Slashdot Mirror
White House Obfuscates Email
markgo2k writes "Do you want to email the president? This John Markoff, New York Times story (reprinted here in the non-subscription Seattle PI) details how the White House no longer promises to read anything you send to president@whitehouse.gov. Instead, you must navigate a multi-page website AND confirm your submission via email. Oh, and they only want to talk about subjects that are of interest to them." The web-form system appears to be a bit overloaded at the moment.
He said he particularly disliked being forced to specify whether he was offering a "supporting comment" or a "differing opinion" to Bush.
So when those emails come in, I guess they go in either one of two mailboxes. "With us" or "Against Us".
The "Against Us" email automatically get forwarded to Ashcroft.
Mike
And now instead of being a little overloaded it will just be completely unavailable. :-)
Go Illini!!!
"When it comes to a Web site, it's a bit like a movie," Mr. Orr said. "Some will say it's a tour de force; some will say it fell flat."
This website must be "Cabin Boy."
So maybe now Bush will stop blowing the budget on viagra, HGH and penis enlargers...
one can only hope
I don't find it very encouraging that the government doesn't promise to read anything we have to say anymore. Isn't it their job to listen to what the public has to say to make informed decisions for the good of the country? What are we paying them for?
KappaStone
I can't imagine why anyone would think the president of the United States would bother to read unsolicited email.
Head over to the real whitehouse alternative, much more fun.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
"The web-form system appears to be a bit overloaded at the moment. "
Really? I'm SOOO surprised.
The web-form system appears to be a bit overloaded at the moment.
*spooky music*
And then slashdot linked to it....
This is probably because emailing is 1000x easier than:
a) Mailing
b) Phoneing (being on hold for hours then talking to a nobody)
c) It gives you a warm happy feeling.
So why shouldn't they filter out their most popular form of communication given that most of it is crap anyway?
That, and my second point:
You shouldn't be emailing your most important concerns to the president - do your congressman, your senator, and your local government, they can probably help you more specifically.
Sig & Below
Yuck Fou
Oh well, what did you expect? So yay, go transparent democracy!
No, they really mean it. Go!
What do you want, a personal response from the Prez? Jeez, I think he's just a bit too busy for YOU.
It is really convenient to have the political opinions of your citizens stored in a database together with name, (e-mail-)address and the like!
No wonder I got so many replies!
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Do you think I oughtta mail the prez and ask for a pardon if the brits jail me? I'm telling you again, I did not touch that sweet little girl!
This will certainly put the kabosh on a good percentage of slashdotters who have been emailing the president to whine about how SCO is trying to screw Linux development...
All the best,
--Bob
Or you'll be prosecuted as a terrorist for performing a DOS on their web form. :)
president@whitehouse.gov has got to be the most well-known email address on the planet. How many penile lengthening offers does GWB get a day? I'm sure it's pretty high. Then there's ginseng supplements (maybe he could use them? ;)), and real estate deals, oh, and let's not forget all those important emails from the president of Nigeria!
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
I think I'll set up a similar digital "moat" to my email - sounds like a great way to keep out spam. My allowed topics of conversation would be jokes, interesting news stories, personal news, and of course sorority babes promoting their FREE webcams...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
given the grammatical skills of the semi-literate currently in the white house, i rather thought obfuscated emails were coming in the other direction...
Your elected representive is too busy to listen to your opinion right now. Please leave $10,000 after the tone......*BEEP*
...it's not like we had any reason to believe they were actually reading any of that e-mail anyway.
At least they're being honest about it now.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
It's a pain to use that thing, too... wife actually broke out the pen to mail the president about the redesignation of overtime for professional occupations. She heard back from our congressman within a week but hasn't heard squat back from G.W.
Considering G.W. runs a press conference once every six months, before an invasion, or after he beats up on some third world country, you expect better treatment?
Security through obfuscation, just like the ports.
Bah.
This space for rent.
"Oh, and they only want to talk about subjects that are of interest to them"
Well, I can remember phoning the White House during the Clinton Administration. Before getting to an actual person I was presented with a survey of some sort. I can't remember what it was about, but I do remember thinking that I preferred NONE of the possible choices for each survey question.
My point is that it appears every administration does this. It's not simply the current one.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I can appriciate the need for them to implement a "confirmation" action (Did you send this?), to stop spoofing, spamming, etc. However, the "pre-email questionaire" seems a little extreme. I suppose the goal is to ask "are you an insightful commentator or a raving lunatic?", but it takes a "are you a patriot or a terrorist?" tone about it.
Of course, it's now harder to complain to them about it, as well.
they won't talk about anything they don't want to, why should the listen to anything they don't want to either.
//comments are for suckers
//coders read code
We're ruled, "By the People, For the People"... Just without the People.
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
Putting stuff like this into the "Your rights" category dilutes issues that actually have to do with rights...
Rights are things like free speech, bearing arms, and freedom from false imprisonment.
Having to use a web form instead of an e-mail address is NOT a violation of your rights.
This is not a big deal. In fact this was a good thing. Before, they had some poor secretary who had to sit there getting a vague idea of what the emails were about. Let's face it, they almost NEVER made it's way up to the top anyway.
Now with the new system they can have some DBA write script to pump out statistics on what kind of feedback/problems/etc most people are writing about. They can actually get a real number and say "we got 10,000 emails this week and 67% of them disagreed with such and such policy." Plus, they can weed out the junk mail. Can you imagine how much spam he must've gotten. Do you think the Pres was using SpamAssassin?
Cire
What's that, the flag of Kansas?
Looks like they have set the title tag to be
>
<title>Please go to https://sawho14.eop.gov/PERSdata/intro.htm</title
"Once the message is sent, the writer must wait for an automated response to the e-mail address listed, asking whether the addressee intended to send the message."
Maybe president@whitehouse.gov was just getting too much spam and they decided something needed to be done after GW lost too much money to that poor Nigerian widow.
I'm just waiting for the security level to get bumped a color because the Whitehouse[.gov] is under a coordinated attack by people from around the world!
Click the link! Change the Color!
Bush declared early on that he would not be "doing" email as President, mostly to avoid ANY messages that would or could be construed as incriminating to himself or others.
Chances are, he won't be reading what you send anyway. Frankly, I suspect the concept of "mail your representative/elected official" is largely a thing of the past. Lobbyist's and big politcal money have largely ended any sort of grassroots effect.
It actually looks like they're trying to see whether the people mailing them have an IQ higher than a lab rat.
A good idea, IMHO. Filters out the drunk, drugged, and pure loony.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I knew a girl who, about 5 years ago, worked in Bill Gates office as the person (one of the people? Not sure) who would look after his inbox. According to her, 5 years ago he was getting in the ballpark of 3000 emails/day. I would guess now with the increased internet population and the increased spam levels he'd be getting at least double that, but I bet president@whitehouse.gov gets even more.
Not commenting for or against the post, just though it's an interesting perspective & an interesting management problem.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
Instead of firing off that e-mail, why not click "print" and mail it using the regular postal service?
In Canada at least, sending a letter via regular post to any Member of Parliament, including the Prime Minister, is free. Your letter is also far more likely to be read.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
The president never really read e-mail anyway. It was just a lot of paid interns who went through it. But because the e-mail address is made public on a very popular site, I'm sure they got a lot of spam and such. In these times of economic concerns, do we really need to be paying people to go through George Bush's e-mail?
... you can't expect him to read messages from everyone either. Instead, if you want to make a difference in government, start with your local representatives and senators. They are there to specifically represent the people in your district/state. You can get a message to the president much more easily through them than if you try directly via e-mail. This is how representative democracy works.
I agree with "representing the people" and such, but going through George Bush is just a bit too unfair. He has to look over 300 million people
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
"...government of the people, by the people, for the people..."
What with the general assaults on personal freedoms, Abraham Lincoln and the other Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves. Democracy isn't dead, but it isn't exactly at its zenith right now, least of all in the USA.
Can anyone think of a time when the freedoms of the average American were more at threat from their own government?
Like I've said before, the ideal of America is beautiful, it's just the reality that's becoming fubar.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
This bogus story (does any of you "promise to read" anything emailed to you?) reminds me of the following Clinton-era joke.
Q: If Bill Clinton is now president@whitehouse.gov, then where do I send email to Hillary?
A: root@whitehouse.gov.
They don't promise to answer each and every letter, either. And the President certainly must get even more spam than we do, as widespread as that address is. What makes Slashdot or it's readers so special? God at the whining here.
"He doesn't promise to answer our emails! But we're Slashdot readers! We're Important, damnit!"
We're not any more important than anyone else.
And as far as the bitching about the "pro" and "complaint" mails, that's just to make it easier to sort them. Again, so what? I'm already reading comments on here about the complaints going directly to Ashcroft so *gasp!* all Slashdot readers will be shipped off to Cuba for daring to criticize the President!
Here's a tissue. Shut the fuck up, and step back into the real world.
It's a poorly designed process for mail, but it's not an X-Files conspiracy. Sometimes I think when you sign up for a Slashdot account now, you get your first aluminum foil hat free.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Any Paypal customer with a problem typically has an impossible time calling and talking to a real live person, and personal attention to electronic mail is virtually non-existent. According to Vince Sollitto (PayPal spokesman), Paypal intentionally makes the phone number very difficult to find in order to save costs. This is fine, except their Email "customer service" also leaves a lot to be desired. Many times you will get a canned response that doesn't address your initial Email message, if you get a reply at all. It doesn't do any good to complain anyway. When asked about customer complaints, Sollitto said the company reads them, but takes them with a grain of salt...
Just reminded me of the White House. Congress hardly responds to what the people want (file sharing, etc) why should the President be any different?
On a side note, for what it's worth, the daily press briefings contain more 'hard' news than I see in the average evening news broadcast. (On a politically snider note, it's also much easier to understand how bad off things are when you can actually read the daily obfuscations with your own eyes, and in most cases, watch them in streaming video sans interepretation by talking heads.)
Also, say what you will about Clinton, but he was the first president to really make an effort at utilizing the internet to diseminate information regarding the executive branch, though granted he was the first president of the 'internet era.' There are several cool innovations he made and several excellent articles over at Slate regarding the White House web (Article #1 and Article #2) historically.
"Try asking about Israel's nuclear weapons."
Why bother? It is not important.
Pretty amusing, when you consider that once, long, long ago, in an America far, far away, the President was an accessible private citizen.
Once, the President of the United States recieved visitors who just walked up to the White House. Once, the President used to walk out to Pennsylvania Avenue and hail a passing buggy for a ride.
My, how times change...
HenryJamesFeltus.com
talk to your LOCAL Representative.. not the president. and stop with the chicken little bullshit.
Do you think one person could respond to everything? Give the guy a break, he's not on slashdot the whole night and day waiting for something good. Try fighting yourself, and see if your comments change. Someone has to fight, can you do it?
Or an education system that cannot teach someone to spell the word "Subjects"?
If you find that person, you put them back on their medication.
Come on, it isn't impossible to set up intelligent filters for sorting emails. Set up filters that keep track of common words in messages. Show word frequency statistics to White House staff. Staff rates keywords, emails get sorted, web forms get generated that allow people to easily select the issues they're interested in and whether they're for, against, or somewhere in between.
I'm impressed with Howard Dean's web savviness. I'll vote for him partly because he promises to use web-related means to get back in touch with common people instead of big corporate contributors.
Slashdot editor "michael" is arrested by federal agents for initiating a DOS attack against the White House servers.
...has anyone checked out the other White House website?
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Many years ago, my mother wrote to a former President, protesting a policy. She got back an elegant card thanking her for her "support." The next day, that President addressed the nation from the Oval Office and said that 90% of the mail he was receiving was in support of the policy.
Maybe that button isn't such a bad idea.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Contacting the President should be a process simple enough that anyone in the USA, even those with limited technical, communication, and cognitive abilities could perform.
There's no excuse for a confusing system like this reaching the public, as the White House has someone "in-house", so to speak, who is a great benchmark for the lowest common denominator in those three areas. From the description, I believe there is no chance this procedure would have passed the "Dubya" test.
Step 1: contribute a 7-figure sum to his campaign fund.
That's pretty much it. And he's completely blatant about it. It worked for Microsoft (read: "get out of jail free") and it'll work for you. We have the best President money can buy.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
This government will read anything you have to say if you're
a) rich
b) white
c) male
d) Christian
e) You've donated $100,000 to the Republican party
So stop your whining.
The White House is /.'d. The irony is unbearable!
Why should email be exempt?
Analysis: opposed to Faith-Based Initiatives
Faith-Based Initiatives (four phrases)
opposition phrases (80%)
support phrases (20%)
reading level (10th grade)
geographical analysis (rural Iowa)
non-invective (no phrases found).
[
Obviously, he's not a fan of breast enlargement or viagra, but instead of creating a process to keep him from getting those offers, why doesn't he just support legislation which forces spammers to user correct return addresses and accurate subject lines? This simply puts him more out of touch with the problems of his constituents.
been at slashdot long?
My son (6 yrs) sent in a letter.
Basic 6 year old questions. Pretty stright forward.
The reply was surreal. No questions answered but we gotta get Saddam and thanks for your support.
The web move does not surprise me. It is easier to send an email than write and mail a letter.
Must cut down on the volume of crap to sort through.
Folks, this story is from the NY Times. Better check out what snopes.com has to say about it.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
I recall back in middle school when one my friend's and his brother emailed president@whitehouse.gov with a threat letter (as a joke of course) and the next day FBI agents went to thier house, got their parents, came to school, and got all 3 of the kids. They sat them all down in a room at school talked to them for almost 2 hours. So at least we know SOMEONE is reading the email (:
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
... in favor of Bush enlarging his penis. That's gotta count as a refferendum or somthing.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Why don't we email the Vice President or First Lady? His email is still up on a direct link vice.president@whitehouse.gov, and her email is first.lady@whitehouse.gov.
