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Linux Advocacy From the Trenches
An anonymous reader writes "Tom Adelstein, longtime Linux advocate and consultant has spent the last year working closely with state, local, and federal government open source software initiatives. Tom launched Government Forge,spearheaded the Open Source bill in Texas and other programs. Tom shares the grass roots efforts that have offered him an insider's view of what is propelling Linux toward critical mass and the desktop. He shares his view of Linux "from the trenches" in this interview."
propz to Eugenia - credit whare its do...
I named my dogs Tico and Roy, I hope they outlive the current downturn...
It's time to get serious here. We're big boys. Microsoft is the way it has to be.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
See: flies; sugar, salt
It should be In Soviet Russia, you offend Microsoft!, since Microsoft offends most of us on here.
"Kill the congressman who voted against it!!! Slashdot bomb their phones with dusguist!!!"
or
"Telemarketers should have their guts pullsed out bit by bit, inch by inch in a painful manner until they die!!!"
Seriously, most of the telemarketers who are working in telemarketing jobs are in the pits. I know someone who is working in one, she absolutely hates it but it's one of the only jobs she can find in the area. Taking out your anger at them on the phone when they call you at dinner time only makes them more depressed and hateful.
It's not the telemarketers who's fault this is; anyone who's desperate enough will do anything. If you were out on the street, no job and no home and someone came upto you and said they'd hire you if you did telemarketing for them, would you refuse?
Anyone with an education should be able to get a decent job, unfortunatly the price education has gone up quite a bit in the past couple years. I know that my parents are shelling out an arm and a leg for my education and it's at a local college. Some universities want $20,000 or more a year to educate people.
Point here is, most of our senators and representatives are old bags who know nothing of us; their best conseption of the american family comes from TV. When they see 50 million people decide something, they see it as their job to make sure it gets done.
Am I going to say they are right? Yes, most certainly. This is the beginning of ensuring marketing and avertising doesn't go too far. If we don't stop them at telephones and e-mail they'll come up with more and more intrusive ways to advertise and after awhile, marketers who thought those ways were wrong will soon think they are right and then you've got a problem on your hands. Telemarketers waste my time and I hate them vehemently for doing that because I only get so much. I'd rather be gaming or learning than handling a telemarketer. Some telemarketing departments can even be considered instances of organized crime.
Marketer: "Hey, would you like cable tv" Person: "Fuck off" *hangs up* Marketer: *Signs them up for cable tv anyway, charges mysteriously end up on the CC data they got from XYZ inc*
Now what we've got to focus on is creating new jobs for these desperate people, preferably ones where they can get some kind of an education through the goverment using goverment funds at local colleges. Killing their welfare is absolutely stupid, it's akin to throwing them on the street. Increasing welfare and requiring them to take classes to earn a degree at local colleges that have been approved on goverment money is a far better idea. Give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.
And tell me I'm wrong here. You invest $100,000 (if even that) in someone over 4 years, they pass all their classes and get a degree, start working and earning $30,000 per year at an entry level position. 1/3 of that, $10,000 goes to the goverment, in 10 years they've payed off their "debt" just by goverment taxation on their paycheck; this doesn't include other factors such as taxation on their groceries or other taxes. Get my point?
When we've eliminated desperate people, people who are absolute assholes who will exploit others for profit will loose thier main crop of victoms to take advantage of. Guess where they go?
Candy-Coated Knowledge
During extended remarks delivered at the Pulaski County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner in Little Rock, Arkansas on May 11, 2001, General Clark declared: "And I'm very glad we've got the great team in office, men like Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Paul O'Neill - people I know very well - our president George W. Bush. We need them there."
Clark praised Reagan for improving the military:
"We were really helped when President Ronald Reagan came in. I remember non-commissioned officers who were going to retire and they re-enlisted because they believed in President Reagan."
Clark continued: "That's the kind of President Ronald Reagan was. He helped our country win the Cold War. He put it behind us in a way no one ever believed would be possible. He was truly a great American leader. And those of us in the Armed Forces loved him, respected him, and tremendously admired him for his great leadership."