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2600 Staffer Arrested During Republican Convention
Addendum: I find it amusing that people are so pissed about me using Slashdot to editorialize my opinions. I've been doing this for 3 years, why would I stop now? If you want unbiased news, read the mainstream press... look how honest and unbiased their coverage is! We're humans here, with actual opinions and everything. Besides, if I don't get to soapbox once in awhile, wouldn't Slashdot be boring?
I find it amusing that I've recieved pretty much equal mail from democrats (Rah rah! Way to state the case!) and republicans (I will no longer read Slashdot because I don't think you should be allowed to have opinions and obviously your opinions are stupid. And you are stupid too. And I hate you). Both missed the point: I don't like either party (I don't even like parties). But I really detest Bush. And since this is America, I can say that! And you can disagree! Hooray!
If someone can't afford health care, good food, and safe living conditions, then why the hell are they having children??
First and foremost, it's because they're financially rewarded for doing so. The more children you have, the less tax you pay (if you pay taxes), and the more welfare you receive (if you receive welfare).
Second, it's because American society's view of sexuality is skewed. People are afraid to discuss contraception and abortion openly. Some people (you know who they are) commit terrorist atrocities like killing doctors who perform abortions, or lesser atrocities like harrassing women who visit clinics. Various religious groups (you know who they are) try to enforce their particular moral perversions -- homosexuality is a sin, masturbation is a sin, contraception is a sin, pre-marital sex is a sin, adultery is a sin, prostitution is a sin, ad nauseum -- upon everyone else by buying relevant legislation. Oh, and besides that, they try to prevent children from learning anything about sex.
In an environment like that, is it really a surprise that there are unwanted pregnancies? And that they're carried to term?
A lot of people don't know this, but the police standard for using pepper spray is not "violence" or "resistance", but merely "non-compliance". That is, if they tell you to do something, and you don't, they can blast you with the shit. The fact that you are "peaceful" doesn't matter.
This came to the forefront with a videotape of a (greenpeace?) protest in California, where peaceful protesters had their eyelids held open and pepperspray applied directly to their eyeballs with cotton swabs.
What really sucks is that the police are always championing new gadgets as allowing them to use less force. I.e., "We should be allowed to use the Arwen gun / pepperspray / tazer so that we won't have to shoot armed suspects". Sometimes new weapons are used like that, but usually it works the other way: the police are allowed to use more force when they would otherwise have had to resolve the situation through other means (waiting people out, or the looks-bad-on-tv billyclub).
because what he wrote was not "views". It was
- Flamebait
- Troll
- Offtopic
- Overrated
and the complaints should be considered as moderation. If he had written something halfway Inciteful, Informative, or even just reasoned, folks would have had a chance to counter argue. But just to get up and shout "Bush sucks" is what Slashdot is not all about.so it's the tyranny of twits that will take away rob's editorial freedom, not a takeover by andover. i'm not all that surprised...
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1) the minority in any group is the one that makes the largest stink, makes the most heated flames, hurls the largest stones, etc.
2) no matter how much you hate AC's, you eventually act like one (Hi CmdrTaco! *Waves)
3) we all like RMS, ESR, CmdrTaco, and other zealots... untill they disagree with us.
4) you can always tell the ones that look like they're going to lose an arguement, because they hit the lowest.
the moral of this post?
you're not going to agree with everyone. deal with it.
you're a commie, she's a socialist, that guy over there is a conservative, that cute girl is a democrat. that guy with the big muscles is a libertarian. the guy picking flowers is of the green party.
my opinion stinks like a big festering sewer treatment plant.
your's does too.
now shut the fuck up, and get along with the rest of the world.
thank you for your time.
In a sense you're right: you must vote for one party or the other. Either the party that says that government is most fit to run your life, or the party that says that YOU are most fit to run your life. Do you thing that G.W. Bush and Al Gore are best fit to run your life?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Well, I can't argue with you about the beer...
Well, they're a pedestrian, sure. Just like someone who drives around in circles in the highway is a "motorist". There are appropriate behaviours for both pedestrians and motorists -- and in both these cases, the correct behaviour simply amounts to being considerate to those you share the road with.
Hijacking public assets....so if I refuse to leave a park area after I have my picknick to lounge around should be illegal?
Using a park area is not "hijacking public assets", unless you're making the entire park unusable for others.
"Public assets" belong to the public.
Exactly. And since they are shared resources, no-one has the right to monopolize access to them.
To assume that one person or a set of people should not be allowed to make use of it is ludicrous.
Exactly. That is why the protestors were wrong to block the area and make it unusable for others.
I understand where you are coming from, but with your interpretation a citizens right to protest and assemble is restricted to private property
Not at all. You can also assemble on public property, as long as you don't make large amounts of public property unusable for others in the process. There's a difference between blocking the interstate and using an area like a public park.
The Libertarian candidate, Harry Browne, is much better than any of the other candidates this year. He views things with an open mind and seems to agree almost completely with me and most people I know on the issues. Of course, he is in favor of legalizing drugs, which I'm biased towards, but in general he seems to be a much more worthy candidate. He's obviously not going to win, but I'd rather give him my support than anybody else.
There was a big writeup about him on Smokedot a few weeks back: http://smokedot.org/article.pl? sid=00/07/26/0014226.
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I dont have the link, but there was an article on Salon.com about the protesters who were being held more than 48 hours without a phone call allowed, most of them had not been fed, and half of the cell blocks had the water turned off, so they could not use the toilets. One of the 'protestors' arrested was a jogger who happened to get caught in the crowd.
Something changed in America after the WTO riots. Somehow the police think they have carte blanche to treat citizens like animals for utilizing their right of free assembly and free speech. I can't see the difference between how China is treating members of the Falun Gong and whats happening in Philadelphia (and what did happen) in Seattle.
We argue and fight for our online rights, but those online rights wont mean anything if we cant use those same rights in public, in the 'real' world.
Check out Magic Firesheep!
I'm sorry, but you're simply talking out of your ass. You talk to any policeman, FBI agent, etc. worth is salt and he'll tell you the same thing: It's extremely difficult to restrain someone without hurting them at all. Add to this:
a) A possible large weight advantage
b) A possibly active/violent subject
c) Possible training in how to resist arrest
d) Noisy and chaotic surroundings
e) Potentially dangerous crowd situation....
then you try and move this person.
A little of any martial art does not qualify you as an expert, especially when all you know is the classroom. If you really believe your mock struggle is the same as that of an enraged man, then you need a few more lessons.
Furthermore, even if you assume that you are right here, where are these great officers supposed to come from? I don't see you volunteering. I don't see you volunteering your tax dollars either. Nor are you willing to give the policemen respect or the benefit of the doubt. So what is your contribution here, other than Monday morning armchair quarterbacking (quite literally I might add)?
This is the best article I've read posted to Slashdot in a long time. Kudo to CmdrTaco for standing up for opinion. And, hey, I happen to agree. There is no basis for the election of a president who used cocaine during his "formative" years and lies to the general public about such use (this is even before he's president) -- when at the same time he stands together with those -- mostly Republicans -- who choose to bash the current president over a perfectly legal sexual encounter. Vote NO for neW Coke!
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He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
Your right to assemble doesn't give you the right to break other laws or city ordinances (remember, your rights end right were mine start). And you don't have to be injuring people and/or destroying property to be breaking the peace. Blocking traffic for hours (for example), is certainly not a right and is in not protected by the first amendement (or any other amendement) even if you're doing so to protest.
:) Like you (or the US) invented democracy or something...
People that were really demonstrating peacefully were left alone. There were tons of such demonstrations all over philly, and they were left alone.
Those that chose to break the law (or were conspiring to) are facing the full wrath of the justice system. Excuse me if I don't feel bad - especially when we saw the alternative in Seattle not too long ago.
Coming from a country that is just a tad older than the US I find your arrogance amusing
Is this (BMD + border guards) indeed Libertarian Party policy, and do you think it sensible or not?
:-)
Yes, it is, and no, I don't.
But I disagree with a hell of lot more Democrat policies and actions, and Republican policies and actions.
George Bush wants to greatly increase defense spending. Al Gore wants to greatly decrease defense spending.
Harry Browne wants to basically leave defense spending alone, but shift a lot of it away from foreign adventures and into a national missile defense system. That sounds pretty sensible to me.
George Bush thinks the answer to prosperity is to cut taxes on the rich, so they'll be able to pay more to employees. Al Gore thinks the answer to prosperity is to raise taxes on the rich and give it to the poor.
Harry Browne thinks the answer to prosperity is let people keep their damn money, instead of taking it away from them in the first place. The founding fathers agreed, it wasn't until the early 20th Century that we strayed.
Yes, Harry and I disagree on a couple of points; but George and I disagree on more, and Al and I probably couldn't agree on a restaurant. We certainly don't agree on Tipper.
I will not vote for anyone who doesn't agree with me on both of these points:
1) No restriction of my First Amendment rights, short of a clear and present danger to others.
2) No restriction of my Second Amendment rights, short of a clear and present danger to others.
Bush fails on the former, and Gore fails on both. Browne passes with flying colors.
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How was this the haves vs. the have nots? It seemed to be the violent protesters vs. the police. Just because you do not have does not If a guy pushes a police officer off his bike give you the right to destroy public and private property. People too lazy to vote are quick to flip dumpsters in the street. Have nots? These people are well funded. They seem to have.
As for the police being heavy handed...how so? should he sit on the ground and take it? When they press against mounted police spooking horses and thus threatening the police, the horse, and the people nearby should they do nothing? When they destroy property should they do nothing?
You seem to forget theat there were days of peacefull protests that were held without incident.
What was their cause? It seemed to be just to disrupt society and the political process. The system has all sorts of ways to create change. Violence is not they way.
Finally, China (the government) could care less what the US does within its borders. They only car about our foreign policy. Arresting violent protesters is the RIGHT thing to do.
-- soldack
The problem here is that you seem lack a sense of proportion. As a general rule protesting, failing to clear the road, disrupting traffic etc are harmless acts and at worst you should be expected to pay a fine and be on your way. Beating and mutilations are not just punishment in a free society.
A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
War is necrophilia.
apparently, you're just plain stupid: I already did enlighten you. I didn't say slashdot wasn't his site, I said [repeating myself] considere the comments as moderation according to the system that Rob invented. If you wanna run your mouth around the big kids, you're gonna hafta do better than you did.
if rob posts something to his site it is by definition on-topic. and it's ok, i'm fine with my normal crowd[0], no need to run around with "big kids." as far as being flame bait and a troll, it's my hope that the people who consider it to be so go back to whatever cave they came from and go do something useful[1].
[0] the "clueful and able to spell" gang.
[1] discovering fire would be wise for those in the norther hemisphere - winter is coming.
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More importantly, the guy is way ahead of all the other third party candidates, is on the ballot in 30 states already (including Montana :-)
Nitpick: whoever the reform party candidate is --- either Buchanan or Hagelin, we'll find out this week --- will be on the ballot in all fifty, and get matching funds, as well.
First off, thanks for a reply. And I think now that I've calmed down a bit, I can probably accept the fact that many of the accusations made against the police are pretty much false or blown way out of proportion.
I'm a loyal 2600 subscriber myself, and I believe in the things that they are fighting for, but sometimes I get the feeling that the whole truth isn't being told.
I'll try to be patient while waiting to find out exactly what whatshisname did to get arrested.
Transfer more money over to the private sector where businesses are reeling in the significant drop in employee productivity as we deal with a national drug addiction.
... other ... susbtances, usually hallucinogens.
I'm a reasonably productive software engineer for a major corporation, as are most of my friends. Many people in my social circle, including me, are regular pot smokers, and occasionally indulge in
My employer hasn't been complaining about massive drops in productivity recently, nor have my friends' employers. In my case, because my use of drugs *increases* when my general morale is better, i tend to be *more* productive when i'm using --- because both increased use and increased productivity are side-effects of morale improvement.
Well, at least he didn't advocate stepping up the fight against terriers. (that was Bush Jr.)
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Upon further reflection of the whole incident, combined with the obscenely small amount of information being released about anything at all dealing with these riots, I'm inclined to agree that not everything is being said here.
While Mr. Phone guy was probably doing something suspicious (he is a cracker / cracker / phreak, I would presume) I don't know that he'd do something to get him into trouble, as those 2600 blokes are in more than enough. But I guess we'll see what happens eventually.
Sounds like Philly is using a stripped down version of Chicago circa 1968. Would that make it picoDaley ;-)
BTW, that was the Democratic national convention in Chicago, 1968. (yes, when I was a kid I got to watch it on local TV as it happened, did not have to wait for the history spin machines)
Police misconduct transcends political parties.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
I'm not, but a good friend of mine lives there. Your calmer, gentler police put his head through a car windshield, and he hadn't hurt anyone or damaged any property. Of course your local news shows only happy pictures, what the hell else do you expect? It's owned by the same people that bought the politicians.
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Communication is only possible between equals
I'm sure if you asked all 400+ people who were arrested in Philidelphia during the convention, every single one will say "I was just walking down the street, minding my own business!", too.
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seumas.com
Is the New York Times a good journal? Does it represent good journalism? Now have you ever read it? NOW tell me honestly, aren't they have a certain opinion bias?
Breaking up a monopoly like Microsoft, a "socialist" move? Shee, go visit a socialist country, it's full of monopolies. Monopolies work AGAINST the capitalistic free market.
If Dubya is elected, it will be an insult for me to have to look at the guy every time he gets up and talks. The guy is a moron, and it is obvious he doesn't know shit.
Gore may have had the "inventing the internet" fiasco, but he is still easily the better choice for anyone that cares about tech issues. His poorly worded comment was actually about his support in congress for facilitating faster development of a nationwide network (which was absolutely true. He was the guy who coined "info superhighway", and although lame, his intentions are good).
Personally I'm voting for a third party - either Nader or Browne - because that is really the best thing I can do with my vote. They won't win, but if more people vote for third parties, they will get more respect, and who knows? We just might have a system with several legitimate parties, which would be a Good Thing.
But since the race is between Gore and Dubya, Gore had better win. It is imperative that Dubya loses this election.
"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is"
Vidi, Vici, Veni
There was an interesting article in the local paper yesterday about the police allowing more vocal critics to participate in training exercises. The general consensus seemed to be that the job was a lot harder than most people thought and that it's much, much easier to make claims like yours than to decide what would be "a measured and acceptable way" to act in the short amount of time available. This definitely did not mean, however, that everyone decided the cops were completely in the right, just that the problem is a lot more difficult than most people think.
__
How about a dose of anti-Bush jr. propaganda.
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Yeah, I'm voting for Al Gore too.
The concept of illegal plants and animals is obnoxious and ridiculous.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
I'm tired of living in a socialist country (Canada), and while I'm not too enthused by either the Democrats or the Republicans, Ralph Nader is not the answer that the USA wants or needs.
