you really want to know who or what caused the financial meltdown, I'd suggest reading this piece on Factcheck.org -- skip down to the "The Real Deal" section for the executive summary, which concludes with:

The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) the crisis is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.

yes a little caricature called Voty pops up and says,"I see you are attempting to vote for Barak Obama, would you like me to help you? Press yes for me to help you change your mind, or press no to vote for John McCain." Bounce Bounce ... Bounce Bounce

They actually made a good game that doesn't get in your way, is available on all the major platforms, actually includes humour and avoids ultramacho bullshit stereotypes except in high caricature, and costs as much as a night at the movies (with popcorn). What the fuck do people need in order to satisfy them? Let me stop you before you answer that: Nobody's going to include a free blowjob in the box.

This is about as good as it gets, you cunts. Get over your holy wars and buy the game, because it's the worst thing except for basically everything else that's going to be released this year.

Great... so the U.S. will soon become another Canada - universal free everything, and good at nothing.

Such as regulating banks?

No, no. Such as educating our children! No, wait... umm, such as providing decent health care to all!! No, no, that's not right either... hmmm, such as winning the war on terrorism!! No, wait, we suck at that too; maybe I meant the war on drugs!! Crap, we lost that one too... Oh I know this .... oh yeah -- exporting crappy caricatures of ourselves on television!!! Hah! America rules!! (the US-America that is). Take that, great white north!!

that was hardly the point of the post, that was just a simplified caricature of our current situation.

the point is, even though the amount of money a CEO got pales in comparison to what is being thrown around now: the CEO is in the position to guide policy at their corporations, and the lesser amount of money is still more than sufficient to cause short term focus to become their most rational course of action, as long as they don't care about the fallout once they are gone.

In other words, while what is happening NOW is a much greater inefficiency in the system than that caused by the "free market" directly, actions taken by those in the free market can result in this sort of conundrum, even when their direct actions were for much lesser sums of money, individually.

Maybe the GP meant it in the sense of that Microsoft will now no doubt pull out the old "zomg open sores is SOCIALIST!!11!1!" chestnut, only this time with "SEE?!?/?1! IT IS AN U DIDNT BELEIVE US!!1!" to back it up.

If your argument stands on its own, it shouldn't require you to belittle your opponents. Last I checked (at the risk of providing an opening for a moronic joke), MS is not staffed by immature 11 year olds.

I'm neither here nor there on the merits of your argument, but please argue with facts, not some hideously exaggerated caricature of your opponent.

Did you miss the part that said "Despite nationwide public support for his initial death sentence"? This isn't the Afghan government opressing it's citizens, it's the citizens asking the government to kill this man.

This British chick once said a joke to me:
"What's twenty foot long and wrapped around a cunt?
A turban".

Their desperately ruthless and violent ways only help to reinforce western caricatures of these people.

But you see, this is what happens when you drive a country into utter misery, when the Soviet Union and the United States had a grand old Cold War party, then when the Soviet Union pulled out, the United States left a broken country to its' own devices, making the rise of these desperately violent attitudes very easy.

Here's another simultaneous phenomenon within the United States: the Ronald Reagan policy of backing ruthless regimes in Central America is the direct cause of the Mara Salvatrucha, brutalized as children, all they know are brutality, and are by far the most pitiless of gangs that prowl the streets of many US cities, especially Los Angeles.

Actual christians (instead of the caricatures and straw men you see on slashdot and elsewhere) are rather happy about adult stem cell therapies and wholeheartedly support them.

Speaking as one of those fundamentalist christains you've been warned about, I support adult stem cell research.

Actual christians (instead of the caricatures and straw men you see on slashdot and elsewhere) are rather happy about adult stem cell therapies and wholeheartedly support them.

*sigh*, here we go again.

*Sigh*, here we go again. You're a flagrant and unabashed Christian bigot here on Slashdot- probably in your personal life too-, your ethical, political and religious argumentation are sophomoric and ignorant on top of closed-minded and wrong-headed, and you are in no position to condescend, so you need to drop your impudent attitude. Either interact with your fellow humans as if they and their opinions had intrinsic dignity and mattered, or don't interact with them.

["secular humanism" is] a dogmatic ruleset...

From a guy who spent last week (or the one prior?) trying to abuse ZFC to argue that *all* such [moral] rulesets are necessarily dogmatic, that is a disingenuous accusation, above and beyond its falsity.

