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Georgy Tells Why She Should Be California Gov
1) Do you think the recall is fair? - by mjmalone
Do you think the california recall election is fair? I understand that a lot of Californians are unhappy with Gray Davis' performance, but he WAS elected by the people, if people dislike him then they can vote him out of office when his term is up. It seems unfair that Davis needs a majority of votes to remain in office, but a replacement candidate could be selected by a plurality. It is possible, and quite likely, that Davis will be voted out with 60% or fewer votes. That would mean 40% or more voters essentially voted for Davis, but he would not be the winner, one of the 400+ other candidates on the ballot would and in all liklihood that candidate will have received far fewer than 40% of the votes.
This whole situation seems like a gross abuse of a recall system that relies on honesty and virtuous politicians. Unfortunately California is no such utopia. By running in the election you have shown your support for it, how do you justify this support given the evident problems?
Georgy:
The aspect of this recall that I find most disgustingly unfair is the influence of money in politics. Californians should find it frightening that a wealthy Republican can buy himself another election. And if that isn't enough, we end up with an election where a series of other millionaires are taken seriously when they tell us they will govern for "the people." Perhaps worse than individuals being legitimized as candidates solely because of wealth, is a political system so heavily influenced by campaign contributions that lawmakers can no longer use their own judgment. This is at all levels of the Government, with the White House/Enron shenanigans being the perfect example. We also see it with Davis and Bustamante - who are owned by Prison Guard's Union and Indian Gaming. And if we look at less publicized issues, for example the high cost of Worker's Compensation, lobbying efforts and campaign contributions are to blame for the lack of response on behalf of the Legislature.
Requiring 50% to keep Davis seems unfair, when a replacement candidate could be elected with only 15%. However, the replacement candidate election could be fairer with instant runoff voting. Unfortunately people don't understand, and therefore don't trust, the instant runoff voting algorithm. If IRV were used, voters could be sure that the candidate *most* people wanted to win would win. It's a system where Ralph Nader could have maximized his vote without being a spoiler candidate in the 2000 election. (I encourage people to find out more about IRV at www.fairvote.org)
As for my candidacy, I am running in this election because Californians deserve a candidate who is willing to speak candidly to them about issues, such as the budget, the economy, and the death penalty, that other politicians only dance around. We need someone to show courage and take risks to promote change. This recall provides a unique opportunity for an "honest and virtuous" candidate to enter the race, and I challenge people to lend their support and make the first step in taking back the political process.
2) questions about the campaign - by garcia
I would like to know if you fear that two of your more controversial issues (legalization of marijuana and gay marriages) will be detrimental to your campaign? While I believe that as more and more "young" people run for and are elected to office, these items might come to pass, don't you think that it is a little early to be attempting to make these strides?
Georgy:
The controversial issues define this campaign. Realize that these issues are in large part controversial because they're avoided like the plague by mainstream politicians. Lacking the courage to convince people of their true beliefs, poll-abiding politicians choose the easy road. There is anecdotal evidence many politicians believe in gay marriage and ending death penalty, but are too cowardly to fight for those views. Bill Clinton came out after his presidency and so much as said he thought marijuana shouldn't be illegal! Good thing for us he found his spine a year after leaving office.
I don't see these as wacky issues. I've laid out my arguments for why death penalty is bad policy (it's costly, unfairly applied, and imperfect). I've explained why gay marriage is superior to civil union (marriage promotes fidelity and family values, and it removes unfair tax advantages for people willing to file a couple forms ). As for legalized marijuana, why is marijuana criminal when alcohol and cigarettes profit the government? I believe that when people are presented with intelligent and logical arguments, they will turn around. The problem is few politicians take the time to have intelligent discussions on these issues. Education on "controversial" issues is necessary to convince the electorate to make up or change its mind. I truly believe all of these issues will be passed someday. Politicians are wasting our time and money not passing them now.
3) Content vs. Tech - by stylee
California is considered the capitol of the content industry (RIAA, MPAA) and the technology industry (Silicon Valley). These two industries are at odds with each other over intellectual propery rights issues. They are probably also a large chunk of California's huge economy. Do you think you can balance the needs/wants of both lobbying groups in a manner that will be beneficial to both industries? If so how? I realize that this is mostly a federal matter as far as the law and politics go but there are many that believe that California kind of sets the standard for the rest of the nation to follow(at least economically and politically) so I am intersted in your ideas on this matter.
Georgy:
This is a federal issue; however I think that the RIAA in its aggressive pursuit of young mp3 down loaders demonstrates its lack of creativity. Can't they find a new way to make a buck? Besides which, concert prices are typically $40 or more! I haven't seen the numbers on this, but digitized music and video have certainly fueled sales of technology used in association with them. Additionally, kids and adults understand technology better as a result of digital music boom.
The RIAA, with the support of the government, should have approached the situation proactively long ago, and embraced digital music. They should still do this. If they can provide a reasonably priced, easily accessible digital music alternative, I think people will go for it. Right now however, it's cumbersome for the under 18 crowd especially, to buy stuff online, and they haven't worked out all the kinks surrounding the "rules" (e.g. burnable tracks, how long you can keep them, etc) of proprietary downloads.
I believe the role of the government should be to encourage technology companies and the RIAA to work together on the issue, as well as taking a look at it in terms of intellectual property rights of the artists. To me it seems that the RIAA is mostly concerned with their $$$ and not the rights (or $$$) of the musicians. Again, politics is hit with same problem - special/self interest ruling the legislature. And, with the looks of this ballot, anyone who wants to prevent prosecution of down loaders might want to think twice about voting for Arnie.
4) Hope to win or shake things up? - by Dark Paladin
With the names of such heavyweights as Arnold and lightweights like Gary Coleman (no pun intended - well, all right, it was), do you honestly hope to win, or are you making a Ralph Nader like point in forcing certain issues and ideas into the public's eye?
Georgy:
I hope to both win AND shake things up. Obviously the odds are long (Vegas has them at 100 to 1 - bodog.com/sports-betting ), but they are not out of reach. We've only reached a small percentage of voters and already received an impressive amount of support. Howard Dean was considered a long shot just a few months ago, now he's a front runner. To think a Georgy for Governor victory is impossible is to succumb to the jaded view that money is the only victor, and in effect solidify its reality.
5) Technology - by chrisgeleven
Why does your blog and web site, from what I can tell, not mention any uses of technology that you would like to see? Can you describe any protential plans to use technology to reduce costs or provide more benefits for the same price?
Georgy:
Check back soon. Technology is key to improving the efficiency of government, and though the government has come a long way (you can file electronically for some things on the Secretary of State's website) there is still more that can be done. As for problem solving, I like to speak in specifics rather than generalities, so it takes a while.
I am currently looking into the role of visas in technology companies and its effects on California's labor market, and investigating how we can encourage more wide spread use of open source software (both in education and businesses). I'm also trying to get some volunteers to develop apps that will aid in the voting process (check the website for updates or email if you're interested in helping).
6) the most important question - by Mothra the III
Boxers or briefs?
Georgy:
Boxer-briefs! But seriously, boxers, and Georgy for Gov boxers at that!
6A) Re:the most important question - by markhb
vi or emacs?
Georgy:
I'm so glad you asked!! Both. vi for quick editing, emacs (NOT xemacs) for coding projects. :q!:q!:q!
7) Do you think this election is Real? - by Voltas
With all the "Star Power" and the number of candidates that obviously are looking for media attention (I.E. Gary Colemen ), do you really thing that the candidates or the office really going to be taken serious when its all said and done?
Won't this whole election fiasco cripple anyone who actually wins?
Georgy:
This election does seem like it was dreamt up by Hollywood reality TV executives, but it is a real election, and it will go down as one of the most, if not the most, historical elections. After October 7, the fun will be over, and I'm sure the media will be bored by the daily details of Sacramento bureaucracy. The only thing that will cripple anyone who wins is his/her inability to lead. A candidate like Gary Coleman, who said he didn't want to be Governor, won't win (I hope). The interesting thing about Coleman, though, is that he was actually a president on Buck Rogers! Perhaps this is a case of the line between reality and fantasy blurring. "Hieronymous Fox, an 11-year-old child genius from the 20th Century is kidnapped for ransom by the sinister Roderick Zale. The boy is the President of the planet Genesia and his bodyguard fears that he will be killed because they cannot meet the ransom demand. Buck, Wilma, and the bodyguard then make separate attempts to rescue the boy." Maybe things will pick back up for the media in 2006, when Arnold Drummond can take another shot at it, and Willis can run as Lt. Governor.
8) Did you pay SCO? - by sharkey
Did you pay for your Linux licenses?
8A) Re: Did you pay SCO? - by El_Ge_Ex
If not, would you support strategic military action against Utah?
Georgy:
Despite the fact that SCO has launched an attack on many Californians, I don't think California will be declaring war on Utah, let alone the cowards at SCO. I'm not sure if my company plans to pay SCO, but I certainly hope they won't. SCO seems like they're running scared, using a lawsuit to boost revenue (kind of like the RIAA). Asking for $700 per license is extremely high, and should send a warning single to people that they are doing this to boost revenue and not simply out of fairness. If you check SCO's insider trading, people are selling like crazy. I think the open source community needs to educate people about the SCO case, and keep SCO's scare tactics from bullying weary individuals or corporations into paying them.
9) Who's in your staff? - by zoneball
A good leader must surround him or herself with the best advisors and experts within their respective fields. Who will you be bringing in to your campaign and administration, and what are their qualifications?
Georgy:
My "staff" is all volunteers. Their experience varies from none to work with local and state campaigns. I also have a professional photographer helping me, and a few people working on the technical side of things - website and video editing.
As for my administration, I plan to bring in people who have first hand experience with the problems on which they'll be working, and I would like to see diversity, in terms of both professional background and demographics (ethnicity, age, sex, etc.).
10) Do you understand... - by niko9
Do you understand Dselect? That program scares the poop out me. But I figure if you can handle dselect, you can handle being governor.
Georgy:
I have not used dselect. Hopefully you can find another litmus test for me!
Given the Terminator's capabilities it/he is clearly a derivative of Emacs, not Vi. Arnold would not give you a blank stay he'd simply delete your buffer with a quick C-x k you (that's Emacs-speak for "Hasta La Vista, Baby").
John.
Seriously, she's got my vote, for what it's worth.
Of course, I live in Chicago. . .
You are not the customer.
Not only is she smart, but she's damned cute too! She's got my vote! Oh, wait, I don't live in California. Damn. :)
My journal has hot
The IRV thing seems to be rigged to circumvent the law that's on the books in California. The process of doing the recall is to get the person in office out of there, and to keep them out (as opposed to what Davis tried to do earlier in this process, which was to get himself onto the ballot too).
If they don't like the idea of having recalls, the recall law should be changed. They shouldn't be thinking of ways to circumvent it.
The aspect of this recall that I find most disgustingly unfair is the influence of money in politics. Californians should find it frightening that a wealthy Republican can buy himself another election.
I cannot believe the whining about this. They needed FREAKING EIGHT HUNDRED NINETY THOUSAND VALID SIGNATURES. And that means they need to get twice as many just to make sure.
People of both parties have been lining up for this recall election because of the amount of hatred for Gray Davis. The guy is an absolute idiot. I'll never forgive him for signing those absolutely stupid power contracts. My power bill was FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS last month.
To paint this as some sort of republican vendetta is absolutely idiotic, and if this guy doesn't understand that when he's actually running, then obviously he's too stupid to be governor.
Sorry for the rant, but I've heard this "buying a recall election" stupidity one too many times.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Dang, it's tough being a geek.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
although she's not afraid to tackle that issue head-on, too
georgy..head..georgy..head..stop it godammit.
Those were the 10 questions?
Sheesh, how about "How would you cut California's $35 billion budget deficit?" (i.e. spending cuts or tax increases or both, and in which areas?)
--LP
P.S. For the curious, dselect is the Debian package manager, documented here.
I don't know about you all, but I don't hear a geek. I hear a politician telling geeks what they want to hear.
That's not a slam, just an opinion. On the other hand, Georgy would sure be a lot easier on the eyes than Arnold or Bustamante.
However, it's a moot point. Running as the "geek" candidate was silly anyway, like running as the "paraplejics" candidate, or the "millionaires" candidate. In a general election, any candidate aiming for a minority is going to lose.
As for legalized marijuana, why is marijuana criminal when alcohol and cigarettes profit the government? I believe that when people are presented with intelligent and logical arguments, they will turn around. The problem is few politicians take the time to have intelligent discussions on these issues. Education on "controversial" issues is necessary to convince the electorate to make up or change its mind. I truly believe all of these issues will be passed someday. Politicians are wasting our time and money not passing them now.
While I see where you are coming from, I highly doubt that the legalization of marijuana is a necessary topic when there are many other topics which should be discussed.
Marijuana, my opinion on the subject is irrelevant, is not a priority in this country. It's still considered a drug, its prohibition "worked" and didn't cause a massive revolt like alcohol's did, and it's not terribly important (medical use is another thread totally).
You haven't really answered my question though. Of course the mainstream politicians avoid them like the plague, they know that they are possibly detrimental to their campgains. Why don't you think that they will be detrimental to yours?
A very politically savey response, given the audience.
Everyone seems to forget the third option...
Comando!
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
Not yet, but he's showing some hope.
Campaign contributions have allways been a natural part of our democracy. Contributions makes it possoble for the weak canditade that are not that well know to increase their name recognition by advertising.
This is not about wealty republicans vs. some poor democrates. The right to recive contributions is for everyone, whatever policy they have. The sad thing is that such a promising candidate fall to such populistic methods, trying to win some easy votes. Actually this tactic reminds me of some of the elections in the fifthies when democrates fell down to a almost comunist standard when it came to pre-electin statements.
Proud patriot and republican voter.
Americans (and interested foreigners) still take democracy seriously...
I'm surprised... that she didn't answer any of the "will u marry me/yer a hot-E" posts.
Seriously, i think she answered these very well. I'm a NYer though, so my opinion matters didley.
You honestly think it's hard to find that many people in California, a state of 35+ million, who don't really have a clue, or are just bitter enough about Simon's defeat to take this shot at fscking their own state government? Get real.
If the early half of the 20th century should have taught us anything, it's that instability in goverment leads to chaos and populist leaders with dangerous agendas.
Too bad there's not a political IQ test people have to pass to vote.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It is a circus!
I live in a giant bucket.
You can use 'ZZ' to quickly exit vi without saving anything.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The Republican minority is going to shut down the whole state if either Davis or Bustamente wins and the Democratic majority is going to ignore anybody else (especially if they come in with 15% of the vote).
Republicans: Not winning elections is no longer an impediment
6A) Re:the most important question - by markhb
:q!:q!:q!
vi or emacs?
Georgy:
I'm so glad you asked!! Both. vi for quick editing, emacs (NOT xemacs) for coding projects.
>and should send a warning _single_ to people
I think she is trying to win us over with slashdot grammar.
Come on. Seriously, do you think she would really be a better governor than the current governor? She's a teenager. She probably wants to become the second pregnant governor (after gov. of Mass in 90's). And yeah, that really worked out well for her; she brought kids into office with her and had interns take care of them....
What politics has G done to know if she would like doing this sort of stuff? I guess she doesn't really think she's gonna be elected and is doing this for fun, but should she not have some experience? When one is a life-long politician, it shows at least some dedication. Or when someone is a self-made rich tycoon, that shows some dedication, people skills, and a "getting it done" track record. All the candidates the media takes seriously fall into those two categories. She doesn't.
I bet even I have way more experience than her, and I think I am younger. To be taken seriously, which she still has time to do, she should list her credentials on her WEB SITE!
Cover your eyes and click this link!
All the taxes from the dubage adds up to alot of cabbage.
Seriously, we tax the hell out of tobacco and alcohol. Why not create another revenue stream.
my $.02
I think they should push the city of Santa Cruz to take legal action against SCO to either get a new name or declare the new meaning of SCO, Shitty Caldera Organization.
California may be famous for its cities, but it's the agribusiness which shapes much of the policy and possibilities. How much do you know about the seasonal migrant industry? How much do you know about toxic waste from dense livestock management? How much do you know about fair water rights and the unfair political agendas of the affected populations?
[
This calling people commie bullshit has to stop. It's the lamest, weakest, least creative attempt to marginalize liberal/progressive ideas ever. It's funny because the whole notion of a one-party system and with witch hunts, purges and calling people traitors, etc... is much more akin to what went wrong with marxism/leninism than single payer healthcare.
8A) Re: Did you pay SCO? - by El_Ge_Ex
:- P
...oh, right. :-\
If not, would you support strategic military action against Utah?
Damn you Taco!! It was a joke!!!
Oh well, good thing Michigan didn't have out of those blackouts like California
Seriously, though - he isn't off-topic moderators. He was refering to the vi vs. emacs question, even though it's not immediately obvious.
Concorcet's method is much better than Instant run off.
And her preference for editing is the same as mine... exactly.
-Craig.
"the vital 'Vi or Emacs?' question" Huh? The question of today for anyone running for being a governor is - SCO or IBM?
Man all this about the "big" party candidates buygin elections, and being afraid to take a stand on real issues. and then she drops the "both" bomb on the vi/emacs question....
I swear talk about not taking a stand on important issues, whatthe hell kind of a geek is she if she can't choose vi or emacs and has to use both. I think it was a little too much of a token "bone" to pick GNU Emacs over XEmacs, especially after skirting the real issue.
Its like she said "I am both for and against the death penalty, but I am against wrongful convictions"
If the government gives every candidate the same amount of money, and at the same time forbid the acceptance of contributions or use of personal money. Than every person - poor or rich - has the same means to get elected.
Campaign contributions are NOT a natural part of democracy. They are rather a threat for democracy, and should be avoided at all costs.
I'm impressed that she's savvy enough to be aware of alternate voting systems, even if she favors IRV. I wonder if she's aware of some of the problems with IRV, and what she thinks of other methods.
Read my keyboard review.
I'm so glad you asked!! Both. vi for quick editing, emacs (NOT xemacs) for coding projects. :q!:q!:q!
So does this mean she won't lose any votes because of her choice of editor?
Good thing no one asked her what OS she used though, I don't think there's a safe answer to that question around here!
I stole this Sig
I'm so glad you asked!! Both. vi for quick editing, emacs (NOT xemacs) for coding projects. :q!:q!:q!
BZZZT WRONG! pico for both.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I like her spunk, and her charge that politicians need a shake up. But I don't think she's correct on one particular statement...
Californians should find it frightening that a wealthy Republican can buy himself another election.
This has a few problems.
1) Who is buying themselves another election? I know of no money donations that came from a ex-gubenatorial candidate. Not Simon, or Riordan (who else would know who she might be talking about?). Most of the money was fronted by Darryl Issa, who not only didn't run previously, but is not running now (although he did fill out the papers to run).
2) How is this a purchased election? The money was not given to public officials as a bribe to make another election. It was not given to voters to sign petitions. It was given to only some of the people who watched people sign petitions. They were offered $1 a signature, and its noted that the counter petitions started by Davis put a bounty of $3-5 dollars a signature.
It just seems rather disenginious to call this election "purchased" in any way shape or form. Probably becuase it margionalises how much even Democrats hate Davis.
I am still in favour of the 'Prisoner Island', where you send lifers to compete in escape attempts off the island. You sell the rights to FOX, and no more prison overcrowding, sidestep the death penalty issue, and eliminate the defecit via royalties.
Beats the hell out of just gassing them.
Pray tell, what are these detrimental consequences? Maybe I should get married, and quick, before the government ruins it for me.
People keep saying that money bought this recall, like the people that voted for it got kickbacks or something. If politicians can throw money into advertising and get votes, the people have no one to blame but themselves! Don't point that finger! Don't do it!