I'm a social liberal, but a fiscal conservative. What does that mean? It means that I believe abortions should be legal and obtainable, the government shouldn't have to pay for them. Nor should the HMOs. (Really, 9 times out of 10, an unwanted pregancy could have been avoided through responsible use of birth control.) I believe in freedom of speech, gay and lesbian marriage, racial equality without affirmative action, and labor costs being driven by free market capitalism without the artificial inflation and meddling that unions do.
If I were an American citizen, I'd have no idea who to vote for. On one hand, the Republicans make fiscal sense. On the other hand, they're also fundamentally evil, protected by an impermeable shroud of religious self-righteousness. On one hand, the Democrats believe in the same things I do, but on the other hand, they're also big proponents of labor unions and punishing environmental laws that will screw all businesses and individuals.
Nasty.
Yeah? Well at least us Canadians don't leave our poor out on the street to die because we're too cheap to give them medical attention. Private insurance systems are all fine and dandy for those who can afford them, but that's not everybody.Ahh, but this statement really irks me, speaking as a Canadian. I'll tell you a story that underscores all the flaws with socialized medicine.
It was the day that Princess Diana died. I remember this, because it was on all the TV sets in the hospital waiting room.
I was feeling really shitty, and was able to diagnose my ailment. I had strepped throat, and needed an antibiotic prescription.
Of course, to save OHIP (Ontario's provincial "HMO"), I tried first to go to a walk-in clinic. Of course, it was a Sunday evening, so they were all closed. Feeling bad that I was going to go to a hospital emergency room (it costs the government a lot), I had to do it anyway.
At 9:PM, I arrived, and told the triage nurse that I had strepped throat and that I needed a prescription. I was told to sit down, that a doctor would be with me soon. "Soon", of course, implies a geological time frame, with things there happening about as fast as continental drift.
So, I sat in the waiting room, one of three people there; a little kid with a sprained finger (and his mother, but she didn't count), a guy with a small gash to his face, and me.
At ten o'clock, a homeless guy shuffled in, spoke with the nurse, and then, of course, sat down beside me. There were about fifty seats free, but he had to sit beside me. I love derelicts. They always harass me. I hope they all freeze to death.
The derelict proceeded to try to make small talk with me, and I really wasn't interested in having anything to do with him. He stank. He was gross. And I did find out that he was in there because he had tried to shoot up his heroin with a bent needle. The needle had broken off in his arm. That had been three days ago.
After an unbearable hour of moving from seat to seat and having this guy follow me and keep talking to me, he was called in. Ten o'clock.
I was called in at midnight, into the same examining room as the derelict had been in. His stench was still there. The doctor made me open my mouth, took a look, told me it looked like I had strepped throat (which I had told the triage nurse) and wrote me a prescription for Keflex 150mg (I'd suggested Keflex 200mg). Five minutes in the examining room, preceeded by a three hour wait with unsavory characters.
This, I'd suggest to you, is a good example of why socialized medicine doesn't work. I'd like to think that I'm worth more to Canadian society than a homeless person who shoots up smack with damaged syringes. But apparently, I'm not. I'd like to think that, in a weakened state, I wouldn't have to be harassed by the homeless people this country (and in particular, the City of Toronto) panders to.
I'd like to think that because I work hard and have useful skills, I'd be treated better than those who don't. If working hard doesn't offer me any benefits, why bother doing so?
I don't feel it's right that medical coverage isn't provided as a basic right to all Americans, especially the working poor. But I do feel that as part of my reward for being a contributing member of society, I should also have some sort of priority - better hospitals, better service, freedom from harassment in the waiting rooms.
The Canadian health care system is one extreme; the American health care system is the other. What is needed is a happy medium.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
What's wrong with extending that to health care, supporting the needlessly unemployed etc.
Sure.
Even better, let's divide the wealth of the country equally among all of its citizens. That sounds like a great idea, too, doesn't it? Everybody enjoys the fruits of the country's successes.
It's great on paper.
Problem is, it doesn't take into account a pair of fundamental flaws with human nature. People are lazy, and people will take advantage of the system when they can.
The system is called communism. And when you know that you're going to get your 50 rubles a week depending on whether you actually go to work or not, what's the point in going to work?
Similarily, what's the point in saving up in case you find yourself unemployed or (gasp!) fired for never showing up at work on time, if you know the government will take care of you?
The best never see any rewards for their efforts, and consequently won't try as hard. The worst never see any punishment for their uselessness, and therefore never have an incentive to work harder. The net effect is that the country's gross domestic product drops, its international value decays, and the society will fall into recession and poverty.
Look at where Russia is. Look at the mess of the former Soviet countries. Look at the quality of life of the average Chinese person.
Why is this such a difficult concept for people who espouse socialism to understand?
Canada is a socialist country; socialism and communism are kissing cousins. And since Canada embarked on its path to socialism, its economy hasn't grown at the same rate as our big brother to the south. It hasn't prospered. It's full of trade unions jacking up labor rates so that City of Toronto parking attendants make $21/hr, which is more than I make with my substantial computer skills.
I hate living in Canada. Until things change here, Canada will continue to go downhill.
I'm a 26 year old Canadian, and on the wall in my bedroom is an American flag. It's a long story, but it was given to me by the US Ambassador to Canada when Clinton visited Ottawa (Canada's capital) in 1994, and I worked on the visit. But the flag is there, hanging on my wall, reminding me where I want to be, and what it is that I'm working for.
I'm working for freedom from the oppression of high taxes, the stifling regime of a government that rewards those who don't plan ahead.
I work my ass off, not for financial reward and the comfort they will buy me (because in Canada, it's nearly futile, and the rich are generally looked down on). I work my ass off so that I can move to the United States, become and American citizen, and carry the responsibility and rewards of being an American.
Like many skilled young Canadians today, that's my driving goal.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
The following is all absolutely true, especially about the quality of Canadian medical care. The information was relayed concisely and responsibly by an individual who took the time to speak his piece carefully.
I happen to live in Canada, and I happen to agree with him, which is why I question the motivation behind this post having been moderated to "flamebait". It clearly isn't flamebait, though the moderator who did it disagreed with what was said.
When I get moderator access, I don't moderate down stuff I disagree with. I only moderate up or down the posting based on the *quality* of the post, not whether or not I agree with it.
Censoring ideas that don't agree with those of the prevailing forces are sure signs of socialist and communist thinking.
Because it's not how human beings operate. If people would stop being selfish a**holes we wouldn't need capitalism. At least capitalism rewards innovation[sic] and hard work. Socialism breeds laziness, it is a proven fact. Until we grow up, capitalism is the best way for us ALL to make something good out of our lives. I would rather die than be cornered into a way of life by the government.And about Canada's healthcare system: Have you checked out the value of the Canadian dollar yet? Sheesh, it sucks. 15% or more in sales tax?? And they have very poor healthcare because people who want to be doctors want to make money, so the good doctors leave CDA for the US, leaving the hacks to take care of the homeland.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I agree. Just because a few people were stupid and took corners too fast for a rear-engine car, that's no reason to kill the car.
However, that stupid 90-degree fanbelt arrangement was pretty bad. I've never seen a fanbelt in one of those last longer than 2,500 miles.
<grin>
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Given that Rob himself says "I'm abusing Slashdot", I think complaints that Rob is abusing Slashdot are inherently credible and reasonable. After all, if the site's creator thinks it's an abuse of his creation....
Or are Republicans simply not allowed to exercise free speech? It's not like we're trying to shut down Slashdot, we're just saying our opinion. Or do you think people should be prohibited from protesting other peoples' statements? Or that only the right people should be allowed to protest?
Steven E. Ehrbar
Another thing: to claim that he is somehow abusing his position by throwing his slant into the headlines is nonsense.
Interesting. CmdrTaco himself says that he's abusing Slashdot, so obviously CmdrTaco is talking nonsense....
Steven E. Ehrbar
That's called "communism". And while it's the prevailing Canadian attitude, I'll continue to work my ass off to get out of this country.
And while skilled and talented people leave Canada for greener pastures in the United States, Canada's place in the world will continue to decay and decline as did Russia's, and East Germany's, and Poland's, and Czechoslovakia's and...
BTW, speaking as a 26-year-old Canadian, once I'm gone, I'm gone. I'm not going to upset my life and risk everything to move back to a country that has such an inertia toward a Marxist ideal that has been proven impractical if not impossible in country after country.
And one poor person dying on the streets is far too many.I'd call that Darwin's theory at work. In developed counties, the poor are usually that because they're stupid or they consistently make bad decisions (same thing), they're lazy or they're addicted. If you want to get out of poverty badly enough, you can. Oprah Winfrey and Ross Perot are great American examples of this. Anthony Hopkins grew up in abject poverty in a coal-mining town in Wales (United Kingdom). And Jim Carrey grew up in a shack in Scarborough (Toronto, Canada). All of these people proved that poverty can be beaten. Those who don't beat it apparently don't care to. Screw 'em; if they don't want to help themselves, why should I have to?
Canada is so bent on trying to help everyone that I should be able to file a paper somewhere in Ottawa and get a government grant to pay for the costs of the immigration lawyer who will get me into the USA. (In all seriousness, I'm going to call my legal counsel and ask him to look into that for me. Once he's done laughing, if there's a way to do it, I assure you that he will.)
Shed no tears for the Canadian in me on the day that I stand before the judge and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
But first, I have a couple hundred karma to troll away...
kwsNI
Net loss in doctors every year...health care depends on doctors...you figure it out.
Not to mention that the Canadian government provides thousands of dollars to the education of each and every one of those med students who eventually graduates and flies the coop.
I can't say that I blame them, either. If I were interested in a career as a physician, you can bet your ass that I'd get my schooling in Canada and my career in the United States.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
In an era where the voice of many is not being heard, some people go to extraordinary means in order to be heard. Your solution to this problem (voices not being heard) is to throw said voices into jail?
But then again, this is nothing new. Labor activists of the 1930's had worse problems, between the American Legion serving as America's own equivalent of the "brown shirts" to break up "lefty" protests, and rampant "red baiting" of union organisers. Reading some of the archives from the 30's and 40's, I get a sense of deja vu... the mainstream press of the day was "oh, everything's fine, nothing's happening, just a few protesters arrested for disorderly conduct, that's all", while the lefty press was complaining that their people were being jailed left and right without due process of law, beaten by American Legionnaires under the approving eyes of the local constabulary for being "anti-American", etc. The more things change, the more they don't.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
The Philly police are probably the most unprofessional major city police force in the country. Police work is a hard job. It requires a lot of training and a lot of professionalism to do well, and, most importantly, requires LEADERSHIP. IT is obvious that the Philly police force is lacking in training and in professional leadership. My own personal suggestion to residents of Philidelphia is that they start at the top -- fire the police chief and his top lieutenants, and re-stock with top staff from a city where community policing is an everyday occurance rather than a merely-mouthed buzzword.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Original quote in bold; content adjusted by BigBlockMopar in plain text.
There are lots of high tech jobs open because Canadians are constantly moving south for better paying, lower taxed opportunity in a land of real freedom
particularly in telecommunications which is important because in January you can't go outside without freezing your testicles off, so you need a good telephone - in fact, the government even subsidizes Northern Telecom to the tune of $100,000,000+ a year
we have a decent health care system as long as you don't get sick, because all the MRI machines are in Buffalo, NY
few homeless, since the cardboard boxes all over Toronto are assessed property taxes
over half the fresh water in the world but it's in glaciers 2 miles thick, above the arctic circle, where intelligent people don't go voluntarily (too damned cold and desolate, I've been there).
damned good immigrant and local food you can have poutine, beaver tails and Chinese snake soup in the same Toronto restaurant. Yummy.
culture and festivals especially Caribana, which has had at least one murder a year for the past 5 years
and are ranked best country to live in for the seventh straight year in a row by the U.N. whose representatives obviously don't consider it a little divisive that you can take the Canadian citizenship test in 27 different languages.
Cape Breton Island has the best fiddle players in the Americas
Wow. That just reminds me how proud I am to be Canadian. Oh, boy. What about Rita McNeil's tea-room in Nova Scotia?
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I mean, I was following you and agreeing with you until THAT: "and this is exactly the kind of thing that went on in Germany in the 20s & 30s, and disturbingly more and more of it is going on in America today"
Needless to say, Godwin, you lose, and no kidding, if you actually KNEW something about history you would avoid making that kind of ridiculous statement.
Molly Ivins has a nice book on the subject: "Shrub: The short but happy political life of George W. Bush". It appears that "Shrub" ("He ain't big enough to be a full-blown bush") has done the following for Texas:
In response to American companies being sued by residents of the shanty towns near the border because dozens of babies were being born without brains or with other heinous birth defects due to lack of enforcement of environmental laws, Bush pushed for a "tort reform" law making it harder to sue for environmental crimes. You can no longer sue a group of polluters as a class action, you must sue them one at a time individually, and must prove that your baby was born without a brain because of that particular factory's mercury dumping (for example). The net effect was to give criminals, murderers who have killed dozens of innocent children in South Texas, immunity from the law. But that's okay, they have money and the residents of the shanty towns don't. In George W. Bush's universe, if you don't have money, you don't count.
In order to avoid having to report on environmental problems in Texas, Bush basically oversaw the reassignment of all state water quality inspectors to other duties. Texas now relies upon industries to "voluntarily" test their water and "voluntarily" tell the state when the water quality standards are exceeded. In other words, Bush has allowed the fox to police the henhouse.
When a big political contributor's funeral home chain was cited by the state funeral home board for shoddy embalming, Bush spearheaded the charge to fire the head of the state funeral home board, and eventually managed to get the state funeral home board largely eliminated from the budget (meaning that it exists on paper, but no longer has any inspectors or etc. to enforce the laws that are on the books).
Etc. etc. etc. About the only thing that Bush has constantly done well on is education, and that's probably because his wife would bitch-slap him if he didn't do right by her colleagues (she is a former teacher).
Bush has filtered billions in state investments into funds operated by his biggest campaign contributors, as well as steered most big state contracts to his biggest contributors. You thought it was bad that Clinton had the White House for rent for campaign funds.... Bush basically plundered the whole state of Texas, not just abused his official residence!
I am from Louisiana, right next door. We have our own crop of corrupt and colorful politicians. It was quite entertaining for us, though, to find a Texas electing a politician who was even more corrupt than our own Edwin "Honest Eddie" Edwards. As the years passed, we could only shake our heads and say "Man, and I thought Honest Eddie was corrupt!". But then, Honest Eddie used his powers to enrich his personal friends, most of whom were not "movers and shakers", while George W. used his powers to enrich the biggest businessmen in Texas. When corruption is in service to corporations, that's not corruption, that's just Texas, where "the bidness of guvmen't is bidness" and to hell with the taxpayer.
Now Bush's corrupt cronies want to elect him President of the United States to bring that corruption to the national scale. Sorry, I'm not interested.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
You must have misread the article. 1600 new doctors a year -500 doctors to the U.S. is not a net loss of doctors. It is, in fact a net gain of roughly 1100 doctors a year.