C:\>
"Ok, Mr. President, here's the breakdown today:"
23% of emails on Iraq, 43% positive.
18% of emails on the tax cuts, 57% positive.
11% of emails on the economy, 32% positive.
6% of emails on the environment, 22% positive.
42% of emails on pleasing FLOTUS longer. Oh, and 34% of those were from Mrs. Bush herself. Should I schedule some time at Camp David, Sir?
Mod parent down? Disagreeing with you is not a concern of the moderation system.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
>"are you an insightful commentator or a raving >lunatic?",
When the folks in the White House think a holy war in the mideast will bring back Jesus, it's getting pretty hard to tell the crazies.
KnowatImean?
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
C:\>
You'd better damn well, with everyone setting up cantennas aimed at the john.
Yes, they're phallic because that's aerodynamic*.
*You should SEE my "Mr. Happy" cut through the air. It FLIES! =)
[SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
But I would strongly suspect that current elected officials couldn't give a $*(@#*() about what individuals say. Local officials are too powerless for most people to communicate with, and state and national officials are only looking at statistics and polls, (ok and lobbiests) to worry about what Joe Schmoe is ranting about.
They're willing to waive the rest if you can find your way to e).
Of course a) certainly facilitates e).
Well, I had no hopes he might have listened to wat I had to say anyway.
president@whitehouse.com instead.
I always liked whitehouse.com better than whitehouse.gov...
Please, michael, can't slashdot do better than this?
how he can get rich quick while enlarging his penis and getting high legally.
http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe Better a smartass than a dumbass.
nah, that wouldn't be authentic :)
(but thanks for the hint)
Probably the best way to send a message to George W is to wait til Nov. 2004 and then go to your local voting booth and express your opinion...he's sure to get the message that way.
- Put up a nicer message. This page is typically only going to be seen for a few seconds, if at all, but when the destination is down, would you want your visitors to be looking at that?
- A link would have been nice, to accomodate those who have turned off javascript. Yeah, I know this doesn't apply to many, but it's not difficult to do. In addition, instead of making users refresh (thereby burdening this server), users can just keep clicking the link if the destination page doesn't load.
- PERSdata??? What the hell is up with that? First, use all lowercase. Second, don't give your directories scary names like that. It scares the children.
- I think we're beyond the 8.3 filename conventions now. mv intro.htm index.html
If this is my first impression of a site, you can be sure I won't be trusting it to deal with my personal information.I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
I would suspect that current pols don't give a $*()@*#)( about their e-mail or messages anyway. Local officials are too powerless for most people to communicate with. State and National pols are too busy talking to lobbyists and paying attention to the polls and statistics to worry about what Joe Schmoe is ranting about today.
talk to your LOCAL Representative.. not the president. and stop with the chicken little bullshit.
Mmm..... chicken littles. I prefer buffalo sauce on the side, if not applied directly to the spicy little nuggets. Politics are tasty with the right sauces........
Your expectations are unreasonable and unrealistic. What you suggest may have worked before SPAM and trolls, but there's an awful high noise:signal ratio in today's e-mail. And paying people to sort it all out would be yet another waste of our tax dollars.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I don't think the White House should be expected to read every email that comes in. Email is too easy. In fact, if you talk to people who work in political offices, they will tell you that it takes many (sometimes hundreds) emails to have the effect of a single letter.
If you've really got something to say, print it out, put it in an envelope addressed to the President, put a stamp on it and send it off. You won't change the world that way but it will have a much greater effect than an email. I know it pains some of you that you'd actually have to do such a thing.
How did you know my Indian name? I thought I had mangaged to obfuscate everything.
This posted on a site where the majority of readers believe the lowest common denominator should be able to recompile their computer's kernel.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Contacting the President should be a process simple enough that anyone in the USA, even those with limited technical, communication, and cognitive abilities could perform.
There's no excuse for a confusing system like this reaching the public, as the White House has someone "in-house", so to speak, who is a great benchmark for the lowest common denominator in those three areas. From the description, I believe there is no chance this procedure would have passed the "Dubya" test.
Why do you believe that? Do you really believe that Saturday Night Live parodies are reality?
I never thought much of Clinton's wisdom, morality, choices, etc. but I never deluded myself into thinking he lacked cognitive ability. Nobody gets to positions like that without it.
How much can we all complain about spam and junk mail, but put a negative spin on the government weeding out junk from its own inbox? Considering that this actually allows a staff to continue reading mail, as opposed to wasting more tax dollars on going through spam and mail bombs, I think this is a pretty sane idea.
New bumper stickers are hitting the market next month:
No War in IRAQ - Slashdot Bush!
You can get a message to the president much more easily through them than if you try directly via e-mail. This is how representative democracy works.
If you are truly interested in contacting your congressman/woman or sentor, the best way is through fax. I called my senator's regional office, and the intern said that most faxes are actually read by the senators because someone took the effort to fax directly. Try http://www.senate.gov/ or http://www.house.gov/, and find a fax number if you really want to say something. But I have a feeling this is too much effort in our representative McDonalds/Wal-Mart/MTV democracy.
The IRS is a great agency for exacting revenge on people idiotic enough to declare themselves your enemy.
;-)
(OK, it's not really worse than internment, but it is slightly more likely
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Fav quote: "When it comes to a Web site, it's a bit like a movie," Orr said. "Some will say it's a tour de force, some will say it fell flat."
OK, so it was probably a secretary they have specifically for this type of item, but...
When my Dad graduated Law School, my mom suggested I e-mail Pres. Clinton and explain how he was a big inspiration to my dad etc etc and ask if he would write my dad a congratulatory letter. (My family must be the last Liberals left in the mid-west...) Apparently my mom had heard of this being done for friends of hers. Well, I didn't think so much of the idea, but I fired off the e-mail to president@whitehouse.gov, and forgot about it. Like 2 months later, my dad got a letter from Clinton that actually mentioned specifics (the name of his school and home town, stuff like that) from the e-mail I sent. He's got it framed in his office to the annoyance of his more conservitive partners.
OK, so cynics can tear this appart (it was "good news", probably a easily changed form letter, machine made sig that Clinton never touched, etc) but SOMEONE read the e-mail, and responded. This new system is just a way to make it harder for people to express their opinions to the pres. Interesting that they implemented this at a time when more and more people have something negitive to say...
BoB
It starts with when we go to the polls. Just stop voting for Democrats or Republicans. Both parties have created an entrenched power structure that needs to be replaced. Vote for third-party candidates, especially Greens and Libertarians. If enough of them trickle into the State legislatures and Congress, things will start to change. I'm increasingly appalled at how inaccessible our leaders are - we can't even tour the White House as individuals anymore - something that I believe is unprecedented. I'm sure the few groups that are permitted to visit are screened rigorously - why can't individuals be screened and brought around in groups as they form up at the Visitors Center?
When a government doesn't have time to listen to the people it's supposed to govern, you know that it's grown too large.
I think it's a tad ironic that a complaint about the conservative, Republican Bush administration's white house ends up being a rallying cry against Big Government. These guys are supposed to be all about small government! (Could it be that it's all just a rhetorical smoke screen used by conservatives to prevent discussion of real issues?)
Or have we forgotten the lesson we learned from being a colony of Britain?
I think we should pay a little more attention to the large corps and other big money interests that are running the country rather than hearkening back to the revolutionary war. Even if that runs counter to the "unrestricted, unregulated captialism is the answer / government is evil" sentiments so popular among pseudo-Libertarian slashdotters.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
Who is number one?
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
....send a message to the Whitehouse Web dev team, and let them know what you think.
"The Web Team does not answer or forward e-mail, but all messages pertaining to the technical operation and usability of the White House web site are read."
Why would you do this? Because given the overwhelming number of e-mails that come in, you can't process it and get it into a database with any "meta"-info attached. This way you let your users organize it for you, would be how the IT people sold the change. Then you really do have a better sense of the layout of all the mail you're getting, and you really do know more about what people think.
Not to say that this isn't incompetence on the part of the Bush folks. Anyone with a clue about PR would know the multi-page form that starts with stuff like "Do you Agree or Disagree with our beloved Kim Jong Il?" or "Are you a donor?" would be a mistake. Even if the Web guys told them they needed to use a revised front end to sort stuff, they should've realized how that form would read. In particular, they really needed to maintain the perception that every note got read -- to blow that off in any way just looks awful. The IT people had the same blindspot for that one -- ever decide to call an 800-line instead of using a tech support form you weren't sure would ever get responded to?
So this speaks to the blinders of both IT people and the Bush regime, sure -- but it probably was an honest try to address the volume of mail that comes in. I worked at the Ford Presidential Library for a while, and they've still got boxes and boxes, and shelves and shelves, of letters people sent abot pardoning Nixon -- categorized as pro and con, and that's about it.
(What they need is the text grinders to do the sorting automagically -- but wait, wouldn't that cost serious tax dollars?)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
The President of the United States does not have the time or interest to read every single email that comes into the Inbox. Every Federal Government Official and even some State and Local Officials have staff that handles those types of communications. I mean look at some the posts on /.'s comments. If these seem weird to you imagine what the President receives on a daily basis. Probably enough Spam and crackpot email to circle the earth 10 times over. Personally I think the email should be filtered and scanned for threats vs. legitimate gripes. I am sure the FBI and CIA have full access to what comes in on those email submission forms.
For your information, the Microsoft investigation and trial took place ENTIRELY during the Clinton administration.
As if you would ever expect _anyone to even read your mail (like a lottery). I mean, there probably _are people reading the emails that people send, but it's probably so heavily filtered by several levels of people _and electronic filters, not to mention the usual "we can't be bothered reading half of today's emails, truncate". I bet the president reads about 10 emails a year after all the filter process, if it's anything important I'm sure he'd find about it another way.
--
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
> Now with the new system they can have some DBA
> write script to pump out statistics on what kind
> of feedback/problems/etc most people are writing
> about.
I think somethink like that is commonly called a poll.
There's nothing wrong with a poll - but why disguise it
as an e-mail exchange?
subject sez all %-)
...I'm not sure Bush can read at all anyway.
I never send anything to president@whitehouse.gov, but I do use that email address when any software or websites require me to enter an email to download or register something. I wonder what the amount of porn sent to that email address is? Pity the poor bastard who has to sort through that shit.
Spread the RC luvin'
Why should you be able to email the President? You can't call him, you can't pop round for a cup of tea and a chat, why should he have to read email from complete strangers on whatever pops into heir head. More importantly, why should I as a taxpayer have to fund the staff it takes to read all the email that he gets sent just so you get a cozy feeling about the democratic process?
You want to communicate with the President? Vote.
If spammers are forced to use correct return addresses, then you would be too.
Kenshiro70&hotmail,com is not a valid address.
"The web-form system appears to be a bit overloaded at the moment."
In other news today, OSDN joined North Korea and Iran in the Axis of Evil, as popular internet site^H^H^H^terrorist meeting group Slashdot.org launched a cyber-attack, temporarily disbaling the White House comments form.
"This senseless destruction of government property will not go unpunished. An open, communicative government is good. These "hack-ors" stopped this, therefore they are bad. Terrorists are also bad. Therefore, Slashdot is obviously a terrorist training camp and must be dealt with accordingly," said the Government Minister for Fear-Infliction earlier today.
Can't "Dubba ya", just run popfile like everyone else?
I can see his buckets now...
Republicans
Liberals
Kooks
Minions
Deaththreats
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
So it's a web page form instead of an email address. No big deal, and probably a great thing. I don't publish my own email address on my site. I have an easy-to-use email form instead. Granted, it's a single page and not needlessly complex like the White House's, but it's cut down on a lot of spam. Oh, yeah, the president@whitehouse.gov probably receives a butt-load of spam -- I know I got into the habit of using that address as my fake spam address back during the Clinton administration -- (1) I couldn't have been the only one and (2) based on the amount of spam I get at my secret, valid email address the poor presidential staff must get a hell of a lot more. Now my only problem is I haven't been able to use daschle@senate.gov as my spam address, since Tommy seems to have nothing but a web form, too. Too be fair, it's a lot simpler than the prez's form.
--Jim (me)
It really is just an obfuscated email address. He can now be reached at "marie.antoinette@ivorytower.com".
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
It is not stamped. Instead it is "Franked", or signed by the congressman (or stamped, really, with his signature). But it is not free... Congress pays the Postal Service for this, and it comes from each Member's budget.
Check out this C-span link.
And for the record, the economic downturn began in early-mid 2000, during Clinton's administration. I should know, I worked for Lucent at the time when their stock tanked.
All part of Bush's War on Criticism
I'm pretty sure that if you write your message in the 'memo' line on a us$100,000 check, they'll listen a bit better. The new US 'democracy': one dollar, one vote?
Or do you not remember the CDA ?
The public cotact numbers and addresses for the White House are readily available here.
~Idarubicin
and told him he is the biggest asshole the world has ever known.
You may think I am kidding but I am not. I was intoxicated at the time but was glad to get it off my chest.
The "Against Us" email automatically get forwarded to Ashcroft.
Why bother with the web-form at all?
In a couple years (if they all get their wishes) any email you send will end up in their hands anyway, so there'll be no real need to send mail directly to them.
The Bush administration chose to settle on very favorable terms with Microsoft.
sulli
RTFJ.
I suspect they get no spam at all. Few, if any, spammers would be so stupid as to NOT automatically delete *.gov, or even *@whitehouse.gov from their lists. That is, if their webcrawlers didn't simply avoid those web pages altogether.