Even though she is a Slashdoter , there is no Cowboy Neal option in the poll at her website
I wonder why...
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
The banner on her website shows her wearing a tshirt. Look closely at what it says.
Too many subliminal messages here me thinks.
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
Shutup, you pinko symp.
Amen, brother!
As much as I hate Ann Coulter, this is one topic Ann's absolutely right about - WHY should the government legislate on people's personal preferences within the four walls of their house ?
Why do I care if two adults want to commit sodomy ? Why should the govt step in and mandate "sodomy is ok" ? Does the govt mandate "You must eat your vitamins" ?
So why should the govt mandate smoking or not-smoking marijuana ?
Just be indifferent, is all.
Quote from an earlier post:
Not only is she smart, but she's damned cute too! She's got my vote!
RTFA! RTFA! RTFA!
And the award for the nittiest nitpick goes to...
Californians should find it frightening that a wealthy Republican can buy himself another election.
As opposed to a wealthy Democrat who bought himself the last election?
"Teachers leave us kids alone
I think Arnold may make the best candidate because he's a businessman, has been extraordinarily successful compared to most people who go into business and he's got the appearance of a genuine and warm personality that makes him look much more like a straight shooter. He's closer to the center than most, and as Reason Online's writers have pointed out, he's got many good points going for him.
I am a Southerner, and for lack of a better political label I am closer to a libertarian socialist than a libertarian capitalist on most issues. These are what I think are wrong with Georgy's positions.
Just a little critique from an outsider.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
California is a liberal place, you cannot put a conservative government on top of a liberal state, most of the people in cali are minorities, then you have san francisco, alot of gay people, you are telling me that they want some anti gay anti affirmative action conservative to come there and lock the boarders, inscrease the college standards, and reduce services?
You need to research the culture of california, the do not like conservatives, thats what you like.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Couldn't agree more. While reading each question, I already knew what she was going to answer a few lines below. And of course, facing any clear simple two-choice question, she just answers she likes both.
She's a real politician!!
My question was not mooded up enough to be sent to Georgy, but I wuold love to know :
Where does she get the money for this camplaign ? Personnal saving ? Friends and parents ? Others ?
:wq
Now as far as money goes, why shouldn't it be used to buy elections? Is there a boogeyman out there that notices when democrats have money and runs and takes it away(ok, so the government by way of taxes, but rich people pay way more of that, so whatever)? I didn't think so. Many great men have shown that the only impediment to wealth and power is lack of will. Stop whining and calling everything that doesn't go your way unfair, get up off the couch, and make a buck.
As an aside, social programs shouldn't be started because they make things more fair, they should be started because they make the world a better place. Dont' redistribute wealth because poor people not having insurance isn't 'fair', do it because it isn't neccasary! (the not having insurance...)
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I dont think the majority of poor people in cali would care if the billionare and millionares pay more taxes. Just shift the taxes to people who can afford to pay them and leave taxes for the majority of the people the same, suddenly the deficit gets paid.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The aspect of this recall that I find most disgustingly unfair is the influence of money in politics. Californians should find it frightening that a wealthy Republican can buy himself another election.
This is just stupid.
1) Last time I checked, the recall was part of the California Constitution, making a recall of an elected official legal.
2) It takes nearly 1 million voters to agree with a recall effort. They have to agree with the assertion that the current administration is doing a terrible job, and take time out of their day to sign the petition to make the recall legal. In no way can you "buy" an election. This is why we have had many recall efforts come and go, and this one being the first one that was successfull.
3) If she thinks this recall effort is such a sham, then why is she a part of it?!
It's only unfair to her, because its her party that might be kicked out of office. Too damn bad.
This is the first interesting election we Californians have had in our life time. I actually feel like my 1 vote might make a difference. It's about time that the 2 major parties got a wake up call.
I can't believe people are taking her seriously. I suppose most people are just to naive when it comes to politics...
Like someone else said, she's no geek, she's just telling geeks what they want to hear.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Why is she a commie?
I believe that when people are presented with intelligent and logical arguments, they will turn around.
Someone's lived in Northern California too long.
Unfortunately, "intelligent and logical" arguments don't sell, or we'd never be in this mess in the first place.
Good luck, though. I'm completely behind you anyways.
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
Boxers or briefs?
vi or emacs?
Did you pay for your Linux licenses?
Do you understand Dselect?
So freakin what!
Enough of the geekoid softball questions.
How about fixing the California deficit?
Or fixing/ending political corruption?
or doing something about pollution/wildfires/global warming or cooling(whichever you prefer)
or some actual relevant political question. After all, this is going to decide the next leader of the 5th largest economy in the world.
She may well be a good candidate. But if a large segment of her core constituency can't think past "she's hot! I wonder what she's wearing under those pants?", then her campaign is doomed before it starts.
She brought up homosexual marriage -- not me. I politely disagreed. You know, there is a debate on this thing still going on. Remove the flamebait moderation.
why not ask if she will challenge the dmca?
> I'd much rather get executed than imprisoned for life.
>Life imprisonment, not execution, is cruel and unusual.
So when new evidence shows up that proves your innocence, you would prefer to be released from the morgue?
Another thing wrong with commies is that they've got no sense of perspective or humour.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
=======
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Why do you say she is a hack?
You know you're right! Down with experience! Up with youth and new ideas! Let's shake up those old codgers and toss them out on their wrinkled asses!
Hey man, we're taking over the student union tomorrow. Pass the word. Groovy.
Best Windows Freeware
She'd lose my vote, if I were Californian. Not because of her naivete: I'd rather have a naive governor than one that's experienced in, and jaded by, the current political system. People who don't realize that what they're trying to do is impossible are far more likely to succeed than those who know it is.
But she'd lose my vote on one issue: I refuse to support anyone who supports IRV. Our current electoral system is bad enough: why oh why does every electoral-reformist have to support one of the few systems that's actually provably WORSE?
My personal preference for government elections is the Approval system, which eliminates the vast majority of the problems with Plurality without introducing worse ones, like a complicated ballot sheet (remember, a significant percentage of Floridians couldn't handle the ones we have now!) and violations of monotonicity.
I'm aware of the technical superiority of Concordet methods, and support them for elections in which all voters are highly educated, but the complexity of the ballot sheets should rule it out along with IRV for elections to public office, IMO.
because you have to start somewhere to end the socially destructive prohibition on "drugs". Since herb has the most obvious and most widely recognized medicinal benefits, it would make sense to start with that one rather than, say, LSD. Marijuana is also very widely used by people of all social backgrounds and geographical locations, so it stands the best chance of being taken seriously.
The idea is that once prohibition has been lifted on one substance, the ball can be kept rolling to take a more modern, enlightened standpoint on entheogens and personal freedom. Many of these substances, like psylocibin-bearing mushrooms, are a part of our spiritual and cognitive history as human beings, and our brutal suppression of these traditions that predate relegion and science have lead us to the point where we've grown into an evolutionary dead-end as a species.
It comes as no suprise to anyone taking even a cursory interest in the historical momentum of things for the past couple centuries that the biggest offender for culturally de-emphasizing substances that catalyze language and thought while -emphasizing- substances that make us more efficient drones or easier to control (caffine, nicotine, alcohol, SSRIs like prozac) is....::drumroll:: the US! Who woulda thunk?
Consider this. The bastille prison in france gave its prisoners three bottles of wine a day -each-. No one bothered escaping. Cross-reference that with alcohol in modern industrialized society, which is basically a large institutional prison, and suddenly having a bar and liquor store on every streetcorner makes a lot of sense.
I'll blatantly copy your post whenever I have to give an example of a moron "what-I-believe-is-right" conservative.
BOO! TERRO
I was out of town when this interview as posted,but here's my question a little bit late:
Georgy, will you marry me?
Senior CPU Editor | Ars Technica | http://arstechnica.com/
The correct answer is not "Legalize Pot because Smoking is Legal."
You don't have to smoke pot, you can bake up some brownies and they achieve the same effect and are very healthy! The correct answer is "brownies are legal, therefore pot brownies should be legal too."
Zoot!
On access violations. I'd overflow her buffer any day.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Not only is she smart, but she's damned cute too! She's got my vote!
I'm glad to see that we the American people continue to be issue-driven in our selection of candidates.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
> To paint this as some sort of republican vendetta is absolutely idiotic, and if this guy doesn't understand that when he's actually running, then obviously he's too stupid to be governor.
Georgy is a girl (and a yummy one at that):
http://www.georgyforgov.com/
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
You can try to "marginalize" my ideas, but I know I'm correct.
...and if you try and convince me of anything to the contrary, I'm going to stick my fingers in my ears and sing to myself in a VERY LOUD VOICE until you go away.
I'm a 20 year old card-carrying Republican who knows what's right.
Saints preserve us. You wouldn't happen to be a Promise Keeper as well, by any chance?
Shades of the Running Man eh?
Nah, it's too complex, raises some civil rights issues, and what if they succeed in escaping? They get rich and turn into Bond-movie-scale villains?
I think prisons or anything resembling them ought to be much more of a last resort. Kill the murderers, force the thieves to pay restitution (7x perhaps?), invent other suitable constructive punishments for lesser crimes. Prisons should be more like insane asylums - only for people who can't be simply "corrected" and be expected to learn from it, but on the other hand have some hope of rehabilitation, but on the other hand do not deserve the death penalty. As it is, prison is rarely ever a constructive, character-building experience for anyone, and thus serves no purpose other than just separating the bad guys from the rest of society.
The thing is, prison "societies" have a tendency to get a life of their own, dangerous memes are allowed to fester, and those who are put in there, far from being rehabilitated, come out more hardened and tough and with a lot of new ideas; they learn these behaviors from their peers in prison. And eventually, if the prison or penal colony becomes large enough, it turns into another country. Australia, for example. Well not that they turned out so bad... but it kindof defeated the purpose of Britain's use of the place, to exile their undesirables. Or, take Siberia, for another example. If those people were so bad, how come they built the kind of society that they have built. Maybe they should have remained integrated into their own societies rather than sent off like that. At least it was good for them that they were sent to a wide-open frontier rather than being bottled up in a small confined space.
But someday if in the US we keep putting too many people in prison for the wrong reasons, there will need to be some sort of penal colony like that. Nowadays we don't have any frontiers, so it might turn into something like a more hard-core Las Vegas, with a lot of organized crime etc. Better to just not start this process at all, rather than create a "den of evil" which can fester for decades and then get out of control.
Wow, I mistype a "j" for a "g", and suddenly I'm a fucktard?
At least the Anonymous Coward above actually made a joke about it. And a funny one at that.
Outwitted by an AC. Boy, should your face be red...
...and when he says "Preferably both together" that's one less semi-serious candidate to worry about.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
is much more akin to what went wrong with marxism/leninism than single payer healthcare.
Its a slipery slope, FDR started this BS with the new deal in the 30's, widows and orphans assistance, which has balloned into a big-ass drain on my paycheck that I'll never get a penny of. LBJ continued with socialism lite with the great society, paying (and feeding and housing) people to not work. In 70 years we have gone from a pull yourselves up by the bootstraps mentality to "ho hum, if I screw up, the gov't will take care of me" . That is highly dangerous and leads to nothing but class warfare, which is beneficial if you are trying to start a workers revolt to set up your communist paradise, but deadly to a country that should reward greatness.
I really wish there was a way I could sign a contract that says "I will not use the socialist services provided by the gov't and I refuse to pay for them" and not go to the pen for tax evasion.
Communism had its chance, it proved itself a failure at Plymouth in the 1620's and we watched it crumble in the 80's, let it die, it has proven itself worthless to humanity time and time again.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
I agree with the comment on marijuana.
Not so much on the murderers.
As for the cost, here is a quick google on "cost of the death penalty".
The entire cotton industry would thrown on it's ear if hemp were to be massively produced and manufactured into products.
The Straight Dope says differently.
Do not read this sig.
She just lost my vote...
Okay, so it's probably a fake but since it was linked from her own blog it has a veneer of respectability... http://xrlq.com/MT-archives/001037.php
But it's damn disappointing she didn't answer the really important question: What happened to the "posture" pic and the "I asked Georgy out" t-shirt?
a world in progress...
Maybe she'd be a great governor, but that's not what I saw here. I don't live in CA, though, so I she doesn't need to convince me anyway.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
she doesn't adequately explain how she can not believe in the legitimacy of a recall and still run in that recall race. i presume if she says that california deserves a good governor, then she, in some part, believes that the recall is legitimate enough to elect a legitimate governor.
i don't think gay marriages and legalizing marijuana should define the campaign, as she said. i think the controversial issues, the reasons for the recall itself, are the economy of california, the inability of the state to get anything done, and gray davis' inability to work with the legislature. those are the reasons why a recall is needed; THOSE SHOULD DEFINE ALL THE RECALL CANDIDATES' CAMPAIGNS. the recall is about saving california, not a litmus test for social issues.
and if her staff is all volunteers, heaven help her (if she believes in such) because the big names in political maneuvering will go to the people who are willing to solidly define themselves on issues, and it doesn't seem like she'll get much help. (unless she drafts me? ah but the odds are against me; net interaction between women and me is negative) even then, i'm just a neophyte.
vi AND emacs? the question was meant for her to choose, not to explain good points of both! well she's learning as a politician how to keep both sides of the aisle happy i guess...=P
Where do you think we're going to dump Sadaam's WMDs? Nebraska?
We just keep quiet about that. The FOX execs will to, if they know what's good for them!
addendum to that:
more frightening and malignant than the cultural emphasis i percieve on things like caffine, nicotine, and alcohol (which you may or may not recognise as a salient point) are *benzodiazepines* (think valium). These are the most commonly proscribed pills in the country by a wide margin. Legions of bored and depressed housewives take it so they won't raise their voices to their husbands. Funny that for us it was valiums where for the far east it's amphetamines.
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell
Please tell me, then, why an incumbent President needs $35 million dollars in contributions? No one knows who George Bush is, right?
Ever stop to think that in the 200+ years that our Democracy has been on-line, some clever enterprising sorts of people might have figured out an exploit? The patching process is very slow in our system, you know.....
The sad thing is that such a promising candidate fall to such populistic methods, trying to win some easy votes.
Are these populisitc methods worse than pandering (read:whoring) one's ethics to donors (individual and corporate) with fat wallets? I fail to see the distinction here.
========
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Basically, you're a relic. A useless intolerant judgemental fuck who does not understand god's love. You blame your hate on your god, and you ignore his love and his word.
Heaven will be a lot hotter than you expected if you do not accept other people's choices with love in your heart.
Agreed, whomever moderated that as flamebait was unfair. Much too much of the debate over the defense of marriage is by demonizing both sides. For those defending marriages definition, they are called bigots, discriminatory (as in another word for bigot), and such.
Homosexuals are demonized also, and that is unfortunate. But your comments did not do that. They are very legitimate reasons to continue to consider marriage as a protential product of excuslively heterosexual unions. I thought them very well thought out.
Considering the Judicial legislation going on in Canada to impose homosexual unions on churches as marriage (yes both violating seperation of powers and seperation of church and state), I think the debate needs to be brought out more, not suppressed as "flaimbait". And especially not to a post that had insightful commentary on the issue.
/* laid out my arguments for why death penalty is bad policy (it's costly, unfairly applied, and imperfect). */
/sarcasm
Okay, I can accept points 2 and 3. But 1?
One of the biggest "things" out of Columbine and the drug wars is the fact that guns are cheap. Ammunition is cheap. A $150 pistol with a $5 box of ammo (and the piston can be reused!) is rather cheap. And if you don't kill him with one shot, well, you can keep shooting! I'm sure that eventually that he'll be dead sooner or later.
OR:
Put your deathrow inmates in a pit. With weapons. On Pay Per View. Last man standing gets a "pardon" (in reality, like Running Man the movie (not the book), he's simply taken out back and shot).
Turn the death penalty into a profit making venture!
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Let me pick one nit.
If marriage is a covenant of sanctity, what the HELL does the state have to do with it?
Me, I'd be much more in favor of destroying the tax laws re: marriage, and make it nothing more than a covenant between two people, so that gay marriages won't any longer be something that politiicans get to talk about.
Too bad you're a Republican, not a conservative.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
You mean, as opposed to the detrimental consequences now?
The significant (30-50% of marriages) number of divorces indicate that whatever the social idea of marriage is, it is not completely congruent with the legal definition of marriage. When most of the conceptual rules of the institution as well as the relevant laws for marriage were made, women did not have the power to determine rules and laws for marriage; only recently (100 yrs) have they had rights at all. The institution of marriage has been weakened more by negating the rights of a large portion of its participants than any other factor. The recent changes to marriage are partly a response to the newfound rights of women. There have been a variety of other significant changes over the history of marriage (divorce, dowry, age of consent) - marriage was able to change to accommodate the society in which it is established. If society wants the institution changed then it will do so; if not, then it won't. If there is popular support for gay marriage, then the institution, like lots of others, will change or become irrelevant to many.
If gay marriage is a social engineering project, I think that its purpose is to attempt to induce/compel tolerance for gay people by showing that they can live within a similar framework of law and culture. I don't think it can work that way, but support for gay marriage is certainly an indicator that society is willing to look at gay people without active hatred. I don't think the purpose of gay marriage is to change gay behavior, but to change heterosexual behavior towards gay people.
I believe that marriage should cover only certain types of relationships (long-term, monogamous ones or, at minimum, stable relationships with reasonable abilities to care for young), because of the likely cost to society and the moderate fit to historical standards, but I have a hard time believing that the concept of gay marriage (particularly in long-term monogomous relationships) will do any more violence to the concept of marriage than has already been done in recent history.
The 17 voters are split into 4 factions with the following preferences:In the first election, everyone votes for their favorite choice:
X gets 6 votes; Y gets 6 votes; Z gets 5 votes, and is eliminated.
In the second election, everyone votes for X or Y:
X gets 11 votes; Y gets 6 votes; X wins!
Now assume that the 2 voters (*) with preferences (Y,X,Z) had decided that "X" really was the best candidate and change their preferences to (X,Y,Z). All other preferences remain the same:In the first election, everyone votes for their favorite choice:
X gets 8 votes; Y gets 4 votes, and is eliminated; Z gets 5 votes.
In the second election, everyone votes for X or Z:
X gets 8 votes; Z gets 9 votes; Z wins!
The only change between the first and second cases was that X was more preferred by 2 voters. Because of the additional support, X lost.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
I'm a 20 year old card-carrying Republican
spelled "Republican", pronounced "Reactionary".
For what it's worth, I believe in legalized marijuana. I think we create more deaths in the black market by outlawing it rather than just letting people kill themselves with it.
Marijuana doesn't kill. What you assert is FUD. So, go away.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
Suppose you got answers like these:
- Marijuana should be legalized because micromanagement of trivial acts that do not endanger the rights of others, is outside the scope of government's legitimate purpose.
- Marijuana should remain illegal because it is harmful to the user, and it is government's responsibility to maintain the health and well being of its citizens.
Answers like those would speak volumes about a candidate's outlook and you could use their answer to infer a lot about their platform.Of course, I don't think I've ever actually seen a politician give answers like that. At least not one who won.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Why am I even bothering to reply to this?
Try dropping the ad hominems (hippies? communists? really?). Name calling doesn't change anyones mind, all it does is piss people off.
Which is it your trying to do?
Lets take, for example, your problem with gay marriage.
Marriage is a social bond, promoting the lifestyle of one sexual partner for the rest of your life (yes, sanctified by the church, yet existing long before).
What are the benefits of marriage? It promotes stability in society. If two homosexuals are more stable, (e.g. fewer sexual partners) due to a marriage contract how is this not a good thing?