--
Mike Mangino
Sr. Software Engineer, SubmitOrder.com
Mike Mangino
mmangino@acm.org
How, praytell? By selling the Soviets the gigantic confidence trick that was SDI? I still can't believe that the Russians fell for it. Then again, the only reason it ever worked is that Reagan was stupid enough to believe his own propaganda . . .
I'm no fan of Russia and China, but spending sixty billion dollars on a missile defence system that *will not work*, is totally ineffective against the one nuclear attack that anyone is likely to try against the US (a smuggled weapon), and is going to piss off two of the world's biggest countries - they're not going to go away, remember - sounds pretty damn silly to me.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Why is there so many gun freaks on slashdot ... I mean you CAN'T all be trolls. Gun freaks are scary. Glad I don't meet any of you IRL.
100 - 26 = 74, quite a bit more than half....
~ppppppppö
I saw this guy on the PBS Newshour, and, sorry, this guy is a loon. I can't believe anyone would claim with a straight face that America's defence needs can be met with border guards and a BMD system. Even ignoring the feasibility of BMD, try seeing what happens when the Middle East decides to cut off the US's oil and the US is totally impotent to do anything about it.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Better to give too much credit to a man who did something, than to pretend the challenge never existed. By your argument, Gandhi just happened to come along and give a few good speeches when the British were ready to leave India anyway.
-cwk.
Actually PDFA stopped taking donations from tobacco and alcohol companies a few years ago, after coming under pressure for it.
IIRC they're now financed heavily by the president's commission on drugs, headed by Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey or whatever his name is.
But you're right about the economics of it. If pot were legal, alcohol users would be switching left and right.
--
It appears that some of you just don't get it.
/. staff in general. Of course, since I'm NOT /. staff, I'm allowed my opinion, lucky me.
Slashdot is not a news source. Slashdot compiles a bunch of links to stories that are of interest to the community that visits here. It doesn't, as a rule, have more than a few sentences about what the link points to. How is that reporting?
The entire point of this place is discussion. A huge ball of geeks spouting their opinions and having some level of intelligent discussion. Why should CT be exempt from that? He created the damn thing, I'd think he could lob his opinion out with the rest of you, eh?
For a group of "geeks" or "elite linux gurus" and generally "smart guys", you are either a load of hypocrites or lack any form of common sense. If you were told to withold your opinion in these discussions from now on, you'd rant and rave for days. When CT volunteers his, you cry like children. This place has never professed to be a geek-inhabited bastion of journalism. It's a crew of opinionated nerds...get used to it.
Interestingly enough, the above is my opinion and doesn't reflect those of
Finally, concerning Taco's views... if I was truly pissed at him for mixing editorial with news content on his site, I would have emailed him personally and said, "Hey, Rob, I don't like how you mixed editorial and news on the GWB blurb." Taco then has three possible responses: he can say, "Fuck off," in which case I stop using /., or he could say, "Good point, I'll stop doing this;" or he could say, "Good point, but it's my site," in which case I could either stop using /. or simply not bother reading articles that have Taco's views, or set my preferences to not show stories posted by Taco. What I would not do is post whining message after whining message like a little crying baby.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
When are you stupid liberals going to realize that in supporting the likes of Clinton and Gore that you are supporting the very people that are undermining things that Slashdot and its readers hold dear like privacy, encryption and FREE SPEECH.
Gore won't even fix a lousy rental house that he owns, how can he be trusted to run the country. (story from our local - Nashville - TV station.) I am from Nashville and I know what I twit Gore is. I just love how he spent his entire life away from Nashville, and then suddenly calls it his home when he figures that he can gain more votes by being seen as a good ole' southern boy. Don't fall for that shit. I also love how he refuses to visit Nashville unless it is in the middle of rush hour, so he can tie up the already horrible traffic for even longer while his motorcade makes its way 15 miles from the airport to his headquarters on the other end of the county. Hey Algore, how much pollution was caused by all that traffic standing still for hours as you drive by? How many hours were wasted that parents (sitting in the traffic jam) could have been spending with their families? Go away - we don't want you here!
I can't believe that people as intelligent as those who read (and operate) Slashdot can be so damned stupid as to fall for the Democratic Party's line of bullshit.
Exactly what the hell has Clinton-Gore done for YOU since 1992? As for me, my taxes have gone up thanks to Clinton's tax increase in 1993 - the largest income tax increase in American history. I work in human resources - I know what happened. And now, Bill Clinton vetoes the repeal of the "marriage penalty". Why the hell should married couples pay higher taxes than people that are not married or couples living together? This same "penalty" cost me an extra $2000 in taxes last year because I got married in November. Even though my wife and I had not lived or worked together before November, we had to cough up $2000 just for being married.
By all means, if you bleeding heart liberal commies think that you are not paying your fair share in taxes already, then get out your checkbooks and write a fucking check to the local, state, or federal entity of your choice.
Have you morons forgotten how Gore himself has insulted your intelligence with garbage like "I invented the internet" and "Gore goes open source"?? And now you want him as president?? WTF??
Also, what the hell do GW Bush or the Republicans have to do with this 2600 guy getting arrested? Need I remind you that Philly's population is almost 5 to 1 DEMOCRATIC. I'll bet that it was a DEMOCRAT that arrested your precious little cracker (or at least there were Democrats involved in the process.) I know it said "This has no relevance, but...", but you are implying that GW or the RNC had something to do with it.
WHEN George W wins in November, I'll be laughing my ass off at all of you.
If I want liberal bias in my news, I'll read the fucking newspaper. I can see that Slashdot is no longer "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." It is now "News for Leftwingpinkobedwettingtreehuggingliberalcommies. Stuff that we hope you'll think matters."
You can take your Karma and your scores and shove 'em up your ass.
"Either the United States will destroy ignorance, or ignorance will destroy the United States." - W. E. B. Du Bois
Out of order? Fuck! Even in the future nothing works! - Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) "Spaceballs"
The local Philadelphia press is probably biased. But the bias is usually AGAINST the cops not for them. The local press here NEVER E-V-E-R missed the opportunity to blow any little (often unsubstantiated) report of police misbehavior into a big scandal and/or some sort of police conspirancy.
So, yes, when the local news has a nothing but great things to say about the police behavior last week, I have a tendency to be very impressed.
They make great moderators in nuclear reactors, and *ahem* are better moderators than Slashdot!
More to the point--there have been _very_ few politicians of whatever party in whatever country in the 20th century who I'd have voted for if I could have a Carbon rod instead!
What are you talking about? Slashdot is more like the editorial and oped (letters to the editor) section of a newspaper then actual news. Sure, news is often the basis posts but most of the posts have at least an implicit bias.
The key to dealing with bias is to make your own decisions. If you don't agree with a bias then post your disagreement with an explicit or an implicit bias. But I don't think it is useful to oppose bias itself.
The government has no right to interfere with people's personal freedom as it is currently doing. Smoking marijuana only has the potential to hurt the health of the user. An individual should have the right to choose to use it.
:-)
That's why I want all drugs legalized - I don't like how the government can tell me what I can and can't put into my own body. It should be the choice of consenting adults. I don't care about being able to get fucked up legally - I'm careful enough about it that there's a very low chance I'm going to get busted, since I never smoke pot anywhere but my own living room.
This is why driving while stoned should remain illegal.
I think so too, but you may actually be less likely to get into an accident if you drive stoned as compared to sober, because you tend to drive more slowly and cautiously: Obligatory Smokedot story about this
--
I saw this guy on the PBS Newshour, and, sorry, this guy is a loon.
And George W. "there should be limits on freedom" and Al "I invented the Internet, and v-chips should be in your TV whether you want them or not" Gore aren't loons?
Do you think either of these guys supports the hacker agenda?
If you do, you're sadly mistaken. They are both quite in favor of government sticking it's nose into your bedroom and PC. Their own public statements and records make it quite clear.
A vote for either is a vote against freedom, and what's the alternative? Pat Buchanan? There's a paragon of mental stability for you.
--
Keep in mind, "tax cuts" and "spending cuts" are two different things. Do you really think that if we mindlessly cut taxes, that Congress will cut spending to match? Didn't Reagan try that, and send the debt from 1 to 3 trillion or so during his term?
Taxes were cut at one point during Reagan's term, and revenues WENT UP. (That's right, lower tax rate, higher revenues.) The problem was that the (democrat controlled) congress upped spending more than the added revenue allowed for.
REMEMBER: The congress is the one that ultimately controls spending and taxes, not the president. (Unless it's the FCC levying a constitutionally illegal tax like the Universal Access Charge.)
The whores get mad when the sluts give it away for free.
So, when Rob says "GWB is a dork" I don't find that any more out of place than if he were to say "I really hate Dairy Queen burgers." It's irrelevant to the site. Saying "Corel Linux sucks, I'll never use it on my machine" would be a greater abuse of his editorial position, IMHO.
---
I'm posting because I enjoy /. and don't want to see it become a posting ground for mindless politcal opinions.
And the presidential election isn't news? or are nerds just not supposed to care about stuff like that.
Yes, the presidential election is news. CT's opinion of why Bush sucks isn't. I love hearing the latest news about politics if it has to do with technology. If Taco had said Bush sucks because he supports the DMCA, I wouldn't be supporting him. I don't give a flying fuck about an opinion if it isn't backed up. I also don't fucking care about non-techincal politics when I'm reading /. I'm reading this site because I want technology and science news. If I wanted Rob's opinion of Bush before I go vote, I'd email him.
Anyway, it's actualy "News for nerds, stuff that matters," Idiot.
If it doesn't qualify for the first part, the second is pretty irrelevant. Idiot.
kwsNI
ah, yes, libertarianism american style. i thought the rich people already had enough money, you folks feel the need to get another party in power to get them more money? well, before you go and vote for people that seem to think big business will happily and ethically chug along w/o the government, i suggest you do a little reading.
that ralph nader guy, now there's someone who's got his head screwed on. that kindly big business known as the american auto industry fought safety features on cars tooth and nail till nader forced the gov't to force car companies to offer things like seat belts.
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Haven't you ever heard of an editorial?
You know, the newspaper column where an editor get to express their own viewpoint.
What's the point of having your own newspaper/website if you don't get to tell things the way you see it.
Mabe that's exactly the problem with CNN/ABC - too wishy-washy. Not enough guts to tell things the way they are for fear of losing the bucks.
and you base this comment on?
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Slashdot needs an addition to its moderation system:
(-1, Dumbass)
--
"speaks primarily for the far-left wing of the "geek" population"
as opposed to the far-right? gee, i can see how easy it is to mesh "information should be free" with the far-right cry of "ban/burn the books!"
as much fun as it would be to be transborted to the golden ages of women at home, slaves tending the fields, "pawh" being the master of his home and being able to shoot first and ask questions later, most geeks i know have the following traits:
a) they live on planet earth
b) they paid attention in history class
c) they'd prefer it if the human race
evolved past the republicans core voters.
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Police are given guns by the state.
I suppose it's possible that the police held the man a gunpoint and proceded to injure his ear. "If you don't hold still while I rip your ear, I'm gonna blow your head off!" But I doubt it.
If a policeman is unable to function within the parameters of his training and orders when taunted or insulted verbally
I've seen no evidence that the policeman involved here was merely being taunted or verbally abused. Much more likely is that the two were involved in some sort of struggle which resulted from the one doing something unlawful or destructive and the other having the job of stopping the first. One was injured, and since it wasn't the police officer, it must have been abuse of power.
Any policeman who lashes out at protesters
I didn't see any police lashing out at protestors. I did, however, see a number of protestors lashing out at police. I was just watching the news, so maybe it was media bias.
I found it very interesting when I listened to one of the protestors who claimed in an interview that he (among others) were there specifically to goad the police into a brawl. Now why would they want to do that? Think about that. If they could just force the police to cause bodily harm to them then they could claim that their civil rights were violated and that the police were abusing their power.
Obviously, since the police have guns and the protestors don't, the police should never have to resort to any kind of physical struggle (which very well might result in injury). The police, therefore, have the trump card. Or do they?
The protestors know that the police will never shoot an unarmed assailant. Indeed, the police will never even draw their gun and threaten to shoot an unarmed assailant. This gives them the freedom to do just about anything they like as long as they make sure nobody thinks that they have a weapon. So what do you do when you want to force the police to restrain you? You push, shove, threaten, throw things, destroy property, anything as long as it's obvoius that you are unarmed. Eventually, the police are forced to do something to stop you, and then you've got them right where you want them. Because as soon as the police have to use force to restrain you, it's easy to argue in the arena of public opinion that the force was excessive. The police should never have to use "excessive" force because they carry guns.
Try this: Tell a friend to restrain you. Then do anything you can to resist that restraint. Kick and bite and scratch as if your life depended on it. Unless your friend is a whole lot bigger than you and able to restrain you easily, somebody's probably going to get hurt. Now if your friend has a gun which he is not allowed to use, does that make his effort excessive when he finally does restrain you?
Now, I'm not saying that there's no such thing as abuse of police power or that there are no bad cops. Certainly there is and there are, but I'm doubtful of the rampant proliferation of abusive police officers reported by the popular media. I, for one, don't take the evening news at face value.
Ok. I've ranted long enough. One parting quip:
"Excuse me, sir. Am I going to have to use force to remove you from this vehicle?"
"Why yes, officer. You will."
"Very well, then. Good day, sir."
"Aren't you going to arrest him?"
"Of course not. I would have to use force to arrest him. And in doing so, I might violate his civil rights. Then I would lose my job. Your automobile is merely property, and I'm certainly not putting my job on the line over a property dispute."
"But he's stealing my car!"
"You do have insurance, don't you? I've got a good description of the thief, and if we ever pick him up on another, more serious, charge..."
"But... My car!"
"Don't worry. We usually recover the remains of stolen autos in only a couple of days."
--
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
As a Philadelphian I was vrey pleased with the actions my city and its police dept took during the past week.
"Freedom of Speach" isn't an absolute right; you can be sued for libel, and of course you can't shout the proverbial "fire in the theatre". Similiarly, I think most Americans would argee that the right to assembly does not give you the right to hold hostage a million people by shutting down access routes out of downtown Philadelphia (center city as we call it here), as some protestors did attempt to.
I think the authorities were more than generous in allowing protestors who had intentionally not applied for a permit (to show their so called dissidence) but were willing reasonable enough and could be negotiated with, - to march down a 4 mile stretch of one of the busiest Philly streets, Broad st. They also received full Police protection from traffic that was not expecting to find the street closed.
Most of the protestors who were arrested were not part of an organization with a noble cause. As admitted by several in TV interviews they were there for the sole purpose of disrupting "the event". These scoundrels who would assert that they have a right to block major intersections by overturning dumpsters in the street deserve to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and have clearly overstepped any constitutionally protected rights.
American kids today have a got a lot to learn about political dissidence. Some of the best examples can be seen abroad. Take Natal Sheransnky, a Russian Jew who during the 70s hijacked a plane to bring attention to the plight of Soviet Jewery. He rotted in Jail for about 10 years, but he became a martyr and it benefitted his cause. - and if you think US jails are bad...