This is pretty obvious based on how the government is handling the spam issue: They're sort of waffling on the issue, leaving anything that's the remotest bit effective to languish in favour of legislation that gets paid for by ambulance chasers. If everyone in the government got anywhere near as much spam as us little people did, then legislation would be pushed through in record time to televise the executions of spammers.
Think about that for one second. How do you think conservative congresscritters from the bible belt would react to getting getting a single unsolicited message advertising gay porn and farmyard sex?
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
So, I'm refraining from my usual punch out comment. Why? Basically: it's early, I'm slightly hungover, and I sit at my computer. ... and it's just like blah. As if whatever they do I'm not capable of understanding , as if I'm not alive, as if my actions are not worth anything ... hence patronizing, alienation, and humiliation.
It seems very frustrating lately at how unnecessary this administration is making people feel. In a way it's alienating, patronizing, and slightly humiliating.
I for one protested the Iraq War. On February 15th I was in a march in Seattle that was mimicked around the world with more than several million protesters. Just in the US there were hundreds of thousands.
Now I don't want to sound bitter, but to spend an afternoon trying to get the Presidents attention with 20 thousand other individuals walking the streets of Seattle, and to have him say, in effect: "I'm not listening to you because you are a special interest" is complete crap. All he did to make a case for that war was to state his "evidence" that didn't persuade anyone, then repeat this "evidence", until it seemed like common knowledge.
Back to this article. I feel this webpage, however effecient it might make mail handling, seems like its designed simply to pidgeonhole people and their opinions. I for one don't want my e-mails tagged as "not in support of the white house" after seeing the way Bush handles dissent; I bet I would get a "think straight, vote bush" button in the mail or some crap.
Personally, I think this system is designed to dehumanize people. The same thing this web interface requires is the same thing a script could do (I know because I can watch resumes being scanned/recieved and keywords being checked...). But they want to force people to deal with the interface? I don't want to mess around with some supposed "tour de force" of a website. I certainly don't want my letter to be reduced to "yay" or "nay". (maybe I'm just a grandstander, and want to be listened to) but the way this administration is run, it doesn't seem like anyone is getting heard... people's protests aren't even addressed
I'm amazed they even have a webmail form page.
The administration said at the very beginning of his term that the President would not be dealing with email. Spin it for the + or - as you will, but you will hear of no requests for the President's emails from any investigating agencies for anything... There isn't any.
I had a sucky sig.
Im my experience, snail mail is far more effective in getting your point heard and something done about it. I ALWAYS write a letter if I have a problem, and 90% of the time, the situation is adequatly dealt with.
I have never had any luck with email complaints, and only marginal success with phone complaints.
Just last night in fact, I heard back from AT&T wireless because I sent the CEO a letter about how his company was attempting to defraud me on my bill. Fixed, no problem. And a free month to boot. I had previously called 5 times and had been told that is was "impossible" to fix.
So use email for normal communications, but when you need something done, write a letter and fork over 37 cents for a stamp. The results are well worth the cost. I imagine that a letter to the president has a much higher chance of actually being read by someone than an email does, especially now.
T
The real address for the president is:
al.gore@whitehouse.gov
"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
If the president really wanted to sort through countless messages from dim-witted lunatics, he'd just read slashdot. :-p
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
Apparently you could actually make some money (read "intern") for the previous president and still get in some "face time". :-}
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
If all you want is 5 seconds for a handshake and a picture, youre good to go if you can cath him in the office. You want to talk about issues, forget it, wont happen unless your a lobbyist.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Or are they RFC ignorant. It would be a tragedy if we had to join the terrorists by blacklisting whitehouse.gov.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
>>Kenshiro70&hotmail,com is not a valid address.
No shit sherlock. It's a slashdot special obfusication.
RTFM
In other news, an unnamed source in the Bush Administration revealed that the White House had recently outsourced a portion their new email system to a Nigerian company.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Why not email him at president@whitehouse.com?
0xfeedface
I always e-mail the president at president@whitehouse.com ... I never seem to get a response. But I sure do get a lot of spam these days... about naked ladies. I just don't get it.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
my response
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Funny that the president would refuse to hear the grievances of the people.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Great idea! Just [ab]use Carnivore by sending seditious messages in your email, knowing that they'll then be read by the government... particularly if you use the words 'kill' and '[insert government figure here]'.
Oh, and if this gets modded 'insightful', I'm scared. ;)
-T
Let us not forget who wrote this article. Are we to belive John Marcoff? After watching Feedom Downtime I find that highly inpossible. Lie after lie.
peace be with you.
Jimmy: "I just want to tell Mr. President that he's my role model and I look up to him."
Teacher: "Well, then you support his policies Jimmy!"
Janey: "I wanted to tell Mr. President he's funny looking."
Teacher: "That's pointless. Everyone already knows that. In any case, you disagree with his policies!"
Muffin: "Uh... I dunno if I agree with his policy or not..."
Teacher: "Well, in that case, don't even bother writing him anything."
This is almost certainly a response to the flood of e-mails asking why in the hell he doesn't sic the full resources of the law on Skilling and Lay from Enron.
All these demands for justice probably just piss him and Cheney off!
I regularly e-mail my representatives from the county board up to the Senate and House. I frequently get responses, especially from those who disagree with what I am writing about. If fewer people agreed with your viewpoint, the political value in messages from constituents would increase.
They needed to revamp how they handled e-mail after this little incident.
As the quality of the president decreases the amount of money it costs to get face time with him increases.
Please register to vote.
Please vote
I don't care who you vote for, but I'd like the next presidential election decided through the normal system and not by the Judicial system. Thank you.
I don't find it very encouraging that the government doesn't promise to read anything we have to say anymore. Isn't it their job to listen to what the public has to say to make informed decisions for the good of the country?
Of course they should. There's no question the leaders of a country several hundred million strong should take the time to personally review every emailed opinion, petition, threat, newsletter and spamvertisement that arrives in the president's emailbox daily. It's their moral obligation, and it's specifically written into the Constitution that they ought to do so.
Of course, such a process would mean that either (a) our tax dollars would need to provide a few million dollars a year just to employ people to read and sort those emails before they reach the president himself, or (b) said president and his staff would never get anything else done. This being the case, it's far better that (c) a few web-based forms be employed to sort the emails first and reduce the amount of automail (petitions, repeat submissions, and spam) that can get through.
The government never promised to read anything you had to say. They do it because it helps them understand their constituents' wants and needs, but they never promised it. And now that technology becomes so widespread that email actually slows that process down instead of speeding it up, there's good reason to add a layer of complexity and shift some of the burden of communication back on the citizens.
Way back when, the Roman Republic was overthrown, and became an Empire, with an Emperor. The average person did not know for about a century after that occurrence that the Republic was dead, and they were now in fact subjects of an Empire.
Likewise in the USA. The two-party system is a shame. The USA is no longer a republic, or a democracy for that matter, but more like an empire. It's professional wrestling; all is fake, phoney, and scripted. They're all in bed together, your vote does NOT count, your voice does NOT matter, it's all a sham.
Bread and circuses, people. Eat your friggin' Big Macs and watch the war on TV, and wave, wave that flag.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
This is partially what caused us to revolt against Britain and what formed this country, and it seems we are fast approaching this sad state once again.
Its time for a 2nd revolution people. No, its past time.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's going to suck when slashdot.org ends up on the US's "known terrorist" list for sending all this traffic to whitehouse.gov to take it down. Ownz0red!
I understand that the President can't answer zillions of questions all the time, but what if instead of sending emails, the preferred way of communicating with the country's leadership was through Slashdot-like discussion forums?
Only the highest moderated posts would be answered by the chief himself, and it would pointless to send in boilerplate mail because it would just get moderated down as redundant.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
The king cannot talk to you today, filthy scum peasants.
Isn't democracy great? Be neat to live under it..
So, I take it any Prez previous to Clinton was in violation to this since they wouldn't answer email.
Oh, wait, they got snail mail. And, interestingly enough, snail mail is still an option. So, could you fill us in on your point?
Here's a copy of the online form
=_.I=_.I=_.I=_.I=_.I=_.I=_.I=_.I=_.I=_.I
Welcome to the Whitehouse's feedback page. We welcome your feedback. Please answer the following questions:
(1) How do you feel about the president's performance?
(a) He's the best president ever and I've named my first born after him.
(b) He's the best president ever, but I can't have children.
(c) He has his flaws but when you look at the full package, he's the best president ever.
(d) He's a-okay.
(e) He's an blasphemous infidel.
(2) If you answered (e) in the above, please state your affiliation:
(a) I'm a sleeper terrorist. (Please specify group in the space provided.)
(b) I kill and eat poor innocent babies.
(c) I'm on some illegal mind altering drug so I don't know what I'm typing.
(d) I'm an active terrorist. (Please specify group in the space provided.)
(e) I am against all amerikans and think Fidel Castro must become president.
(f) I am saddam hussein (Please specify current address).
(g) I am Osama Bin Ladin (Please specify current address).
(e) I am a Democrat.
(3) If you did not answer (e) in question (1), please tell us more about yourself. (Note, we will send you a free american flag after you complete this survey)
(a) I am Bill Gates
(b) I am at least half as rich as Bill Gates
(c) I am rich
(e) I'm not rich but I have more than I need and am lucky to live in america.
(f) I'm an average joe who believes that America is the best country in the world.
(g) I'm poor but I believe in the american dream.
Now please fill out your contact information in the space provided. Make sure you include your name (and any alias), all your addresses, all your phone numbers, travel plans for the next two weeks, and three people who would know where you'd be at any given moment. [......]
Thank you for your feedback. We will process your response as soon as possible and respond appropriately because we care.
God bless america!
How many years have you been reading Slashdot? You must have noticed the rise of the Astroturfers and other robot trolls around here. If people go through all that trouble just to spoof a news site, what do you think they would do to someone who's been dropping bombs on them? I can only imagine the kinds of crap they get.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Will slashdot make it to the terrorist organization list?
how is this comments insightful especially that "alleged president" dig??
Are the moderators and readers here to clueless as to not figure out how our system works?
Life ain't that simple, and "states rights" is largely a principle of convenience for parties that aren't in power at the federal level, if you look back at our history.
As far as the U.S. revolution goes, there's an element of truth to the comparison -- but I suggest you read something like "The First American" to get a sense of the complexity of the real confict there. There were political conflicts over the role of the Pennsylvania assembly that don't fall into your neat categories at all, not at all. (Had to do with the Royal charters given the Penn family.) And, of course, the whole idea of "taxation without representation" is exactly about the Americans not having a say in the national parliament.
Another response mentions civil rights, during which "States Rights" became a pro-segregation stance. That had roots in the Civil War. The wishful idea that the Civil War was about states trying to defend themselves against the odious power of the federal government has been established in the South for a while now. Hardly true. Under Buchanan, a much more sympathetic President, they objected to the other states' right to not cooperate with their runaway slave laws; how does that agree with the states rights position, again? National policy toward new states, and the resulting future balance of power at the federal level, was where the action was at. The reason the South took up the "states rights" banner -- the reason people buy this story even today -- was because they'd lost the battle at the federal level, not out of any great principle to do with local rule.
Again -- if the other guys are in power in the white house or both federal legislative bodies, you want to protect your ability to resist them locally. Has more to do with checks and balances than with any grand principle. Our current Republicans supposedly loved this "local rule" principle of yours, but now that they're a majority in both federal houses are they doing anything about it for states with Democratic governors?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Considering all the "Find Weapons of Mass Destruction FAST!!!" spam the White House must get on a regular basis, this doesn't surprise me one bit.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Actually getting in touch with the leaders of any country is really getting difficult.
My last letter to Bill Clinton was also completely ignored, though followed closely by that Simpsons episode were he calls himself a "pretty bad president" and Lisa says "No I do not want to speak to Al Gore." Both of which are quite funny. This has alot to do with the executive branch of the government (all branches of every government) being unable to here everyones opinion regardless of current technology. The best answer I have seen to this is the blogs being used by menbers of the House and Senete here in the States and by two members of the House of Commons in England.
Of course all else held true politicians in S. Korea probably have fully avantar staffed political offices on a number of online worlds. If not they should, "Player: Excuse me could I meet with Mr. Sun. Secretary: It'll be about 15 minutes. He is in with a amazon warrior at the moment then has a 5:00 with a Mr. Zarac the Conquerer of Pleblaqz IIV, then a short informative speech by..." Damn if only that were the US. We could lobby them with online currency..
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
...but what the hell? I visited the www.whitehouse.org site and on the right hand side there's one interesting link to "Majorly Patriotic Thongs". Some of the text on those thongs seems pretty strange to me , 'europe is for h0m0s' , 'Jesus votes Republican' , 'Democrat lsut' , etc. Only in America...
they'll probably just put a check in the "supporters" comment and throw the text away. Then they can say the measure has overwhelming support.
"...government of the people, by the people, for the people..."
The problem with this quote isn't the nobleness of it. But the fact that it doesn't work very well when applied to the small scale. Government for which particular group? By which particular group? For what particular group? You have the mess we have because everyone (corporate and individual alike) has their own agenda, and it doesn't mesh with others. The above quote implies both majority, and concensus. Something that's fragmented in our system. BTW This could just as easily happen in other forms of government, with human nature being the constant it is.
So if we're going to be complaining about the ruling system we're under? Just remember the role we all played in building it. Remember to thank your ancestors when you go home.
"...government of the apathetic and selfish, by the apathetic and selfish, for the apathetic and selfish"
The IRS is a great agency for exacting revenge on people idiotic enough to declare themselves your enemy.
That's no joke. Just ask the Christic Institute. The Christic Institute is a government watchdog agency that has been a thorne in the side of Uncle Sam for a great many years.
I first hear about Christic during the Iran Contra "guns for drugs" scandle in the mid 1980s. They were the ones who actually brought the suit against the government.