At the very least it reduces the potential costs associated with unsafe sex. That alone should make any real republican (i.e. someone less concerned with "God" and "Family Values" than the belief in the individual, the belief of living and letting live and the opportunity to make a good living while doing so) approve of gay marriage.
Yet, you think gay marriage is "unholy"? What the hell is that? I don't know maybe you're just a little turned on by men in thongs and can't bear the thought of it. Maybe you were molested by priests when you were a *younger* child.
We may have been created sexual beings, but so is *every other living thing*. It's the rise of society, thought and consideration of others that raises humanity above every other living thing, never mind a fucking mouse port.
I'm not trying to "marginalize" anything you wrote, your name calling, laughable analogy and intolerant attitude is all the marginalization you need.
By the way since you think it's important to provide your biography, Im a married 32 yo male, registered republican as well with a combined household income over $160,000 per year. I'm a pisces and my hobbies include pornography, software development and woodworking. (One of those is a joke)
While your down south in school why don't you try taking a couple of philosophy, logic, rhetoric and ethics courses to expand your mind rather than smoking pot, watching Rush Limbough and being a typical close minded idiot fucktard. (oops, was that an ad hominem?)
This wasn't an interview, this was poor flirting.
I'd be interested to know if Georgy picked the questions or if Roblimo did. If Georgy did, it shows evasiveness just like the other canidates (Arnold & gay marriage - "I don't want to get into that right now."), just with different issues.
If Roblimo did, it shows a lack of understanding of what makes a good interview.
What did this tell me about Georgy? Not enough to make an informed decision on whether or not to vote for her. (Not that I can, since I don't live in CA)
I hate to make a big deal about it, because no one will read this after it's bombed to -1, but this is one example of why geeks don't get what they want politically. Slashdot really missed a chance to educate people about this canidate, and that's really too bad.
I think you mean politicization of marriage, and marital rights, is always bad. (If this weren't in that context, I should be more alarmed that someone like me could rush into it in response to a warning from someone like you.) But you're a long ways off from defining its "natural social protections", much less making predictions about people, based solely on biology. Utopias are generally planned according to predisposed ideas of order.
Christ man! Where's your heart?
Even if you don't directly use the services, you still benefit indirectly. That's why it doesn't bother me to pay taxes. Would you really want poor people in your neighborhood to have no access to medical services? For poor kids to not be offered a publicly funded education?
I'm not even convinced that the net cost of social assistance programs is negative. Without a social safety net, what would crime figures look like? What portion of the welfare savings would have to be spent on public safety programs (prisons and police)?
If I could chop away at the budget, the military would be one of my first candidates. Actually, the department of homeland security would be first. What do they do? Defend the homeland? Why can't the department of defense take care of this?
Next time run in Arizona where I'm registered!
But as it is illegal, it's not in any politician's interest to stir up controversy when most of those who would benefit aren't in the vocal, coke-snorting conservative chattering classes.
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
Typical politician... comes out on both sides of important and contraversial issues.
By reading this sig, you agree to the terms of my sig license.
Yeah, that AC made me laugh out loud.
Laws are for people with no friends.
Nothing like the entertainment of someone w/out a strong opinion.
"I'm so glad you asked as I have a very passionate opinion about this!! I love both!!"
Is it just me or does her answer seem just a bit contrived?
Yes, requiring 50% for a yes/no vote seems unfair when a new candidate will win with only 15%. We should only require 15% for recall Davis. Then it is even, right?
On the other hand, if there are ~135 candidates, I think, and the votes were spread out evenly, instead of 50%, a plurality would be more then 0.75% of the vote, right? But we don't like pluralities in votes.
So what is fair? 60%, 40%, 75%? If the people of California who voted for him decide that they made a wrong decision, shouldn't they be able to legally recall Davis? What if they don't want Davis to continue to destroy California for another 3 years? Isn't a legal recall fair?
-BrentOi.
:)
Once again, the American slanted view of history rears it's red, white, and blue head.
Not, I suppose, that's it's entirely your fault. It's not like the American educational system is big on the nuances of history....
Anway:
1) Hitler used the political instability of the time to help him launch his populist movement. Without an unstable (from a political perspective) Germany, the Nazis would have never made it into power.
Collerary: be VERY suspicious of the motives of people promoting instability and chaos.
2) By every metric one could choose to measure with, the defeat of Germany in WW2 was a Russian show. The Western Allies made important contributions, especially in material, but the Nazi war machine died on the Russian steppes.
The prime American contribution to WW2 was in the Pacific theatre, which was pretty much a straight US vs Japan fight (with small contributions from the British and Commonwealth nations)
You can make a solid case for "the United States kicked Japan's ass", but the oft-repeated opinion that the US "rescued" Europe is mythmaking at its finest.
It's about time that the West (and especially the US) got over the Cold War cheerleading and started facing reality.
DG
PS - if there are any ex-Soviet-army tank officers reading this, drop me a line, willya? I'd love to compare notes with my former opposite numbers.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Tax the rich, feed the poor = Socialist.
Socialist = bankruptcy
Next.
I was under the impression you could at least get out of the draft that way, IE don't register and we don't provide anything for you. I would much rather have my lost 10% back. Freaking pinko commies. J/k on the pinko thing.
Error 404 - Sig Not Found
Language is polymorphic and changes all the time. It's a shame that some people are so stodgy about the use of it.
If $$$ makes a more clearer point, adds intended emphasis, shortens the time taken to digest/read/transmit the information, why should you not use it?
Did you ever study communication theory?
What's the difference? She obviously is well spoken and written.
Regardless, Georgy *is* working the geek beat, but honestly is that a problem? Good for her, maybe some Californian geeks will drag their fingers away from their keyboards and go vote. Her platform is refreshing, real, and definately thought out.
I think i'd fall out of my chair faint if she won tho. I am a pessimist after all.
Good luck Georgy and ignore the chum replied to.
rr
You won't see Gary Coleman tolerate that kind of sloppy techno-scrawl...
So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
I think she certainly beats this guy's run for governor. Too bad I'm not in California.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
How does it feel to be rated at the same odds at Larry Flynt? (I hesitate to say "running neck & neck").
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
The real question is "How did CA *get* a $35B budget deficit?" The answer was basically that back during the dotcom boom, everybody's personal income was expanding by X% a year and corporate income by Y% a year, and if you believed everybody's business plans ("Enhancing Shareholder Value and Becoming Mozillionaires!"), CA's tax revenue would increase by the astounding rate of Z% a year, giving the State a humongous surplus so the politicians were busy arguing about how to spend it all before it got away. Of course, those predictions were all pretty bogus, and while tax revenues per Californian did keep going up, it wasn't as fast as spending went up, so we got a huge deficit. Cut back per-capita spending to about 1998 levels and there's no deficit.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Your point about the social engineering aspects of this is certainly well taken. I do not dispute the good intentions of this arrangement. I only point out that once it exists, few homosexuals will take advantage of it, and it will wind up being used as a stick to beat the other 99% of the homosexual community that maintains the present social pattern.
I fully agree that the real damage to marriage has already been done, and compared to that, this is really a side debate. I would like to point out, however, that the status of women in Western societies has always been higher than that of contemporaries, and marriage has been stronger in the West than in other places. Because of that status, even. I think that much of the real damage done to the marriage arrangement has been the government subsidization of single-motherhood, mass government interference in divorce and custody disputes, and a inefficient mass public education system that delays the responsibilities of adulthood long past physical maturation. I do fear however, that if we lose the battle for even the concept of what marriage is, none of those other issues will ever be addressed.
I don't necessarily agree or disagree with any of you, but I do have to take issue with the ever-increasing tendency of (all kinds of) people to disparage anyone with firm personal beliefs. It seems like the only way to avoid this is to have completely relativity-based ethics and morals (no sure right or wrong -- "everything is relative"), and to adamantly avoid stating something one believes in firmly. I think this is a Bad Thing.
See, vacillating and changing your "beliefs" in order to appease or not offend others, IMHO, is disingenuous and dangerous. It's also subversive, and really no different than lying. Even failing to form an opinion and expressing it in the proper forum is somewhat irresponsible and lazy, IMHO. Such chameleons/chickens change their views (or at least downplay them) as is convenient, often to win support, avoid dissent, or just to be agreeable. Worse, it really seems to upset some of them when someone else expresses his or her own firm beliefs.
Frankly, I think the GP post was a non-flamebait, non-troll expression of the poster's beliefs. Just because you disagree doesn't make him a moron.
everything in moderation
Yay!
Down with voting for money.
Down with voting for politics.
Down with voting with the union.
Down with voting on issues.
Down with voting on popularity.
Viva voting for the most attractive woman! Who cares if she makes sense? (and if she has some knowledge of computers, then hell, she has GOT to be the best choice!)
What's the difference? She obviously is well spoken and written.
Funny, I say the exact opposite.
If $$$ makes a more clearer point, adds intended emphasis, shortens the time taken to digest/read/transmit the information, why should you not use it?
It doesn't make a clearer point. It reads idiotic.
Her platform is refreshing, real, and definately thought out.
Here's some communication theory for you: Learn to spell definitely so you don't sound like an idiot.
It is one of the simplest words to spell, and people here butcher it all the time. Georgy is the perfect Slashdot candidate after all...
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
"I can't believe that people still view politics on the one dimensional axis of economically conservative-economically liberal."
If only that were true... problem is, people now (by and large) view politics on a spectrum of socially conservative - socially liberal. Thus "conservatives" are willing to vote for people like the damn idiot in the white house, ignoring the fact that he's the most fiscally-irresponsible big-government wanker of them all, merely because of his conservative social positions, which really, he has little to no power with regards to. (uh, check that: is *supposed* to have little to no power over... now if congress would only stop bending over to give the fuck whatever he wants.)
Apparently your juices are congealing. Ha, pancreas joke.
What will you say when you are not allowed to speak about an issue, or a candidate you hate, because of your laws?
But you say, "No, I'm protected by free speech, I can say what I want about that a-hole".
But what if you want to put together a web site advocating someone. Or fighting against someone. The "laws" that your precious socialistas put together make that kind of thing a "campaign contribution" and ban it. Even if it's just with your own money and you have no official connection to a candidate.
Check it out, it happened in the US sometime in the last couple years. I don't have the energy to look it up for you.
Darryl Issa, of course. It doesn't matter if he runs or not, all he wants is a right-wing governor so he can make out well personally. He bought himself an election.
2) How is this a purchased election? The money was not given to public officials as a bribe to make another election. It was not given to voters to sign petitions.
No, it was given to create publicity so that people could be propagandized into thinking that the mess in California was all Davis' fault (when there is plenty of blame on all sides, including Davis), and that if they elected someone else things would get better. With enough money, you could convince people to vote for a toaster if the message is crafted in a clever way designed to appeal to emotions and not logic.
So yes, this election was bought and paid for.
Yes everyone...Vote with your dick. She's young and cute after all. And she can use BOTH vi and emacs!
:q!:q!:q! at the end of a response from someone who could potentially be ruling over me. She's 26. We don't even know if she can balance her checkbook, let alone run an economy worth 100 billion a year. I don't give a crap if she's a geek, I want someone who is capable of running a large business and can make informed decisions across a wide range of topics. NOT someone who's biggest decision of the day is whether to write a program in Perl or Python.
Boxers or briefs? vi or emacs? What kind of questions are those? When I'm paying out of my ass for car registration and funding for higher education is being cut left and right I don't want to hear about these asinine topics. I don't want to see a
-R
Hey man, I'm not sure if you heard, but this is America, the land of the neverending payment to society for criminal acts. It is also a country where if you get off of a sentence you're suspected of "just having a good lawyer." Look at The Life of David Gale if you need an example.
And let's say that you get out 20 years later. You have no marketable white collar skills anymore. The mere fact that you went in for an offense will make you undesirable to most white collar employers. That's yuppy culture for you. I hope you're already married to a very dedicated person because you probably won't ever be able to get married at that point. Then there's that sticking point about the psychological conditioning of our prison system.
What this country needs is to restore corporal punishment for most non-white collar crimes so that an armed robber can get 20 lashes with a whip outside the county courthouse and then go back to being a productive citizen rather than get 5-10 years.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
There won't be major distributers of marijuana bringing in tax revenue because it's so easy to grow practically anywhere. Tobacco can't be grown by your average Joe due to the nature of the plant. It's grown where it's grown in the US for good reason. Beer and other alchoholic beverages are also difficult to make and therefore much easier to tax and control.
Last I checked the government can't tax your garden. They can tax the seeds you buy in the store but unless they find a way to keep marijuana plants from producing more seeds...etc etc.
It's a heck of a lot easier to make money off of marijuana by arresting people and taking their property which creates law enforcment jobs etc etc. Columbia makes billions a year from the US alone thanks to this Drug War.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Comando!
Commando? I thought the only valid responses are:
This is not my sig.
The significant (30-50% of marriages) number of divorces indicate that whatever the social idea of marriage is, it is not completely congruent with the legal definition of marriage.
I'm not quite following here. A succesful marriage is one that adheres to the legal definition? I'll give that a successful marriage adheres to natural laws of conjenial relationships (decided by evolution, nature, or whomever you consider fashioned humanity, fashioned those laws with unique strictness). But the legal definition is as Henry points out, an acknowledgement of a natural state of heterosexual unions. One that forms a bond that is recognized for certain unique and powerful capacities to determine social health and future social prosperity.
For a homosexual union to be classified the same, shows a marginalization of these capacities and even ignores their importance. Ignoring those capacities is like ignoring the capacity of a person with a gun to either save your life or take it.
When most of the conceptual rules of the institution as well as the relevant laws for marriage were made, women did not have the power to determine rules and laws for marriage;
This is not true. If you went back to 1000BC, you would find a mesopetamia and Egypt that established marriage contracts. The husband and wife (represented by her father more than dictated by her father) would spell out his duties and obligations they would perform and expect from each other. They were then bound by the obligations of that contract.
But more to the point, I'm not sure where you are going with this point either to be honest.
marriage was able to change to accommodate the society in which it is established.
Oddly enough with the freedoms you ascribe to marriage, one would expect a much more broad definition of marriage to have evolved considering the different cultures and empires throughout history. Yet each society seems to always settle on the idea that it requires a man and a woman. One can argue that is an indication that marriage has to do with the relationship as much as the nature mandated endowments that it recieves. The "Love Relationship" that homosexuals claim marraige is based on produces the numbers that you point out, lousy marriages even for heterosexuals.
If gay marriage is a social engineering project, I think that its purpose is to attempt to induce/compel tolerance for gay people by showing that they can live within a similar framework of law and culture.
I'll agree that this is the basic premise of the social engineering. To me it amounts to essentially a dramatic pulling the rug out from under an institution. Most of the benefits that homosexuals consider locked out of, ones mentioned by Georgy, are products of not government interaction but market forces. Marriage benefits to employees and investitures from banks, etc... are all created by market forces on what marriage has meant to them and society. Now changing the definition of marriage rips out the rug underneath these non-governmental forces. The results are not easily predicted, but range from nothing happening to benefits being denied to everyone.
Also, I take personal exception to the notion (as mentioned before) that people who wish to defend the marriage definition are doing so out of hatred, bigotry or another demonic self-fulfilling purpose. I think such charechtarizations are unfair, and unwarranted. As a person whos personally spent a very friendly christmas dinner that included the company of a southern baptist, wicken priestess, child molester, a lesbian couple, and a Mormon couple in one sitting, I can attest to the nature of tolerance and friendship that is possible without having to force "heterosexuals to give up what they think marriage is".
but I have a hard time believing that the concept of gay marriage (particularly in long-term monogomous relationships) will do any more violence to the concept of marriage than has already been done in recent hi
First, consider the approach of one of her competitors, Mr. Schwarzenegger (who it should be pointed out, has an economics degree):
"...bring businesses back to California. We have the most unfriendly business environment right now in California of any state. Businesses are leaving every day. They're expanding outside of the state. That means that people are getting laid off. Jobs are lost."
Now look at Miss Russell's platform. It is filled with anti-corporate rhetoric like "We deserve better than rich businessmen and career politicians trading money for power and power for money", "end corporate welfare to Bush's energy buddies", and so on. Rather than even trying to get business back to the state, she proposes tax hikes that will further slow an already dismal state economy.
It's easy to blame all of society's problems on corporations and on the wealthy. I'm not rich either, and it's a natural reaction to be jealous of those better off than oneself. But, in the long run, it's counterproductive. After all, who hires people, makes investments, and gets the economy moving again?
In a sense, California's economic problems are a foreshadowing or microcosm of what is happening at the national level: because of high costs of living and more business-friendly atmosphere elsewhere, companies are leaving. Whether the jobs are going from California to Iowa or from the U.S. to India, the inability to retain or lure back business causes lost jobs and a weakened economy. Is someone whose economic policies revolve around anti-corporate rhetoric and tax hikes really in a good position to reverse this trend?
Davis *is* an idiot. He inherited a broken system set up by previous State Reptile Pete Wilson (who was from the Social Conservative side of the Republican Party, not the Fiscally Responsible side), which had been running long enough to display its weaknesses but not long enough to collapse, and he and his advisors weren't bright enough to either understand the problem or to fix it. I didn't expect him to, but I didn't expect a long-time insider like him to fail so spectacularly in so many ways :-)
I'll probably vote my conscience and partisanly pick Jack Hickey the Libertarian, but he's got a *really* bad website, and I may vote for Georgy.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
About Georgy: http://www.georgyforgov.com/
"Georgy Russell is a Software Engineer who works at VERITAS Software in the Advanced Technology Group. She graduated with honors in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1999."
"As a progressive, Georgy sees fairness as the underlying tenet which should frame decision making in California."
Quite frankly, I am going quite far along that road of relativity. I don't believe strongly in anything except that in the freedom of being what you feel you are and expressing yourself in a way that does not physically hurt anyone. There is no god (Christian, Muslim, whatever) or a comprehensive set of rules for moral and ethical conduct. What is humanity? What binds it? Does it judge itself, mould itself, and dictate its own path? I believe it does. To quote Alan Moore's Watchmen:
It's also subversive, and really no different than lying.
It's only subversive to something you believe in.
BOO! TERRO
I'm a native Minnesotan, and I couldn't agree less. Virtually every state in the nation greatly increased spending on social programs during the 90's, as if the tech boom was going to expand forever. Obviously it can't, and it didn't. So what's wrong with rolling back to, say, the 1990 budget? If the current budget is 50% higher (pulling that number out of the air) I sure don't see that I'm getting 50% better value from state services than I was in 1990.
I'm completely in support of cutting those services that were expanded in the last decade. We were getting by without them before, and we can do so again. Many of those things ought not be provided by government anyway. I feel higher education is one of them. If you want to get educated, pay the tuition. Why should you expect everyone else to pay for you?
I've always wondered when the state "shuts down" non-essential offices when the budget is stalled in the legislature, why aren't all those offices closed permanently? If they're non-essential, why are we paying for them? Let the more efficient private sector provide them on a competitive basis.
I didn't vote for Pawlenty, but I'm glad to see he's holding the line on this.
Constitutionally Correct
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
You're a fucking retard who likes to impose his chosen belief system on others, blindly believing that YOUR religion and beliefs are better than those of the billions of non-christians on this planet.
Basically, you're a relic. A useless intolerant judgemental fuck who does not understand god's love. You blame your hate on your god, and you ignore his love and his word.
Heaven will be a lot hotter than you expected if you do not accept other people's choices with love in your heart.