My point being, that if you plan on breaking the law to bring attention to your cause (or lack of one) then you must be willing to pay the price - be a martyr. The kids in jail here are a bunch of whining babies. They think that they should be allowed to get away with vandalizing property, assaulting police, and other offenses because they were "protesting"? Boohoo, in Philly we actually enforce our laws.
--Aaron Greenberg
If you consider somoene at whatever website giving his opinion with 0 arguments to back them up as a political evaluation to be taken seriously its only a small step to accepting Taco as your oracle.
He just gave his opinion, dont make more of it than it is.
If he wants to post an editorial, that's fine, but mixing an editorial in with a news story is bad journalism.
:-)
LOL. And since when has Slashdot been about good journalism?
--
Don't forget that ALGORE is also the son of his father, Al Gore Sr., a prominent senator from Tennessee ( link)
Besides, the Kennedy's have been a political dynasty for decades. The only thing that seemed to have stopped it was the unlikely plane crash that killed JFK Jr., who would have probably run for office eventually.
Unfortunately, I'm not a American history expert... but I would be willing to bet that there are many more out there! And you'll notice the trend continuing... it will be tougher and tougher for non "name-brand" politicians to break into the fold. So you'll see more actors, and "son-of"'s, and sports figures...
-rt-
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
if Gore vs. Bush is a choice you don't want to make, sign this petition to get Nader and Buchanan(and maybe Browne, too) into the debates:
c gi
http://green.votenader.org/cgi-bin/petition-sigs.
The CPD is evil.
On the other hand, such a person has to be better presidential material than anyone nominated so far.
As for the 2600 staffer, it's irrelevent as to whether he had done something or not. The point is that US Law decrees that a person be presumed innocent until proven guilty. The day that bored police officers can simply arrest people, without due cause and without due process, is the day that ALL civil liberties become meaningless. It's quite irrelevent as to what is lawful or unlawful, if you can be held without charge, indefinitely, for no reason, stated or unstated. The police then become judge, jury and executioners within their own private legal system, outside of the US Constitution.
IMHO, the Libertarian movement is not much help, either. Without a CLEARLY-DEFINED declaration of what is acceptable, and without that being CLEARLY-ENFORCED, to all people, regardless of status, rank or privilage, you essentially allow for lawless "law-enforcement". How is that a deficit of the Libertarian movement? Well, who is supposed to -watch- the watchers, if not those who elected to represent the views of the watched? But the essence of Libertarianism is to destroy any form of strong Government.
Enough of that gripe, though, and onto a simple solution for this entire mess:
Why the third house? Because you need checks and balances. The two elected houses aren't doing that and so you need something that can. Something with no inherent political bias, where the duration of any one member is so short, bribery & corruption would be pointless, where there are no voters to bribe or deceive, and who genuinely represent a totally random cross-section of the population.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
400+ people have been arrested so far at the republican convention, some are being held for almost a million dollars in bail - more than most people who are taken into custody for robbing banks. The police are arresting people wearing black, riding bicycles, or even talking on certain types of cell phones.
Where's the coverage? Where's the unbiased reporting?
There are a number of instances where organizers were singled out and arrested in a preemptive manner. This is probably why the staff member from 2600 was arrested. You see, the organizers all carry the Nextel phones, because they are cheap and can conference call. Read a number of instances where people were arrested, not read any rights, detained for longer than legal times, not told what they were being charged with, (and here is the shocker) because they happened to be walking by with a Nextel phone.
Do the protesters have valid concerns? Yes, I think so. In Philidelphia, it appears you can walk on civil rights, and get away with it with out so much as a mention from the mainstream media. My favorite site has been Tom Tommorrow's photo shoot of the Republican convention (Tom Tommorrow draws This Modern World.) The highlight in my mind is the part where you have a picture of Sam Donaldson sitting bored complaining about the lack of news, while protesters flooded the streets outside.
Over the past 10 years the Democrats have moved vastly to the right, and the Republicans have moved to the left. What we have right now are two parties that quibble over minor details while agreeing on the big ones. It truely has become a monoparty system. The term "Republicrat" is popping up more and more.
Bill Mahr put it best on his show, Politically Incorrect, "We already have compassionate conservatives. They're called Democrats." This is very true. There really is no voice for the progressive these days--or so the media would have us believe. The fact is, that Ralph Nader is a liberal progressive--and a damn smart person. He is the reason we have some semblance of auto safety standards. He graduated magna cum laude from Princeton in 1955, and from Harvard Law School in 1958. Since then he has tirelessly devoted his life to public service. The guy makes over $300,000/yr and lives off of $25,000--because he gives the rest to civic projects.
More importantly, the guy is way ahead of all the other third party candidates, is on the ballot in 30 states already (including Montana
But, the media has chosen to ignore him.
So rather than throw my vote away by voting for one of the major parties, I'm going to do something this year. I'm going to do my part to get the Green Party recognized so that the Democrats can never again say,"You have to vote for us, we're not Newt Gingrich's party."
-Peter
Voting for the "least worst choice" is still going downhill. Make your vote actually count. Vote Nader
. Penguins Surely Ca
IMO, one of the best things about Slashdot is that its biases are right out there in the open for all to see. If Slashdot has its own agenda then at least we're aware of it. Whereas CNN et al. purport to be objective and unbiased and then feed subtly biased info to the masses. I think the Slashdot model is far more honorable and far more trustworthy.
This site, like most others, is run by human beings with opinions and biases of their own. To try and deny that those biases exist or affect everything we do is futile, and stupid. So we can either embrace and accept them or try and hide them away and wait for them to creep up in some unexpected manner.
Furthermore, CmdrTaco did not sit here and say "Gore is my man, not that hitler bush," he expressed sincere disappointment with BOTH candidates, which is something I'm sure at least 50% of Americans are experiencing right now (including me).
Anybody who thought this site was some kind of bastion of objectivity has obviously never spent any real time here.
__________________________________________________ ___
rooooar
I know the malignant carbon rod has merits... but what about the "inanimate carbon rod" from the Simpsons (in the "Homer in Space" episode), that made the cover of Time Magazine, and had its own parade.
Now that's a carbon rod I would vote for!
-rt-
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one and they all stink.
kwsNI
Cuz I'll buy it :)
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
(This has no relevance, but I'm abusing Slashdot to say that I think Bush is a rotten candidate, and while I don't like Gore, I would vote for a malignant carbon rod for president before I would vote for GWB).
So instead of doing something rational, like voting for a candidate who shares your views, you're going to vote for a schlub who thinks it ought to be legal for the government to tell you to shut up.
I've met George Jr., and while I haven't met Al I've met Str^H^H^HTipper Gore, and told her she was a dangerous idiot to her face. (Well, she heard me, anyway.)
Between the two of them, I'd have to vote for Harry Browne
At least he doesn't think the government should be able to force all schools to censor Internet access if they want Federal funding, or support the v-chip. (Which they both do.)
--
The point is, I don't give a damn about his opinion of a candidate. This is supposed to be "News for Nerds", it's not the place for an opinion piece regarding a non-technical issue.
kwsNI
Go to Cuba?
Why not Canada? Or the UK? Or Germany? Or Sweden?
Oops, sorry, you're using *that* definition of Socialism.
Try to look further than the Bush/Gore microcosm. Anywhere else in the world they would be in the same political party. In many ways, they are.
One party states are bad. Cuba and the USA need real choice, without established elites preventing true democracy. Most people in the US vote for the what'sthepoint party.
(It's at this point someone usually says "Duh, the Nazis were socialists". Sure.)
please... the philly police did nothing wrong.
(I live 30 mins north of philly, so thanks to local news, we got a bit more information regarding what happened than most of you)
I don't think that the Philly police did anything wrong at all during the convention. If anything, they deserve a lot of credit for how they handled all this. The local police did A LOT of research (including flying up to Seattle during the riots) and lots and lots of training for weeks before the convention.
The so-called peaceful protesters were really not so peaceful. The police (thanks to tips from the secret services) found all kinds of stuff, ranging from explosives, to lethal spiders, snakes, etc that the protesters were planning to release in the crowds. Not to mantion protesters were tying piano wire across roadways to try to trip horses (and potentially injure them). The list of outrageous things they did goes on and on.
As far as the prison bad treatment, well, it seems that again, it was the police that was abused. Apparently, the so called peaceful protesters were throwing feces and urine at the guards/cops - while chanting and screaming all night long. No offense, but with that kind of behavior, bot only do they not deserve any kind of civilized treatment, but they deserve to be in lockup for the rest of their stays in that prison. That being said, they were fed, INCLUDING those with special diet requirement like lactose intolerance (they received peanut butter sandwich instead of cheese sandwich).
Lastly, I sincerely doubt that this guy was in fact walking down the street with his cell phone - but if it is in fact the case, I'd like to think that it is an isolated incident/mistake for which the cops should apologize. There were tons of actually peaceful protests all around the city, and none of them were brutalized or anything, although the Philly police did keep an eye on all of these protests.
All in all the Philly police did a great job, and reacted VERY WELL under extreme pressure.
As far as the remarks about GW Bush, well, as an H1B worker, the american politics don't interest me a whole lot but I will say this: the alternative doesn't seem a whole lot better (if at all better).
PS: I am from Belgium, you should see the kind of crowd control we use when we have violent protesters (which we do a lot since Brussels is the headquarters of NATO and EU) - the tactics used by the Philly police is relatively mild compared to what we do.
________
Vote Bush for war and economic despair:
Are the views Bush supports really his own? Can anyone truly feel right voting for a leader that was brought up in a wealthy environment lacking all discipline and responsibility? Is he a leader and universal role model or a self-indulgent, spoiled playboy riding on the coattails of his father?
Vote Gore to stay the same:
Gore is a diligent and intelligent man with a great amount of political experience. Very comfortable with his political position, any new or significant changes are doubtful.
Vote Nader if you actually give a shit:
Nader is a self made man who has taken a personal initiative to make changes that will benefit others. Take a look at his web site and his up front and blunt views. www.votenader.com Make a difference.
The Media and Big Business:
______________________
The mainstream media would never present this story to the American public. A much larger and more powerful CORPORATION owns every media business. Corporations love Republicans because they cater to tax cuts and the rich. Decisions made for the general public are not those produced by the greedy but by those who have the moral strength to think of another's well being before that of their own.
Big Brother is not the government. Big Brother = Big Business
a) Slashdot is not a news source. Slashdot is a playground for geeks (and various other uninvited guests).
/. to be less biased?
/.. Filter out the trolls and the people with hair-trigger flamethrowers, and the remaining posters here tend to be both well-informed and incisive in their views. I expect to learn a lot from the responses from this article. Even from people who are going to vote the other way. I suspect I will go into my voting booth as a better-informed voter for having read this.
/. would open a /box for political topics throughout this period.
b) I happened to follow a link to www.time.com, which does pretend to be a 'straight' news site, and the article headlines are so biased that at first I thought I had found the page of the RNC. Do we expect
c) Though I probably would have (tried to) pretend more impartiality than CT did, I'm really glad an overt political post came up on
At the very least, this will be more interesting than the drivel the mainstream media gave us last week, and will continue to give us for the next three months. I wish
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Hey, sorry sport, but disliking Dubya isn't limited to the far-left. And besides, with as many gun nuts and libertarians as we have reading, Slashdot will never completely fall to those damned, dirty liberals.
My personal favorite line was:
Of course there were extremists who deserved it, but a lot of folks were protesting peacefully Yeah, Rob, really fucking bright - if you dare express your opinion, you clearly deserve to have your skull bashed in, get sprayed with pepper spray, and then tossed in a cell with 100 other people (standing room only) for 72 hours with no food, little water, and all your rights stripped away from you. Do you even know who was tossed in jail? Do you honestly BELIEVE the garbage you see on ABC (owned by Disney, a major contributor to the RNC) or any of the other networks? They arrested over 450 people - very very few of whom were "violent". Most were practicing non-violent civil disobedience, the sort of stuff Ghandi used. People laying down in the middle of the street is not violent, and does not deserve the usage of pepper spray - but it was done. People who want delegates to be able to see them and know that they do not like what they stand for don't deserve to be arrested for 'criminal tresspass' on a public street - but it was done.
I know this is basically the wrong forum, and I really do not give a rat's ass if my karma is dropped (it's high enough already, thankyouverymuch), but for fuck's sake - does anyone in this world every really think things through anymore?
--
Matt Singerman
Matt Singerman
http://matt.vegan.net/
Semi-quotes from GWB "acceptance" speech"
"We need to reduce nuclear missiles and nuclear tenstion, while building the [star wars] program."
"We need to take 'car of our kids, like I did in Texas, where if kids don't study hard, they don't eat."
"Black people are Republicans too" (o.k. he didn't say it, just a theme from the convention)
.and my favorite from a different source
"We need to keep the Internet free of government intervention to allow for vibrant new businesses and economies to grow and prosper, while defending the right of copyright holders and intellectual property for ANOTHER frickin' hundred years."
and while it's unstated, it's understood...
"we need to get the DOJ off of Microsoft's back and let them innovate their stock prices back into the stratosphere."
(final note: this is posted from BeOS since my w2k internet connection got borked by sp1. I can post it from linux too if that gives you a stiffy)
(really final note: I totally support CT for posting whatever he feels like on his web site. It is a bastion for free speech after all. If you don't like it, make your own and convince a shitload of people to read it, BY POSTING WHAT YOU WANT!)
(just being silly note: I'm from Texas and I can't stand GWB, I like his dad, but I knew kids like GWB in college. He's a shithead, but you won't know it till you party with him till sunrise.)
--
+&x
I fully support you in telling us your opinion about GWB. Slashdot is read internationally, and I can tell you, GWB is seen as real freak from Europe.
The general view is both candidates are pretty much stupid, but Bush is seen as dangerous. I believe this guy has the potential to trigger the big red button. Man, Russia and China are going to be majorly pissed off if he makes it, because of that missile defense shield. And, for you USians, I think your fundamental rights will take the big dive.
Having such a trigger-happy moron at the head of a very powerful country is suicide. "Dubya" has no idea of where he's going as soon as he's out of Texas, and Dick Cheney is a real rattlesnake who orchestrated the big PR bullshit during the "Gulf war".
Be careful with who you'll vote for, guys.
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
I can't see the difference between how China is treating members of the Falun Gong and what's happening in Philadelphia (and what did happen) in Seattle.
Agreed. Both the U.S. and China understand quite well that demonstrations and the appearance of chaos and civil unrest are bad for business. I've talked with Chinese who were in support of the Chinese government's handling of the Tiananmen Square incident--at that time, some ten years ago, China's economy was taking off due to investment from the West. Many corporate eyes were trained on China to see how they would handle the protests. When they saw that they would happily call in the military to quell an otherwise peaceful demonstration, it was clear that it was much safer to invest in China than, say, Russia. And honestly, how could the U.S. in good conscience disagree with their actions after the Kent State murders?
