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Submit and Moderate Questions for Bush and Kerry
We're teaming up with the New Voters Project Presidential Youth Debate to ask the two major party candidates "the 12 previously unasked questions that most concern young Americans." This is different from the usual Slashdot interview because we're asking you to submit questions through the New Voters Project site instead of as comments attached to this post. Next week you'll have a chance to help select questions for the candidates from among the top 50 asked by everyone -- not just Slashdot readers -- by first winnowing those down to 20 through the Slashdot moderation system, then by voting on the "final 12" displayed on the New Voters Project site. On October 12 we'll post the answers, and on October 19 we'll post candidate-supplied rebuttals.
Note that the idea here is to solicit questions specifically from voters 18 - 35, because this age group tends to vote less than older Americans, plus questions from people 13 - 17 who will be voters before long. But the question selection process is not age-restricted, and it's where your comments and moderation become most important, because one great hope here is to avoid asking questions the candidates have heard (and answered) over and over.
The other question-selecting moderators are groups like Youth Vote Coalition, Earth Day Network, Rock The Vote, Declare Yourself, and 18to35.org, plus lead moderator Farai Chideya.
Anthony Tedesco, founder of the Presidential Youth Debates, has been doing this since 1996. 2004 is the first time an entire online community has participated in the moderation process. It's a logical evolution of the group-questions idea, and Slashdot is the obvious community to choose not only because of the wide range of political views held by Slashdot readers but also because the primary Presidential Youth Debates tech guy, Dan Collis Puro (AKA Hero Zzyzzx), is a Slashdot member himself (and would be happy if you volunteer to help work on their all-FOSS Web site).
Anyway, this is an interesting experiment. Ask your questions, prepare to moderate and comment next week, and to read the candidates' answers and rebuttals when we post them next month.
The other question-selecting moderators are groups like Youth Vote Coalition, Earth Day Network, Rock The Vote, Declare Yourself, and 18to35.org, plus lead moderator Farai Chideya.
Anthony Tedesco, founder of the Presidential Youth Debates, has been doing this since 1996. 2004 is the first time an entire online community has participated in the moderation process. It's a logical evolution of the group-questions idea, and Slashdot is the obvious community to choose not only because of the wide range of political views held by Slashdot readers but also because the primary Presidential Youth Debates tech guy, Dan Collis Puro (AKA Hero Zzyzzx), is a Slashdot member himself (and would be happy if you volunteer to help work on their all-FOSS Web site).
Anyway, this is an interesting experiment. Ask your questions, prepare to moderate and comment next week, and to read the candidates' answers and rebuttals when we post them next month.
Why is federal govt. so concerned with controlling marriage, yet not at all concerned with setting any "ground rules" for divorce?
A couple can get a marriage license in 10 minutes as long as they have $50 or less for the filing fees - but a divorce (especially if children are involved) turns into piles of legal issues that can take as long as years to get through.
Meanwhile, I hear very few complaints about government's handling of the whole marriage process (mistakes in issuing the licenses, or problems when someone needs their last name changed), but can barely find ANYONE who has been through a divorce who felt the whole thing was handled quickly and efficiently, and was relatively fair/equitable for all parties involved.
It strikes me as ridiculous that government would want to concern themselves with anything on the whole marriage side of the equation, when there's so much MORE that needs addressing on the divorce/seperation side!
Mr Bush, Why are you such a dick?
Mr Kerry, Why are you such a dick?
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
1. What the fuck is wrong with you, giving tax cuts only to rich people in a recession? Are you trying to push us into a depression?
2. What the fuck is wrong with you, sending America's sons and daughters to die in an illegal war, encouraging even more terrorism?
3. Have you no soul?
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Tell me what is illegal about having a drink?
I can tell you what is illegal about smoking pot. SMOKING POT is illegal. You doof. There is no hypocrisy, because drinking and smoking cigarettes is fully covered within the law. Smoking pot is not.
There is nothing about your life that gives you precedence over the law. If you want the law changed, fine, try to get the law changed. You have to do the legwork. Until then, I have no problem with the cops picking your ass up for breaking the law.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
In Soviet Russia, the government questions YOU!!!