Whooooa now....I'm agnostic and I don't particularly care for evangelists who don't go away if I ask them to, but don't you have a problem with calling someone whom you've never met judgemental? That's kinda like the pot callin the weed green, if you ask me (yeah I know, no one did). I'm assuming by your post that you feel your beliefs are superior to the poster's, and this is something I see quite often. You accuse him of something, yet you show it yourself. Let me state: If you don't think your beliefs are the most correct, why do you believe them? I'm not saying the OP *is* correct, only that it's rather silly to make his/her *depth* of belief sound silly, as I'm sure you're as convinced of YOUR beliefs as the OP is about his/hers. I fail to understand how anyone on either side of the religion/non-religion debate is ever going to change any minds at all if both sides only put each other down. I would think that should the OP "accept other people's choices with love in [his/her] heart," you would be one of those 'other people,' and I would also suggest that you think very carefully, as the OP is just one of those 'other people,' and you seem disinclined to take your own advice. I'm not meaning to pick on you, I'm just commenting on how both the OP and yourself seem more interested in telling off those who don't think like you than in understanding WHY they don't, and perhaps learning something. Note that I'm not commenting on your beliefs themselves, just that when expressed the way you did, they don't seem any more tolerant/enlightened than the ones you were posting against.
http://xkcd.com/386/
I'm a pisces and my hobbies include pornography, software development and woodworking. (One of those is a joke)
You didn't have to tell *me* that. I mean, who would develop software as a hobby? It was obvious.
http://xkcd.com/386/
Homosexuals simply do not display the same pattern of behavior
Other than that, the comment pretty much just rehashes that basic assumptions pushed by christianity in hope the may become fact.
So I will respond with the standard counter arguments. Marriage is an acknowledgment of the importance of fidelity and family values. The issue is whether the primary goal is fidelity or family values. Currently, the administration wants it to the fidelity, or, to be more specific, make sure that a specific man and a specific women have sex with each other, and not with other people. This is a laudable goal. Heterosexual monogamous relationships have their place, and providing a system that supports them is good.
On the other hand we have family, which we take to mean caring for children. This is an activity done by primarily at least one person, and, if we invoke the your thousands of years of history, preferable a village. The stability of the family unit is important because that stability usually creates a better adult. Furthermore, the focus is no longer on who is having sex with whom, but on whether the child has adequate parents. If we look at history once again, we find that genetic studies that indicate a significant number of babies were conceived outside of the marital bond, yet the father still took care of those children.
What irks me is that so many people approach marriage as a selfish institution in which they have someone to take of them, they have someone to fuck regularly, they have someone to talk about as 'theirs' at cocktail parties, rather than an institution to create the adults we need for the survival of humanity and our culture. In this sense marriage is just legalized fucking, which as I said has it benefits, rather than an acknowledgment of the critically important work of raising children.
We see this philosophy in current Washington policy. Some much effort was used to alleviate the so-call marriage penalty, rather than using that money to help with child rearing. I mean who cares if a married couple has to pay more taxes? Unless marriage is just legalized fucking, make them have a kid to get the tax breaks.
We see this philosophy in heterosexual couples in the US who can't have kids. The white ones want white kids and go to Eastern Europe to steal them while leaving reasonable healthy non-white US kids to suffer in foster homes and orphanages. What kind of family value is that? I can only love children who look like me? OTOH, we have homosexual couples with enough love in their heat to help a child in need and take in the black or brown child that has been left by the white couple. Now tell me, which couple is promoting family values?
Well, I realize I'm doing the exact same (tired and boring rant) as you by pointing this out, but don't you think that if people "butcher it all the time" that means that a word is in fact not "one of the simplest words to spell"
I only point this out because I'm sick of all the high and mighty I can spell better than you posts. I mean good for you, but it does it really matter, we're not in school here, we're simply speaking our opinions, and I'll not disagree that proper spelling and grammar are important aspects of communication, but the lack there of doesn't mean that a person's not making a good point.
End off topic rant.
There is no dark side of the moon really, matter of fact it's all dark
For some people it's a priority issue, for others it's not. My father died of cancer in a state which doesn't have medical marijuana, and it might have helped his last couple weeks of life. The reason it's not available is that the Political Correctness of the prohibitionists means that it's more important to maintain the drug war than to help sick people. And personally, I like the stuff once in a while, just as I like whiskey once in a while, and I find it personally offensive that the drug warriors think they own my body.
My highest priority is probably fiscal responsibility and cluefulness here, and while almost anybody including Georgy is better at that than Gray Davis, I'm not sure she's up to the job. But at least she's starting off with a political position that says she respects Californians' rights to their own personal choices.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Give her website a cursory glance, specifically some of the press releases and the more ... extraneous merchandise items on sale. The first thing I have to ask is "Is this for real!?"
But then again we do have Arnold Schwarzenegger running for governor so I suppose anything is possible. Look, don't get me wrong I like this lady and her opinions. But do you REALLY want someone this green running probably the most influential and progressive state in the US? Granted if I was registered in California I would vote for her anyway because I'm sure as hell not voting for some manufactured gimmick candidate or yet another geriatric self^H^H^H^Hspecial-interest whore, to paraphrase her response.
But then again I don't even live in the US, much less Cali so what good does that do
That's kind of funny because I was driving around last night after 3 donuts and hit a pot.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
BTW ...If you're paying USD$400/mo for electricity ...and you're not hosting a beowulf cluster of about 50 boxes ...why don't you consider solar power? Certainly, in your situation, it will pay off a lot faster than it would where I live (Oregon).
:)
I know this is not the response you were looking for, but given the situation, I think it is reasonable. You can switch to solar AND bitch about the high price of electricity.
Exocet Industries - Taking over the world, one computer at a
Because she's your typical Populist/Communist politician. Promise lots of free bread & free circuses, all the while ignoring the real issues, such as "How to get rid of the invading illegal immigrants who are sucking the hospitals, schools, prisons and other public services dry". You want to see the real budget buster, you neeed look no further. Any country that still had a functioning immune system would have made this invasion a military priority.
designating states with platforms, and letting people move to where they share common values. Like how in Utah they are all LIDS. Or in Nevada you can be a prostitute.
Because once you've formed an opinion (whether informed or not), people tend to stick to it, and there's not much you can do about it.
The Fed should only be concerned therefore for efficiently providing human services, infrastructure and national defense, and enforcing few if any laws, especially wrt. social practice.
Can't slashdot suceede and become a city-state? Come on people!
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
This was a gabfest- a chatroom transcript.
Californians should find it frightening that a wealthy Republican can buy himself another election.
Well, some of us, while not Republicans, don't buy into the Big Evil Republican Bogeyman that the opposition trots out every 3 nanoseconds in lieu of actual thought or ideas.
And Issa dropped out, so what's your point? He could have spent $100 million and not gotten 2 million signatures if the sentiment for a recall did not exist. Some of us find it refreshing to see that voters can still flex a little muscle. See the Constitution Of California, Article II, Sections 13-20. The recall election process is built into the state Constitution as well as the state election codes.There were stringent numbers to be met for the recall effort. The recall has stood firm against several legal and media challenges.
As for Republicans, the recall is also endorsed by the Libertarians and the American Independents. In fact, many key Republicans have the stance that they should be focusing more on defeating Barbara Boxer or re-electing Bush in the next regular elections.
Ah, what's the point... She's just another ideologue without any real, workable solutions. Does humanity really have to suck this badly?
--- Ban humanity.
See, that's the point. There aren't any poor people in his neighborhood.
Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.
You're a fucking retard who likes to impose his chosen belief system on others, blindly believing that YOUR religion and beliefs are better than those of the billions of non-christians on this planet.
Basically, you're a relic. A useless intolerant judgemental fuck who does not understand god's love. You blame your hate on your god, and you ignore his love and his word.
Heaven will be a lot hotter than you expected if you do not accept other people's choices with love in your heart.
Mod +1, Righteous Dude
$8.95/mo web hosting
vi vs. emacs.
what a fence sitter, someone who can not come out definatly for one side of an issue is a poor elected official.
What is that you say? there are different reasons to use different thing? influences in your enviroment can determine which way to go on an issue?
remember that next time your ranting about an elected official, doubly so if you haven't sent them an email explaing why your upset.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Well, I realize I'm doing the exact same (tired and boring rant) as you by pointing this out, but don't you think that if people "butcher it all the time" that means that a word is in fact not "one of the simplest words to spell"
You missed a key word in my sentence: here. People here butcher it all the time.
and I'll not disagree that proper spelling and grammar are important aspects of communication, but the lack there of doesn't mean that a person's not making a good point.
When a person tries to make a good point, but when they communicate with the accumen of a donkey sipping yogurt out of farmers nipple, that point is lost because that person sounds like an idiot. I don't listen to idiots, because their points are either stolen, misinformed, or merely parroting what other people say.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
I did not mean that statement to be derogatory. I tried to stick as close to the facts as I could. I have seen several studies, and I'm sure a google search would pick some out, that place the number of different sexual partners reported by homosexual males at about two orders of magnitude greater than what heterosexual males report. Homosexual males make up two thirds of the total homosexual population. That suggests to me a different pattern of behavior. (I know very little about lesbian patterns of behavior which I imagine are quite different.)
Now, as for adoption, I do not see why homosexuals will be more willing to adopt across racial lines than heterosexuals, and their numbers are not enough to make a difference anyway. I am uneasy about lesbian adoption, and imagine that there is little need for it, given their 'natural' options in the area of obtaining children. But I could never support homosexual males adopting. They are not suited for it. The first strike against them is simply being male (like me). The second is the high instability of their relationships. It would be like identifying the highest risk group in society, and saying "here, you adopt."
I really wish there was a way I could sign a contract that says "I will not use the socialist services provided by the gov't and I refuse to pay for them" and not go to the pen for tax evasion.
Ok, fair 'nuff.
You pay no more taxes, you get no more gov't services. Of course, you realize, that a bunch of us are going to come and beat you to a pulp and steal your land and your belongings, and the police will laugh since you're not paying for their services anymore. Or maybe we'll just set your house on fire, and the fire department will be on hand to protect the belongings of taxpayers.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
And it would be a hoot to see them build that 100 square mile array of solar panels. Get the illegal aliens to build it.
A big, glittering monument to Ideology and Madness visible from orbit.
Oh, my, we must build it, yes, we must.
--- Ban humanity.
CA Secretary of State web page is back up, and she's listed as a Democrat.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Have a look at the poll results on her website, the second highest vote is for arnie. Seriously i dont think most people have a clue, when i first heard he was running i thought yeah cool, but then i realised what a redneck idiot he is, if people dont know who to vote for they will vote for him simply because of his fame. This whole election is a bad reality tv show - me im for georgy cos shes the cutest!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Just check out the turnout figures from the last election there in California...
6.8 million people voted, so 1.7 million signatures is equivalent to 25% of the number of active voters !
By the way, there are 34.5 million people in California now of which, there are 15.3 million registered voters. That 1.7 million is 5% of the population and around 11% of registered voters.
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
I don't believe in special privileges for gay marrage; matter of fact I don't believe in special privileges for straight marrage either. Pretty much I believe the government should get out of defining people's relationships and giving them special consideration based on that.
Most of the laws pertaining to marrage should be in the relm of contractual law anyway and the government should stay out of that, execept to enforce contracts.
For example, the rules pertaining to one partner dying / becoming disabled / etc and who should have rights of inheritance, power-of-attorney, or adoption of childeren should be defined by legaly binding contract between the two partners. If the deseased partner willed that the surviving partner should handle the funeral or be deeded all their possesions then where's the problem in that?
As for tax considerations, why should two people who live together but are not married have a different tax scheme then two people who are married? Why should two folks who went through a special cerimony be given preference over those who did not. If we want to have income-pooling consideration (as is done with marrage tax) then make it available to anyone! Why shouldn't I be able to income-pool with my roomates for example? Our situation is very similar fiscally to a marrage (shared housing, food, entertainment expenses)??
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Probably still Wordstar, or just Frogger...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Yes, Conan the Republican does have political opinions, and he's not dumb, but he's basically there because he's got the money to do it. Admittedly, with a governor who's an immigrant we're likely to have less of the old Pete Wilson immigrant-bashing policies, but I still don't see voting for him except as a way to vote against Cruz Bustamente (and the main reason to vote for him, if you're not a Democrat, is to vote against Ahnold.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
expressing yourself in a way that does not physically hurt anyone.
So, you cannot inflict scars on the body, but you're free to inflict scars on the soul?
Like what I said? You might like my music
... if I lived in Cali. Not because I agree with all her stances or that she even realizes the sheer enormity of the pile of shit that state is in, but because I think we need to have less politicians in office. We need less old people that are out of touch. Less rich people that aren't like the common man. Hell, she could be a tree hugging hippie that wants to put FBI run security cams in every room in the country for all I care.
Getting her elected would scare the living tar out of every politician out there. To think that a bunch of 10/20/30something techies (some of you are older) on a globally read website could push a 20-something techie into office is worth it's weight in gold. It could very likely start the swing to take the power away from money and corporations and sway it back towards people.
-Ab
Nothing fails quite like prayer.
The NERVE! To not clearly side up in an emacs/vi question!
This is where trust just erodes....
(LOL)
NO SIG
If marriage is a covenant of sanctity, what the HELL does the state have to do with it?
The problem isn't with getting married, which is why most states have some sort of common law marriage laws (that still serve to enforce sexist, property-based concepts of relationships on couples who might otherwise opt out of the system). The problem is mostly with the divorce, which seems more often these days to be inevitable. Take two people, each had a certain amount of stuff when they got married. Then they were married for a while, acquiring more stuff, and consolidating stuff (like linens, cars, houses, etc). Now they split up, and both of them think the other one is wrong, so both of them think they're entitled to screw the other one over. How do you settle this? Marriage laws provide a forum for settling these fights and "keeping the peace" (more like closing the barn door after the horse has left).
I'm with you that the state should keep its hands out of marriage, but *someone* has to intervene to keep divorcing couples from killing each other over property. In my opinion, the state should define marriage only so far as it relates to property ownership and responsibility for children (either born or adopted) acquired during the marriage. That would provide a minimum mechanism for dealing with divorces and the maximum flexibility for different types of marriage (Heinlein was particularly fond of the S-group, but I like the idea of surgical sterility during a marriage of states duration, with the option to change either if both partners agree). It would no longer matter if gay people are getting married, or if 3 men marry each other as well as 3 women, who each also marry each other. Who really gives a shit? Let people live in the fashion they wish to live. Provide mechanisms for "keeping the peace", and we're happy, right? (Yeah, I realize that "keeping the peace" is a pretty blanket statement and could be used to bring about tyranny, just like anything else)
Like what I said? You might like my music
What will you say when you are not allowed to speak about an issue, or a candidate you hate, because of your laws? [snip]...But what if you want to put together a web site advocating someone. Or fighting against someone. The "laws" that your precious socialistas put together make that kind of thing a "campaign contribution" and ban it. Even if it's just with your own money and you have no official connection to a candidate.
Well correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there supposed to be something like 'freedom of speech'in the US? Obviously regimes that surpress that are bad to democracy in ANY form. None of this is any reason not reform campaign contributions!
Check it out, it happened in the US sometime in the last couple years. I don't have the energy to look it up for you.
Well I don't have the energy to look it up either, but people being banned from excersizing their right is wrong whatever way you look at it. It's a reason to fight the injustice of whatever case you're reffering to, certainly not a reason to all go running in the opposite direction towards what (in my belief) is a lot worse!
What a rotten party, have we run out of beer or something?
I'm opposed to recall for a very different reason: it's a kludge to "fix" a broken voting system. The possibility of being elected with less than 50% support is bad, but recall is not the best way to fix it. If he's really doing that bad, there should be an impeachment process. The problem there is that the legislature is also elected with the same broken system. There's nothing wrong with proposing a new voting system to fix California's ills. What really needs to be done though, is to address the fact that plurality voting is a broken system by replacing it with a better one!
However, IRV is not the method that should replace plurality voting. Condorcet trounces IRV in every way that matters - even plurality is demonstrably better than IRV! IRV is deceptive because it gives voters a false sense that they've got a real choice, but in reality it's just as bad as the current plurality system. Run-offs need to be done simultaneously (Condorcet) not sequentially (IRV) to be fair.
Implementing Condorcet would encourage third party involvement. We need more voices in government, not fewer. After all, two choices is only one more than they had in communist Russia, and both options of the "Duopoly" gravitate toward the middle to get votes. That's not real choice! If you look at voter turnout in presidential races from 1960 on, it was a steady downward decline...with one exception: 1992. What happened in 1992? Ross Perot ran a strong third party campaign. It's clear that people want choice in politics.
Vote third party. Vote your conscience regardless of what the pundits and "strategists" say. The only strategy you should need in the booth is honesty to your ideals! The only way we're likely to see voting reform is if we get a third party into office, but we're going to have to do it with the current broken system.
Constitutionally Correct
one of the candidates happens to be a geek so slashdoters had some fun and asked some geek questions. i would not like it if slashdot gave one candidate the opportunity to make a political ad about core issues on this site while denying others--that's unfair and offtopic. they had some innocent fun with a geek candidate. enjoy it or skip the article.
you can get information about the standard 'core issues' from her website. if it's not on the website, she probably would have avoided the question anyway.
char *mySig;
Seriously one of the best comedic and insightful posts on /. in a long time
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
"
Let's take it point by point
Christ man! Where's your heart?
Controlled by my brain and limited by my wallet
Would you really want poor people in your neighborhood to have no access to medical services?
Wouldn't mind these if they weren't abused (by illegals in CA) and actually worked. Hang out at an ER at night and see how many "poor" come in with stuff that could be handled much cheaper at a normal doctors office (or health dept) during normal hours and is not an emergency. Plus, I like not having a French or Canadian medical system where only the rich can get competent care in a timely manner by going to other countries
For poor kids to not be offered a publicly funded education?
Free public education for K-12 is a valid expense I have no problem paying, head start is a drain of money that produces no results in the classroom. Not sure why it exisits other than providing child care, which could be done much cheaper without certified teachers
If I could chop away at the budget, the military would be one of my first candidates.
Hope you (and the rest of the free world) speak Arabic or Chinese and have no problem betraying your country(ies). National defense is one of the things the Constitution specifically tells the Federal Gov't to do.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
Granted, she's got the nerdy young male vote, but when I looked at her stand on issues, I had to do a double take to make sure that she wasn't Cruz Bustamante in drag!
No thanks for me... I want someone who will attempt to cut the ultrafat budget that California has now.
Bud, I live in the sticks, tobacco farmers, factory workers, dope growers/manufacturers and people drawing a check off of uncle sam is who lives in my neighborhood (if you can call it that)
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
I don't see it as that way. In Canada the law may disagree with what the Catholic church sees as the definition of marriage, but in the US popular reforendums have passed the definition of a man woman relationship in 37 US states. Its under the name "DOMA" (Defence of Marriage Act) and its being enacted in countries all over the world as we speak.
Also, I think you are rather unfair in considering this a religion vs state issue. Some do consider it that, but it is not entirely so. Many see that marriage as a man-woman relationship transends any particular religion or state. Its a natural condition that exists as universally as any human condition and institution. Whether "nature" or "God" set it up is rather mute in the evidence of the definitions integrity throughout the history of mankind with its varied religions and societies.
Legalizing gay marriage does not force churches to do gay marriages if they do not want to. What it does do is give gays fair rights under law, mostly with regards to taxation laws.
Theres two things here. One, gay marriage is being forced on Churches in Canada now. From the FAQ at FamilyFacts.CA,
The second problem is that this ignores the efforts of the ACLU, Howard Dean and others to create a domestic partnership to provide for simular tax benefits (as far as homosexual relationships are simular to heterosexual relationships). No one has ever yet answered the question of what Marriage is more than a Domestic Partnership, that Homosexuals require it. No one has ever answered the question of what marriage is to homosexuals that they feel they have an inherent right to re-define it.