Heavy-handed police tactics are nothing new in the U.S. We sent state militias out to help Pinkerton break strikes at Carnegie Steel, we sent Patton and his cavalry to charge and tear gas the Bonus Army and chase them off D.C. soil, we firehosed Dr. King and his companions in the name of "segregation today, segregation tomorrow." In each case the government, a pawn of the "haves," abused its power over the "have nots" in the name of good business and preservation of the status quo. Why should we expect this precedent to change? And why should we expect China not to learn from our good example?
Leagalizing drugs will make it only easier for crackheads to sell their drugs on our streets, and to children.
No it won't, it'll make it harder, because drugs can be sold in liquor stores or Amsterdam-style hash bars at a lower price and higher quality than you can get on the streets. Pot costs about as much to grow as tomatoes, but while tomatoes sell for $2-3/lb, pot sells for thousands of dollars per pound, simply because of black-market inflation.
Libertarians also seem very anti-religious and intolerant of it. Why does everyone want to support the ACLU? The ACLU does not support freedom of religion. Why does the ACLU want to get rid of all references of the word God? They sued the state of Ohio because of mentioning God in the state motto, yet they don't sue the national treasury for printing "In God We Trust"
The ACLU does support freedom of religion, but they also support the separation of church and state. Ohio putting religious references in their state motto is mixing church and state. The ACLU sure as hell isn't going to try to shut you up for speaking your religious views, and if somebody does they might even come to your defense.
--
I don't know what you're talking about in terms of libertarians and religion. The ACLU is most definitely not a libertarian organization, as witnessed by (among many other things) their hostility toward any privatization of the school system, such as vouchers which would allow parents to choose religious or secular private schools. Libertarians view religion as independent of government; it should be neither promoted nor disparaged, just like the 1st Amendment says.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Politics, now more than ever, need to be taken up wherever possible..discussed over every medium, because these are the people that are going to be passing or vetoing legislation that says what we can and can't do. Sure may as well just leave politics to CNN (whose parent company is time warner major contributer to the DNC and RNC) I only wish there could've been a blurb or link for Nader up there.
(= GreenCow =)
There was a time when a television news had the guts to actually express an opinion. You know editorial. Personal opinions and favoritism do have a place. However, there are rules to this.
First, there is usually a person or persons who are designated to express and opinion, and those who do not. Usually in TV news the Anchor NEVER expresses an opinion. It is there job to provide the news, that's it.
Second, editorials should be clearly marked as such.
Third, there should be equal time provided for the opisition.
So, part of your aurgument I'd agree with. Other parts I would not. At slashdot I think we can agree Katz isn't here to provide unbiased reporting. He's writing an opinion. The question really becomes is CmdTaco really another Katz. If so, then he really shouldn't be posting fact only news stories. And his comments should be marked as editorials.
My $.02
Many other posters have said this already, but I wanted to add my voice to list of people who say: Vote Nader!
You can also check out the site I am working for for People Over Profit, which is an indipendant political organization in Vermont that supports Ralph Nader for president.
The site will not be up for a few weeks, but it will be at www.peopleoverprofit.org. Once I have a presentable prototype it will be up on my personal site, and that should be today or tommorow.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
Please. You should be in politics. You're already twisting my words. All I said is that /. isn't the place where I want to read political opinions. If I want to hear some assholes opinion of politics, I'd go to a political site. I don't have a problem with him having a political opinion, I just think it should be voiced somewhere more appropriate.
I don't see political sites putting out news about the newest kernel release, I don't want to see someones political opinion on /.
kwsNI
Now, I am really not trying to be a troll when I say this, but:
SHUT UP!
This website is not a news website. Slashdot *is* opinions.
When was the last time Slashdot broke the story on anything? How many reporters work for slashdot?
This website consists of finding news elsewhere and exchanging views on the issue. CmdrTaco should not be exempt from these discussions.
Another thing: to claim that he is somehow abusing his position by throwing his slant into the headlines is nonsense. Microsoft stories have carried the Borg Bill logo as long as I have been a reader, blatantly throwing the Slashdot staff's views into the mix. This is an OPINION website and this exactly the sort of expression I'd like to see here.
It's not his site - it's the public's site (and partly mine).
Go make your own site if you want just kiss-ass politicaly correct news -the source code is available. I might also recommend cnn, or perhaps msnbc. Now here, we have a tradition here in the spirit of free speech especially when others wish to gag it. I found this subject very thought provoking.
Complete objectivity is impossible. Better that a news source understand and note its biases and opinions, than to pretend there are none. I don't know about others, but I feel relatively confident in my ability to balance different sources and weigh them according to their interests in a story. If you can't do that, then there's really little hope of ever making an intelligent decision.
I know that slashdot-snipers are now in the ascendancy on this site, but face it: this is a non-issue.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Like I said, it's your press, print what you want. "Abusing Slashdot" will only do more to convince many of us that Slashdot speaks primarily for the far-left wing of the "geek" population.
-cwk.
funny, i thought /. was rob site and therefore it was about whatever he wanted it to be about. apparently you're more knowledgable, please enlighten us.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Just giving everyone here a heads-up. Your vote means absolutely jack shit in the case of a Presidential/Vice-Presidential election. In America we proscribe to a system for voting that includes and Electoral College. Ripped straight from Brittanica.com..here's the write up:-
-
-------------------------------------------------
electoral college
in the United States, a group of electors chosen within each state to elect the president and vice president. Each state has as many presidential electors as it has representatives in both houses of Congress.
As originally planned by the framers of the Constitution, the electors actually choose the president. The framers preferred this to a direct popular election because, at a time when travel was difficult and there were no national party organizations, they feared that many regional candidates would divide the vote. Requiring a candidate to win a majority in the electoral college was a way of obtaining a national consensus.
Although the Constitution still allows electors to use their discretion, electors now are usually pledged to support a party's candidate. All the states, except Maine and Nebraska, hold a winner-take-all popular vote for electors. Whichever candidate wins a plurality in a state wins all the electoral votes in that state.
With the winner-take-all system, elected presidents receive a greater percentage of the electoral vote than of the popular vote. Two presidents, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 and Benjamin Harrison in 1888, won a majority of the electoral votes even though they received fewer popular votes than their principal opponents. In a very close election, it would again be possible for a popular-vote loser to be elected president. Opponents of the electoral system fear this would undermine the authority of the presidency. It is also feared that a regionally strong third-party candidate who could win even a few states could thwart the intention of the voters. He could throw his electoral votes to a candidate, who would not win otherwise, in exchange for political concessions.
Defenders of the system argue that in a direct popular vote the winner does not have to win a majority of anything--votes or states. Small states or states with a small population fear being overwhelmed by urban centres. Defenders claim a direct-vote system would encourage more splinter candidates.
-------------------------------------------------
So, as you can see, the popular vote is just a method we use to make the masses feel good about themselves. The real vote comes from the Electoral College...and, even though the article there says that the states elect them, I've NEVER heard of an election for an Electoral College nominee. So take a good look at the US government, and realize that you, as a citizen in the here "democracy", have absolutely no power what-so-ever when it comes to the presidency. This coming in so late will probably not be read...but whatever.
- drink, fight, and fuck..thats all that really matters
Oh. I see. They weren't there to cause any trouble after all. They just gathered in Philadelphia to have a barbeque.
--
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
i second both motions. when do we vote to make them laws? oh, one change - the evangilist watchers might have small heads, maybe just "IDIOT."
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
This is just another examples of city and state governments going way overboard. This is very much like the protest in Seattle of the WTO. Anyone remember those? I wouldn't vote for GWB's religious wrong for nothing. And I certainly don't buy into this crap about compassionate conservatism. Their record speaks for itself. If your not sure, then check out http://www.hrc.org/ for more information. Check out their scorecard too.
right on. a lot of people have been concerned in the past that andover was going to restrict rob and company's editorial freedom. i take it a whole bunch of deluded bush supporters trying to restrict rob's editorial freedom is fine? actually that type of double standard pretty much sums up republicans for me: we're all for people's freedoms - well, the right people of course...
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I'm starting to sound like a broken record between all of the other threads here. In my opinion, I can tolerate /. editorial opinions of the latest kernel release or the newest company to violate the GPL. There is a (debatebly small) difference between Taco's opinion of XF86 and George W. Bush. If you don't care, fine. But I, for one, just lost a lot of interest in reading /.
kwsNI
As we all know from the Mitnick case, a hacker can initiate nuclear strikes just by whistling down a telephone line. I mean, that's just fact, isn't it? I think the police were very prudent in arresting him before he had time to launch.
--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
While I agree with you about Bush, I can't help but feel that there's something wrong with this...
:-)
Hey, man, it's his website
--
Saying you are abusing slashdot doesn't make it any better when you do. Whats the deal, taco? Your personal political positions shouldn't be attached to an unrelated article.
I understand that you might wish to spark some debate about politics, but why not make it a feature article about which of the four (yes, four.. Besides Bush and Gore, Nader and Buchannon are raise important issues and are valid candidates.) would have better effect on technology issues that are relevant to slashdotters.
Now, excuse me while I read the 2600 article and post a relevant comment.
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
IMHO, slashdot is a good source of relatively informed opinion, but it's still opinion.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
GW Bush is not a smart man.
www.gwbush.com
"Hey, what's that?"
"An inanimate carbon rod!"
--
Bravo Dr S.!
/. authors comment "Cool Toy" "Gotta have one". We all race to the latest link and check it out.
/. is to balance my daily/weekly force feeding of propaganda, and opinion from the above sources I know are totally non reflective of my interests, beliefs, interests or concerns.
/. to provide the facts and commentary on issues that matter to me. I was there in the 60's (And YES! I do remember them) I am old enough to feel strongly that the communication tool the net provides is the most valuable contribution to our times and there is no question in my mind that the national media is hardly what I would hold up to Slashdot or many other like sites as an example of 'ethical'.
When a new toy appears and
News Flash! THAT IS OPINION, not NEWS!
This is slashdot NOT ABC, NBC, CBS or FOX.
I get plenty of OPINION from those sources 24/7 and frankly, the reason I read
The only reason I 'DO' read the standard media is to keep aware of just exactly 'WHAT' those people are thinking and trying to feed the sheep that believe all that pap placed before them. I read Slashdot for the authors/editors and posters opinions of the latest issues because they inevitably include multiple links, insights, sources and prospective. Truth be known, Slashdot posters furnish the depth I utilize to judge an issue for myself.
I don't code, I don't do hardware, and I'm not an industry insider so I count on
Just one more opinion, for what it is worth!
ah! the internet!! we may still screw up the world but NEVER again will we be able to claim IGNORANCE
Well, there were lots of people arrested for no go reason in Philly, and I dbout that his affiliation had anything to do with it. Hell, I was arrested for walking through a protest zone. And BTW I don't like any of the canidiates, but don't turn slashdot into a political soapbox. All you are going to start is a flame war.
Welcome to the Entropy Bar, may I take your order?
The Bonus Army was actually charged with horses by General MacArthur.
IIRC, in the Bonus Army "campaign" MacArthur was in command and Eisenhower was his aide. But it was Patton (then a major) who led the Third Cavalry in its charge against the Bonus Army. After the cavalry charge the ranks were broken and they returned to their camp. Then MacArthur (against orders) ordered a bunch of tanks to run Stomper-Truck over their shantytown followed by torching the place to the ground. All told, over 100 men, women, and children died, including two infants who suffocated in the tear gas attack. It was hardly our finest hour--it happened just after Hoover got the GOP nomination, and the callous treatment of Great War veterans contributed to his loss that November.
Curious similarity in timing, no?
Rich people are not simply given money. Around 40% personal income goes sraight to taxes.
Meanwhile, the poor get paid by the government to sit on thier ass. Not even an an ounce of community service or anything in return is expected or given.
No, the rich may not have it 'bad', but things would certainly be better _for the country as a whole_ if they could give more of thier money to their employees rather than just piping it to unproductive welfare recipients.
Who pays for your time and labor? Who writes the paycheck?
:).
If it's a corporation, then you are biting the hands that feed you.
If it's the government, then guess who foots most of the taxes?
And trust me, there is _nothing_ keeping you from starting your own buisness, how do you think most of the rich got where they are?
My _point_ is this. Why should the rich be treated any differently than the poor in this country by the governemnt anyway? The large majority of poor people earned their place in the US economy. I've yet to hear of a entrepenuer who got where he is by sitting on his ass all the way to the top.
In the United States, the rich are getting screwed over far more than the poor will ever be. Why should the rich be forced to pay so much to the unproductive black hole of welfare, when they could be spending that money hiring more people instead?
Right now, the American government bends over backwards to service the lazy and the poor while forcing the rich to foot the entire bill. It is personally my belief that the government, for the people and of the people, should treat _everybody_ the same, regardless of income or other factors.
Are the rich evil? No more than you are ignorant. But, of course, that's my opinion
The object of an election isn't to vote for the winner. That's silly and circuituous logic. The object of an election is to vote for the candidate who best fits your ideas about how government should work.
Bush or Gore will win the 2000 election. That's a fact. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't vote Libertarian, or Green, or whatever most closely meets your own beliefs. Keep in mind that, if even a few percent of the vote are for a third-party candidate, that candidate, his or her party, and the whole concept of a many-party system will gain legitimacy and clout in 2004, and in elections to come. That translates into real action by the winner of this year's election - remember, much of presidential politics works by 'mandate,' the idea that the President's political capital stems from the belief that his ideas parallel those of the public. It also translates into a real chance at third parties winning, if not the Presidency, then congressional seats and local offices. A few percent means tens of millions of people. It means power. It means change.
Elections are a lot more complex than just which "white man in a suit" gets to live in the big white house for the next four years. They're the formal expression of the will of the people. Don't throw your vote away by voting for Bush or Gore if they don't really express the direction you'd like politics to move in.
This has to be one of the least useful things I've read on /. in a long time. A 2600 staffer gets arrested for something (they never do say what), bail is set at something they aren't sure of (and both guesses may be wrong), and he was walking down the street at the time of arrest (doing what? where was he walking? talking to whom?). So, in essense, some guy was arrested for possibly doing something and bail was set at something we're not sure of. Until there are a LOT more details, this story means basically nothing except a chance for Taco to get his views out to the /. crowd.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
There's always someone to vote for. Or rather, against.
Vote against the worse of the evils. If you do this consistently, that party will eventually wise up and then ante up a better candidate for the next election. Then you start working on the other party. If the electorate would do this consistently, we would eventually bring the major parties into line.
Unfortunately, most people vote for whichever party is going to boost their bank balance or treat them to other benefits and privileges. Which means the guy who does the best Santa Claus impersonation usually gets elected, however much his party intends to fuck us once they get into office.
In the immortal words of Johnny Cash, "they promised an elevator, but all we got was the shaft".