An apt description of the Christic Institute (as appearing in this article)"The institute has won several landmark civil lawsuits, including the "Greensboro massacre" case against members of the American Nazi Party and Ku Klux Klan who assassinated demonstrators in 1979, and the "Silkwood" case against the nuclear industry. The institute does not charge legal fees and depends entirely on contributions from churches, Jewish philanthropies, private foundations and individual supporters."
Another decent (and slightly more in-depth) history of the organization can be found here. The sad truth is that the IRS is likely to revoke their not for profit status making them liabel for back taxes for all of the years they have been in operation. Many feel that this is in direct retaliation to the Avrigan vs. Hull lawsuit. The government is alredy quite fond of issuing hefty fines to the institute for what it deems to be "frivolous lawsuits" (I'll let you judge that one for yourselves) as a means of intimidating them into not persuing their just causes. But if this IRS thing the IRS has in mind at the prompting of ultra conservative members of the house, it could mean the final curtain call for a heroic agency that has done much to keep america free.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
He was simply talking about spam.
If they were forced to read EVERYTHING they probably got a lot of it from angry individuals and spam bots. I bet they weren't even legally allowed to try to block spam.
Now you have to spend a little more time thinking about what you're writing. The form stops some of the spam and thoughtless junk and the "we don't have to read everything" gives them access to a delete button so they don't have to read about how they can make their breasts bigger 100 times a day.
Can it be abused? Yes. Will it? Probably. So instead of using their web-form, type up your e-mail in a word processor, print it out and mail it. People who really want to be heard often do letter writting campaigns. I can just imagine how many people flooded the presidents e-mail address in an attempt to get noticed. Read it once you might forget. Read it a thousand times and you never will.
We constantly are looking for ways to reduce the amount of crap that comes in our own e-mailboxes. It's not surprising the US Government finally had enough of it.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Politicians are, like virtually anyone else, interested in advancing their own agendas and the agendas of their allies. They see their constituents in three groups...
- People who will support them no matter what.
- People who will oppose them no matter what.
- People who can be persuaded one way or the other.
Politicians will play enough to the first group to keep their "base" support strong. They'll completely ignore the second group, if they are not outright working against them.The key to effectively communicating with a politician is to appear to be in that third "swing" group.
Think about it. If you were the president and received two letters criticizing policies on "domestic spying" - the first called you a "fascist pig" - and the second acknowledged "you efforts to provide safety and security to the American people", then asked you to "reevaluate the balance between security and the civil liberty that we all cherish" - which would be more likely to make an impact?
And just another comment... Many of the "/." community talk about terrorism in their posts as if the threat is made up hysteria. I live in the NYC area. My wife watched the second plane impact and the collapse of the towers from her car on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Later that morning at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge she picked up refugees fleeing from lower Manhattan and ferried them out of the area. We know 4 fire fighters who gave their lives in the rescue effort.
It is not a hysterical witch hunt.
It actually looks like the Bush administration is (ironically enough) spam-savvy. I was sent the following piece of presidential spam a few months back.
(Received: from gop8.rnc.org (gop8.rnc.org [65.172.162.138]) by smtp.albany.edu (8.12.5/8.12.5) with SMTP id h4O8jRAG007365)
President George W. Bush
May 16, 2003
Dear C,
I am honored to be your President during this time of opportunity
and challenge for our country. Our country has faced many tests and accomplished a great deal.
But we still have so much to do to make our world more peaceful
and America more compassionate that I intend to seek a second
term as your President.
Today, I authorized the creation of a campaign committee to build
the grassroots team and collect the resources needed for victory.
Will you let me know if you will be a part of my campaign in New York?
And will you help get my campaign off to a strong start by
contributing $1,000 or $750 today at www.GeorgeWBush.com/Donate ?
The new Federal election law allows donations of up to $2,000 a
person or $4,000 a couple.
It will be months before Democrats settle on a candidate, but the
election could be close. The strength of our grassroots effort
will determine the outcome. I need the help of friends now. My
responsibilities as President will require me to focus primarily
on our nation's business for most of the next year. I'll depend
on friends and supporters like you to get my campaign organized
and operating across our country.
Abroad, we have a duty to protect America by working for peace,
opportunity and stability. We have no more urgent and important
duty than to wage and win the War on Terrorism. We must make use
of the moment history has given us to extend liberty to others
around the world, because in the long term, freedom and hope are
the best weapons against terror. And, we have a unique
opportunity to harness American ingenuity and compassion to save
tens of thousands of lives by defeating the scourge of AIDS.
At home, our most urgent mission is to strengthen our economy and
create jobs. To provide economic security and opportunity to
every American, we must improve health care, give senior citizens
long-promised prescription drug benefits, provide a quality
education for every child, and insist on safe neighborhoods and
schools.
My goal is to build an ownership society where American families
own their own homes, their own health coverage, their own
retirement accounts and, if they want, their own businesses.
And we are working to change the culture from one that too often
said, "if it feels good, do it," to a responsibility society
where people know they are accountable for what they do, for the
children they bring into the world, and for loving a neighbor
like they'd like to be loved themselves.
A great country strives for great objectives. The two big goals
at the center of my agenda are expanding peace and freedom
throughout the world, and helping our country become a more
compassionate and prosperous nation where everyone has an
opportunity to work and succeed and realize the promise of
America.
To achieve these goals, America must be united. I have worked to
bring dignity and honor to the White House and to change the tone
in Washington. I have asked Democrats and Republicans to join
with me in achieving great purposes.
One of the paintings I have selected for the Oval Office portrays
a man on horseback, leading a charge up a steep hill. His face is
full of purpose and determination, and it is clear he expects to
get the job done. The painting is called "A Charge to Keep,"
based on a Methodist hymn that's a favorite of mine, "A Charge to
Keep I Have."
I love the painting because it speaks to serving a cause that is
greater than yourself. The picture reminds me every day that my
most important job is to unite our country and provide leadership
to overcome America's toughest challenge
In the hierarchy of power things get escelated until they get handled. The congressman handled your wife's issue so it didn't need to go any higher.
You wouldn't have gotten a letter from Clinton either. It's not like the congressman brought the letter to Bush and Bush told him to write you back himself.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
The four billion to Israel is money well spent. The place is an island of civilisation in a sea of savagery.
If you can write an e-mail you can print it up and snail mail it. People who are computer illiterate can still send snail mail.
The President doesn't have time to talk to millions of people. That's why we have a representative government.
"even those with limited technical, communication, and cognitive abilities could perform."
That's why we have lawyers called "Senators" and "Representatives." People who aren't able to communicate their desires effectivly go to people who can.
Little Johnny writes the senator stating he wants a pony. The senator takes the time to consider it and gets the town a petting zoo with a pony for the kids to ride. The president would be way too busy and just say "that's nice." But if he got a proposal for a petting zoo he'd actually have something to consider.
Not that the president would consider such localized issues but it conveys the general idea of the point.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
the site has an invalid SSL cert - could be anyone - certainly not someone who has all the might of the US security apparatus behind it (said of course rather tounge in cheek)
Well, I think they're more likely to just add all recieved addresses to their catalogue.
After e-mailing various republican lawmakers to express my own differing views on certain issues, I found myself subscribed to the Republican National Commitee mailing list.
Now I get lots of big, chunky GOP spam.
I get the following when attempting to veiw the form:
Unable to verify the identity of sawho14.eop.gov as a trusted site.
Possible reasons for this error:
- Your browser does not recognize the Certificate Authority that issued the site's certificate.
- The site's certificate is incomplete due to a server misconfiguration
- You are connected to a site pretending to be sawho14.eop.gov, possibly to obtain your confidential information.
Please notify the site's webmaster about this problem.
Before accepting this certificate, you should examine this site's certificate carefully. Are you willing to accept this certificate for the purpose of identifying the Web site sawho14.eop.gov?
Examine Certificate
o Accept this certificate permanently
o Accept this certificate temporarily for this session
o Do not accept this certificate and do not connect to this Web site
OK Cancel Help
All the better for you to have forgotten any necessary details and possibly lost any supporting records in a move. If you're lucky, you'll look like the goatse.cx guy when they're through with you.
think it read...The web-form system appears to be a bit OVERLORDED at the moment?
M.D. Inc.
Anyone else seeing this when they attempt to go to the link in the article?
Website Certified by an Unknown Authority
Issued To
Common Name sawho14.eop.gov
Issued By
Common Name <Not Part Of Certificate>
Organization VeriSign Trust Network
Organizational Unit VeriSign, Inc.
Validity
Issued On 3/7/2003
Expires On 3/7/2004
Is it a completely realistic expectation that the white house is going to read and consider every single piece of mail it receives daily?
No, not really
Is this something that we want to know about?
No
Until there is a way to paper clip bribes, er I mean campaign contributions to e-mails, it's not like they are going to carry any weight anyway.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Not flamebait, this is insightful. Turn Rush Limbaugh down long enough to read the post first.
Muslim countries like Persia and Southern Spain preserved the science and literature of the greek, roman, and egyptian civilizations while the holy roman empire was burning books and people.
Don't judge an entire region by the acts of a few zealots.
This web mail thing is not-uncommon. I absolutely hate it.
I once wrote to Joe Lieberman, my Senator, via e-mail. Now, while he did reply, eventually, as part of the reply I was told that in order to get better attention I should use the web form on his web site. When I tried that, the web site refused to accept my brower, IE only. I still get hot over that.
It seems to me that if you can now file your mortgage and other documents (see ESIGN, First Online Refi and probably others) that the President's office should be able to accept comments, and letters via regular e-mail.
Why is regular (read "real") e-mail important? If I am fired up enough to write the President, it is likely that I'll want to include my congressman, senator or the OP-Ed of a newspaper, along with a copy back to myself. Not possible with this "tool." Beside's, websites are vulnerable to the Slashdot effect. E-mail may not be perfect, but I don't have to sit and wait for the compose window to render.
Technically, I'm not sure if PGP or GPG meet any necessary standards, and the technique is far too obscure to casual e-mail users. I submit that all e-mail software should be delivered with a signing tool. That should go for web-mail too. I do not know of any that are. (Check that, Mozilla does, although I cannot see how to use it, yet.) Maybe that would be a start in the right direction.
True friends are hard to come by... I need more money. - Calvin
My understanding is that the Christic Institute was bankrupted several years ago by Judge King's "frivolous lawsuit" ruling.
. asp
There were also extra-judicial pressures: break-ins, car-bombings, and shootings.
I've compiled some notes about Christic, here:
http://www.karljones.com/history/america/christic
-kgj
You know, it's only a matter of time before Slashdot is categorized as a weapon of mass destruction. Linking like this is just asking for a liberation.
The Register has a nice blurb on this.
/. crowd that bogged their servers?
However, was it the Times as they state, or more likely the
DONT PANIC
Woo woo, a conspiracy nut who doesn't know what he's talking about.
Structural steel begins to soften significantly at 500 degrees celsius, and has lost 90% of its strength at 800 degrees celsius.
Estimates of the temperature inside the WTC range from 600 celsius to 800 degrees celsius.
Incidentally, the simplistic "beams melted" is not the probable cause of the structural failure discussed in the FEMA Building Failure Report and in the civil engineer community-- rather, softening of beams and floor joist clips, as well as nonuniform expansion of the structure from the heat, allowed the structure to buckle outwards, and once one floor fell, the floor beneath could never have taken that much of a dynamic load.
Read a summary written for the metals and civil engineering community.
So someone dares support their point with facts and they are modded down as flamebait???
This is the political climate of the day. Dare to make constructive criticism of the actions of the current presidency and they are labeled unpatriotic. Absolutely pathetic.
Any government that refuses to evaluate itself objectively or learn from its mistake deserves to fail.
Happy people make bad consumers.
Absolutely. This is a trend for this motherfucker. Fuck him and his ilk in the ear.
"Muslim countries like Persia and Southern Spain preserved the science and literature of the greek, roman, and egyptian civilizations while the holy roman empire was burning books and people."
Compared to modern standards of civilised conduct, the Muslim empire was quite oppressive and brutal. Compared to even more oppressive and brutal countries back then, it was just a little better. However, comparing them is like comparing life for Blacks in the antebellum South compared to the Belgian Congo.
"Don't judge an entire region by the acts of a few zealots."
A few? How about a majority. Typical polls taken in these countries show that a majority approve of the elimination of the Israelis (specifically including suicide bombings against civilians). There may be a few zealots doing the bombings, but behind them there is a very large and very evil-minded mob.
Instead, you must navigate a multi-page website AND confirm your submission via email.
Kind of like subscribing to slashdot.
Seriously, you're making it sound like it's a bad thing. How much spam do you think president@whitehouse.gov gets? This isn't obfuscation, it's replacing a system with zero accountability with one with a bit more accountability. Considering it's the government doing this it borders on genius compared to solution I'd expect.
Well I get spam all the time from the whitehouse (www.whitehouse.com). If they are sending me spam, I think it is great they are getting it in return. And strangely enough, Bush is one horny individual. I guess this is why he is a "passionate conservative".
But in all seriousness, I wonder how many people accidently send things to the president (www.whitehouse.gov) that are intended to go to the aptly placed porn server (www.whitehouse.com). Or for that matter, how many emails for GW are actually being received by the porn server (www.whitehouse.com). Does slashdot want to interview Dan Parisi about this?
The Other Whitehouse. It's easier, and you can guarantee someone in the government will read it. ;-)
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
"I first hear about Christic during the Iran Contra "guns for drugs" scandle in the mid 1980s. They were the ones who actually brought the suit against the government."
The Christic was one of those groups in support of Soviet imperialism in Central America in the 1980s.
They also make stuff up. The Iran Contra scandal involved selling weapons only, not drugs.