(and not a very well defined one)...

1) the term is recent, but the ideas to which it applies are deeply tied to classical and modern ethics, which are quite well-defined after millennia of scrutiny
2) your ignorance of the subject matter is not a basis for refuting either its efficacy or morality, or responding in an informed way at all
3) despite (1) and (2), you have managed to write ~3 pages of putative refutation aimed "at" this target, after claiming it is a *non*-target in the present post alone

Believing in the flying spaghetti monster is [not at all rational]...

That's its point; it's caricature, illustrating by exaggerating the essential features that belief without and certainly in spite of evidence is irrational. Your comparison of "belief" in a moral system's efficacy (opining that it is indeed moral) to "belief" that some deity, pasta-oriented or otherwise, is part of reality is equivocating on the word "belief". They're distinct kinds of propositions: the former is meta-ethical (epistemological, arguably), while the latter is ontological.

Believing in the flying spaghetti monster is [as irrational] as your specific dogma.

Humanism does not require irrational ontological beliefs, and therefore is not dogmatic in any sense in which the word "dogma" is used in modern English. It seems you realize your own ontological beliefs are dogmatic and you seek to convince others that all beliefs are dogmatic so that your own position doesn't seem any the worse. Thus the dig that belief [in the existence of the] FSM: you attempt to drag down your opponent's position until it looks no less unreasonable than your own.

...you might as well respect the 10 commandments, the difference would be tiny.

That statement is false; it reflects that:
1) you are simply unfamiliar with the moral system you assail
2) you are unfamiliar with the scope with which it's possible (and customary) to specify ethical systems
3) perhaps as a consequence of (2), you are uncritical of the "10 commandments" to the extent you don't realize how limited is their scope (they range from prohibition of individual, limited acts to petty, ritualistic theological imperatives)

If you had mentioned the ethic of reciprocity, you would be correct in a hollow sense. Christian theology doesn't have a monopoly on this, of course; it is much older and more widespread than Christianity. The argument would be tautological, because humanism embodies it. That it should show up wherever humans are thinking, and certainly in all their religions and moral systems, is evidence that it is indeed in some sense categorical. Humanism is the name for this grain, freed from the chaff of religion. So your next statement is a real facepalm:

In other words, you have a Christian ideology without the person of Jesus named.

In other words, you have a humanist ideology with some incidental, untenable, and parochial theology grafted on. Please consider the irony of this, and

Bwa ha ha.

There's been plenty of protests. It's just that it's morphed from the somewhat political outdoor party to an outdoor party with somewhat political overtones. It's still just an excuse for people with too much time on their hands to get together to bang on bongoes, shout, and kinda' move around in motions that are almost, but not entirely, unlike dancing, wear stupid clothing, go let hygiene slide, and sell overpriced herbs, incense, and the occasional "dose" of "medical" marijuana.

Some are organized, some are stupid, some are vulgar...

But they're about as helpful as they've always been. A caricature of the real demonstrations and protests that HAVE been effective for reasons that the organizers of college protests will never understand.

It's not exactly like the members of the Anglican church filled the streets, burned effigies of the Resistance devs and shouted "Death to Japan" when that happened. Remember the Mohammed caricatures? Islam has a very different "style" of dealing with such things. It's really a shame that the entire world has come to live in fear of a bunch of fundamentalists who can only be described as the rednecks of the middle east. I find it really peculiar that the islamic world has such a great sense of humor sometimes and when it comes to their illusory beliefs they go all bombs and burka on our ass. It's so ridiculous.

Well they do - I'm one. Of course, being a liberal means you're for limited government and personal freedoms, which is far removed from the caricature painted by the likes of Rush and Ann Coulter. Of course Neo-cons aren't conservatives - there really aren't any conservatives or liberals around these days - they just disagree on how to screw with us. I'd say they're largely authoritarian.

My main beef with Home is the fact that the average real-life looking avatar seems to be a hip 20 something with a slim athletic build and angsty haircuts (what Sony probably believes is their main demographic). I'm not some fat dork but I'm close to 35 so I really having problems connecting with the avatar. Meeting up with pals in Home would be ridiculous when everyone looks like someone fresh from college. Miis and the new Live avatars while a lot more simple offer a better way to create a good caricature of yourself. Sony should watch and learn.