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
1. Backing up your opinion(s) with fact(s)
2. Making a reasoned argument in favor of a right-winger
3. Being older and wiser
4. Failure to state how increased use of Linux or the GPL would solve this problem
As a result, we have decided to vote you off the island. Thank you for your participation.
-cwk.
Slashdot would probably screw up on reporting my leaving the island, too.
/. :) !
"Gervase is apparantly going to be the survivor"...
Surething,
i'd like to see it more than here. the rest of the media is "objective." bullshit. every journalist, columnist and yahoo with a mike or a pen has an opinion. i'd rather know up front what that opinion is. i'd like to see a headline on msnbc "we like bush so much we gave him a million bucks." have americans gotten so positively thick that they can't form opinions uless they're fed info that they foolishly think is sterile and objective? as much as i loathed limbaugh and his nazi-esque hoarde at least you knew he was a power hungry fascist.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Surprise, surprise people, all of the important acts of government which have pissed off the /. community have occurred while BC had the power to veto them or stop them. Let's take a look shall we:
-export regs on encryption. BC thinks they're a good idea and wants them, the republicans think they should be abolished
-CDA, bipartisan legislation; signed by BC
-COPA and COPPA: signed by BC
-Carnivore, supported by our attorney general and president
-Gore wants to begin allowing net taxes soon, GW wants to wait and see before even discussing allowing them
-DMCA, signed by BC. (yes I know it is orrin hatch's baby, but it had wide bipartisan support)
So CmdrTaco, you really think that GW is going to be the worse candidate? Considering that Gore has backed BC all the way, everytime? That shows you what kind of person Gore is.
Really...You'd like it if everyone got to vote on whether or not Slashdot gets to remain online (which is exactly what the Green Party platform calls for).
slashdot: news for nerds, stuff that matters
no, this shouldn't mean just discussions of PERL and when the newest version of KDE will be released!
why not include more news like this? i think who's going to be leading our country's legislature is at least as relevant as what new hardware SGI has designed...
> MHO it seems that all the democrats want to do is spend my money to make the government bigger, more European like.
Alas, it seems that some of those despised European countries are governed better than ours is. And more prosperous.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I just heard that a malignant carbon rod has actually made it to Gore's short list of VP candidates. I guess Gore really IS going after the geek vote.
Gore/Rod 2000, baby!
Besides, they ripped someone's ear off. They RIPPED SOMEONE'S EAR OFF! Disfigurement is an extreme punishment for a misdemeanor.
Ch
You should have seen Minneapolis during a recent conference on Animal Genetics. There was a lot of police paranoia about WTO-style protests. In the leadup to the conference, police submitted and then withdrew a proposal to ban the wearing of gas masks. A second proposal to stop and demand ID from anyone walking down the block the hotel was on was also withdrawn at the last minute.
In place of these measures the Minneapolis police mounted the largest operation I've ever seen in our city for any event. The block leading the hotel (on a pedestrian/bus only mall) was lined with concrete barriers topped with 8 ft chain link fences. The sidewalk was open to the public, but the street and the hotel grounds were closed to anyone without credentials for the conference. Adjacent to the hotel at the "dead end" of the sidewalk leading to the hotel the police put a sign that said "demonstration area". The street was closed to all traffic and was guarded by a half-dozen police officers.
The rest of downtown was pretty much a police state -- cops in plainclothes, cops on horses, and loads of cops in cars and this was DAYS before the conference even started. Clearly the police were expecting a paramilitary assault and were prepared to repulse it.
The end result? Nothing happened, but $1E6 got spent. There was one skirmish between the police and about 50-100 protesters; the protesters turned somewhat violent and the police somewhat overreacted and beat them with batons, maced them and carried them off to jail with little or no media reaction except for some light scolding of both factions. Four gallons of a mystery liquid containing traces of cyanide were found; protest organizers made some claim that it was anti-tear gas juice, police made it (unfairly) into some kind of chemical warfare tool, but nothing ever seemed to come of it.
My reaction initially was of real skepticism of the police; the anti-gas mask proposal and stopping people on the street and asking for ID rubbed me the wrong way. The end result didn't bother me -- I work a few blocks from the conference site and I routinely walked around the site and chatted with the police who were very friendly and offered no hassles to me or any of the other curious onlookers.
In the end, though, I do resent the protesters. I know they're not one big group, but I think that they bring on a lot of the police pressure. I think there's a real tendency to fall back to violence, self-righteously justified as "civil disobedience" (MLKing must be rolling in his grave), in order to either garner media attention or to disrupt the legitimate, lawful conferneces (WTO, RNC, genetics conferences, et al). I'm all in favor of peaceful assembly, but when that degenerates into smashing shops who have nothing to do with either side of the issue they're going too far.
The latter is the most dismaying -- shouting me down so I *can't* speak is a black-hat technique and shows a complete lack of respect for the principals of democracy and free speech.
Those people opposed to these hot button issues need to work harder to keep their side peaceful -- they'll earn more followers and further their political agenda, and earn the respect of the people and the police.
Taxes were cut at one point during Reagan's term, and revenues WENT UP.
.4% of the GDP between 1980 and 1983, just enough to cancel out the reduction on federal expenditures on "Education and Training". Social Security expenditures took up .6% of the GDP more, sure... but National Defense spending took up 1.1% of the GDP more, the biggest gain, and one pushed by Reagan.
And that's a common misfact too; I've heard it from other people. I wonder who the primary sources spreading it are; I can understand random conservatives wanting to repeat it without confirmation, but you'd think any author would check the numbers first.
Check out the federal revenues and expenditures for yourself. Revenues keep pace with (although behind) expenditures through the 70s, each growing by about 60 billion a year, until 1983, when expenditures went up by the usual 60 billion, but revenues dropped by 17 billion. There's your tax cut. Voila, the deficit nearly doubles that year.
And if you really want to narrow down the blame, do some more research and check out where those expenditures were going during the 80s. Comparing the AFDC and military budgets is enlightening. According to the Cato people, federal expenditures on Health went up by
REMEMBER: The congress is the one that ultimately controls spending and taxes, not the president.
That's a matter of opinion, and the word "ultimately" in there seems to point more towards the president, who gets to veto any budget he doesn't like after all. Sure, there's pressure on both sides to come to a compromise... but the last time we had a major failure to compromise, the Republican congress took a lot more heat for it than Clinton did.
You forgot to mention in your parting quip, that after the policeman walked away from the carjacking victim, he proceeded to arrest a man for walking down the street while talking on a cell phone.
We need police officers. Policemen perform a basic and essential function in modern society, in case you didn't realize. Show me a prosperous society without effective policing, and I might have a bridge to sell you....
That being said, policemen are human. They will make mistakes. What's more, we do little, as a society, to improve the situation--to make their jobs desirable--to a point where we can really afford to be picky. We pay them poorly. Most work pretty aweful hours. Few get respect in their communities, and in many they're hated. But we still expect them to perform. When they don't do their jobs, we complain even louder. Yet, when they perform a tough job like this, we can't stomach any of the inevitable fallout.
We, as a society, need to grow up. Yes, there are some corrupt and violent officers out there--and they SHOULD be routed out. But to use this as an excuse for inaction is just plain stupid.
While I concede that the police efforts during the WTO were poorly MANAGED and thus resulted in unnecessary strife, I can't say this for the Philadelphia police efforts during the Republican convention. I happen to live in Philly, and witnessed a fair amount of these "protests", I can tell you with my own eyes that they were extremely calm, well organized, and safe. I've seen policemen act poorly before, but this is not one of those times. In my opinion, there is NOTHING more that the Philadelphia police could have reasonably done to prevent those few mishaps. What happenened was simply inevitable. A number of the protesters did things that left the police with no option other than force. They took it--and generally did so reasonably. But this is not the movies boys and girls--the police are not supermen and hence, not everything can go off without a hitch all the time.
It is very unfair to play Monday morning armchair quarterback and talk about the things they could have done. You were not in the middle of the situation. What is just a "minor crime" on paper may very well have been a potential danger to hundreds of people.
Besides, if it's not W then you're stuck with Gore.
(Anyone else think this year's presidential campaign sounds like a troll for the Stileproject: Want Bush or Gore? Why not BOTH!)
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
A protest vote is still a vote...
:-)
;-) But, as a friend's mother pointed out, anyone that actually gets her son to go out and vote after all these years of "abstainence" can't be all bad.
Yeah: the protest vote actually got Jesse Ventura elected as the governor of Minnesota. As one of those protest voters, I think many [of us!] were shocked to learn about our success. One columnist compared it to taking a stranger home on a whim, and being unsure what to do in the morning
In any case, MN has had worse governors... depending on who you ask
Not voting is not a "statement." It's an abdication of your responsiblity as a citizen of this constitutional republic. (Yeah, I know. If you're not from the US just ignore this paragraph.) For those that think we live in a democracy-- which congressional bills have you directly voted on lately?
"There is a diminishing return on caution."
Others will mention it, but the SLASH-based site to go for news about the protests is philadelphia independent media center.
"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Medi a Bias
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
What party does he represent? I am definitely interested in "alternative" candidates. I consider myself "Green", but I don't think Nader is a particularly great candidate. I'll still vote for him, though, like I did in 1996.
cpeterso
I realize this is now thoroughly off-topic, but I'll say it anyway. I've now read several posts under this article that basically say 'I hope [Bush/Gore] doesn't get elected because the country will fail and the world will explode and life as we know it will end, so I'm going to vote third-party even though I realize that they won't win.'
/really/ don't like will win because you just threw away your vote. If you're going to protest the main parties, do it in a way that won't deprive you of the chance to vote for the president (i.e. before and during the primaries). And if you think that one vote among so many doesn't matter, consider this story: The 18,000-person town I grew up in had a vote about whether the elementary school should be given more money to build desperately-needed classrooms, and my mother was very busy that day and forgot about the town meeting. The side she supported lost by one vote.
YOU IDIOTS.
Yes, one way to protest the main party candidates is to vote third-party. But it's also a really good way to ensure that the party you
Ok, there's like 30-some odd comments right now (at a threshold of +1) and most of them seem to be bitching about how CmdrTaco shouldn't have used Slashdot for his political views.
Why the hell not? He uses Slashdot for his views about software, why not politics? It's his website, after all, he can do whatever the hell he wants. Rather than bitching about it, just don't click on stories you don't want to read - less pageviews means he'll be less likely to post something like that in the future.
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Out of curiousity, why does the slashdot.org summary page say "malignant carbon rod" and the article page say "inanimate carbon rod"? I was all set to post that the Reform Party candidate was highly likely to be the Malignant Carbon Rod himself, Pat Buchanan (unless by some chance the Transcendental Meditation Promotion Party candidate John Hagelin beats him, which Ross Perot almost deserves :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Here's some more info from Zmag about the conditions the jailed in Philly are facing, and the abuse of civil rights, i.e., pepper spray on non-violent people, denying lawyer visits, excessive bail (as in the article, $500,000 for a misdemeanor?!)
I'd vote for an Inanimate Carbon Rod for president before I voted for Bush, too. I.C.R. wouldn't push for stupid laws. I.C.R. probably wouldn't get us into any stupid wars that don't concern us. I.C.R. wouldn't be a pawn of the teachers' unions. I.C.R. wouldn't send the BATF out after whatever group isn't popular this week.
Sadly, I.C.R. isn't running. I'd prefer Bush as someone who will most likely fuck things up less than Gore, but I don't like either of them. I'd really like to see any of the third parties, on the grounds that no way in hell could Nadar, Buchanan, Browne or Hagelan do anything. To bad they aren't really an option either.
I'll probably write in R.U. Sirius (The Revolution(tm)'s candidate). But I'll be hoping for Bush. Do you realize that there are supreme court judges who think that the federal government has authority to prosecute rape under the interstate commerce clause? Is rape bad? Yes. Is it the federal government's responsibility? Not by a long shot. Gore is more likely to appoint brain dead justices. Abortion is currently secure, so it isn't a reason to vote for Gore. Federalism is not, and is a good reason to vote for Bush.
(It's odd -- I don't even like my own party's candidate, because he promised he wouldn't run again back in 96, and now he is.)
It's never "throwing away" one's vote to vote for the candidate you actually want to become President. Voting for the lesser of two evils is indeed throwing away the vote.
Since both Bush and Gore are not worthy of this high office, I don't care who of them wins if and when I vote for my consumer rights hero, Ralph Nader. Ralph is the only candidate running who I can put my full faith and trust in. Of course, I don't agree with Ralph on every issue, but at least he and his party are not bought and paid for. Their positions on the issues are *their* positions on the issues.
Go Nader go!
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
As for the guy with the cel phone, I find that story very one-sided. The only side I've heard is the one that claims the police were indescriminately arresting people who were merely riding bikes, wearing black clothing, or talking on cel phones. And this guy with his phone is being held on $500,000 bail for misdemeaner phone usage while walking. Something tells me I'm not getting the whole story.
--
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
I have no karma and could give two shits about losing whats left, so here I go.
Number One - You people do not follow in Ghandi's footsteps. Ghandi was a man of peace, protesting the exploitation of his land and people. You and your ilk are naredowells, protesting the existence of a society that you cannot belong to, since you see yourselves as better.
At the university that I graduated from this May, a bunch of wannabe Vietnam war protesters decided to seize the administration building, to protest the possibility that University athletic apparel was made in asian sweatshops. (They are in fact manufactured outside of Boston, Mass)
Before the protest even started, the local media was called in to witness the campus police dept. opressing the 'peaceful' protesters. A few minutes later they began to throw things out of the University President's window, hitting several people on the walkway below who getting out of class. My girlfriend was hit on the shoulder with a heavy wooden drawer.
Several protesters decided to attack the four university policemen who had arrived at that point, and several shills in the crowd started screaming that the police were beating innocent people.
It is clear to me that a core of professional protesters go to universities and recruit vulnerable students into this bizarre counter-society movement. They take people who are concered about the enviroment, conspiracy theorists, vegans, gay and lesbian groups and people who are angry at society and turn them into violent zealots. They are trained to use the media to shape the way the general public see their 'protests' and how to inflame the police.
And for what? What does creating a riot in front of a political convention accomplish? That the convention is a staged show? Guess what, everyone knows that. What is the ultimate goal. What are these people really practicing for?
The real scary thing about these people is the lack of an open purpose. In the sixties, the goal of protests was very clear: end vietnam, civil rights, anti-nuclear holocost. These protestors shroud their protest with vague notions of corrupt society and reveal their complete ignorance of economics.
Those of you who read history will see parallels between the methods of Lenin in Russia and these 'peaceful protesters' Anyone whose only forms of political expression are emotion and deceit, and whose methodology revolves around creating riot and mayhem behind a veneer of peaceful protest is a devisive force that needs to be confronted and stamped out.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Sales tax is a voluntary tax, idiot.
Why the hostility? Was he this belligerent to you? Did your parents beat you as a child? Are you one of those passive aggressive types who would never stick up for yourself in real life and so has to take out your rage anonymously on the 'net?