Homosexual community claims (among other things) to the logical extention of the civil rights movement of the 60's. If so, they should be able to do what the Civil Rights leaders did. Namely show their own inherent entitlement to the rights that whites had denied them. In the end, racial prejudice was shown to be baseless becuase of those arguements. But I have yet to see the homosexual community able to show how they have marriage as their own natural state also. Most of the arguement requires a degredation of
For those very few people left here who don't know what I'm talking about...
Godwin's Law is a natural law of Usenet named after Mike Godwin (godwin@eff.org) concerning Usenet "discussions". It reads, according to the Jargon File: As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
If marriage is so economically advantageous, the same stunt would also work with a man and a woman who were just friends but agreed to pretend to marry in order to reap the benefits. So why don't you get one of your female friends and...oh, wait, I see your problem now...
Actually, I was trying to be Insightful, not Funny.
My father is a MN state employee of over 30 years. He's been kept down by management, so we had many years of barely eking by when I was growing up. (The new manager has a college degree, but is always asking my dad and his co-workers how to actually get things done. Stupid bureaucratic policies.) He's looking at a pay cut, reduced medical insurance (now that he's nearing the age where it would have been really beneficial), and spousal benefits are getting axed (so my mother will not have insurance). So I'm not too sympathetic to this guy, either. Are people in education elitists?
Constitutionally Correct
That's so melodramatic, but yes, if you're dealing with an adult I don't see any reason why you should have any particular protection from another human being when it comes to "soul".
BOO! TERRO
Sorry - I didn't mean to imply the reason for opposition to gay marriage is bigotry. I believe that it is an attempt to gauge support for homosexuals - it correlates with societal nonacceptance for gays, but holding the opinion that gay marriage is wrong does not make one a bigot. Sorry if I implied so. I do not agree with the desire to force acceptance, but I think that it is part of the concept.
The last point is not completely accurate. Just because some people would choose the rights and duties of marriage remain as previous does not mean that women's rights don't contribute to the evolution of marriage. At minimum, the presence of those rights means that more people ask for things they previously would not have and the rules governing marriage change as a result.
What is "the natural state of affairs"? Both the original poster and you cite this as a justification for the state of marriage, yet presumably homosexuality came about by some natural process as well. What makes the historical institution of marriage a unique determinant of social health and future prosperity? (there must be data somewhere, but I don't know what it is or what its general acceptance is) This has the potential to be a feedback loop - social health and prosperity both depend to a significant degree on social mores, so using them as a justification for social mores could be flawed without hard evidence.
Ultimately, love is at best a necessary but not sufficient condition for a successful relationship. This is true for anyone. I don't think that desiring a homosexual marriage presupposes that love or physical attraction are the causes for the relationship, just as desiring marriage does not for heterosexuals. Banning homosexual marriage won't get rid of bad reasons to get married.
Yay, another socialist that thinks we can tax ourselves into prosperity, and that the uber-successful should be punished and made to pay for the less successful.
Oh, it's California.
When the dotcom boom was going on and people were predicting that we'd all be Mozillonaires in a couple of years, the state government predicted that tax revenues would keep rising radically and that they'd have a great surplus and that they should spend it all right now, and the only part of that that really materialized was the "spend it all right now" part, though revenues have risen at a moderate rate - which is why we have a $35B deficit now, which is $1000 per resident. Davis and his budget folks didn't have the responsibility to restrain their greed or even to recognize the slowness of the real growth and steal pork from the Republicans instead of from non-existent future revenue.
While the electrical regulation system that Pete Wilson put in place took a couple of years to be successfully gamed and collapse, Gray Davis was in charge for much of that time and was too stupid to have advisors that understood it or could fix it.
Gray Davis is the worst governor we've had in California since, well, Pete Wilson (who was more evil but less greedy), and he deserves all the disrespect he's getting from this recall. Parliamentary systems, which most of the world has, are designed to throw out politicians when they reach their level of incompetence, and they're as stable as the underlying environment - California's highly unlikely to end up with a "politician with a dangerous agenda" who's worse than Deukmeijan was, and the more likely kind of dangerous agenda we're likely to get is another greedy and fiscally irresponsible incompetent like Davis.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Good example. That's why we need Condorcet instead of IRV.
Another example that is easy to grasp is the three-way race between two popular extremists and a moderate. The moderate is obviously the best "compromise" candidate since, besides his own small group of supporters, extremists of both types would rather have him than the opposite extremist. Yet he'll be the first to be eliminated because he is ranked first by the fewest people. OTOH, Condorcet would see that this moderate would win in virtually all head-to-head votes against either of the others.
Constitutionally Correct
You realize that a third party that strong will never arise in American politics?
I'm sure that's impossible; the Whigs and the Federalists already have the government locked up!
But more seriously: one of the reasons why it's so difficult for a third party, independent candidate, or even more than one candidate from one of the two major parties to run in an election is because voters can't vote for a third candidate without "throwing their vote away" at best, or splitting the vote of their own ideology at worst. The motivation behind replacing the broken plurality system of voting is to change all that.
However, Instant Runoff Voting would do as much harm as good because most of the mathematical problems of plurality voting would also be present in IRV. Approval voting or Condorcet voting, on the other hand, would more accurately reflect the voters' wishes as well as weaken the control of party leadership on government policy.
Which communist country failed in the 80s? I wasn't aware that there were any...
There was Russia, but it was a totalitarianism that let a privelleged elite rule and didn't let the workers actually own anything. Doesn't sound very much like a communism to me. Ditto for the rest (China, N.Korea, etc).
The "communist" countries were all totalitarian regimes whose leaders happened to choose the then-sexy term "Communist". The countries weren't actually run in a communist fashion, or capitalist for that matter.
Show me a democratic country, acknowledged by its citizens to be communist. As far as I know there haven't been any. That might be telling in and of itself, but until there's an example you can't claim to have ever seen the system fail.
Finally, a post that makes good sense.
I'm in 110% agreement.
Is it just me or is there still a country out there run by Communists that has a population of 1.4 billion people?
I guess Communism is dead in the same way *BSD is...
Actually, she comes across more as a Libertarian from what I see. Plus, she's got experience running her own business. It's not like she started a commune in northern California.
See my other posts on this story. IRV is harmful, despite claims to the contrary.
Also, from what I've heard, only half the industry was deregulated. (Wish I still had the reference, but I'm not from CA so don't keep track of those things so well.) It's not a free market if gov't is still controlling half of it. Really deregulate and things will improve.
Constitutionally Correct
Sorry - I didn't mean to imply the reason for opposition to gay marriage is bigotry.
You know what? Thanks, I appreciate you saying that.
What is "the natural state of affairs"? Both the original poster and you cite this as a justification for the state of marriage, yet presumably homosexuality came about by some natural process as well.
That one is easily cleared up. Homosexuality could be said to be a natural state. Heterosexuality could be considered a natural state. But Heterosexuality has the natural endowments that make marriage a natural state in it. In other words marriage is natural to Heterosexuals becuase if its capacity for producing families from the very union between the man and woman.
Note I say "capacity" not "requirement". Thats important to note because (to use a flawed comparison) simular recognition by the goverment of the capacity of a gun to kill or save a life is not mandated by the requirement to do so.
What makes the historical institution of marriage a unique determinant of social health and future prosperity?
The afore mentioned capacity to produce offspring is that determinant. Children born to families, strong families with a woman and a man, are far more likely to become beneficiaries of the society rather than detrimants (criminals, etc...) Having children is the number one thing you, I and a vast majority will do to impact the future. Wheter you raise the child well or not (and a marriage helps that immensely) has a major impact on social health and prosperity.
This has the potential to be a feedback loop
Socially we call those "inter-relationships" or at least a good sign of a inter-relationship. And its that inter-relationship that makes marriage so important as an institution to recognize properly. And they can behave like feedback loops going wildly from one end to the other feeding off itself.
Banning homosexual marriage won't get rid of bad reasons to get married.
Correct, but that is a false converse of what I am saying, which is that removing from the definition of marriage the uniqueness it has in order to extend "marriage" to homosexuals will in fact be an indorsement of the "bad" reasons to get married, and a total margionalizing or ingoring of the good reasons to get married.
I'll refrain from entertaining your attempt to incite a flame war.
I beleive sir you miss my point and are spewing nonsensical and off topic remarks about things most poeple in the civilized world have never seen. Wherever you live must be an interesting place, espcially if you are so familiar with the acumen of donkeys sipping yogurt out of farmers nipples.
Oh, and Mr. Smarty Pants, you spelled acumen as accumen.
Why does the use of 'local' vernacular (eg. $$$ or
Why do you also assume that points made were stolen, misinformed, or parroting, the latter is much more accurate of your post btw.
Where do you find fault with Georgy's platform that does not relate to grammar?
rr
Its dying on the vine, their population is about to hit a wall and they are implementing capitalism as fast as they can sneak it under the party bosses noses.
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Well, I can't find that one, but the Google cache of the pics page has one picture that's still up: .
She's in a red dress
Thanks, Google!
Finally, a politician whose web site has a photo gallery ::rolls eyes::. Additionally, I'd wager that at least 30% of visitors have looked for a photo gallery ;-)
While admittedly the Slashdot elite botched the interview questions. They did peak my
interest.
After reading Georgy's issue stance, I'm curious if politician has hard
answers to their issue platform. While I think that Georgy is by far the best
candidate (too bad I'm not a Californian), like all politicians she seems to only
vaguely state her stance and platforms. In most cases if not all, she is citing more
problems then solutions. I for one will become an avid voter and supporter of any
candidate that has a solution I admire and believe in long before I vote for one that
just agrees that there is a problem.
I'm curious if Georgy or anyone else running has any solutions to offer.
"Secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy
Oh, and Mr. Smarty Pants, you spelled acumen as accumen.
:q!) label Georgy as an idiot. I mean, this is /.
Did you have to look up what it means in a dictionary to realize my typo?
Why does the use of 'local' vernacular (eg. $$$ or
No, I'm calling you an idiot for not knowing how to spell definitely and understanding that some jobs require a competent grasp of the English language. You know, like Politicians.
Why do you also assume that points made were stolen, misinformed, or parroting, the latter is much more accurate of your post btw.
If you are too blind to not grasp that she was feeding the Slashdot crowd exactly what they wanted to hear, than you are her target audience. Congratulations. I wouldn't trust a geek in a public office, that's just moronic. You know why? Public office should be a representation of the public majority (including diversity) and geeks aren't it.
Besides, the mentality behind most of the local vernacular is on par with 14 year old boys that masturbate to Natalie Portman. Someone who understands that mindset is not someone who should be in public office. This is why she won't get elected.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Her campaign site already has the answers to the most important and serious questions. This was a /. interview, and slashdotters are not only global, but they are whimsical. If we wanted to know the answers to real questions, we would be checking out her website.
Note that she said "thank you for asking" to the vi or emacs question. I think that this shows that Georgy is taking the slashdot interview in the spirit in which it was presented by the slashdot readership.
With that said, I think she has no chance whatsoever to win. I'm voting for Arnie, because I want to see him make speeches.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Why are people complaining about the questions for the interview?
/me ducks.
Who is to blame?
The people who submitted the questions? Those who modded?
My question is: Did you bother to think up a question that was either Insightful or Interesting?
Plain and simple, the questions were a product of the Slashdot community. What were you expecting?
Perhaps you should make a push for not having Funny +5 questions sent to the interviewee if you don't want to know whether s/he prefers boxers over briefs or vi over emacs.
I'm willing to bet that a very good percentage of the people who are for the recall didn't even vote.
If you don't participate, don't complain.
You must play to win. (Oh wait, that's something else)
I don't believe strongly in anything except that in the freedom of being what you feel you are and expressing yourself in a way that does not physically hurt anyone. There is no god (Christian, Muslim, whatever) or a comprehensive set of rules for moral and ethical conduct.
You simultaneously express the need for absolute freedom, then impose a limitation and follow that up with a statement that denies any basis for limitations.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Take a look at your numbers: you've got a majority of people preferring X to Y, a majority preferring Y to Z, and a majority preferring Z to X. In that sort of situation, you might as well roll a die to decide who gets elected.
It's easy to think of realistic failures of IRV, though. Here's one from electionmethods.org:
Consider the following vote count with four candidates {A,B,C,D}:
7: A,B,C
6: B,A,C
5: C,B,A
3: D,C,B
Applying the rules of IRV, candidate A wins. But suppose the three voters who voted (D,C,B) now promote A from last choice all the way up to first choice, without changing the relative order of the other candidates. Now B wins instead of A. So by promoting A from last to first choice, those voters caused A to lose instead of win. An election method that allows such nonsensical anomalies is erratic and should be rejected.
On the other hand, with Condorcet voting in that example, B would clearly win (since he would beat A by 14-7, C by 13-8, and D by 18-3), there would be no way for voters who preferred other candidates to B to falsify their votes to make the other candidate win, and there would be no way for voters who changed their minds and preferred B even more to accidentally "sabotage" his victory.
You won't get arrested for hemp, but the FDA outlawed food products made with hemp a little while ago (fortunately, that was reversed; hemp pretzels are really good). And there are only a few states in which you can grow hemp, and even there you have to jump through all sorts of hoops.
And to think that during WWI (I think it was I and not II), farmers were _required_ to grow hemp. No, for the record, I've never smoked marijuana and don't plan on it. But I do have some very nice clothes which are cotton/hemp blend, and they're more comfortable and durable than the 100% cotton ones (and seem to hold dyes better).
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
Who's Georgie, he's not on my list of candidates.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Well, maybe I could, but you already did it.
Actually, I thought the response was so blatantly self-contradictory that it should have been modded funny.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
But you forget that most drug dealers don't really make much money at the trade. The profit margins are very low because there are so many millemen, often when purchasing quantities of one to five pounds of pot, you're the 10th person handling it. The marijuana business doesn't really generate that much profit for any one player because it's VERY distributed and there are a lot of people 'just doing it to pay rent' or 'just to smoke free'. I recall one summer when I knew people flipping two pounds a week, and their total profit was only $600/week, and they had to split that three ways, they'd be better off flipping burgers.
Some drugs have bigger margins, like heroin and coke, but that's because it's a lot harder to source, users are willing to front more money to someone they trust, and it relies more on 'trust' relationships; not to mention addictive qualities of the drugs themselves.
Overall I think we ought to legalize and regulate most drugs because the idea that they cause crime is self-fulfilling. The only crime I've seen related to drugs (several shootings and murders, MANY beatings, a lot of theft) is because someone either RIPPED someone off, or someone got busted and couldn't hold up their end (resulting in retribution). If the trade were moved off the street and into the storefront, there would be a lot more order to the whole thing. Sure, maybe there would be a small rise in holdups, but there'd be a HUGE drop in street crime.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Never thought I'd say this about any candidate for public office, but I think I love this woman!
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
Universal Healthcare is necessary. No it isn't. If you are going to do a socialized medicare system, the better way to do it rather pay for everybody's healthcare is to evaluate every citizen's income and give it only to those whose income couldn't buy private insurance. Many in the lower class could afford insurance, if they stopped buying luxury items like controlled substances, IP, cable tv and internet access. It's a matter of priority.
Not without sweeping reforms of the entire capitalist medical system. If a poor family was forced to cover themselves with insurance, in addition to house and car payments (and added expenses related to such), throw in food, and POOF -- post-industrial peonage. You have just enough money to live a joyless existence, keeping you and your family alive only to perform whatever mediocre jobs are available. Forget saving for college, retirement, anything. Not a good idea.
========
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Frankly, I use jpico (joe).. It's easy, and effective.. I've redefined some key mappings to do what I need, but the nice thing about it, is that stuff like that is easy. I can use vi and emacs, but don't see any real advantage to it (yes, I write code, not just edit my email text). An editor doesn't have to have a huge learning curve to be effective.
-Jeff
10) Do you understand... - by niko9
Do you understand Dselect? That program cares
the poop out me. But I figure if you can handle
dselect, you can handle being governor.
Georgy:
I have not used dselect. Hopefully you can find
another litmus test for me!
Neither the questioner, nor Georgy are geeks.
dselect "scares the poop out" of someone!?
I'm not being elitist, when I say:
Seems like everyone is calling themselves computer geeks these days.
Even Visual Basic "programmers".
http://jesus.everdense.com/
I never involved my beliefs at all. i wrote my message using nothing but a conservative christian belief system as a point of reference, referring to god's love as the love of his christian god.
That plays on my theory that the "least resistance" force of politics is the one being played here. "Least Resistance Politics" to me is where you tend to go where you feel the least resistance to your policies would be. One one side you have a very sad and offended people in homosexuals that homosexual unions are not marriages. On the other hand you have a heterosexual community with a firm view of what a marriage is. It just seems like the path of least resistance to just let the very hurt and offended people get solace in some sort of inclusive comprimise. After all, both sides still get "marriage", so it should just be happy for everyone around.
Of course DP's are a comprimise, but it still offends the homosexual community. It could be taken as a lesser thing. It is seen as a "rights" issue, that their civil rights are being violated with the differences.
Allow me to quote the following also from the FamilyFacts.CA FAQ on the matter...
She uses Emacs, not the derivitive XEmacs. The real question here is - why the reluctance to use XEmacs? This must be one of the controverisal choices (like gay marriage) she speaks of.
That said, I found the answer a bit waffily though in fact I use them both the same way she laid out.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As a Californian who signed the recall petition I'd like to start by saying that we know why Davis is a bad governor.
So we know why he's a bad governor. What we want to know, what we need to know, is how do you propose to fix this mess? Don't tell me how other people have failed, don't give me some generic line about how "special interest is running this state". Give me specific points of your plan to fix our financial problems.
She didn't answer the question at all. I mean, come on folks. "Boxers or Briefs"?? Who the hell cares!? This is serious shit! How are you going to keep my vehicle fees, gas taxes, and property taxes from tripling? That's what's important.
Content of this interview == null
I'm using Pico until I can learn jEdit.
So there!
Otherwise, Georgy is the man...er, the babe!
Even Bob Cringely wants her phone number! (Actually I think he'd take Arianna's phone number. Maybe even Coleman's.)
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
any californian slashdotter will vote for Mary Carey
Not to mention being unwilling to pay a lousy $12,000 (as opposed to $6K) death benefits to the families of dead soldiers in Iraq after sending them there in the first place.
It doesn't get more hypocritical than that.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
If the government gives every candidate the same amount of money, and at the same time forbid the acceptance of contributions or use of personal money. Than every person - poor or rich - has the same means to get elected.
/. editors made to interview Georgy illegal? If not how will you stop the flow of political money into such "editorial" rather than direct advertising venues. Or even if you succeed how do you avoid a situation where the television stations and major newspapers would essentially coronate their chosen candidates?
A couple of objections:
1) In this current race for instance would you give the same government funds to all 115 certified candidates? To all 247 that tried to get certified? Would a "serious" candidate like Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamente get more than a joke candidate like Gary Coleman? If so how would government decide who was "serious" and who was not? Who's views are "acceptable" and who isn't. Under such government financing of elections to government office it seem the government would be effectively controlling the elections. Views unnacceptable to the beuracracy would be dissallowed or underfunded.