The ultimate goal of the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security isn't security, it's power. But not political power; it's electrical power.
By placing an electomagnetic induction coil and a pickup coil on the graves of the founding fathers, the oil industry can generate enough power to eliminate the energy trade defecit.
Disclaimer: I'm not an american, I just like the joke
(sorry if you've heard the joke before)
So this is how they celebrate the ten year anniversary of president@whitehouse.gov and vice.president@whitehouse.gov?
He seems to like the look, but he can't hack the walk.
He even went AWOL from his Reserve unit, which he was placed in so he wouldn't have to face real combat.
No, I don't think he'd fight in this war, or any war. He seems to like to talk tough when surrounded by security. But he's had plenty of chances go active military and he's never done so.
"He even went AWOL from his Reserve unit, which he was placed in so he wouldn't have to face real combat."
He didn't go AWOL. This is just an urban legend, based on some rumor from some guy's girlfriend.
"Ever think that the reason so many people in the Middle East dislike Israel might have something to do with the huge nuclear arsenal pointed at each and every one of their cities? "
No, they hated the country and its people, before Israel had nukes, and before there was a modern state of Israel. (a time when pogroms were frequent, and you had situations such as Muslim governments making Jews pay a special tax because they were Jewish).
"Or the fact that the US has been selectively supporting Israel through direct aid and diplomacy for decades?"
All aid should be selective, not given out willy-nilly.
"Like it or not, suicide bombing is what got the Palestinians whatever weak bargaining position they have today"
No, it has not. It has done nothing but set them back.
"They can't fight against a modern military supported by billions in US aid and armed with nuclear weapons, "
They can't because they shouldn't. There is no need to attack Israel.
"Palestinians support suicide bombing because without it Israelis would totally and completely smash their hopes for a state"
Not at all. They support the suicide bombings out of an old hatred for Jewish people. It is also obvious that the bombings have hurt the Palestinian cause. Israel would have left the territories years ago if the PLO had given up its "we will invade conquer and exterminate you" pledge. If the Palestinians like Israeli soldiers all over their streets, they should thank suicide bombers.
However, the fact that they support it should give pause to quick demands for a Palestinian state. Why create a country based to reward such outrageous and barbaric behavior?
"The US is tacitly approving of Israel's development of those weapons,"
Of course. It needs these as a deterrent with so many neighbors that want to attack it. There is no inconsistency at all with the US supporting Israel, while opposing the Iraqi regime which was very imperialist.
"one would find that he freed only the slaves of states in rebellion, excepting those areas where the Union forces already had control."
I've heard this before. How many Union states were able to keep being slave-states under this?
They provide a mailing address and fax number, and everyone knows that they'll consider a letter more important than an email anyways. If you have something important to say, use a stamp.
Addlepated - punk & metal
There is plenty of good US national debt related information available at the Dept. of Treasury's web site. In particular the Bureau of Public Debt is a great starting point, with things like debt history from 1950-2000, which does indeed show that the national debt was never reduced during Clinton's presidency.
These numbers are an aggregate of public debt, and intragovernmental holdings. Apparently, the public debt was actually reduced during Clinton's presidency as shown in the recent statistics page here , but the intragovernmental holdings increased enough to still put the country in the red. So then you ask, what are intragovernmental holdings? Hey! They'll tell you that, too!
Intra Governmental Holdings
Debt Held By the Public
If that's hopeful paper pushing to make the Dems look good, or not, I don't know. Conclusions sure are easy to come by here, though.
" I am so sick and tired of Repulicans trying to lay the blame for the economy on the Democrats."
No, the Democrats are to blame. This recession started under Clinton. Tom Daschle is trying to keep it going so it (he hopes) will turn into people blaming Bush by voting for Democrats. Thankfully, this failed in the 2003 elections, in which the voters rejected the Democrats.
This is why Daschle has tried to derail every single effort to improve the economy, and he makes sure that the tax cuts for all taxpayers are too small to matter.
He is afraid to vote for Bush's plans, since he knows the economy will improve quickly, and Bush will get more popular.
"Who is responsible for the national debt counter being turned on? "
Blame Clinton and the Democrats. They opposed the Balanced Budget Amendment.
"Who is in control of the senate and congress? "
Are they two bodies now? The Democrats control the Senate with the fillibuster.
"Who is starting wars just to boost their popularity rating not even caring that we could not afford it? "
The reasons for Bush's retaliation against Iraq have nothing to do with "popularity". We can afford it. It is national defense: it is one thing the feds are supposed to spend money on.
"Who is resposible for the fact that you now PERSONALLY owe the federal government $72,000?"
That is not a fact for me. as an American taxpayer.
"It is the current administrations fault and their fault alone, take responsibility for your own actions and quit trying to blame everyone else because you dont know what the fsck you are doing."
It is not their fault as they have been trying to fix the economy but are balked by the Democrats at every turn.
" with things like debt history from 1950-2000, which does indeed show that the national debt was never reduced during Clinton's presidency."
Yes. Clinton did nothing but endeavor to increase the debt. He opposed the balanced budget amendment, after all.
His bad budgets increased the national debt by trillions. It was only after the "Year of the Informed Voter" (1984) that the new GOP house majority was able to balk him for the most part. Then the defecit started to go down, despite Clinton's efforts.
"It wasn't a Democratic president that called the Soviet Union an "Evil Empire".
Nothing wrong with this: it was an accurate term, and it was even used by post-Soviet russian leaders like Yeltsin.
"It wasn't a Democratic president that labelled a number of foreign countries the "Axis of Evil""
An excellent and bold move by Bush which really only states the obvious.
However, there are previous Presidents who are Democrats, such as Kennedy and FDR who also liked sometimes to use accurate terms similar to this when speaking of threats without worrying about shaking people up or seeming "undiplomatic".
The government sends disapproval email to you!
"Trust in haste. Repent at leisure"
...President to utilize the Internet! Nobody could use it til Al Gore invented it. DUH!
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/mail-developers. html
go tell the web development team what you think.
Probably more worthwile than Bush's "web mail"
"Israel currently controls a lot of small, concentrated sites that have a lot of emotion and religious sentiment wrapped up in them (like the Dome of the Rock/Wailing Wall area). "
It is good that Israel controlled these. Before Israel took them over, the spots were controlled y zealots who denied people entrance to the area based on religiom and also desecreated sites.
Israel's administration has been exemplary, allowing access to the area by people of all faiths (or none) and not doing the obvious "pro-Jewish" thing of knocking the Dome off the Temple's foundations and rebuilding the Temple on the spot.
A few days ago, Julian Bond, a major leader of the racist division of the left, called Republicans Nazis.
"Of course, it was actually a reduction in spending [dallasnews.com], with only intermitent surpluses. I'm sure Bush II has done an excellent job cutting the sur^Wdebt."
Give the man the line-item veto things would get better.
When slave states had the preponderance of federal power, they were mostly in favor of strong central government. It was only when they started losing that preponderance of power (1830's? 1840's?) that States Rights became so important to them. It was not a principled thing at all, merely expedient.
Dear Mr. President,
You, Sir, are a 'tard.
-Citizen
The thing that gets me is that I've never gotten a reply. I've written Clinton, Gore, Sen. Clinton when she was first lady and Pres. Bush. I've never gotten a reply from Bush. No, I did not send the above message to Bush. I wanted to but I'm betting his "darn good intelligence" wouldn't understand anyway.
-
So you believe Bush would fight in the military if he did not have a chance at re-election?
But then he went AWOL from his Reserve unit. And he was in the Reserves so he wouldn't go to war.
But you still believe that he'd fight in the military if he didn't have something better to do?
That same reasoning can be applied to any draft-dodger. They just value their own life and such more than they want to fight in the military.
Clinton was also the Commander in Chief.
Maybe he was also skipping out on military service so he'd be around to be President.
From your journal:
"This conveniently ignores the indisputable fact that the United States targeted Japanese civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki with weapons of mass destruction."
It is not a fact. It is quite disputable. You are forgetting the historic fact that the US used fliers and other means in advance to warn the civilians to get out in advance of the bombing.
Great stuff about Taiwan, though. There is an international border between China and Taiwan.
maybe you should try debating issues, rather than flying the same tired insults that nobody outside of youre ideology takes seriously.
But I doubt you can.
Oh yeah, do you fuckin believe that Bill Clinton ever read any of youre emails? I'm sure he doesnt read emails form scrubs either.
Bush did not go AWOL. This is an urban legend which can ultimately be traced down to a rumor from someone's girlfriend.
If he did indeed go AWOL, it would be a matter of record.
However, this is enough for the group that hates Bush. All they have to hear is the made up "Bush went AWOL" and it becomes another fact for the arsenel, true or not.
Before the Patriot Act, there was ONE (1) such violation of civil liberties in the 225 year history of the United States. His name was Kevin Mitnick.
Since the Patriot Act, over eight hundred (800) American citizens have been jailed without charge, habeus corpus, or access to a lawyer, and that is just the number that the Justice Department admits to (some reports suggest thousands of mostly Arab citizens have been disappeared, in addition to the tens of thousands of citizenship-seeking Arabs deported because the INS bureaucracy is too slow to get them their paperwork on time). Most of these citizens are not accused of anything in the dictionary sense of Ashcroft publicly calling them a terrorist, and NONE of them are legally accused of commiting a crime. Some have been released after months of psychological torture (and in some cases, physical torture) to find out that they were arrested because they once were acquainted with somebody who later turned out to have been a suspected terrorist as a flatmate or classmate, or even just was seen talking to them once.
You admit that the Patriot Act allows the government to throw anybody in jail forever without charge, and don't see how that could be a problem? Haven't you ever heard of the United States Constitution? You say that it will be a problem if people are thrown in jail for minor crimes like traffic accidents, but don't see it as a problem when people are thrown in jail for no crime at all?
It gets a lot worse than the Patriot Act. Last year, Bush said that the Patriot Act gives him the right to order any American citizen be arrested and jailed forever without charge. Shortly afterwards, he said that his Constitutional role as Commander in Chief of the armed forces gives him the right to order any American citizen be executed whether on foreign or U.S. soil. He was not challenged on either statement. Let me repeat that to make it clear: Bush claimed the legal power to order any American be dragged from their home and shot. Meanwhile, he is appointing judges from the Federalist Society and other right-wing groups who support this power of the executive and will never rule that such an act is illegal or unconstitional unless a Democrat does it.
It is people like you who do nothing and even gloat about it that are causing the downfall of our country faster than Osama could have ever dreamed.
A bunch of editorials by empassioned bush-bashers proves nothing.
" "Liberal" is a label applied to anyone whose opinions the labeler disagrees with, these days. Typically, it's someone who doesn't think the conservative government should be given free reign to do whatever the hell they want, whenever, wherever, and to whomever they want."
No, it is applied to those who hold a certain range of left-wing ideology. Even when there is a liberal government that some think should be given free reign to do whatever the hell they want, whenever, wherever, and to whomever they want (like there was from 1992 - 2000). The term means the same regardless of who is in power.
Telling China that their /8 blocks will be blocked at the US border if they don't make their spammers vanish. We (well, unless you are Chinese) as taxpayers don't care if the Chinese government has to spend a few thousand dollars on more bullets for executing spammers.
Why hasn't it been done? Maybe Clinton isn't the only President who's been getting illegal foriegn campaign contributions.
Tech Public Policy stuff
That's what he should have done....
Also, has anyone ever sent email to president@whitehouse.COM? I wonder if you get porn spam in reply....
Eat at Joe's.
"I dunno. How many Africans must be kidnapped from their homes and enslaved before a nation should be labelled "evil"?"
Ask the African nations. They were the only ones who did this. The Americans and others only bought the slaves long after they had been abducted and enslaved.
"Have you ever even thought of using that word on that period of your history?"
I used it for the period America had allowed slaving owning, but not for something which you describe which is something that Africans did.
"How about a country that refuses to participate in global efforts to improve our environment"
The US does participate. You are probably confused thinking about Kyoto, which has nothing to do with the environment.
"or to create an international court"
Staying away from a kangaroo court is good, not evil.
"How about a nation that ignored genocide in Rwanda?"
Which is worse, that, or France, which supported the genocide? If the US had gotten involved, you'd be right there with those decrying neocolonialism and the US killing Africans.
"Not evil, surely, but hardly the model citizen of the world, either."
Compared to others, certainly a model citizen.
That's probably all they did with em anyway, they prolly had folders for the same list of issues you see in the drop down list and all the 'readers' did was read enough to mark em for or against. Really just a poll of people who feel strongly enough to write an email. If your subject was not on the list, then you prolly just got filed under Other with the Viagara ads and the Penis Enlarger Solicitations.
Eat at Joe's.
"I guess we're just ignoring the thousands of Japanese Americans during WWII, right? That was a far more extensive violation of civil liberties based on pure racism."
There was nothing racist about it. The imprisonment was based on nationality and national descent, not race. Others, such as Chinese Americans, who were of the same race, were not imprisoned. Technically, horrible as it was "racist" is not a word which applies.
Hail to the ^new chief!
Eat at Joe's.
Your new mail system is all set up and ready, mister President. No, of course you won't be bothered any more by emails flagged as tainted with 'opposing viewpoint', they will instead be routed directly to Admiral Poindexter, and a bunch of three-letter agencies.
Would prolly send the mail to president@whitehouse.com anyways...
Eat at Joe's.
I would like to second Lexta2000's response to this. Links please! And not some ranting Chomsky fanboy's site either -- I would prefer NYT or WP (they both chronicle the government's every move, so finding these should be no problem), but will also accept CNN, The New Republic, National Review, the LA Times or some other such respectable mid-level source. Policy journals would also be acceptable, since they usually include the actual source of the quotes.