But back on topic,
Sales tax is not voluntary. Sure, you can choose not to buy things, but in that case income tax is just as voluntary; you can choose not to make money. By "voluntary" taxes, libertarians generally mean taxes that nobody is forced to pay, whatever they own, buy, sell, or earn; the idea is that people will donate taxes for local police, etc. because it makes their communities a better place.
Of course, that situation would be just a Prisoner's Dilemma on a scale so large it's doomed to fail, but that's a subject for another thread. Not all libertarian's go that far; it's just a shiny wacky ideal.
The tax hikes might be more palatable if Congressmen weren't continually voting to give themselves raises, passing laws that essentially say what the company that paid for them wanted, and creating a bigger and bigger government.
It is hard to believe that paying more taxes would bring about decent education, or reasonable healthcare. Congress would find some crap to spend it on because some jackass bribed them to. Why should I dump more money into that? I'm not willing to pay more taxes until we start doing something useful with the money.
Sorry, I don't own an SUV, and I wish that they were never made. I'm looking forward to picking up one of the new hybrid cars. It's not that I can't afford an SUV - I choose not to because they are environmentally horrible.
There is nothing wrong with golf.
In the US we have continually have some of the lowest voter turn outs in the world. Its no wonder that money controls both major parties. Do yourself a favor, dont vote for them, vote for someone else, while I dont like Nader, he does make a hell of a protest vote. I will probably vote for Harry Brown myself. But what ever you do, dont not vote. Dont succumb to the throwing your vote away bs. A protest vote is still a vote, and with enough protest votes, we can make either the major parties none existant, or force them to hear and cater to our voices. Please dont waste that vote.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
An alternative one could pursue in addition to voting for who they would *really* like to see win would be to get the word out about proportional representation and Condorcet's method. Condorcet's method would, in this case, make it possible for Nader to win if enough people put him as their first or second choice, even if Bush and Gore got more primary votes than he did, provided neither Bush nor Gore got a majority of primary votes. More info here.
No it is andovers' website. He just has editoral control
Alright, fine. He has editorial control. So he's using his powers of editorial control to post an editorial about his views on a candidate.
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Yes the RepuliCrats offer hideous canidates. Both major parties are basically the same. Control of your mind, property, wealth, and liberty. I don't promote the Libertarian's as the cure to all evils, but they are more on track to getting us back on track than anything currently offered. Check it out at www.lp.org. Your freedom is only belongs to you if fight for it and use it.
Those who give up freedom for security deserve neither.-Ben Franklin
Ok, I'm a Bush supporter and I'm getting ANNOYED at all the people whining about all the people whining about Rob's comments. I mean, 1200 messages and 30 of them are trolls? What is new about this? So far, I've read far more complaining about people complaining than I have about people complaining about Rob. I don't have a problem with Rob voicing his views on this any more than I do on anything else, despite the fact that I disagree with him.
Now, I would prefer that he would explain why, exactly, it is that he prefers Al Gore to George Bush, considering that George Bush is a whole lot closer to equaling more freedom than Al Gore. And it often seems that freedom is one of the biggest underlying topics on slashdot. (Yeah Micro$oft Sucks, but so does Linux so M$ get's my vote. No arguments against that, right?)
My brother works for the FBI in Philadelphia. He has told me exactly what all kinds of things that the police do to attempt to keep the protestors under control and why it is necessary. The protestors have boot camps where they teach the newbies to climb scaffolding, organize attacks against the police, etc. I have a hard time apologizing for any police action taken against those protestors, or any protestors for that matter who make it a point of being non-peaceful (i.e., violent).
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. -- George Orwell
Of course doctors don't like government health care. They don't make as much. Since when does that make it a bad system?
... I can't figure out how the "father of the internet" seems to have garnered so much support at a tech-oriented website. I don't agree with much that Bush stands for, but on principle I refuse to vote for a complete idiot, especially one egotistical enough to make that kind of exaggerated claim about his own importance. Then again, we could all just VOTE MONKEY.
Remember, a zebra does not change its spots.
Original post:
Its not their fault mommie's a crackwhore, and daddy's in prison, but they get no welfare, can't pay for education, and don't stand a rats ass of surviving to adulthood.
First reply:
You're right. But guess what? That doesn't make it my fault either! So how on earth does this give the government the right to take my money by force when it's not my goddamned responsibility?
Who said anything about right? The "right" world, where nobody commits force or fraud or breaks an obligation to anyone else, *cannot exist*. If in some miraculous alternate universe it did exist, then having a government tax to pay for neglected children wouldn't matter, because there would be no neglected children.
So, granting that there are neglected children, we're no longer choosing between "right" and "wrong", even by libertarian axioms. We're choosing between a world with children getting cheated out of the majority of the food, shelter, and education that their parents should have been responsible enough to provide, and a world with taxpayers getting cheated out of a small fraction of their earnings to pay for children who aren't theirs.
There is no easy out, no "let's get the government out of the way and nobody gets their rights violated"; the very presupposition of children stuck in poverty means that somebody's rights are getting violated. Even the majority of libertarians favor spending money on a police force to protect people's lives and property; how is spending money on child welfare to protect their lives and property any morally different?
When shown by all three network affiliates, yes i have a tendency to believe them.
Look, you can imagine any conspiracy you want, I don't care. I am very proud of the Philly police. They did an outstanding job in this case (regardless of their previous record)
Could you elaborate on that?
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Ski-U-Mah!
I'm not saying that walking about with your chest out is the goal, etc, but have you ever had to deal with a tool/bully in school?? (usually they're just posturing for /their/ crowd)- Through personal experience, I've found this out: if they think they can get away with pushing you/your friends around, the more likely they're to do it.
If they think they're gonna get their asses kicked, the less likely they are to start shit.
The leader of a country, upon exhausting dimplomacy, has to be ready to fight, period.
is he "DANGEROUS" as you say? I don't think so... ie: he's not unstable, irrational, shifty, nor has he accepted bribes from other contries, nor has he conveniently "LOST" his email records that would aide in an investigation, etc.
Can he >>>>"PUSH THE BUTTON", i really hope it doesn't come to it, but if it does; i hope our leader can do what it takes. If you can help it: don't fight- if you have to fight, fight to win.
>>>>>>"China/Russia will be pissed off"
TOO F*CKING BAD, wouldn't you be "upset" if your 'adversary' were to put in a security gaurd that wasn't asleep at the wheel, accepting political bribes from you, and afraid to use force because of the court of public opinion [ie: tanks should have been used on this mission, but because 'they didn't play well on TV' the administration and his Sec. of Defense- ordered them to stand down... did you know that the Rangers all got killed and the Secretary got canned???]
No, you wouldn't because 'news sources' like to hide the fact that sometimes, you need the tanks, its shitty, but sometimes you do.
Finally, if you want to see hipocracy in action, check out the article at the usually liberal Washington Post, here's an excerpt:
While Gore sought to portray himself as a populist who would protect the environment and fight big corporations, Rogers said the Gore family's connections to Hammer made Al a special-interests candidate who came into the campaign with a tangle of conflicts that he tried to hide. ...He pointed out that Island Creek Coal was one of the three major suppliers of coal to the huge, government-run Tennessee Valley Authority. And he demanded
that Gore acknowledge that he received quarterly royalty payments for zinc mining rights on his land in a deal with another Hammer subsidiary, Occidental Minerals Corp. Gore tried to finesse the issue. While his disclosure statement listed his assets in general terms, it did not name the company from which he received royalties.
And because Occidental Minerals had recently sold its mining rights to another
corporation, Freeport Zinc, Gore was able to argue that Rogers had his facts wrong,
which was technically true.
This showcases my biggest pet peeves with politicians, hypocrisy. At least GWB is more honest on where he stands.
>>>>"Having such a trigger-happy moron at the head of a very powerful country is suicide"
i've yet to see anything in him that makes him either, you're such a troll.
Hypothetically speaking, it doesn't make it "suicide", but rather makes life a bit more stressful for folks beyond our borders... least you could have done is been honest
--an American with a UK email address--
If she floats, she's a witch.
Also, if you think Gore has economic sense, could you explain his defense of the fraudulent Ponzi scheme known as Social Security?
For the same reason that GWB talks about wanting to "fix" or "save" Social Security, when you and I might want to hear the phrase "phase out" instead: because nobody who used the phrase "fraudulent Ponzi scheme" to describe Social Security would have a snowball's chance in Texas (or Hell, same diff) of being elected. They'd be a shoo-in for the Libertarian nomination, maybe, but that just furthers my point.
Why the *%^# does a tax cut have to be "economically needed"?
Because that's one of the ways we try and smooth out the boom/bust cycle of the economy. Every dollar of tax cuts that occurs during the current boom is just a dollar that will have to be made up during the next bust, when it will hurt much more.
Keep in mind, "tax cuts" and "spending cuts" are two different things. Do you really think that if we mindlessly cut taxes, that Congress will cut spending to match? Didn't Reagan try that, and send the debt from 1 to 3 trillion or so during his term?
It's our money, we earned it,
Well, see, the problem is that it isn't your money. About $5 trillion of our past two decades' budgets came from the U.S. government's creditors (including uncounted bond-holding suckers), many of whom have business plans or retirement plans which depend on seeing that money again. And we now have a choice to make: we can pay them back now, and forgo tax cuts during an unbelievably healthy economy. We can keep borrowing now, and pay them back later, and hope that the economy will go from "unbelievably healthy" to "inconceivable juggernaut" to make our delay pay off. Or, we can default on the debt, and hope that we can bring an end to the Great Depression II without first going through World War III.
how about the government showing that it's "economically needed" for taxes to be at the highest peacetime level in history?
Look at the federal debt. Look at the budget surplus, which is higher than anyone expected and not certain to continue long. Estimate how long it would take for the latter to pay down the former to less preposterous levels. There's your proof of economic necessity.
Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't cut spending, and then cut taxes. But let's do those things in the right order this time?
I don't like the choices that are being presented to us by the two primary parties in this country. I'm much more interested in Ralph Nader and the Green party this year. I had been hoping that they would be getting more attention, but the (national) media is still focusing entirely on the Republicans and Democrats.
Nader did get a good reception here in MN when he was here a few weeks ago. He even showed up on Almanac, the local weekly PBS political show.
Certainly, Nader does not completely align himself politically with Ventura, but they are probably closer to what the people want and need than either the RNC or DNC can give the People.
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Ski-U-Mah!
First of all, one thing needs to be said - "I don't smoke marijuana." With that having been said, here are some reasons to legalize marijuana in the United States. Nice and simple: 1) Marijuana use is less harmful and risky than the use of alcohol, tobacco, and many nonprescription drugs. It is the safest (currently) illegal drug. Marijuana is much less addictive than tobacco or alcohol. This is one reason why most people that smoked it in the 70's were able to quit easily and not become addicts. 2) Legalization of marijuana would cut down on crime. Because marijuana is illegal, it is difficult to manufacture, and is expensive, so addicts often have to turn to crime to sustain their habit. Legalization would drive the price down and alleviate this problem. Currently, much of the crime that goes on is a result of territory disputes between dealers. Legalization of marijuana would hurt organized crime as a whole. If marijuana was legal, the entire infrastructure of organized crime involved in its manufacturing and distribution would lose any reason for existence because marijuana would be legally produced and sold at a much cheaper price by legitimate companies. Police officers and suspected informants often face retribution by gangs and drug dealers. Legalization of marijuana would simply eliminate the need for dealers and put a stop to all this. Legalization would cut down on corruption in the law enforcement, the government. Officials will no longer be tempted into accepting bribes, and pocketing large amounts of drug money. 3) Legalization would free up resources to fight legitimate crimes. It would end prison overcrowding, as many prisoners are sitting in jails for drug-related convictions. It would free up the court system and the police and allow them to concentrate on other crimes. Fighting marijuana-related "crimes" is costing us tax money. 4) Legalizing marijuana would make it safer for users. One of the main reasons why marijuana is unsafe right now is because it isn't regulated, and its quality isn't monitored by anyone. When people buy marijuana, they don't know for sure what they're getting or where it's been. 5) The government has no right to interfere with people's personal freedom as it is currently doing. Smoking marijuana only has the potential to hurt the health of the user. An individual should have the right to choose to use it. People are allowed to skydive, and drive cars. There are risks in those and many other activities, but the government isn't regulating them. Sure, smoking marijuana does put others at minimal risk through second hand smoke and the user's actions towards others, but this is also valid for alcohol and tobacco. This is why driving while stoned should remain illegal.
i see it as a step in the right direction. people *CAN NOT BE OBJECTIVE*, and news outlets playing make believe that they are is looking more and more goofy everyday.
i want more news sites to be up-front and open about their biases so that way i don't have to guess.
of course it also helps that i'm viewing the presidential election from outside the usa for the first time and folks for the most part over here agree with rob's take on the election.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
And I am sure you are writing this post from some squalid philly prison - and doing so with whatever little strength you have left since they have not fed you yet.
That, or maybe you are using your laptop from the hospital because the police beat the crap out of you.
Please note that I never said there were no peaceful protesters. And you don't have to bring anything with you to be a violent protester either.
A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
War is necrophilia.
Taco,
Good note about the mainstream press being biased. I just want to add one other point for people to notice here....the bias here is honestly and openly given. CmdrTaco states clearly that this is his opinion and that he actually has an opinion. Compare this to the weasely lies the 'mainstream press' propogates under an 'objective' prose style that hides their bias and tries to make you believe that their opinions are fact. Keep it up Taco, at least we know where you stand.
Josh
I'm of precisely the opposite opinion. The Tenessee Two-By-Four has shown his true stripes during his 8 years in office. He's provably crooked, corrupt, and untruthful. GWB is light-years better than him. The Democrats are in the same fix as the Republicans in 1996, wondering how they ever ended up with such a lox as their candidate.
I live in center city Philadelphia, so the RNC did a great job doubling the length of my commute. My solution was to take the train... until I left the train station, found myself in the middle of a fairly violent demonstration, with cops trying to smack the shit out of me, and Septa having locked the doors behind us, so I couldn't go back into the train station.
I can vouch, firsthand, that in the violent demonstration I was part of, at least 75% of us were just trying to get out of there, but were being kept back by the same police who were beating us. Philadelphia went overboard trying to make sure the RNC was happy, so they'd get lots of money. But then Philadelphia police have a habit of doing that.
Canada looks better every day.
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No this is not a TROLL post!
Everything we read these days seems to be opinions. Everyone has one, face it folks. Good or bad. But what makes an opinion good or bad? You Mr./Mrs. Slashdot reader will think your opinon is good and others whose opionions you don't agree with will be considered bad. Likewise, When I am reading here or anywhere else I will feel that opinions I agree with are good and all else are bad. Remember "What do opinions and a$$holes have in common? Everyone has one and they both stink". Many comments posted to slashdot are opinions. CmdrTaco just like everyone else has the right to express his opinion. So give it a rest folks.