2) You have also to all intents and purposes done away with the freedom of political speech. (Which if you remember you're history was exactly the kind of speech that the principle of "free speech" is supposed to protect) If I can't pay for advertising that says "vote for Georgy" I don't have free speech. If I can't pay for it directly perhaps I'll publish a paper that will say it for me in the editorial page so you'll have to make that illegal as well, perhaps I just give ONE candidate a forum on my popular website without giveing an identical forum to all 115 other certified candidates - do you really want to make editorial decisions like the one the
3) As a practical matter how do you stop this from becoming a complete lock on the elections by the incumbant? They already have all the name recongition, their legitimate activities already get them into legitimate news (free publicity). Add on top of that that their challengers get no more money than they do and so can't buy themselves a hearing. Also their challengers will be diluted by being fragmented, dozens of challengers all with the same amount of money and the same ability to be heard with no chance for one to eclipse the others by spending more.
That's just rhetoric on your part. By your reckoning, Russia shouldn't have built the bomb, because the Evil American's used it on the poor Japanese Civilians and murdered them in the early morning hours of August 6 1945.
Bad example, I know, but it's an extreme example to help illustrate the fallacy of your last statement. Human's use metaphors all the time. Just because the metaphor has been abused by others before does not mean that anyone else who uses it is doomed to kill millions are slaughter innocents.
Dean for President!
Um, isn't Dean an old rich white man?
I never involved my beliefs at all. i wrote my message using nothing but a conservative christian belief system as a point of reference, referring to god's love as the love of his christian god.
Boy. You missed the point entirely. As I said, I am not impugning your beliefs. Your post was simply a perfect example of what you were accusing the OP of. I don't need to know what you believe to know that you were doing in your post exactly what you accused the OP of doing. I can do that based just on what you *did* write, and it has nothing to do with your beliefs, just your post.
All I said about your beliefs, which does not require knowing them, is that if you don't think they are correct, why do you believe them?
http://xkcd.com/386/
About one year ago, somewhere in the Inland
Valley, California, a stoned chick rammed a car
from the back, killing one child, and I think
messing up another for life. No skid marks,
no sign that she tried to stop, and according to
the cops who arrested her, she did not understand
what she had done for half an hour. If you need
the details, I can give you the date and
location of the accident once I get home, my
girlfriend's brother was one of the officers at
the scene.
Now, on the other hand, we do not need any
special laws to deal with this case. The
punishment should be the same no matter whether
the driver was high, drunk, or sleepy.
No good deed goes unpunished...
Enough water for the troops? Too expensive
A quote from this article.
The complexity makes it tough to say whether Issa, a Republican from Vista, broke the law with portions of $650,000 in contributions to the campaign to recall Davis.
Darrell Issa wanted to be governor. He paid enough petition gatherers $0.50 - $1.00 per petition signature to the legally required number of signatures. Why'd he drop out of the race afterwards? Arnie decided to run and apparently, he was afraid of getting his ass kicked yet again by The Terminator.
There's no mass movement here to rid the world of bad government. Just an ambitious politician who "broke into tears as he announced he would retain his seat in Congress so he could work toward peace in the Middle East." when he found out that he had no chance of winning.
While Davis sucks, at worst, he's about average... 0wn3d by the usual suspects.
Tech Public Policy stuff
I guess the only point I could add is that homosexuals would also like to be able to start families, although admittedly they need to adopt or have some outside influence to do so (although apparently men are redundant now since they can fertilize an egg with a woman's DNA - I'm too lazy to look up the /. article though). Unfortunately they run into people's notions of marriage and a family that work against them. They feel this is unfair prejudice, and that their sexual preference shouldn't preclude them from taking part in the institutes of marriage and families. Of course these institutions come from thousands of years of human history, so it is difficult to say that prejudice and bigotry are the only factors here.
Now should the institutions of marriage and family be encouraged to broaden themselves to accomodate homosexuals or not? I don't know for sure. As a younger and more liberal person, I'd lean towards yes, but I certainly understand why all don't feel that way. It certainly won't be easy for gays even if they get this benefit though law, since it will take society a long time to adjust to kids with two dads or moms. But considering how many one parent families we have, I'd hope we can get over it, since two parents (no matter what sex they are) have to be better than just one. Plus it is not nice to see the kid suffer b/c of prejudice against his/her parents (some would argue that this is why gays shouldn't adopt or have families, at least not yet).
So is it a progressive society to change our ways, or are we going against 1000s of years of tradition and possibly nature itself? Compromise with legal definitions or change all of society? It seems in the end that no matter what the law says it will be a matter of personal opinion anyhow, so as long as the law treats everyone fairly and justly I don't really care how it is resolved. Not everyone will be pleased no matter what the outcome is. I still think this is mostly a sqaubble over terms anyhow, somewhat a marriage vs Marriage deal. The fact you're quoting definitions from the UN pretty much supports me in that regard, since the UN and Canadian law will likely disagree on that definition of 'marriage' in the near future (even though Canadian law will be mostly referring to little 'm' marriage for taxes, and the UN is referring to big 'M' Marriage as an institution of humanity).
Just wait until we want to legalize polygamy - that'll be an interesting debate. One could argue that polygamy is less out of the ordinary in human history than homosexuality, even though I can't see it being legalized anytime soon. Certainly not before gay marriages/unions.
No, I didn't have to look it up.
It certainly isn't hard to get a small mind into unsult hurling mode.
That's what politicians do to some extent. No one ever gets elected who doesn't tell people what they want to hear. Why would anyone vote for someone that tells them things that they don't want to hear or don't believe in? Talk about nonsensical.
Does the comment you mentioned regarding the local's here include you?
You don't listen to idiots, I don't listen to pompous elitist twits whose ego is only dwarfed by their ignorance. I find it interesting that you dismiss her on the basis of petty grammatical insults, yet offer no intelligent disagreement with any of her positions. It seems that people only fall to this level of pettiness in a debate when they are incapable of forming a real argument.
Well I'm the doctor and I say you're dead, so shut up and take it like a man!
Either you misunderstand either the Constitution Party's position, or what freedom of religion means. It is precisely because most of the Founders were Christian that we have religious freedom, as it is immoral by God's standards to impose (by governmental force) one's beliefs on another. The CP does promote government according to these Christian principles, as these principles are best for protecting the rights of all, Christian and non-Christian alike. History proves that non-Christians fare better under Christian governments than vice versa. Completely secular/atheist governments are often the worst of all.
And you obviously do not understand the Christian doctrines of sin and atonement. Here I am, a Christian believing that Christ forgives sins, promoting personal responsibility. I am liable for the wrongs I do, but the party wronged can choose to pardon the offense. Responsibility and forgiveness are not contradictory at all. Indeed, if there is no responsibility, what is there to forgive?
Constitutionally Correct
You don't listen to idiots, I don't listen to pompous elitist twits whose ego is only dwarfed by their ignorance. I find it interesting that you dismiss her on the basis of petty grammatical insults, yet offer no intelligent disagreement with any of her positions. It seems that people only fall to this level of pettiness in a debate when they are incapable of forming a real argument.
If you would stop assuming, you would see that I only posted one disagreeance. There are several things in which I think she is absolutely wrong about. Had the discussions gone beyond her feelings of "corporate $$$" than I would be inclined to offer them there.
It's easy for you to think I'm ignorant and pompous, because you disagree with what I say. If you agreed, I would be a "free thinker" and a bunch of other things. Yes, you too are a hypocrite just like everybody else.
It seems that people only fall to this level of pettiness in a debate when they are incapable of forming a real argument.
Or perhaps it's people who are commenting on what was given as "answers" and people expressing their distaste for those answers. I expect to be treated like an adult, and she fell very short on that expectation. If you feel that makes me an elitist pompous twit, that's your issue.
Yes, I expect proper grammar and spelling from those running for public office.
Yes, I expect mature conversations from those running for public office.
No, I do not expect anyone that frequents Slashdot to satisfy either of those criterias.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Are you asking "what", or "why"? "What" would be "against God". "Why", woudl be straight out of the bible. For starters, the very concept of "gay marriage" in a judeo-christian context, is absurd. Biblical marriage is between a man and a woman. The only reason that isnt even more explicitly mandated, is that no-one at the time of its writing would think anyone would be ignorant enough to need that spelled out for them. (Seeing as how most everyone was BORN with a mom and a dad, married, thus knew from day 1 what marriage looked lie)
Yes, I've seen the claims that some parts the "early church" had some sort of gay union ceremony. "The church" also at various points in history, sold forgiveness of sins for money, and went about wholesale killing people. All of the above are patently against the fundamentals of Christianity.
Beyond that, the definition of "holy" for Christians, is in the bible. The bible states that homosexual acts are UNholy. Therefore, clearly, "gay marriage" is unholy, since it is based around an unholy act.
and incredibly naive answers. Sorry but you're not gonna take the money out of politics, or the greasy backroom compromise dealing...That is the DEFINITION and NATURE of politics, it is not new, it has been going on since people decided that gathering in a circle and censuring someone was preferable to beating them to death. It would be nice if the corporate politics was pushed back into the boardroom and out of the federal capital but that isn't going to happen at the state level, and took and armed rebellion last time. I also disagree with her stand on the death penalty, the point wasn't to rehabilitate, EVER, it was to protect you and me, and PUNISH the person incapable of living with the rules of society. Based on that I still am for the death penealty, I can't dispute its greater cost, but if we emptied the jails of the useless drug convictions, the remaining hardcore sociopaths could be dealth with in a manner fitting their individual case. All in all she sounds almost plausible but there is NO WAY I'd toss my vote away, and having seen what Nader vote did to us, I won't make the same mistake again...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I was figuring that the joke was either the $160000 income or the bit about "pisces". Software is fun to make as a hobby, and very rewarding if you make it elegantly. For instance, I wrote a framework for web spiders in Python which I'm very proud of. It makes the code for a simple spider that supports robots.txt less than a page long, and very clear. Isn't that sort of thing fun? Maybe you should learn Python, if you haven't already. That's fun, although YMMV with the plase of the big grain of salt in the sky.
On her website, regarding gay marriage, she says, "This is an issue of equal rights for everyone." and "Let's make California the leader, and show America our state represents fairness and family values." , which is fine with me, personally. But then she goes on in the "Budget" section of the page to explain that the rich need to be taxed higher to get the budget back on track, failing to realize that the rich are already paying the highest percentage of taxes. Why is it necessary to be fair on social issues but not on economic issues?
Incidentally, there are already more individuals and businesses leaving California than moving in because of their ridiculously high taxes to pay prison guards $100,000/year. Consequently, raising taxes will only reduce the number of people paying taxes and, as a result, California will have even less money to work with.
Ok, I don't mean to offend anyone here, but I think that some of us may have our reasons to be against gay marriage. That's just one example... no offense intended.
(see verse 22)
This space for rent, inquire within.
Some of K-12 public education looks remarkably like child care. For example, 8th grade english class. I don't know what your class was like, but back when I was in 8th grade, it was the exact same curriculum as 7th grade english class, which was mainly just a reiteration of the usual stuff about where to put commas runon sentences are bad.
I've looked in Google for the reference you mention and couldn't find it. As far as I know there is no way to produce chilren in a homosexual union without donation of genetic material from a third party.
But other than that, I agree with you. For a number homosexual couples I've talked to, it is about them wanting to have a family and get married.
I acknowledge that there would be a social element to homosexual marriage as you described here,
I'll add that if that were the main road-block then it should be torn down. I do not personally like such prejudices, and find it simular to the inter-racial marriage prejudices that I've seen.
But I don't find that to being a road block in my considerations however. A family institution is very interesting to look at from a government perspective. A father and mother have immediate guardianship of their children, and only through public intervention and means do those children recieve another guardian.
As a guardian, I am more responsible in disciplining my child than the state is. Except in cases labeled as abuse by the state, I am given charge and responsibility for the actions of my children and am expected to do the correcting as I see fit. That is a recognition not given to bosses over their corporations, states over their citizens (when dealing with other states) or religions over their members. A very unique trust and autonomy is granted to parents becuase a family is considered its own autonomous unit of sorts.
Then looking at families from a mother nature point of view. One would might predict that evolution would benefit from a single gender. After all, the requirement of two genders can sometimes prohibit propegation of the species. And while asexual reproduction would not produce DNA diversity, a bi-sexual person would have more advantages to produce than how we have it now.
But for some reason, nature has prohibited such arrangements. How did evolution produce the requirement, the absolute necessity of two sexes for propegation to occur? I do not mention this to say that "its natures fault live with it", but more to ask how much we really understand about the natural state of marriage that we feel inclined to change it?
As I've pointed out before, Homosexuals can and do get married, just not to people of their same gender. But that statement is a misnomer, in that homosexuality is not a condition or even an identity. "Is it wrong to require heterosexual unions to be marriages" to me is the same question of asking mother nature "Is it wrong to require heterosexual unions for reproduction". Can we really forward a reason why it would be wrong with what we understand about nature and the natural state that marraige is?
But you did ask that also...
Ever encounter the phrase "swordpoint conversion"?
The Christianization of various areas was known at times to include heavy economic pressure ("I'm sorry, but the Church does not allow us to trade with non-Christians."), kidnapping, and outright threats of violence, torture, or death to 'encourage' non-Christians to convert.
Take for example the Saga of Saint Olaf, which says of this Saint:
I would not describe that as a case of non-Christians faring at all well under a Christian government. (And here I bet you were expecting the Spanish Inquisition...)
This is paying the debt. Paying taxes is not wealth distribution, welfare is wealth distribution. Everyone pays taxes, the rich just need to pay more taxes to bring down the deficit.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Population is about to hit a wall? Care to prove that. It sure is not for a lack of space, or crops, or water.
Capitalism is not exactly what is happening over there. "Free trade" it is not. Most factories (of much size) are still state owned and operated. They have just started to realise it is better to do international business, and to use American dollars to do it with.
Adaptation. The Chinese can do it, I am not sure of the Americans. After all, most Americans just assume that they are right in everything they do. There are countless examples to the contrary, but the truth never gets in the way of good rhetoric.
If you take all the people killed in the name of Christianity over the past 20 centuries (inquisitions, witch trials, and crusades too), you will find there were more people killed in the name of atheistic government in the 20th century alone. (I won't even mention those that were killed in the name of non-Christian religions.) Does this excuse the acts of those "Christians" who killed others? Absolutely not. But it does prove my point that Christian governments are better than non-Christian ones. Atheists believe they have no one to answer to after this life; most Christians remember that they do.
I heartily recommend reading What if Jesus had never been born for a history of the contributions of Christianity as well as its crimes.
Constitutionally Correct
I don't believe strongly in anything except that in the freedom of being what you feel you are and expressing yourself in a way that does not physically hurt anyone.
You're preaching to the choir here; I heavily depend on the "do as thy will while harming none" way of thinking, but let me ask you this: did you ever consider that posibly, just maybe, there are some forms of harm you cannot anticipate accurately? Given that humans are complex (beyond our understanding, mostly) and that societies of humans are even more complex, how can you ever be sure that your (in-)action causes no harm?
everything in moderation
I didn't say don't tax them; what I said was that if you tax them at significantly higher rates than other states, they will respond by moving. Not all tomorrow, but over a decade or so, your tax base evaporates.
The rest of what you said made no sense, if Oregon was so great why isnt silicon valley in Oregon?!Because 30 years ago, it made sense to do business in the silcon valley. Converting orchards to industrial parks was cheap, and the government wasn't as intrusive. Where do you think all of Intel's new fabs are being built? Those pentium chips all come from Oregon, not California!
NOTHING is in portland, theres no one to tax, Cali has all the rich movie stars, alot of them are liberal and wont mind paying higher taxes.
This statement is so assinine that it doesn't bear responding to. Yeah, there's NOTHING in Porland, all right! Except about half a million ex-Californians.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Wow. Gay marriage. Legalized pot. No death penalty. Government subsidized goodies! What a brilliant young woman! Why, you'd never know that this is just the same sh*tty dreck that the Left has been vomiting all over our constitutional Republic since the 60s! Must be nice being twenty-something, and ignorant. As it is, this forty-six-year-old started yawning before he finished the first sentence!
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
On a more personal level, I live in Manhattan
Oh, I'll gladly grant you that, throughout history, more people have been killed by non-Christian governments than by Christian governments - the simple number of people who have lived under each makes that inevitable. Your earlier statement, though, specifically referenced the condition of non-Christians living under Christian governments and vice-versa. The question then becomes how many non-Christians have been killed or mistreated by Christian governments for not being Christian vs. how many Christians have been killed or mistreated by non-Christian governments for being Christian, preferably weighted by total population under each type of government.
And, no, I don't know the numbers, but I strongly suspect that the non-Christian governments come out looking better in that comparison, given that monotheistic religions tend to consider themselves to be the sole keepers of The One True Way, while polytheistic and pantheistic religions do not.
Modern anti-religious governments (I assume this is what you mean by "atheistic" governments) are something of an anomaly and do indeed tend to be harsher than any other option on those who don't subscribe to the official dogmas. But their behaviour is not a good indicator of how a government with no interest whatsoever in religion would act - if they have no interest in religion, they why would they use it as a basis for persecution?
Oh, BTW, regarding 'those "Christians" who killed others'... The example I used earler was that of Saint Olaf. You may not consider him to have been a Christian, but there are quite a few who see him as not just a Christian, but a super-Christian.
I DO think the reason for opposition to gay marriage is bigotry. And you, my friend, are a bigot, because you wish to deny your fellow man (and woman) privileges offered by the state purely on the basis of sexual orientation, and not on the basis of merit.
Ha, simply diffused. If someone considers themselves homosexual I don't care if they get married or not. I would not deny marriage to them. I am not a bigot.
But what does not make sence is allowing anyone to call whatever companionship they want, a marriage.
When Adam and Steve are crying in the corner that they don't get their way, or that its not fair they don't get anything they want I'm not inclined to listen to them. Becuase the world doesn't cater to them doesn't mean its not fair.
But let Adam and Steve tell me why a homosexual union is a marriage, and then I'll move heaven and earth to make sure they get their due. So you tell me what are the merits of a homosexual union that command the title "marriage". If its based on merits, then I'm sure that you can come up with them. Now merits of the people involved are not in question, a marriage is not a person. Its a union. What are the merits of homosexual unions that demand it to be called a marriage?
Unless of course the real reason you want to deny them these basic rights is that you just think it's wrong to be gay, and they should be punished somehow.
Nonsense, what utter and complete tom foolery. Calling whatever you want a marriage is not a basic right. As is mentioned previously, recognizing the unique abilities of heterosexual unions with the word "marriage" is not even considered a violation of civil rights by the UN, EU, US or any governing body.
The reasons other consenting adults get married are, to put it most delicately, none of your f....ng business. That's why they're called "adults" - they (we) get to make their OWN choices. Leave them alone!
For the most emphatic of the people trying to alter the definition of marriage comes a attitude of real entitlement, in the very purest sense of becuase I said so, becuase I'm an adult and an free to do what I want. Neither of those are good reasons at all.
I for one greet our new Georgy overlord.
But seriously good luck to you Georgy in the election. I'm sending my friend from San Diego the georgyforgov link, so you can count on at least one more vote.
On another note, some Veritas (where Georgy works(ed?) ) software in combination with the software of the company where I'm interning caused a BSOD ( blue screen... you get it). So Georgy and I are practically related.... or something.
Now do you really expect such verbal abuse to persuade me? Should I really feel ashamed for my views? Are you just trying to make me feel bad or something?
Come on, theres been enough informed debate here that you don't need to resort to name calling and mockery.
From Jeff Lindsay...
you calif' people should vote for the T.S.O.L. guy . It's the only *real* alternative, and it's a fun thing to do. Think about it !
if elections changed anything, they'd be illegal.
With that aggravating beauty, Lulu Walls.