I was trying to go through this service to write to the president about the separation of church and state. It would have been a disagree, but the issue doesn't exist under this service. Does this mean that the administration has the right to just define a problem out of existance (or a bill of rights clause as the case may be). If the issue doesn't officially exist, I guess I can't complain though -- it's nice to know that the faith-based initiative that bush passed this morning was the only opinion possible on the subject.
**When craziness is bliss, 'tis folly to be sane**
Have you heard about the UN's recent efforts to outlaw ALL personal ownership of small arms and light weapons WORLDWIDE? Lock and load, because here come the Black Helicopters...
"U.N. seeking global gun control? Conference moving toward plan that would regulate U.S. arms"
cpeterso
The first requirement is that you must obtain an Officer Communication Number, or OCN. This is accomplished by filing form 88249-OCN with the Official Communication Request Service (OCRS) office of the Department of Justice. Include a check for $493.77 with your request. This request is then "processed" as follows: It arrives at the mail room of the Department of Justice, where all items destined for the OCRS are placed in a special pile. When 10,000 items have accumulated, they are taken on a cart to another office in another building on the other side of the state, where one person is responsible for sorting them by the last name of the officer to whom you are writing. When 10,000 items addressed to a single individual have accumulated, they are delivered to another building 1,000 miles away. There, a single individual is responsible for scanning each item separately in a special machine that tests the envelope for traces of germ warfare or something. After each item has been scanned, it is delivered to another office, where the name of the sender is copied from the return address on the envelope. If a file exists for this person, the letter is filed in this file. If a file does not exist for this person, the person is mailed a letter, printed on blue paper and with an orange signature, telling them that they must file form 88250-OCN, along with a check for $184.38, at the nearest County Controller's office. This form cannot even be obtained without showing the blue paper with the orange signature. For your convenience, this letter is sometimes printed on white paper, if they're out of blue paper on that particular day, and just signed with any color ink. You're not told this until you go to the County Controller's office, of course, so you must at that point try to call the OCRS and request a copy on blue paper. Of course, all the lines are always busy because all calls are directed to an answering service where one person answers the phone, and is not allowed to answer more than one call in an hour or six calls in any given three day period. You're not told this on the phone. Instead, you're simply told that your business is important to us and please wait on the line for just a minute until the next customer service representative is available. If by chance, you manage to get a hold of someone, you can ask for the paper, and they'll tell you to mail a form 827741-OCN-D, to request this paper, which you must do at your nearest state capital. The state capital will request to see the paper you have, which is the wrong color, and they'll take the form 827741-OCN-D and process it for you using whichever method they happen to use. The time taken to do this varies. Oh yeah, and your letter, which could not be filed for lack of a file, has been placed in a pile of letters that could not be filed for lack of a file. When the OCRS receives your form 827741-OCN-D, they'll send someone to sift through the letters to see if there really is a letter from you in there. If there is, it is taken from the pile and sent back to the Department of Justice mailroom to restart the process. You may or may not receive the correct color form this time. When you finally do, you will be able to file form 88250-OCN, Request for a File Folder. This request is routed through the same Department of Justice mailroom to a different OCRS office, where a file folder has your name placed on it. This is then mailed to the OCRS office where your letter is waiting in a pile of letters. Someone is sent to find the letter, which is sent back to the Department of Justice mailroom, where the process starts over, only you have a file this time. When the letter arrives at the appropriate OCRS office, it is placed in the file. At this point, someone at the OCRS office goes through the file folders in alphabetical order, up to 80 folders in a day, and checks if there is a letter pending. If there is, a letter is m
"but will also accept CNN, The New Republic, National Review, the LA Times or some other such respectable mid-level source"
The New Republic and National Review are mid-line? It is generally held that those are respectively left-wing and right-wing commentary journals.
"So then the good ol' U. S. of A. should be scaring you something fierce."
Thankfully, Bush's policies still make great sense once you entirely factor religious rhetoric out of it. No need for alarm here.
Just because Clinton sucked, doesn't mean Reagan, Bush and Bush II don't suck. They're all ignorant assholes and a cancer on this country. Between Iran-Contra, The War on the American People (aka the war on drugs), pissed on economics, ignoring China's human rights violations for increased trade, James Watt and Ed Meese, Asscroft, the systematic dismemberment of the Bill of rights, gutting social programs, the War on Civil Rights (aka the war on terrorism) and packing the Supreme Court full of ultra right wing assholes the Four Presidents of the Apocalypse have really fucked up our country.
We haven't had a decent president since Carter. Yes, I realize he wasn't exactly effective, but at least you could trust the man.
Remember, just because the Democrats suck, doesn't mean the Republicans don't suck. Vote Liberatian (what the Republican party should be) or Green (what the Democratic party should be).
Fuck the Republicrats!
The White House would never obfuscate anything, would they? I mean, just look at any Ari Fleischer transcript and you will see that they are a perfect model of clarity.
In the early nineties I worked for the Alaska State Legislature. That was in the early days of e-mail, so we didn't get e-mail messages very often. However, we did have something that sort of worked the same way.
Alaska's capitol is in Juneau, which is not accessible by road. During the legislative session, it is simply not possible for the average citizen to "pop in" to his or her legislators' offices (unless that citizen is a resident of Juneau, of course). So the legislature put up Legislative Information Offices (LIOs) all around the state. One thing people could do at these LIOs was compose and send Public Opinion Messages (POMs) using an LIO computer. These messages were then compiled and sent to the various offices.
One of the problems is that the senders could choose who they wanted their POMs to go to. They could send POMs to their own representatives, or to legislators working on a particular issue, or anyone else. So usually, they'd just send them to *every* legislator.
The problem is this: It quickly became apparent that, if we were going to read all the POMs people sent in, that's all we would ever have time to do. And this was in the second-least-populated state in the Union! We eventually settled on a system where we at least *read* all the POMs from our home district, and even managed to respond to a few. The ones that came in from LIOs outside our district? We didn't even read them. I feel guilty about it to this day--after all, these people had taken the time and energy to go down to their local LIO and compose a message -- but there just wasn't the time or manpower!
A couple of lessons:
1. Want to get a message to a legislator? I know a way that practically guarantees it will be read. Get a pen and piece of paper. Handwrite a short, polite and thoughtful note, using correct grammar and good handwriting. It's always a good idea to work a compliment in there somewhere.
2. I think I share with most /. readers a desire for small, limited government. However, I usually disagree with those who want to slash legislative staff (in all three senses of the word!). In our complex world, a legislator needs a good staff to be effective. In monetary terms it's just a drop in the bucket anyway, and it's money well spent.
3. Finally, let me clear up one misconception -- that legislators neglect their constituents to do ... well, something else. This is rarely true. Elected officials know where their bread is buttered. It's far more common for them to focus so much on trying to please their constituents that other matters get neglected.
I'm certainly not going to give it to the one that was selected!
"You also make the assumption that the increased government would be run by conservatives vs people who care about the people they work for"
You trust government too much. It is more of a difference between people in power who help themselves while saying little, and people in power who help themselves while saying that they are helping you.
Hi!
Actually, it would not be an "ethics" issue. It would be a violation of federal election law. Any federal employee (up to the president, because he lives on federal property) is barred from soliciting or accepting contributions on federal government property. (That's why both major political parties maintain offices near the Capitol, in commercial office buildings, where members of either house can make phone solicitations.)
One of the early flaps in the Clinton administration was just what was suggested: people who had emailed the White House were spammed with solicitations for contributions. The Federal Election Commission stepped in, and I think (don't remember) that everybody realized that this was new legal ground--but the practice was stopped.
" Whatever, go ahead and cite anecdotal shit and drivel to counter HARD FACTS and .gov based website data."
.gov links.
Read before you flame. I was responding in support of a comment that had several specific
I guess President Bush was sick of all criticism about his last bad decision.
--
Adobe's anti-counterfeiting softw
The web-form system appears to be a bit overloaded at the moment. ...
:D
You mean, like
Slashdotted ?
" Nobody supported the contras against the communists because Nicaragua was not in fact run by communists"
While the Sandinistas were not upper-case Communists (members of the CPUSSR), they were lower-case Communists, still controlled by the USSR and espousing imperial "Marxism-Leninism".
"They were a moderate-left government, about as far left as, say, Sweden, or Lula's Workers' party in Brazil."
They were not "moderate". They were quite Stalinist, with actions including gulags, executions of labor leaders, outlawing opposition media, large numbers of executions, and putting people (Miskito) into concentration camps based on their ethnicity: typical third-world despotism.
"They were also elected"
Yes. Their first rigged election, in which they had election opponents physically assaulted. They tried to rig the 2nd election with such tactics as barring the opposition from state-owned media and shutting down newspapers, but the people saw past the threats and voted them out. The only thing fair about that first election was the vote counting.
"since the contras were a creation of the United States and many saw the South American cocaine trade as closely entangled with the CIA at the time"
The Contras arose spontaneously from a peasant reaction to the Sandinista forcing them off their lands into dictator-owned slave plantations. Starting with Jimmy Carter, the US helped the in the interest of helping Nicaragua getting removed from the Soviet colony list.
South American drug trade? Why are you talking about South America? Nicaragua is no where near it.
"Had he not signed it, the Christian right would have labelled him 'pro-kiddie-porn' and 'more interested in pedophiles than their victims."
The man who put Internet censorship on the map, a certain Senator Exon from the midwest, was a liberal Democrat, not a member of the Christian right. Senetor Lieberman, a major proponent of media censorship based on content, is neither Christian nor right-wing.
We need more people like this:
http://www.paypalsucks.com/faqs.shtml
Except for the government, not paypal.
Except that Oswald didn't shoot JFK.
(1) The evidence says otherwise; and (2) Oswald himself said he was a patsy, and denied shooting Kennedy.
Furthermore, we now have good reason to believe that Oswald was with US military intelligence. (Of course, military intelligence operators do sometimes commit assassinations. But Oswals didn't.)
-kgj
I thought the exact same thing. I agree with the President on a handful of issues and I'll send him a supporting letter on one of those. I expect several requests for money from the RNC thereafter which I will promptly throw away smiling and knowing that I have fined the RNC bulk postage for their stupidity.
If the issue were spam or forged email addresses, for a heck of a lot less money, they could have installed an email confirmation system that would ask email senders to confirm their submission. C'mon, Majordomo can do that out of the box (not that the Bush administration would have heard of it :-)
Forcing people to declare whether they support the president? Trying to control the topics they comment on? They might as well just say they won't take electronic feedback at all.
I would encourage /.'ers who would like to complain about this system to actually use it to "write a differing opinion" complaining about both being forced to delare whether you are any enemy of of the state AND being restricted as to the subjects on which you may voice an opinion.
Just go to White House Webmail and since their topic choices create no obvious category for complaining about their Webmail system, I would suggest using:
Subject: Foreign Policy / Human Rights.
That's about as close as you can get, which should tell you how interested they are in hearing feedback.
Complain early. Complain often.
--MarkGo
It turns out that the real reason for the White House no longer accepting email to president@whitehouse.gov is that Bush's aides began noticing some worrying things about their charge.
It seems he'd been spending quite a bit of time reading all his email and had been receiving a large number of packages delivered in plain brown wrapping.
Turns out that the Prez now has a 32-foot-long penis, breasts the size of Dolly Parton's, has lost 399lbs of weight without exercising or dieting and is now awaiting the delivery of TWENTY FIVE MILLION US DOLLARS in unclaimed bullion from a secret fund in Nigeria.
Not only that, but he's also talking about quitting the presidency because he's been told that you can make more money stuffing envelopes just a few hours a day from home.
Isn't this Kevin Mitnick's old nemesis? I'm surprised no one has pointed this out yet.
Mitnick thinks Markoff has a reputation for sensationalizing rather ordinary stories, and in some cases I think Kevin's right. I tend to think this is another one of those stories.
them 9 MONTHS!! to come up with that form. Are you kidding me? I need to start getting the govt to give me contract work. For christs sake, its a damn form!
Well, there were communist invaders in one of the provinces.
I just did not have much to argue about the Phillipines (you had good points). I also recently had a Filipino rage at me that she hated the US because it removed Marcos, whom she liked, from power.
"Of course Bush will cop out on this one by saying that he declared war on some foreign country as a result of a third party attacking the US. "
Don't forget that the Iraqi government had ordered very numerous attacks against US peacekeepers in the "no fly zones" for years.
"Such claims are usually from anti-semites that hide their hatred of the jews as "criticism of the Israeli security policy" and that's why I usually don't even bother to reply."
You are very correct. The criticizers either hate Jews themselves, or they are duped by other anti-semitic writers or sources (which range from Josef Stalin and Noam Chomsky on the left to Buchanan and that famous dead German with the funny moustache on the right)
"There was a difference. Bush and Clinton both dodged the draft. Bush got daddy to pull strings to get him into a National Guard."
There were and always have been large numbers who serve stateside. Bush did not dodge the draft.
"Fans of the 'liberal media'. compare and contrast the amount of coverage the Clinton draft-doger non-story got compared with the Bush AWOL story"
The reason is easy to see: there is no evidence of Bush going AWOL. Even the left-wing, liberal media which so dominates would have trouble making up a story that can barely even find life in the pages of Bartcop and TomPaine.
"The difference was that Clinton actively opposed the war, he did not want to fight in a war he did not believe in."
Clinton did not oppose the war. (that is a common mistake, to say those who supported North Vietnam were "anti-war"). He only opposed helping the victims of the invasion from being helped by the U.S. He had little or no problem wiht North Vietnam raping South Vietnam.
Well having worked on the original Whitehouse email system I seem to recall discussing this at length.
Some people did want to simply register approval or disapproval of some issue, which is completely OK. But in many cases people wanted to do something different, like bring to attention some problem that they did not feel was being addressed. Very often the emails would be questions about policy, in particular how a policy would be applied in a particular circumstance.