And like the bulk of news stories reported by the mainstream press aren't unbiased. Please give me strength! Those stories are ALL slanted to one extreme or the next. The mainstream press is NOT unbiased.
While we are on everyones opinion of the political system here in the U.SA. I will throw mine in!
Both the Democrats and Republicans are crooked to the core! Both ONLY care about themselves and the big companies that flood them with cash! They don't give a raging rats ass about you or me - the normal joe. The Democrats want to take all your rights and freedoms and give the power to the government and the republicans want to take your money and freedom and give it to big corporations. Then we have the green party... The animal rights Freaks! - Oh no animals should be killed - everyone should be vegatarians.
Then there is Flush Limbaugh and the Limbots and dittoheads.
IMHO the whole American political system is shot to hell. It is run by either nuts, the mafia, or big corporations. Anyone who beleives it is still - "Government of the people, for the people and by the people" is a dreamer. Folks wake up! The NWO (New World Order) is already being put into place and not you nor I can do a darn thing about it! We are all soon to be saves to "The Man".
If you know anyone that is with "The Dragons", "The Illuminati" or one of those such High level groups you better make real good friends with them, that's all I have to say.
No I am not a conspiracy nut, just a realist!
Ahh I love having free speech while it lasts.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
First fact, you will never be able to show me a __SINGLE__ peice of legistlation approved by the Clinton administration that improved the nations economy in any way. Just try it.
Secondly, you need to first brush up on Economics and economic history of the united states, and look at how much impact economic policies implemented by Ronald Regan's administration, known as "Regannomics", have been continually reshapping the economic fitness of America as a whole. We would not have had last's years budget surplus if the groundwork wasn't laid by Regan.
Third, the new tech economy has been the cherry on top of the cake. If anything, The Clinton/Gore has done several steps to screw it up, from spending millions on ridiculous lawsuits such as the Microsoft antitrust case to taking credit for creating the internet as a whole! (An yes, I said ridiculous. Microsoft did participate in unfair buisness practices, but a monoply requires totalitarian control of a product's resources, usually governemnt granted ones at that (railroad land, air and wire transmission services, domain names). Anybody can hire a programmer, however, and the fact that other operating systems are in very wide use, notably MacOS, a monopoly is really a stupid argument, not worth millions of dollars of my tax money.)
:) :)
... I _could_ be wrong.
I live in a world of perfect happy people. And yes, it is called Texas. The only thing here that can possible fsck up this great land is the federal governemt, IMHO
That's just my opinion, of course.
Yes there are a lot of clueless protesters who just protest because they have no life and think they are being alternative or something. These vandalizing idiots make it worse for legitimate protesters. Although I have to say I still think it would've been funny if they released those snakes into the convention.
Anyway, if any of you aren't yet convinced that both candidates are hollow puppets on the strings of major corporations, and really think they give a shit about you, do yourself a favor, look through the hype to the reality and history of both parties (not just the glossy stuff they feed you) and read up on Nader. I usually mind my own damn business but I think raising awareness is at least worth the shame of a gratuitous plug.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
As for restraint it's insanely easy to restrain somebody who is resiting. I took a little Jui Justu and I was able to restrain people who were bigger then me, were resisting with all theri might and knew exactly what I was atempting to do. Police are trained in these tactics and should be able to execute them under strassful conditions. Once again if they can not they don't belong on the street they should be giving out tickets or shuffling papers.
A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
War is necrophilia.
That's not a two point font. A two point font would be 1/36th of an inch high on average :-)
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
The gas tax is approximately $.45 a gallon!!!
.. hmm.. 8 times your tax on gas.
Funny. In norway they're about $1 a litre. That is
Blah. You've got nothing to complain about, little complainer.
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"Rune Kristian Viken" - arcade@kvine-nospam.sdal.com - arcade@efnet
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Really Rob, if you want
www.eFax.com are spammers
If we are going to have a thread about politics, lets go ahead and have a article. However, to attach a political opinion on something unreleated (The protesters happened to be in Phil to demonstrate about their views, but the RNC do not control the politice, left the police and the protestors alone, and ran hospitality suites for the protestors) is a bit low and underhanded, and is "guilt by assocation". You might as well blame the fact that during the last democratic convetion the mayor sent all the poor packing out of the city.
I do think that people on Slashdot need to be more involved in the poltical proccess. There are good and serious debates both socially, the role of internation orginzations, the enviornment etc, as well as nationally (the role of China in the world, America's treaty obligations to taiwan), economically, finance reform, stock market etc.
Bush made a major political shift the other day, from conservitive to progressive. Read the pundit's editorials about it. It was interesting. Al gore needs to do something desperate to catch up on the 20pt lead Bush has.
All of these are important issues (and if there is a legit thread, I will be right in the middle of the frey) and should not be overlooked. But to post the political manner in the way it was posted was ir-responsible.
The growing nouveau riche (I think I spelled that correctly) population (read Dot-Com Millionaires) should very well vote Republican. After all, 1 of every 5 Republicans is a multi-millionaire.
... well... you know what I'm going to say.
Even if you are still part of the commonfolk (I won't attempt to spell the French word for that), if you expect to be wealthy one day,
-m
wait, are you trying to tell me that Libertarians believe that corporates will cease environmentally destructive acts (get this) out of the goodness of their own hearts!!
This is a serious issue, and deserves a response. Nobody but Pxtl is likely to see it at this point, but I'm writing it anyway. :-P
We need to step back a moment and ask ourselves, 'Why are corporations allowed to do this?' If your neighbor were to dump toxic waste into his yard, which then spread into yours, you could take action against him. He'd be legally accountable, and would likely have to pay for cleanup.
So why aren't corporations held to the same standards?
Part of the reason is that corporations run the country. They pay for the campaigns of candidates, and they lobby for legislation that is favorable to their interestes. They can do this because they have money, and because money is the most powerful force in the US today.
Another part of the reason is because corporations own the media. The average citizen receives information from television, newspapers and radio -- so they just don't know anything the corporations don't want them to know. (You already mentioned this. I think your analysis is right on the mark.)
Yet another part of the reason is because corporations are like berserker terrorists: they aren't afraid to die. And worse, if you kill them, they come back to life stronger than before. If you sued a corporation for all of its assets and won (yeah, right), the corp. would just declare bankruptcy. The CEO, the directors and the shareholders would just start a new corporation -- likely, the people working for that corp would just report to work on Monday and the only difference they'd see is that their X Corp. mousepads would be replaced with X1 Corp mousepads.
You can't beat someone who doesn't stay dead.
Now, I don't have the answer to all of this mess, but part of the solution, I believe, must lie in making sure that people bear the responsibility for their actions, even if those actions are masked by an incorporated entity. If a ship owned by an oil corp. dumps oil everywhere, then maybe the board of directors for that company should be personally held liable for the mess. Even if the oil corp. folds because it doesn't want to pay for the cleanup, the board of directors (or someone -- I'm no lawyer) should then bear the responsibility until the mess and all of its repercussions have been cleaned up.
Any serious Libertarian (as opposed to those who just want part of the package, such as the tax cuts) will tell you that freedom and responsibility go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other. Yes, I'm skeptical about how we can actually put these values into place in US society as it stands now, but what's the alternative -- to surrender and watch the world be destroyed?
AAArrg! I can't stand it...
As with everything, context is important. Jesus was speaking about people who gave lofty public prayers so that they would be admired by men. These people should be praying in closets at home in order to control their pride.
He was not saying there should never be any prayer in public. And he was certainly not saying that there should never be any prayer in churches and synagogues.
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"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
Also he's for taking away corporations' right to give money to politicians, which I think most people would agree with.
I was thinking about this the other day, and what I realized is this: making campaign contributions illegal won't stop them from being made.
Do you think that $1000 limit on campaign contributions really matters to corporations? They find ways around it. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that one of those ways is by a direct, secret bribe. Good, old-fashioned under-the-table cash.
If you try to make campaign contributions (from any source) illegal, all you'll accomplish is to make everyone give all the money secretly, and create even more secret alliances and backroom deals than we already have. This would be worse than the current situation -- at least now, we know some of the alliances. If it's all done in secret, we'll lose that much information.
At first glance, a better solution would seem to be: 'make campaigning illegal'. But that won't work either. Already we see phony fan sites and such that are actually corporate endorsements of a product, disguised as amateur efforts. I'm sure this already occurs in politics as well. If campaigning were illegal, you wouldn't be able to trust any web site with an opinion -- it might really belong to Susie Hacker, or it might actually have been written by someone who used to work for the Republican party's PR wing and who now accepts bribes from the GOP candidate (who in turn accepts bribes from corporations, large churches, etc.).
But I don't claim to have the answers. If I thought I had answers I'd actually try to get something done, instead of rambling on slashdot and hoping that someone else can pick up the pieces I drop and come up with bigger pieces....
Heres the real scoop before you believe the "unbiased" news that come from the protest groups themselves.
Protesters who were arrested were arrested for the following things: (1) Destruction of property (2) Directly assaulting police (3) Blocking traffic. The common tactics used by most truly non-violent protestors (the traffic blocking ones) was to block a street and use various paraphenalia like PVC pipes and chains to lock themselves together. The philly police had to clear these people and they did so with as little force as possible. To do otherwise is irresponsible on the part of the police. Several police have been injured or sprayed with unknown substances when they were either doing nothing (sitting in their patrol cars, etc.) Several more were injured (including the police commissioner) when they attempted to stop violent protestors from tipping over cars and other blatantly destructive activities.
Unlike Seattle no tear gas was ever used. The philly police were calmer and far gentler than their counterparts in Seattle. The police stopped several trucks and closed down a warehouse they were told housed equipment to be used for disruptive protests. I assume that these things will be sorted out now that the convention is over and the police have actual time to follow up. Incidentally the worst day of protests was the second day of the convention, not the first and not the last. Anyone who tells you differently is making things up.
As for the jail conditions, it was not uncommon for protesters to strip naked, piss, and crap all over their holding cells. They then demanded to be moved out of their squalid conditions. The police refused and let them sit in their own shit. Some protestors complained about the food because they were (1) vegetarians or (2) had dietary health problems. Food was usually on the order of cheese or pb&j sandwiches (for the lactose intolerant). Philly police site about 400 people in custody and over half have been released. Those still in custody are most likely being held because they will not disclose their real names to the police and will be released once they do. Several people still being held were the riot instructors. These are the people who trained and then were actively coaching the disruptive protestors on the sidelines.
Considering the incredible pressure and concerted effort put against the Philadelphia police, the city of philadelphia is very happy with its police force. All the pictures and videos I have seen on the local news have been relatively positive towards the police.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
I've always had trouble with "Just Vote!" message. It causes a lot of clueless people to go to the pole and just pick the names that sound nice or that they recognize. Then they get a little sticker that sez "I Voted Today!" and all they're co-workers think they're socially responsible. This contributes to the wrong people getting elected. So if you haven't spent at least a few minutes considering the issues for god sake stay home. Or if your willing to spend just a couple minutes go to www.vote-smart.org and get a quick and simply summary of what the candiadates do and do not support.
Proportional representation doesn't exactly apply to a race like the presidential, where there's a single slot to be filled.
What we need here, according to that voting systems FAQ in the other reply to your post (someone moderate that up, BTW?), is called approval voting, where instead of one voter, one vote, each voter casts a "yes" or a "no" vote for each candidate, and the candidate with the most yes votes wins.
That way, people can vote for third party candidates without worrying that they may be splitting the vote for their preferred Republicrat candidate, because they'd cast a vote for both. Social liberals in this election might vote yes to Gore and Nader; fiscal liberals might vote yes to Bush and Browne.
I'd vote yes to Gore and Browne, just to confuse people. As it is, I think that both primary candidates in this election suck (Why did everybody I talked to prefer McCain and Bradley, but Bush and Gore got all the votes anyway), and if Gore was winning by a big margin I'd cast a protest vote for Browne... but as it is, I have to vote for Gore as the only possible way to help keep GWBush from taking the election.
women who drink alcohol do so voluntarily [...] Date-rape drugs, on the other hand, are slipped into womens' drinks unbeknownst to them.
Oh, and I'm sure nobody has ever lied to another person about whether the punch in the bowl on the left is alcoholic or non-alcoholic.
The sheer quantity of alcohol available usually makes it the #1 drug in just about any statistical category you can name.
Hey, if the democrats _were_ running an inanimate carbon rod, I'd be tempted to vote for it. However, despite the sarcastic comments I expect from some people that Gore and the rod could be twins, they are not.
I'm voting for Harry Browne.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Actually, there is currently a karma freeze (at least on the higher karma accounts). I could post all day and not loose any of my karma. Sucks to be CmdrBitchTaco...
kwsNI
However, with a warrant (although the Ellian Gonzalez case is a counter example), the government can for the most part do what they want with me and my property.
The government hasn't needed a warrant to seize your property for quite some time now. Thanks in large part to the War on Drugs, the government can take anything they want from you, whenever they feel like it! It's called Civil Asset Forfeiture.
It's all for the children, of course.
I am continually bothered by the fact that Libertarians makes noone responsible for the less fortunate.
This is a lie. The Libertarian party makes the private sector responsible for the less fortunate. (You need to consult a dictionary to understand what I mean by the word "fortunate.") The huge problem with liberal thought is that whenever there is a problem the assumption is that the government has to step in to "fix" it. (Like they "fixed" our retirement with the bankrupt social security scam and they "fixed" health care for the elderly with the bankrupt Medicare scam). At this point usually the liberals scream, "But the Libertarian solution is not perfect! They'll leave kids starving in the streets!" Well guess what? Is the government solution perfect? Hell no! Will it ever be? Hell no! If you're looking for a "perfect" solution then you're going to be looking forever.
Not everyone comes out of a wealthy family that can afford a)health care b)good food and c)safe living conditions.
If someone can't afford health care, good food, and safe living conditions, then why the hell are they having children?? People treat it like it's some kind of right, and if they can't afford it then they have the right to use the government as an instrument of plunder.
but, if I use a cliche, think of the children.
Yes! The chiiiiiiilllllldren!!! The ultimate political whore!
Its not their fault mommie's a crackwhore, and daddy's in prison, but they get no welfare, can't pay for education, and don't stand a rats ass of surviving to adulthood.
You're right. But guess what? That doesn't make it my fault either! So how on earth does this give the government the right to take my money by force when it's not my goddamned responsibility?
And the rich grow richer.
This is the "evil rich" argument. The formula works this way: you can use peoples jealousy over other people's property to buy votes and political support. Pretty scummy, isn't it?
And don't give me that "voluntary taxation" shite. Look how well "voluntary standards" work (not at all). There will always be unpopular charities (like disease research that's doesn't have the word "cancer", or any celebrities suffering from it, but still kills/cripples lots of people), and besides, why should the charitable be punished, and the heartless be rewarded?
How much more popular would charities be if we weren't currently being taxed higher than we were during the height of world war II? And I don't know what your last question refers to, but let me counter with this: why should the achievers be punished and the irresponsible be rewarded?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.