Their one child/2 parents program (and the desire of having male children instead of female) has left a gap in available women which will lead to a population decrease in the very near future.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
Here's a few things I can remember about Natasha:
1. Someone at the Government pay office thought she was a politician's staffer, when she went to collect her paycheck.
2. She has worn Doc Marten boots into Parliament.
3. She has often been a guest on the popular nationwide alternative radio station Triple J
Man watching 6 MSCE's around a sun box, looks alot like the opening scene's of 2001:space odyssey...
Many states used to require voters to be able to
read and write, and have some knowledge of history
in order to demonstrate that their vote had some
substance behind it, rathern than just being a
lemming-vote for the guy with the biggest sign.
I think this was an excellent system, but
unfortunently the supreme court declared it
unconstitutional because certain races of people
tended to pass the test at different rates than
others. This is completely irrelevant, since the
tests were applied to individuals. Whether these
tests were abused is another question, but that
could have been dealt with without getting rid of
the whole concept.
Another system that was tried (and also banned)
was voting taxes. The idea here was to disincentivice
people who had no interest in politics or
elections, and whose votes therefore had fairly
low "signal to noise ratio" from voting. The
taxes weren't supposed to be unaffordable, but
just enough that people who'd rather buy beer
than cast their vote, did just that.
That's so melodramatic, but yes, if you're dealing with an adult I don't see any reason why you should have any particular protection from another human being when it comes to "soul".
So it's perfectly ok to call up your exgirlfriend and tell her you're gonna rape her, follow her around and so forth, and call her at work and tell her you're gonna rape her mother. But as long as you don't actually physically hurt someone, that's ok?
Like what I said? You might like my music
Hmm. I was figuring that he meant the porn. I was just kidding. I didn't expect a serious response to my comment....but then again, this being /., I shouldn't be surprised.
http://xkcd.com/386/
Why must the world share my beliefs?
Politics is that one occupation where those most capable of doing the job are the ones are the ones we should least trust to do it. As was pointed out, just look at where all these wonderfully seasoned politicians have gotten us.
Dyolf Knip
My belief system considers willful ignorance to be unholy, and has no problem with consenting adults performing any sex acts that they see fit in privacy.
Given that you obviously don't subscribe to my belief system, please enlighten me as to why society as a whole should subscribe to yours.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
"I understand that a lot of Californians are unhappy with Gray Davis' performance, but he WAS elected by the people, if people dislike him then they can vote him out of office when his term is up."
I don't even live in California (you insensitive clod!) and already statements like this are giving me a nervous tic.
IT'S YOUR FUCKING CONSTITUTION!!! You know, that document that has this whole recall mechanism written into it? That document that those very same "people" you mention here! Why is it that "the people" are only right when they agree with you?
It doesn't matter whether it's fair or not, all that matters is that it's exactly what the voters decided upon when they chose that paricular amendment. I would even go so far as to say this is a topic that should be beyond reproach for even the candidates to bemoan. The People (a. k. a. your boss) Have Spoken, and comments like this should be seen as an insult to those very same people she's trying to represent (not to mention making the candidate look two-faced for running on the same recall ballot they claim to oppose).
If you're serious about running for government, why don't you put your money where your mouth is, show what kind of a go-getter you are and get your own petition to re-amend your state's constitution. Short of that, I don't think these people should be insulting their voters' intelligence like this.
Of course, you realize, that a bunch of us are going to come and beat you to a pulp and steal your land and your belongings, and the police will laugh since you're not paying for their services anymore.
I ce land.html
Not necessarily. There have been societies where police protection has been privately purchased:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Iceland/
Or maybe we'll just set your house on fire, and the fire department will be on hand to protect the belongings of taxpayers.
And my (privately paid for) insurance company will be on hand to put out the fire in my house, which was the way it was done before socialized fire departments. You'd have a sticker in your window indicating who your provider was, similar to the way you put an ADT sticker in your window indicating who your security provider is.
Just because you'd like to use the government to freeload off of your neighbors doesn't mean it's a societal necessity. There's plenty of historical evidence demonstrating it's not.
"Let's face it as a Canadian (who is happy as hell most of our Federal politicians are not only talking about capaign finance reform, they are actually making laws),"
As a Canadian, most of your federal government isn't even elected.
The stock market and the housing market are indicators of how the economy is doing.
The stock market going up means more companies will be hiring.
Housing starts mean more labor is being employed.
The jobless rate in June was 6.4%, last month is was 6.2%, and is headed downward.
I totally agree. They're so desperate for an issue to run on, they'll say anything.
You are making a bad assumption; Chinese men can't relocate. WRONG.
any more than you or me.
She is good at dodging questions like that though and deserves some points for that.
OK, I've waited in vain for clarifcation, so I have to ask. Why, again, exactly, is he a moron for having the beliefs that he does? Or, is it, perhaps, that you are the moron for failing to back up (or rescind) your attack?
everything in moderation
Seems like you could just enter into a legal contract if you want to protect yourself should your co-habitation arrangement go awry.
I'm just trying to figure out why so many people get so upset about how many penises and/or vaginas are involved in the transaction.
I'm not trying to argue whether or not the State should be involved in such arrangements (me, I'd say "no", but that's just me). I certainly am arguing that the State should have nothing whatsoever to do with "covenants of sanctity".
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I dont care, tax them! No one cares where Bill Gates lives, all we care about is where the offices are and considering the fact that hes moving most of his offices to India I think its fair that we punish him for doing this by raising the taxes on him.
Because 30 years ago, it made sense to do business in the silcon valley. Converting orchards to industrial parks was cheap, and the government wasn't as intrusive. Where do you think all of Intel's new fabs are being built? Those pentium chips all come from Oregon, not California!
Actually they come from India, which has no taxes at all.
Lowering taxes will not keep jobs in the country, because no matter how low you go, its always cheaper in some other place.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Its alittle too soon to come to any conclusion about where its headed just because it went down
PLEASE!
This is like me saying Bush's approval rating is in freefall just because its gone down a bit, come on people, you are as politcal as the far left.
The stock market going up means more companies will be hiring. IN INDIA
Housing starts mean more labor is being employed.
Or it could mean more people are buying houses because of the low interest rates.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I'm not coming out to the voting-booths 99 times.
In instant runoff voting or Condorcet or other similar systems you rank all candidates in order. No need to return to the polls and re-vote.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The aspect of this recall that I find most disgustingly unfair is the influence of money in politics. Californians should find it frightening that a wealthy Republican can buy himself another election.
If she disagrees with the recall election she shouldn't be running herself but helping Gray Davis keep office.
the recall effort required gathering a larg number of signatures and thats no easy effort but given the alternitive of letting Gray Davis continue to screw up California there isn't much choice.
If you disagree with the recall vote for Gray Davis if you agree with the recall don't vote for someone who disagrees with the process.
California is in sereous dept right now this is not the time to implement new technology. A state wide switch over to open source technologys is all we can afford and even then we have to be careful becouse SOME companys will want to sue over that.
I don't actually exist.
I'm just trying to figure out why so many people get so upset about how many penises and/or vaginas are involved in the transaction.
No good reason, near as I can tell. :) Other than tradition, which is a bad reason to do shit. I'm with Suicidal Tendencies on this one: Don't question shit just for the sake of questioning shit. Do it because you took the time to think about it and you figured out a better mutherfucking way. Or something like that.
I'm not trying to argue whether or not the State should be involved in such arrangements (me, I'd say "no", but that's just me). I certainly am arguing that the State should have nothing whatsoever to do with "covenants of sanctity".
I fully agree that the state shouldn't be involved in determining what marriage is. That means no tax laws involving marriage (although I like the ones involving kids, since I have 3 of them :) ). No laws regarding who insurance companies can insure based on marriage (they rule out common law marriage, in some cases, and they prevent gay couples from enjoying this benefit). And so forth. There are so many different ways people want to be married, and there are so many different configurations people want to have that the state just shouldn't be involved. Me, I think polygamy is a perfectly fine form of marriage, as long as all people involved agree of their own free will. I think that monogamy has its advantages, and its attraction, so that it will likely be the dominant form of marriage for a long time, but that there are advantages to other forms of marriage. Not to mention just plain cultural differences (although it seems like most cultures these days are in to monogamous marriage). I also don't understand what's wrong with two men in love wanting to spend the rest of their lives together (or women, if you prefer). For many of us, we spend so much time looking for love that we gain an appreciation for how hard it is to find someone. Why begrudge someone else the opportunity to take advantage of the love they've found just because we don't want it for ourselves? Petty, I say. Pure pettiness.
Seems like you could just enter into a legal contract if you want to protect yourself should your co-habitation arrangement go awry.
Therein lies the problem. For those of us that chose a traditional marriage, i.e. man and woman 'till death do us part, it would have been very offensive to create a civil contract to determine what happens when things go awry (I don't give a fuck how many people sign prenuptial agreements. If I thought I needed protection from my wife, I would't have married her, plain ad simple). The reason is simple: we wouldn't have made the decision if we thought things were going to go bad, and we both felt that if we thought there was a chance, however small, that things wouldn't work out, then we should not have gotten married in the first place. Many people make this decision, and fail to achieve their goal. That is when the state comes in (invited, actually) to settle who gets what. In my opinion, that is the only time the state needs to be involved. Therefore, the only laws made by the state regarding such agreements should be severely limited to property ownership in co-habitation agreements. This would apply to roommates as well (ever had a roommate that left, took some of your shit, and you couldn't do shit about it? I have....). Anybody who lives together, sharing resources, for a certain length of time or greater would be required to sign some boiler-plate contract that says "this is mine, that's yours". That way, couples getting married (or groups, or whatever) would be angry that they have to take inventory of their possessions, but since everybody would be required to do so, they would just bitch about it. If they don't do so, then the state would fall on default laws that should more or less split up property evenly upon the termination of the co-habitation. No playing
Like what I said? You might like my music
Answer the question! I want to see where he's going with this, and the suspense is killing me!
everything in moderation
I do know they're right; they're right for me.
Why must the world share my beliefs?
Wow. You're really bad at comprehending things, aren't you? I don't know why the world must share your beliefs. I never said it did, and I never thought it did, so I can't answer your question. Please buy a clue. Either that, or actually read what I wrote.
http://xkcd.com/386/
i just wish that California would hurry up and break off, then slip into the Pacific ocean... (no evacuation necessary, nothing ot see here, stay in your homes...)
I want that ocean front property in Nevada!
"I think, therefore I get paid."
Just because you use capital letters and bold fonts doesn't make what you're saying true.
The stock market doing better is an indication of companies and the economy doing better.
People refinance when interest rates go low, housing starts are indicators of a pick up in the economy.
Face it, the economy is getting better.
Hardly a flame war, you'll have to be more acidic for that. :)
As to your questions: Why make laws abridging someone's free speech?
Millionaire oilmen DON'T need money from church groups, but the church groups POOL their monies together to get someone ("their guy") elected who agrees (for the most part) with their views. The oilman goes out and says, "Hey, give me money and I'll do what you want!" How is that 'evil'? The church-goers can't afford to spend the money campaigning, so they do so by proxy: by giving their money to someone with whom they agree.
Same thing with the NRA: They get $X from each member, all of whom, by choosing to be members, agree with the political leanings of the group at large. If members didn't agree, they didn't have to sign up in the first place. And the NRA just uses the effects of networking to be able to wield a larger stick than any single member could. How is that bad?
Finally, how can you call yourself a Libertarian when you want the government to tell us when we're allowed to spend money on political candidates? Thinking like that is very socialist in nature, which is why I tossed that term in there. Sorry if it offended you.
pffftt... Your both wrong it was woodworking.
pffftt... Your both wrong it was woodworking.
:)
Hmm...I figured if porn wasn't the joke, then by deductive reasoning, 'wood working' wouldn't be the joke either...I sit corrected.
http://xkcd.com/386/
You said (and say again later in this message) that there is no need for private funding. Spending money myself is private funding. So are you for or against privately funded campaigns?
The only problem with public funding is that it's immoral. You are taking money from me, by force (as I have no choice), and giving it to people I would otherwise not choose to support. I will support the raw mechanics of the process (voting equipment, etc), but will not support viewpoints I oppose. Thomas Jefferson said, "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical", and I agree with him. That's what public campaign funding amounts to. It doesn't matter that my candidate is getting just as much as the others, all that means is that the gang of robbers is one larger. I, and only I, should get to choose how my money gets spent. If a candidate's platform isn't interesting enough to get me to donate voluntarily, then I don't want any of my money given to it at all.
I agree that campaigns should be more than popularity contests. But the problem isn't "unequal funding" or "fatcat contributors". The problem is that's there's no real substantive dialogue when there are only two parties who both seek the middle. We need to change the electoral process itself, not the campaign process, to open it up to third parties. We need to level the playing field so every party can compete on its own merits, and those merits may be unequal - some parties simply have stupid ideas. The people must decide whether the various platforms have any merit, not government. Government's only job is to guarantee your train equal access to the track, you have to provide your own steam.
Taking control of politics out of the hands of the people and giving it to government is one of the most anti-freedom ideas I can imagine. I really can't fathom how Americans can support the notion. You'd basically end up with government controlling it's own direction, rather than the people controlling the government's direction. Is that what you really want? Don't you see the risk of incumbents twisting this to their own advantage to maintain power?
Constitutionally Correct
I don't disagree with you. Taxes should be proportional to what you earn (salary), and what you own (property) ... but they shouldn't be the burdon of "whoever's got the most money" simply because they have all that money just sitting around. Taxes are a way of life ... they suck, but they're everybody's problem.
Good arguments against IRV and in favor of Condorcet. But I don't understand what you mean by complicated ballot sheets? The casting process of Condorcet is simple. (Can you put a "1" by your first pick, a "2" by your second pick, and so on? I knew you could.) The counting process is significantly more difficult, but this doesn't matter as very few people need to be routinely exposed to the mechanics of it. The best way to explain it to the masses is probably at the intuitive level, by staging comparisons of how the alternatives fall down while Condorcet doesn't. (Several already posted on this thread.) Obviously, if a system has to be complex to capture the true will of the electorate, that complexity should be in the counting rather than the casting if at all possible, so that voting is simplified and we get greater participation.
Constitutionally Correct
The point isn't that minimum wage people should pay to make the city work, and the point isn't that you should have to pay as much as Gates, the point is that Bill Gates is not your daddy. Why should you profit extraordinarily because of someone else's success? I mean are you trying to say that if Billy wasn't alive, then all these billions would somehow automatically find their way into building roads and providing cheaper services? Seriously, what do rich people really DO that warrants forcing them to pay more taxes? I mean don't you think Gates had to pay taxes while he made his money? Sure, he started out a little better than everyone else, but he had to pay taxes like everyone else all the way up the ladder. I made a living between jobs trading stocks with my saved up money, and trust me, capital gains taxes and such aren't cool. He has more stuff.. Well.. Are you saying he's never paid state sales taxes? What about what rich people put back in the economy? Whenever they buy something, donate to a charity, or sponser a fundraiser.. How about how many people rich people employ? Just imagine if all the rich people in america said screw this and pulled out their money from the banks and stock market? If you think the economy's bad now, when the markets and businesses are still being largely supported by men and women with more cash than they can count..
BTW, try reporting something like that to the cops and they'll just say that there's nothing they can do - no crime has been committed, yet.
BOO! TERRO
You've changed the context of your challenge:
You forgot that the only place that had political history (in the last 500 years), as a Representative Republic, was the United States.
You then changed your argument to this:
I'm just taking the dates that each one of the Constitutions was initially enacted, not the date they won their independence, for good reason.
It seems that the only "good reason" is that your previous argument was indefensible. Changing the argument does not strengthen you position, nor does implying that your opponent is supporting Stalinism by drawing inapropriate examples into the argument as you did here:
Remember the 80's, when the USSR was touted as having the best health care system in the world, since it was all free? I mean, the government paid for it, but it was free! And all the doctors were women! It was like a democrat's wet dream. But then the Berlin wall came down, and the USSR collapsed in on itself... and we learned the truth. They had third-world style hospitals and most people never got the care they needed. But obviously that was something that was specific to the USSR, and the same thing would never happen here, right?
While I agree with you in your dissaproval of Stalinism (and Marxism in general), I would rather not be associated with your implication that a health care garauntee would lead to the same result, nor would I agree with your (implied) assumption that all forms of Liberalism would lead to such a totalitarian state. Many Liberal movements are not anti-capitolist, but are anti-authoritarian and are just as fearful of a new Stalin as they are of a new Mussolini.
But back to the post that I'm responding to:
The United States Constitution is the oldest document in the world that governs a country.Magna Carta which was enacted as the supreme governing act in 1215, during the rule of King John. A Bill of Rights was enacted in 1689, as was "the Act of Toleration" (I haven'yt found an accessable copy, if you find one I'd apreciate a link). The Trennial Act of 1691 further solidified the rule of law over the government.
Read, L
Well, alright, civil discourse be damned. You, my friend, are one stupid fucking canuck.
I'm sorry my English has left you in the dust of your own illiteracy. Do you think that chuch-goers, when presented with their church acting politically in ways they don't agree with, would just stand by and stay in the same church, with their mouths shut? Don't be stupid. Catholics, for instance, went off and turned into Episcopals. Who are now going to split themselves in twain again.
Go reread what I wrote you stupid cum guzzler. I was asking YOU the question about free speech. If you make a law that restricts what I can say about politicians, and when I can say it (which is entirely what campaign finance laws boil down to), then you are (a) a Socialist, and (b) fucking with my first amendment rights.
Wake up and learn to read.
> The entire questionare is almost certainly a hoax,
h tm
You, sir, are absolutely correct.
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.
Sure that could be perceived as nasty and cruel but still what can you do.
Well, it would be "wrong" to physically hurt the guy, right? So I guess you can't do anything and you just have to put up with this kind of bullshit.
BTW, try reporting something like that to the cops and they'll just say that there's nothing they can do - no crime has been committed, yet.
When my mom was in this situation, she told the cops, and they kept an eye out for the guy. When my wife was in this situation, she told the cops and they kept an eye out for the guy. Stalking is illegal. Most/all states have laws against this sort of thing, and there is something the cops can do about it. Sure, it's harder to prove in court, but it's still within their jurisdiction.
You make a hard and fast rule about when your interaction with other people is wrong in that it is only wrong when you physically hurt them. I find it to be very shortsighted, because pain isn't always physical. Is it wrong for a man to leave his wife for another woman? He causes great pain to his wife in doing so. Should it be illegal? Well, I happen to be a bit of an anarchist, so I not only think it shouldn't be illegal, but it also shouldn't be illegal for her to cut his dick off for it. The worst pains to be felt are not physical at all, and in my opinion, it's never right to hurt someone. It's sometimes less wrong to hurt someone if it stops them from doing greater damage (like killing a serial killer), but it's never right to hurt someone, physical or otherwise.
Like what I said? You might like my music
i believe you should eat a bag of dicks.
This being /., your comment was redundant and no longer funny (sorry, just telling it like I percieve it). The only response it would get is a serious one, since redundant jokes don't generally get joking replies. Plus, I just like seriously answering jokes. It's fun.
History proves that non-Christians fare better under Christian governments than vice versa. Completely secular/atheist governments are often the worst of all.
I didn't realize you thought so poorly of the US, which is goverend by a completely secular government, according to the founding fathers themselves. (Check out the Treaty of Tripoli, the first major diplomatic treaty between the new USA and a foriegn power after the adoption of the Constitution. It is quite clear that the US is in no way a Christain government. Check out the writings of Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin. They were dead-set against ANY ties between religion and government, of any kind. Further, check Article 6 of the Constitution, in which it is expressly forbidden to require religion for any government position. And if you want to claim, as you did, that this was all put there just because Christaianity itself forbids government enforcement, then why in the world didn't any of the previous Christian governments have such a provision back in the Europe? That clause was very novel at the time. It was the first government to have such an exclusion, but it was certainly not the first government run by Christians. (And the type of Christianity practiced by many of the founding fathers was very very loose and bordered on Deism. Jefferson even went so far as to entirely redo the bible, stripping half of it away that he thought wasn't true (do a google search for "Jefferson Bible".))