Sorting into 'for' and 'against' is absolutely the last thing the Clinton people wanted to do. You certainly don't want to force someone to make up their mind like that, they will probably go the opposite way to the one you want.
There seems to be a very different philosophy behind today's WH site and the Clinton site. In the Clinton era the whole site was about empowerment and giving people their information. The idea was that the press had become privilleged filters of the news and that the people had an equal the right to see press releases and all the other information given to the media. The current site is a product of standard corporate PR think, it is all about controlling the information flow - yuk!
If you want to know what happened to the people behind the original Whitehouse site look at the Dean campaign.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
isn't even listed! How can I comment on the pending legislation to define marriage as containing a 'man and woman' only? It wasn't a choice! I thought about choosing Pornography (which would reflect the administration's view), but give me a break! Is that just a sign showing that they shall allow no debate about gay marriage?
Just follow the day, and reach fo
There are so many things you got wrong! Including:
"1. You adhere to a 200 year old law about handgun ownership, despite the fact that you have by far the highest rate of gun deaths in the Western world."
The gun deaths have to do with lack of enforcement of laws against criminals, not the gun ownership by law-abiding individuals.
"2. You defend the law by saying that it is a "constitutional right", despite the fact that it was actually an amendment to the constitution, which implies (among other things) that the constitution can change."
Once an amendment is added, it becomes part of the Constitution. The part protecting free speech is the same way.
"4. You have a president who clearly has the IQ of a toadstool."
Huh? He's quite smart. You have no idea what you are talking about.
"This is funny to the rest of the Western world who see the US as a de facto theocracy."
We are not responsible for the appaling ignorance of those who see things as they are not.
"but you censor/censure anyone (Dixie Chicks, Susan Sarandom, France, Canada, etc.) who tries to exercise their freedom of speech."
Huh? No one has censored or censured these individuals, even though they have uttered hateful lies. Their free speech has not been abridged at all.
"7. And the funniest part of all: When you get to Iraq, the first thing you do is confiscate all the citizens' weapons."
You have a good point on this one: such a policy is bad for any country.
"Senator Exon may have run as a Democrat, but he is anything but liberal. He is a member of the Christian right."
No, he was a regular, not renegade member of the liberal wing, the Democrat Party.
"Need more evidence that Exon was not liberal? His votes were only in line with the ACLU only 17% of the time."
So he agreed with this extreme left-wing pro-censorship racist group about one time out of five? This makes him more extreme than the reasonable invidivuals who reject it.
"Now are you satisfied the Exon is a member of the Christian right?"
No, he was a member of the censorious Christian left. You forgot that he was strongly in favor of abortion as well.
"I'm completely opposed to the donations-as-political-speech argument. That's a bullshit argument was put forth by the people that want to prevent campaign finance reform. Every time that anyone, even a member of their own party like McCain, suggests limitations to campaign donations, the GOP launches into that tired old argument"
Tired? It is very true. The donations result in political speech that many want censored. The campaign finance "reformers" are using the means of stopping donations as a way to the end of stifling political speech.
I have read so many arguments in favor of "campaign finance reform" by limiting spending that begin with something about the reason we have to do this is to get rid of campaign ads.
It is a dangerous precedent. What next, can we censor the New York Times by getting something into law that they cannot pay workers in the printing plant to get the thing on paper? Hey, we're not censoring speech: we are just preventing money from being spent.
"There seems to be a very different philosophy behind today's WH site and the Clinton site. In the Clinton era the whole site was about empowerment and giving people their information"
No, it was about a poorly-designed web tour, and posting press releases which too much of the time were a waste of taxpayer dollars as Clinton was having staffers lie about the crimes Clinton had committed.
"If you want to know what happened to the people behind the original Whitehouse site look at the Dean campaign""
Is that why the Dean campaign is fraught with outright lies about his opponents and ill intentions? The man is as mean as hell (something that is hard to say about his serious opponents in the Democratic race). The man is like Stillson from Stephen Kings "Dead Zone". No wonder Karl Rove wants him to win the Democratic nomination: he'd that Bush would win a second election by a huge landslide and set the national Democrats way back.
"In a world context, the USA also stands alone"
Don't the European nations allied with Bush outnumber those that oppose him?
Alone means alone. If there are 50 or so others with you, you have are only off by about 5000%
"as I don't count Airstrip One as an independent sovereign nation"
Are you referring to Diego Garcia?
This shows how deluded you are. It was the ACLU that fought against Exon's CDA because the ACLU felt that it was censorship. They subsequently fought against mandatory filtering of library Internet access because that was censorship. I won't even dignify you comment about racism with a reply.
Let's look at some of Exon's other right-wing votes:
Voted in favor of Constitutional Amendment banning flag "desecration"
Voted in favor of a bill denying federal recognition of gay marriages
Voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 1996, which would have outlawed discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation.
Voted in favor of increased wiretapping without a court order
You forgot that he was strongly in favor of abortion as well.
He voted in favor of limiting late-term abortions (H.R. 1833).
By the way, quit posting anonymously. It's a chicken-shit, cowardly thing to do. Be a man and at least own up to the stuff you post.
"Incorrect. Despite wasting huge sums of money investigating Whitewater, Clinton was not found to have committed any crimes"
He has been found to have committed several.
"You filthy, low-life, lying, anonymous scum!"
Ad hominems are fun for you, right?
"Clinton never admitted any wrongdoing or made any apology. He said that he settled the suit because he didn't want to have it continue to drag on."
If he had done nothing wrong, it would have easily and quickly come out in court. Settling out of court is something done by the guilty to blunt justice
"Monica Lewinsky's relationship with Clinton was his personal sex life and any civil suit that Paula Jones brought through her Republican-funded legal team had nothing to do with Ken Starr's Whitewater fishing expedition"
First, there was no fishing expedition. Don't make things up: refer to things as they are. Second, his Monica affair which took place in a public office (not really private) was very relevant to the Paula Jones sexual-harassment-of- an-employee court case, as it involved Clinton using his employees for sexual gratification. Very relevant.
"Clinton did not make them try to pursue the "evidence." He did not force them to drag this out for yea"
Yes he did: he forced them to drag it out for years. You don't go commit crimes, and then block investigation. Both are wrong. He stonewalled, violated subpeona orders, had his press secretary lie to the public just about every day about it, and claimed executive privilege all the way. All he had to do was cooperate. The investigation ended with the Clintons still refusing to turn over evidence.
"It was an investigation that should never have taken place"
It should have taken place. It should not have dragged out so long, and it would have been done as early as 1993 if the guy who committed the crimes had cooperated with the investigation.
The crook had the audacity to ask the government to pay for the legal bills he racked up lying and obfuscating his crimes. It should be the other way around: the bill for the investigation should be paid by him. Maybe after he pays back the ill-gotten gains from selling nights in the Lincoln Bedroom.
" I won't even dignify you comment about (ACLU) racism with a reply."
Because you know it is true. Look at the California Civil Rights Initiative. The ACLU opposed it and argued all over the place that it was OK for the government to punish people for being of the wrong race as long as it was for a goal of group "diversity". So much for civil liberties.
The censorship cases in which the ACLU sides with stifling expression are numerous. There are cases where it opposes censorship (you named one). However, this does not excuse them for all the times they side with the intolerant and sue to censor expression that they want banned.
As for Exon, thanks for giving some of his voting record, which includes some left-wing votes such as against gay marriage and wiretaps (same as Clinton, another left-winger)
"By the way, quit posting anonymously"
Maybe if you quit posting items without thinking about the content.
"In other words, they want the wealthy and large corporations "
The "other words" are made up by you, as wealthy and large corporations have nothing to do with these pro-free-speech arguments.
"No, you just don't want a level playing field. You think that candidates with the backing of huge corporations "
No, my argument has nothing to do with leveling the playing field. The Bill of Rights says nothing about censoring anyone to "level the playing field".
i'll continue to email the president at bush@youngslutsubscription.com so it don`t really affect me
WTF is a sig?
this bastard got "elected" without the votes of the country.
he got his war over very loud protests he labelled "irrelevant"
he continues to fuck with the wishes of the free world.
and you are concerned that he doesn't read his email? please. this cowboy ignoramus - father of 2 slutty alcoholics - cocaine abuser - executioner of over 160 texans and 10's of thousands of innocents worldwide - CAN'T READ ANYWAY!
NYT reports actual mail still looked at and was there in the FAQ all along.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"As to Clinton, he was elected because he was a centrist, not someone in the far left."
President Clinton was a leftist who campaigned as a centrist but governed as a leftist.
I faxed Bush a letter about the proposed SSSCA/CBDTPA, asking him to lobby against it and veto it if it passed.
I used fax because I had heard that whitehouse.gov pretty much ignored email, and I didn't want to send a snailmail letter because it was still in anthrax scare mode.
A few weeks later, I got a letter back thanking me for my input -- didn't really address the issue though. Mrs. red floyd was so bloody worried that I would be in trouble with the Feds...
I also wrote (via email from his site) to my Rep. (Waxman (D-CA)) about the Freedom To Read Protection Act, and got an email back directly on topic (pointing out that he had sponsored the thing).
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
Oh yeah, that MUST be it.
"President Clinton signed welfare reform that ended the federal guarantee of benefits for poor Americans."
The welfare reform did not end benefits: the program remains large to this day. The reform merely places a limit to how long someone can laze on the public hammock.
"His administration's major initiative, health care reform, was founded on the industry-friendly "managed competition" model rather than the progressive single-payer plan."
This initiative was still regressive (not progressive) as it annexed 17% of the economy to the federal government. It was not industry friendly, since industry strongly opposed it (along with average citizens). The single-payer plan is outrageous and extreme, since it limits everything to "here is your single choice: if you do not like it, go to Mexico". Monopolies such as this are not desired. And yes, this is very leftist.
"Clinton got his budget passed by dropping provisions that various industries objected to, like the energy tax and grazing fee hikes."
He still had insisted on these greedy provisions, even though he was forced to back off. His intent here was to increase government wealthand control (leftism), even though he was forced not to do this.
"He got NAFTA passed by including lots of of breaks for business interests"
The reason we need NAFTA has to do with individual rights, not big business. Clinton is also to be commended for other free-trade aspects of his policies, including having more H1-B visas. There is no reason a person who can do a job better should be punished because they are a dark-skinned foreigner. This angers Pat Buchanan and other bigots. This is sensible and moderate, and the fringes of the left and right hate it. Leftist? No. Rightist? No. Moderate? Yes.
"To get the crime bill passed, Clinton cut the social programs that were supposed to balance the "law and order""
Spending on social programs increased in under President Clinton. This spending also increased under President Reagan, the first Bush, and this Bush. The only thing that ever changes is how fast the spending grows. Again, there is also what Clinton wanted to do, as opposed to what he was forced to do through negotiation with moderating forces.
"spoke out against violent rap lyrics."
Would you like a long list of venerable black Democrat leaders who have also spoken out against these lyrics?
"One of his bills that was enacted into law guts the rights that Thomas Jefferson insisted be included in the Constitution: A state prisoner on death row now has only a year to petition a federal court to review the constitutionality of his trial or sentence."
This does not gut any rights. If someone is too lazy to bother to do this after an entire year, why keep holding the door open?
"The ACLU's Laura Murphy referred to the Clinton administration as "the most wire-tap-friendly administration in history.""
This does not contradict leftism. The major left-wing governments such as the Soviet Union and mainland China also loved to spy on their citizens in such a fashion. Both right-wing and left-wing governments do this sort of thing.
"Those are not the acts of a "leftist." "
Some are, some are not
"but funding rebels and dictators (e.g. Sadam, Osama) who are anti-Russia is pragmatic. "
Do you mean Saddam Hussein? He is not "anti-Russia". He has usually enjoyed a close military and economic alliance with Moscow.
Let's not call him Bubba, ok? At least respect the office of the Presidency. There is no need to call President Bush "Dubya" either.
Both nicknames tend to make those who use them look like boobs. Oddly, they also sound like mangled Arabic names (like versions of Baba and Dubai).
Ken Starr did not convict anyone. The numerous Whitewater convicts were convicted by juries of their peers. President Clinton had privileges as president that made it much harder to investigate him or bring him to court. Perhaps this is the reason his business partners were convicted and he was not.
"You exaggerate, but what is this? Guilt by association?"
You have to admit, if there is a shady business deal that results in a dozen convictions, and one central figure who avoids conviction happens to be the one who has special priviledges to avoid such prosecution, something does not look right.
You don't have to be Ken Starr to see that it certainly looks like President Clinton is actually guilty of the same crime that his partners are.
Ralph Nader, a tireless critic of corruption in government who is neither right-wing, nor any fan of Ken Starr, thinks so.
Another situation in which Clinton committed a crime was when he illegally funded rebels fighting a recently-imposed communist government in another country.
Yes, this was the same exact sort of thing that President Reagan got in trouble for. The only difference is that few disagreed with what Clinton did. The illegality of it was the same. Do you happen to know about this situation, or is it news to you?
elitist pedant.
Document 28 is revealing. It seems that there is no record of his participation for a period of about 11 months after all. Of course, these documents do not reveal just what he did during that time. Only that there is no record of his military activities during that time.
It seems this is just another example of how the the liberal media give the Dubya a pass on his questionable record.
These folks already have a hidden agenda. They don't need yours.
Writing a letter to this White House will only result in the chopping down of trees for no useful purpose.
"It seems this is just another example of how the the liberal media give the Dubya a pass on his questionable record."
There is nothing questionable. If there were, the liberal media would be making a bigger issue about it.