And you obviously do not understand the Christian doctrines of sin and atonement
To assume that someone who disagrees with your doctrine must be doing so because he doesn't understand it is a great hubris. A common one too, unfortunately.
Let me give some examples of equally logical and sensible phrases as the above: War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
The same reason Bill Gates profits off of us. I'm not saying hes our daddy, but he makes most of the money, so he should pay most of the taxes. His class of people have more money than they can spend, at some point we need either a salary cap, or we need to raise taxes on them, which would you prefer?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Thats what people like you said last year, and the year before that.
The economy is more stable but its not getting better, we wont know its getting better for at least another 6 months.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Uhh.. What? Bill Gates forces us to give him money? No.. *feels dirty now* Anyway, he already pays more taxes just by making money, spending money, giving money, and I know you support a death tax so..
Why do we have to have a salary cap or raise taxes on them? Fiscal responsibility, budgets, and enforcing the laws that are supposed to prevent monopolies is my choice. Exactly what is his class of people anyway? Bill Gates can be an evil jackass in his business practices, but we SHOULD have enforcable laws to keep a lot of garbage from happening (look at what Teddy Roosevelt did in his time, we need someone else like him these days).. but.. He's also donated over a billion dollars to charity.. That's a lot of zeros. Anyway I'm just using Gates as an example because you were talking about him, there are lots of other rich people that have done great things for this country.. They donate, they employ people, and they generate tax revenues just by existing.. Why penalize people even more just for being successful?
Wow are you clueless. Totally clueless.
Politician A needs money to get around his state, pay for political ads, and pay staffers to help him get elected. Where the hell do you think that money comes from? The government? Socialism, period.
Afterward, it is not a contribution to help a like-minded individual get elected, it is a bribe. Failure to understand the difference demonstrates a lack of experience or education. First book you might want to read is The Prince, by an Italian guy named Machiavelli. Maybe you've heard of it.
As for your crack about me potentially saying something is "wrong [because] it says so in the Bible"... a more ardent atheist doesn't exist. But nice try.
Unlike you, I am capable of making an analogy (you might want to look that up on dictionary.com).
As for the first amendment rights: Let me try one last time to get it through your thick skull. Your idea of campaign finance is apparently to have the government pay for all electioneering (long word there, look it up). If I want to help "my candidate" (whoever the hell that might be) get elected, and I'm not allowed, that's infringing on my rights as enumerated in the First Amendment. Please go read it again if you're still confused. If you support such a law, you're against the First Amendment. It's really quite simple.
What the hell does "What's ammater" mean?
Yet more evidence today
More evidence
You know when someone has billions of dollars that no one cares if we tax them, in fact they dont even care themselves in most cases.
They donate, they employ people, and they generate tax revenues just by existing..
Donating to India, Creating jobs in India, generating revenue etc does nothing for me.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Why? because you're not a christian, you're an anti-social troll.
Lack of time keeps me from refuting these untruths. I'll post a link instead. Many other books have already been written regarding the faith of the Founders as well, and I don't have time to repeat that, either. (I know John Eidsmoe and Tim LaHaye have written some.) Maybe Jefferson and Franklin were deists, or at least not very orthodox, but the majority of the signers of the Declaration and Constitution were devout Christians, believing the central tenets of the faith, including creation, the divinity of Jesus, his sacrificial death, and bodily resurrection. Any plain reading of their own writings will find numerous references to their faith. Washington's first act after being sworn in as president was to lead the entire Congress to a church where they held a two-hour worship service. One of the first acts of Congress was to provide for a chaplain.
Hardly sounds like the voices of deists to me.
Constitutionally Correct
Yes and Bush will be impeached because his approval ratings are down for a few months.
This proves nothing, you cannot predict an economy based on one months analyisis.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
i believe you should eat a bag of dicks.
I'm sure you do. I believe you should put a plastic bag over your head and breeeeeeeathe deep. Fuckwad.
http://xkcd.com/386/
This being /., your comment was redundant and no longer funny (sorry, just telling it like I percieve it). The only response it would get is a serious one, since redundant jokes don't generally get joking replies. Plus, I just like seriously answering jokes. It's fun.
/., that you don't know what redundant means. Funny is debatable, but in order to be redundant, someone else would have to have had the same comment first....which they didn't. Nice use of words, but next time use some whose meanings you understand.
I guess, this being
http://xkcd.com/386/
To use a political term, it's a slippery slope. Whenever we discuss something you want, you say it has to be all or nothing. That's what I'm afraid of here. What qualifies as rich? Do you think you can just push the rich people as much as you want? They're already moving out of high tax areas, and obviously they do care about having money or their companies wouldn't have to employ people in India. Donating to india doesn't do anything for you, but you're not stupid so don't act like it, they don't only donate to India. Yes they create jobs in India too, but you know what? They have created and continue to create jobs HERE too.. What screwed up logic are you using to think that taxing them more is going to make up for outsourcing jobs? They'll just do it more to make up for the losses. If you want to tax them FOR outsourcing, that's something totally different and something I'd support. Tax them for the things they do, not to punish them mearly for being successful. Generating revenue does nothing for you? BS. Someone like Bill Gates taking a vacation in your city could generate more state tax revenue than 100 ordinary citizens in a day. Not to mention the people that come with him and the attention the city gets while he's there. We already leech off of the rich and famous. Why can't I defend the rich? It's because of someone rich that I have a job right now, it's because of rich people that my college is building new labs and such..
If you'd read the articles, you'd see that the experts are saying that the economy is improving now, and it has been for some time.
You're wrong.
Yet more evidence
I said "Bugget" heh heh. - I really should have hit "preview"
I'm not calling you a name, I'm clarifying your own political leanings for you. You think you're a libertarian, but that's clearly not the case.
Raising money = free speech. "It should be earned though". How does a politician earn money? Three ways that I can see:
1. Ask for it. This is quite obviously a free speech issue, and you don't see it.
2. Work for it. Well then, only rich guys can run for office... which you obviously don't like either.
3. Have the government give it to them. This is quite obviously the socialist route, which is fine if that's what you're into.
I'm not calling you a socialist to be hurtful. I have a couple very good friends who happen to be socialist. I just want you to admit to yourself that what you suggest (some apparently magical government formula that decides who can speak about elections, when, and how much they're allowed to spend to do it) is patently socialistic by its very nature. You're no libertarian, kiddo.
If you can't see that, then I could use other names on you (idiot, ignorant, illiterate, just to be alliterative and name a few).
And last I checked, (a) the President was elected, and (b) noone has been "hearded off as an evil doer" for their free speech right.
However, according to your world view, speaking freely about candidates (including paying someone else to do the speaking for you) should be illegal.
"Wacko right winger" is pretty good though, but again, completely silly. Nothing I've said has anything to do with being right wing. For the record, my pro-drug, pro-abortion, atheist self would likely be unwelcome in the average right-wing party. But so it goes.
I count comments that reiterate stale old themes with nothing new as "redundant", even if they haven't been posted before. Would you consider a soviet russia joke to be redundant if it hadn't been posted before?
I count comments that reiterate stale old themes with nothing new as "redundant", even if they haven't been posted before. Would you consider a soviet russia joke to be redundant if it hadn't been posted before?
You sound like a very unhappy person. I feel sorry for you. Here's a ray of sunshine, from me to you!
May you find at least a small spark of joy in your life.
http://xkcd.com/386/
Well, seeing as how you can't seem to reply to anything I say with anything less than insults now, I have to assume I've won the argument.
/. all day long and wait for a response to come in. Good for you.
I can keep on winning, if you'd like:
1. I work for a living. Apparently you can sit on
2. My mother has helped me quite a few times in my life, but not recently. Thanks for asking though.
3. Use of language correctly doesn't make one "seem" worldly, but incorrect usage certainly makes one seem the reverse. Perhaps my use of (more or less) correct grammar threatens you?
"Chump", "illeterate", "incestuos". Wow, quite creative, and quite well-spoken. I bow before your superior intellect.
I'm sorry my use of the English language to formulate coherent arguments has confused you to the point that the only thing you can do is write insults in return. Pathetic. I'm curious, how old are you? You could be as old as, oh, 18 or so, but I'm guessing not even that.
Otherwise, the general intellectual state of Canadians and leftists is worse than I thought. Have a nice life, loser.
JEFFERSON. Doesn't sound like someone who would support your (un)consitution party:
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82 (capitalization of the word god is retained per original; see Positive Atheism's Historical Section)
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814, responding to the claim that Chritianity was part of the Common Law of England, as the United States Constitution defaults to the Common Law regarding matters that it does not address. This argument is still used today by "Christian Nation" revisionists who do not admit to having read Thomas Jefferson's thorough research of this matter.
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers, 1:545
"Turning, then, from this loathsome combination of church and state, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds."
-- Thomas Jefferson, to Charles Clay, January 29, 1815; Writings, XIV, 232
MADISON, would not be much of a supporter either:
"Besides the danger of a direct mixture of religion and civil government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations.
The establishment of the chaplainship in Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights as well as of Constitutional principles.
The danger of silent accumulations and encroachments by ecclesiastical bodies has not sufficiently engaged attention in the U.S."
-- James Madison, being outvoted in the bill to establish the office of Congressional Chaplain, from the "Detached Memoranda," Elizabeth Fleet, "Madison's Detached Memoranda." William and Mary Quarterly (1946): 554-62. Quoted from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom.
And the interpetation of the first amendment, that says it prevents using government property for religious messages, is NOT a new interpetation brought about by a recent supreme court, as the theocracy propoonents often claim. Here's James Madison's view on the matter:
"Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not."
-- James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, addressed to the Virginia General Assemby, June 20, 1785
"Because the bill in reserving a certain parcel of land in the United States for the use of said Baptist Church comprises a principle and a precedent for the appropriation of funds of the United States for the use and support of religious societies, contrary to the article of the Constitution which declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment.""
-- James Madison, veto message, February 28, 1811. Madison vetoed a bill granting public lands to a Baptist Church in Mississippi Territory. Quoted from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom. Also in Gaillard Hunt, The Writings of James Madison, Vol. 8, (1908), p. 133.
"Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any Manner contrary to their conscience."
-- James Madison, explaining to Congress during the House Debate what the First Amendment means to him, 1 Annals of Congress 73
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
This girl lost any possibility of my support when she tossed off the usual "soak the rich" idea for solving a budget problem.
Earth to Georgy: The rich don't have to sit still for high taxes, they can just move their official residence to Nevada. Anyone making a million bucks a year who's actually paying anything *close* to their nominal tax rate has an incompetent accountant.
It may sound cute to spew the usual semi-pink "let's all blame the rich people" crap, but trying to legislate jealousy has NEVER solved a money problem for any government. You could try to tax all the rich people at 100% for a year, but you'd NEVER COLLECT.
California's fiscal problems can ONLY be fixed by DRASTIC, PERMANENT spending cuts.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
History proves that non-Christians fare better under Christian governments than vice versa.
You're a little fuzzy on your history there, sport. Western countries, for the most part, protect religious minorities these days, but the historical record is pretty spotty.
Try doing a bit of research on the "Indian Schools" in the American west, the administration of Palestine under the crusaders, the destruction of Hawiian religion by the bible-thumpers, the persecution of the Mormons in Illinois (and the persecution of non-mormons in Utah a few decades thereafter), and so on.
Examples of persecution of non-christians and christians of the wrong franchise abound.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Hmmm took you a few hours to respond there, chicken shit. Must have had to go ask your mommy (the state, apparently) for permission...
As it is, if I use the democrats' anti-tax cut arguments as an exmaple, the government will consider a firefighter and a teacher 'rich' if they were to get together and continue working their full time jobs, so I don't particularly trust the government to set a limit. I don't understand what too rich for their own good is either. If you want to charge people a tax when they inherit money, that's not too bad, dynasties aren't a good thing, but if I make a successful business I don't see what right you have to tell me I can't make as much money as I want and do with it what I want. I mean you wouldn't be happy if rich people were coming in your house and telling you how to live now would you?
MS doesn't HAVE to, but the government let them and they see it as a way to make up for losses in other areas. I don't like Billy, but I'm not sure how he's screwed up in the head.. Also, I could come up with a list in about 15 minutes about how to spend ALL of his money
If economy and technology was just based on demand we'd still be pre-industrial. A lot of what we have today is here just because people with lots of money saw an opportunity and poured money into it to CREATE a demand for it. You have not addressed the fact that because of rich people donating billions we have many more free instittions including libraries, charities, school departments, and parks. I'm not saying trust the rich to do the right thing, but you're saying we shouldn't have people who can move that kind of money, and I believe it would hurt the economy more than help it. You're killing incentive in the upper end, and ignoring the fact that rich people generate taxes without us having to penalize them more. If anything, go for a flat tax, but you can't just say hey you're successful, so I'm taking 60% of your money instead of the 30% I take from everyone else.
"Do we really need to spend millions incarcerating a man who stole $5.62 worth of meat?" She's cute and all, but does she really understand the what Three Strikes is about? I don't know what the minimum amount for a felony theft in California is, but $5.62 is not even enough for a misdemeanor here in Texas... Three strikes mean three FELONIES... People should stop believing that EVERYONE can be reformed. Plain and simple, there are just some people out there who does not care about laws. And just because they only got caught three times, does not mean they only did three crimes...
It's clear she neither understands the recall process, electoral law, or how polotics "work." She sates "...requiring 50% to keep Davis seems unfair, when a replacement candidate could be elected with only 15%. Wrong. In both cases, a ***majority*** is needed. The recall question is binary: YES or NO. You need >50% one way or another....this is a majority. The election of a new governer also requires a majority. However, since there are moer that 2 candidates, a majoirty may only be 15%. Attempting to compare the "fairness" of these votes by using percentage of votes required to win show massive ignorance.
If you would stop assuming, you would see that I only posted one disagreeance. There are several things in which I think she is absolutely wrong about. Had the discussions gone beyond her feelings of "corporate $$$" than I would be inclined to offer them there.
I was assuming nothing. You gave only one point of disagreement, if dismissing the entire viewpoint of a person based on the dislike of a single word can be dignified with that term, and I responded as if that was the main point of contention. You gave no further arguments to indicate that there were others, so what was I assuming?
It's easy for you to think I'm ignorant and pompous, because you disagree with what I say. If you agreed, I would be a "free thinker" and a bunch of other things. Yes, you too are a hypocrite just like everybody else.
Hmm, so I should stop assuming, but you get to make absurd and insulting statements with no basis whatsoever in what I have said? There is no circumstance or viewpoint that anyone could hold that would make me consider petty attacks over spelling, grammar, punctuation, or a single colloquialism to be an example of a "free thinker." This is a fairly petty attempt to paint anyone who you don't agree with as a misguided partisan, and is a pathetic attempt to detract from my statements by trying to impart false motives to me.
Or perhaps it's people who are commenting on what was given as "answers" and people expressing their distaste for those answers. I expect to be treated like an adult, and she fell very short on that expectation. If you feel that makes me an elitist pompous twit, that's your issue. Yes, I expect proper grammar and spelling from those running for public office. Yes, I expect mature conversations from those running for public office.
Fine and dandy, but a lot more of us expect someone running for public office to be excellant at communicating. Communication is the art of making yourself and your views clear to your target audience. When speaking to the group represented on Slashdot, her responses were entirely in keeping with the common styles of speech, common terms, and colloquial terms in use with that group. She was very effective in communicating. Her website speaks in a much more mature fashion, completely devoid of those oddities used in the Slashdot interview, appropriate for communication with a more general audience. What you want to hear is someone doing an interview on MTV that speaks like they are writing for National Review.
Have you ever observed how many politicians pick up the term y'all, or even worse, all'y'all, when campaigning in certain areas of the country? That is no different than the use of $$$ in the Slashdot community. It is different than using the word "dollars" because it carries with it the connotation of greed and impropriety. If you listen carefully at meetings of the Rotary Club, multilevel marketing groups, or the US Senate, you will hear many similar terms. Each group has a certain number of "in jokes" and words that carry different meanings within their ranks, and serve to assist communication on topics dear to them and to differentiate them from outsiders. As long as these terms are not used outside that group, their usage is entirely appropriate.
No, I do not expect anyone that frequents Slashdot to satisfy either of those criterias.
You are aware that the plural of criteria does not gain an "s" on the end? ;)
Well I'm the doctor and I say you're dead, so shut up and take it like a man!
While I affirm and express solidarity with your scoffing at youth revolutions, the point remains that if the potential negative effects of youth and inexperience are the same as the current negative effects of insider experience [ethical and financial bankruptcy, mismanagement, unnecessary and unjust legislation], would you rather have evil by accident or evil by intent?
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
> Bud, I live in the sticks, tobacco farmers, factory workers, dope growers/manufacturers and
.....
> people drawing a check off of uncle sam is who lives in my neighborhood (if you can call it that)
> R: I'll pay you $6
> D: I'll pay you $10, but I need $5 of that in taxes
Let me think:
R takes no taxes, so I have to pay privately for education, health, security, roads,
D takes $5 taxes. Even assuming gross inefficiency of 20% admin, and assuming I'm a below average tax-payer (poor), I get at least $4 of services for it. Thus 5+4=9 which is much better than 6.
People have this really warped perception of what happens to taxes... the money does NOT disappear, it pays for things.
Ponxx
I see I'm not the only one who puts a "+5" on my "troll" preferences. ;)
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
As far as this election goes, yes, white republicans bought the recall. But remember, Davis bought the election in the first place. He funded tons of anti-Riordan attack ads during the *primary,* and the semi-open republican primary was hit by independent-registered democrats. So that was not a real election in the first place, regardless of who won.
I don't think two wrongs necessarily make a right, but I don't see this recall as damaging a fair democratic process, as I don't consider that to have happened in the first place. Personally, I think Davis is such an ass I'd like to see him replaced by anyone at random. I'm looking at Dean myself.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I highly doubt that there have been truly Christian governments. Anyone who practices "Conversion by swordpoint" is only a Christian in name. The individuals that do this are completely flawed in their sin, and no one can bring someone to faith except Christ.
Granted, the church has been led by many individuals that sought personal gain over everything else, those that put themselves above God in their mind. This is probably the result of the amount of power that they controlled, yet lacked the humility to give it up. People that kill in the name of Christianity are not acting like a Christian should, the Bible does not call for the killing of non-believers. There may be other religions that stress that non-believers should be murdered, but Christainity is not one of them.
Do not look poorly upon Christianity because of the sins of others, they cannot help themselves. We are all lost in sin, and everything that we do is steeped in it. Olaf could not have been a better Christian than any other Christian, because there is no weight given to those who have faith. We're all humans, originally doomed to die for our sin, saved out of complete love by Christ, and trying our best to live lives that please him, yet continuously failing. Olaf was one of them. I am one of them.
Do not base everything you know on Christianity by the labels that the Catholic Church gives. Do not base everything you know on the actions of sinners in the past. The only things you will ever completely know about the faith is what Christ tells us, either himself or through any of the other writers, in the Bible.
The point was that a true Christian government is supremely beneficial to everyone, by virtue that even those in power are humble. I haven't seen anything of this nature in any government (except maybe the leaders of the tribes of Israel). You haven't given any real evidence that a true Christian government has killed anyone, much less one actually existing. It's a pity that one hasn't, but I don't expect one to ever exist on Earth.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
Not everything in the bible can be accepted as God's words.
See vs. 18-21
No offense intended.