Thanks for the correction, I was confused by the Congressional Post Office scandal in which some members of Congress were accused of using their franking privilege for personal use. The impression I got from the press reports at that time, was that such mail (franked) was free so that Members of Congress could communicate with the people they represent, but that personal mail was to be paid and that some Memebers of Congress were franking all their mail and thus cheating the public. Trust the press to get the basics of it wrong.
Looks like someone slept through this thread.
First, someone posted that the president was an accessible citizen until one got shot, and then another. Next, someone said something a long the lines of if another gets shot, and I said one was.
Jackson was accosted, the assailant attempted to fire two rounds, and both misfired, never even leaving the gun. Lincoln was the first shot and killed, Garfield was the second (both within the scope of the original parent's thread). McKinley was third (which is where I picked up) to be killed, and neither Roosevelt I counted, as the former continued his speech after being moderately injured by the bullet (which was slowed by a manuscript he was holding), and the latter was never hit. Ford was never shot either, the first attempt stopped by secret service before a shot was fired, and the second was deflected by a bystander. Teddy Roosevelt would be the only one I would concede, as he was the only one actually shot.
http://www.usatrivia.com/pasnatt.html
--- What
What Barney does with his pages is his own private matter, and is not a concern for anyone else.
Yes, but Teddy Roosevelt was not President when he was shot. He was a 3d party (Bull Moose) candidate running against President WH Taft (R) and T. Woodrow Wilson (D). If we are going to include assassinations and attempts of important politicians who were not actually President at the time, we can't ignore Huey Long, Senator of Louisiana, a/k/a "The Kingfish."
"that we sent troops over to Iraq, launched a war, killed over two hundred Americans (and still counting), countless Iraqis, spent billions of taxpayer dollars and that it was all based on lies, distortions, and fabrications by Bush and his senior staff. How about some perspective here?"
None of it was based on lies, etc. by Bush and his senior staff. The one lie involved (the "16" words) was true as Bush said it: He did report what British intelligence reported on the Niger deal. This was true that British intelligence reported this, even though at the base of it was a (then-unknown) lie by a British man.
Bush will weather this, as he did not lie about anything. This is contrast to Clinton, who lied about a wide variety of things during his administration (only one of which involved his sexual harassment case).
Bush did not launch this war. Saddam Hussein did. Before Bush and his allies retaliated only after long years of diplomacy to end the problem without war, Saddam Hussein had been killing many thousands of Iraqis a year in this war, attacking Americans (including killing a diplomat last year), attacking nearby countries (including Israel and Kuwait), and announcing his intent of even more aggression. Bush and the numerous allies, including much of Europe, have retaliated to end this aggression and end this long-running war.
"You right-wingers bitched about Clinton playing word games and then you let Bush off the hook when he gives grave warnings about supposed British intelligence that has already been discredited."
Discredited? British officials still insist it is true.
"And stop with the "16 words" bullshit."
As long as we agree it is not a lie, fine.
" and al-Qaeda was one of the administration's earliest justifications for going to war, there is still NO evidence to support it and plenty of evidence against it."
There has always been overwhelming proof.
"I was under the impression that the U.N. action against Saddam when Bush's daddy was President was due to Saddam's incursion into Kuwait. Has it happened again?"
Saddam has directly funded terrorism inside Israel. Has it happened again (Kuwait)? Saddam has violated most of the cease fire agreements. He also kept up his claim that Kuwait was his own property (a surefire intent of new invasion)
"Bush lied about the reasons for war over and over"
He has told nothing but the truth over and over. You have him confused with the previous president who could rarely tell the truth about any matter.
"Bush claimed that Iraq maintained a growing fleet of unmanned aircraft that, in his words, could be used "for missions targeting the United States." But Iraq has NEVER had a delivery system capable of reaching our shores."
Huh? Such things can be launched from nearby by Saddam's terrorist allies.
"Hussein had given inspectors complete access to Iraq and that their inspections were proceeding vigorously"
No, he did not. He violated US resolution 1441 in many ways, and was throwing roadblocks (sometimes literally) in the way of the inspectors, making a capital case every time they wanted to look someplace that looked suspicious.
"More Bullshit. Saddam Hussein did not attack the U.S."
Yes, he has attacked Americans many times. He killed an American diplomat last year, and has many times attacked US peacekeepers in the "no fly" zones despite being told to knock it off.
"The U.S. attacked Iraq while Iraq was cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors. "
No, the US retaliated partially because Iraq was refusing to coopreate
"Any word on those Weapons Of Mass Destruction yet?"
Ask France. ask Hillary. Ask many others who know that they existed and said they existed before Bush's retaliation forced Saddam to hide them elsewhere. You are duped by Saddam.
Have you got Bush's fecal matter off of your lips yet? Now Bush
As long as we agree it is not a lie, fine.
It was a lie. It was a bald-faced lie. The words were: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The British government could not "learn" something that we knew to be false. They didn't "learn" anything. A few misquided persons might have believed it, but none had learned it.
Discredited? British officials still insist it is true.
What British officials? All of them? Most of them? Or do you mean a handful of them who are making a last ditch attempt to avoid admitting that they lied? Blair is about to lose his job because the vast majority of those in Parliament know that it's a bunch of crap. Have you even seen a TV in recent weeks?
There has always been overwhelming proof.
Then present it. Osama Bin Laden has disapproved of Saddam Hussein's regime because it was not a fundamentalist Islamic regime.
At a press conference with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, which took place in the White House on 31 January 2003:
[Adam Boulton, Sky News (London):] One question for you both. Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?
THE PRESIDENT: I can't make that claim.
THE PRIME MINISTER: That answers your question.
Gee, that doesn't sound like a connection, does it?
Huh? Such things can be launched from nearby by Saddam's terrorist allies.
You are just getting pitiful now. Bush said that Saddam had unmanned aircraft with which to attack the United States. Now you are saying that someone else has them that's closer than Iraq so that means Iraq has them?
No, he did not. He violated US resolution 1441 in many ways, and was throwing roadblocks (sometimes literally) in the way of the inspectors, making a capital case every time they wanted to look someplace that looked suspicious.
According to a report by Hans Blix, Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector in January: "Access has been provided to all sites we have requested to inspect."
A former UN arms inspector Scott Ritter (a card-carrying Republican, by the way) said "the rhetoric of fear that is disseminated by my government, has not, to date, been backed by hard facts that substantiate any allegations that Iraq is today in possession of weapons of mass destruction.... Iraq, during nearly seven years of continuous inspection activity by the United Nations, has been certified as being disarmed to a 90-95 percent level."
Yeah, what do they know compared to you?
Yes, he has attacked Americans many times. He killed an American diplomat last year, and has many times attacked US peacekeepers in the "no fly" zones despite being told to knock it off.
Did he kill the diplomat using his bare hands or did he shoot him with a rifle? "US peacekeepers"? What a craptacular phrase. The "peacekeepers" wouldn't happen to be flying around in supersonic killing machines loaded with air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, would they? Tell me, if Iraq started flying aircraft over U.S. airspace to keep tabs on our weapons development, would you be terribly offended if we shot at one of those planes?
No, the US retaliated partially because Iraq was refusing to coopreate
The people doing the inspections said that they were cooperating and that the inspections needed to continue. Bush was unwilling to wait, probably because he knew that they would find nothing.
Ask France. ask Hillary. Ask many others who know that they existed and said they existed before Bush's retaliation forced Saddam to hide them elsewhere. You are duped by Saddam.
I have a lot more respect for Hillary Clinton than George W. Bush, I'll grant you that. So you're telling me that we hav
Um, no. There are no direct quotes of McKinney saying anything of the sort. She asked tough questions, and accused intelligence agencies of being inept (and covering that up), but she never said or implied that anyone actually knew about that plans and failed to act.
Greg Palast has covered this in some detail:
July 21
June 18
Palast's somewhat diatribic style aside, the fact remains that there are no first-party, original accounts of McKinney's statements. It was a rumor that was reported as fact.
"A former UN arms inspector Scott Ritter "
What a great source! He was on Saddam Hussein's payroll when he made these statements. I wonder if this was before he plotted to rape someone he met over the Internet.
"Yeah, what do they know compared to you?"
If Saddam's government gave me a $150,000 to take your side like he did Scott Ritter, I might "know" what you and he know.
"The people doing the inspections said that they were cooperating and that the inspections needed to continue."
They have listed numerous violations.
"Bush was unwilling to wait, probably because he knew that they would find nothing."
No, he was unwilling to wait because he knew it was a stalling tactic.
"I swear to God that you would believe in the Tooth Fairy if GWB said that there was one. And you'd look down on anyone who didn't share your belief."
I only believe him when he says something that is actually true.
"Tell me, if Iraq started flying aircraft over U.S. airspace to keep tabs on our weapons development, would you be terribly offended if we shot at one of those planes?"
Yes, since they would have no right and reason to, unlike the peacekeepers who were enforcing the cease fire after Saddam's first Gulf War. Saddam Hussein had no reason to attack the peacekeepers. Again, you take the pro-Saddam side.
"I have a lot more respect for Hillary Clinton than George W. Bush"
Ask her why she still has not turned over the evidence in the Whitewater case, which was required to be turned over by subpeona. Ask her why she fired without cause the Travel Office staff and sicced the FBI on them to make up stories. Ask her why she sold nights in the Lincoln Bedroom during her Senate campaign. Ask her why she took the low road, and lied about her opponent in order to win her Senate seat. Ask her why the "smartest woman in the world" seemed to be the last one to know that her husband is a philanderer. Asked her why she committed the crime of crossing a police line and stealing files from Vince Foster's office right after his suicide. (Guess that makes her a burglar. G Gordon Liddy, watch your back!). Ask her why she stole a lot of government property when she left the White House, and still has not returned it all.
But she is so pretty in pink, and she says she wants to help the children, so we might as well ignore the crimes.
"According to a report by Hans Blix, Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector in January: "Access has been provided to all sites we have requested to inspect.""
Only after much argument, with the Iraqis delaying and denying until the last minute (giving them enough time to cart a lot of material out the back door, which was documented by satellite). They also did not allow open interviews with the WMD-related scientists.
"Then present it. Osama Bin Laden has disapproved of Saddam Hussein's regime because it was not a fundamentalist Islamic regime."
Would you like a long list? Just because they do not agree perfectly does not mean they are not allies. There are a number of Palestinian militant groups, for example, some fundamentalist and some not, that are allied on the goal of extermination of the Israelis.
"Huh? Such things can be launched from nearby by Saddam's terrorist allies.You are just getting pitiful now"
Poor wording on my part. I meant that it is pretty obvious that he can use these things to attack from close range, and he had the intent.
"It was a lie. It was a bald-faced lie. The words were"
No, it wasn't. He was reporting that the British had reported that. You can thank his CIA chief for that: Bush made the mistake of not firing this CIA chief who was appointed by Clinton. It is kind of funny, the first so-called "lie" of the Bush administration, and the blame lies with a Clinton holdover.
Cynthia McKinney is a hard-core anti-semite. When she finally lost her election, her father went on the national media blaming "the Jews". She had strong support from American anti-semitic groups, including some which have funded terrorist organizations.
"Um, no. There are no direct quotes of McKinney saying anything of the sort."
Yes there are. Here's one: "Today's revelations that the administration, and President Bush, were given months of notice that a terrorist attack". This is from McKinney herself.
She did not ask tough questions. She was making things up fueled by her anti-semitic terrorist friends.
1. I could just grant you all this, because it obviously has nothing to do with my overall point. I was simply using McKinney as one example of a lone Democrat spouting off loony views. I could just as easily have chosen another example. The larger point of the post remains the same.
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2. However, I don't grant you this. You noted Palast's "diatribic style." That's because he's a left-wing BBC reporter who's never sniffed an anti-American or anti-Israeli angle he didn't like. (For those who don't follow the media, the BBC is under unprecedented scrutiny in England for having fallen under the control of left-wing, bureaucratic hacks who use the tax-supported corporation to push their own views.) This site:
http://brian.carnell.com/articles/2003/06/00003
has a pretty good takedown of the Palast-McKinney thing. Also, here's a press release sent out by McKinney's own office:
http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/CynthiaMcKi
Finally, one must ask this: Why, after these charges surfaced in the media, didn't McKinney simply point out she never said all that stuff? That would seem to have been the logical course of action. But she didn't do that, because she couldn't -- everyone (except Greg Palast) would have called her on it.
"Finally, one must ask this: Why, after these charges surfaced in the media, didn't McKinney simply point out she never said all that stuff? "
She was too busy, in the words of her supporters, trying to keep her campaign one step ahead of the Jews.
"Sorry, but I don't buy that. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy are, in the words of his dad, "voodoo economics." He's give out huge tax cuts and the job losses continue to grow."
Put away the Democrat Party playbook. Only a minority of the tax cuts go to the "wealthy". In fact, most go to "working families" (a favorite playbook phrase). Stop trying to mislead, it is not working, most Americans are not buying it.
How much has he "given out" in tax cuts? It's an astounding total: $0. Yes, $0. No money has been "given out". A tax cut is not a gift.
"Yep. Now I know how Germans who opposed Hitler felt when he came to power."
... while Bush machine moves forward"
/. in the wake of his MSNBC bile-fest being cancelled.
Again with equating Bush and Hitler, while ignorning that Bush matches FDR and Churchill during the WW2 era much more than he matches Hitler.
There are so many ways he is far from Hitler. We can start with race: Hitler was rather anti-semitic. Bush is rather pro-semitic (as seen with his Israel policy and other matters). Not only that, Bush sided with equal rights regardless of race in his recommendation on the recent Supreme Court decision involving the University of Michigan's racist admissions policy.
"Whine, bitch , complain
Not all conservatives are guttermouth cro-mags. I think that Michael Savage has found
On a totally different topic.... what do you think should be done about immigration?