In Bush's America, the government questions YOU.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Yeah, I'm prejudiced. I'll vote for the smarter guy every time. Smart presidents just seem to do better than stupid ones - regardless of the party. That being said, D's are usually smarter than R's (less likely to be susceptible to weird religious beliefs, looking toward the future rather than sticking in the past, etc.). Heck, all-in-all, I had a grudging admiration for Bush Sr. because he was a somewhat worldly, relatively smart guy - even if it was in a weird sort of "Tri-lateral Commission, Let's control the world" sort of way. But his son? Dumber than a box a hammers and what a sorry job he's done. Stupid, stupid, stupid...
That's why I'm voting Kerry.
That is all.
In particular, someone should ask this question:
Senator Kerry, several witnesses place you at a VVAW meeting in Kansas City in 1971, where you reportedly voted against a plan to assassinate US Senators. To your credit, you reportedly resigned immediately thereafter. Did you report the plot to the appropriate law enforcement authorities? If not, why not?
Interesting ... so just how many Iraqis lives IS an American life worth to you, then? 5,000? 50,000? Would you kill every single Iraqi in the world if it would save one American life?
Just keep telling yourself "they are sub-human, their lives don't count", and you can probably justify any number of deaths. That sort of thinking is how genocides happen.
I knew someone would take the bait, I was suprised it was so many. The comment doesn't reflect my own views, but how Slashdotters ACT like Americans think. Like whenever an American mentions their dead, they say "OMG YEW KILLED 10,000 IRAQIZ THE AMERICANS DEATHS DONT COUNT". The following "slashisms" are total bullshit...
1. Americans are slaughtering innocent Iraqi's. Yes innocent people have likely died in that10,000, but how many of them were terrorists fighting the Americans?
2. Americans don't care about foreigners. Everyone here acts like America is some kind of "Great Satan" and American citizens are these idiotic racist, bigotted SUV driving morons. While everyone here preaches that Judging someone by their nationality is wrong, there is clearly a double standard when it comes to Americans
3. Americans can't talk about crimes against humanity because America does the same things as China, and other lawless regimes. This one is the biggest bunch of bullshit, America has done more for freedom throughout history than ANY other country.
The flood of illegal aliens has destroyed the normal upward force on wages and working conditions in the market for unskilled labor. Americans who are in this market cannot earn enough money to buy basic necessities like housing and food. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats care about Americans in this market. The Republicans and the Democrats care only about catering to racists in LaRaza, the Hispanic equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan.
If you hate what is happening to our country, the USA, then please write the following on the November ballot.
president: Bill O'Reilly
vice-president: Tammy Bruce
As far as I know, faggots aren't prohibited from marrying.
But hey, if you want to co-opt the civil rights movement, why not? It's been devalued for decades now, sometimes even by blacks willing to sacrifice it for their own petty purposes.
Tell me though, at what point do you stop? The Nambloids have been oozing their propaganda for close to 20 years, in some ways even more obnoxious than pro-homosexuality ever did in the 1970s.
Also, I find it interesting that you'd think I'd ever vote for Bush. Or that like him, I might somehow favor a constitutional ammendment barring asspirate marriage.
"Working to prevent your friends from dying for nothing is not treason, it is the definition of patriotism."
That's not what Kerry was doing. He was *supporting* the North Vietnamese, providing them with information against the US and the South, which theoretically caused more deaths of US soldiers. If he really wanted to prevent his friends from dying, he would simply protest the war. But to sleep with the enemy?
Would you support the Nazis to "prevent" your friends from dying? Maybe even make your friends Nazis to prevent the regime from attacking them.
Kerry helped people die, and also helped the US lose Vietnam.
#Secret Windows Source Code, in MS C% - if (uptime >= "24 hours") then bsod() else print "Windows License Violation!"
Kennedy, a radical environmentalist and highly-left-leanign Democrat would say that about a Republican? No. This is strike 1 - a logical fallacy which is based on an appeal to authority.
Kennedy is a dumbass. A true free market economy would cause rampant pollution. Some limited controls are necessary to tax companies who pollute in order to make the cost-saving benefit of polluting go away. The only thing other than environmental legislation that has ever prevented companies from polluting like crazy is conscience.
Once again you were willfully misled by your idealogical idolatory. According to the National Resources Defense Council, 100 tons of mercury are put into the environment each year through chlorine production. By contrast, coal burning power plants put 50 tons of mercury into the environment each year. Simple math will tell you that coal fired plants account for 33 1/3% of Mercury emissions. That's if you ignore the other top methods of mercury production, such as chemical manufacturing and electronics production. Thats strike 2.
The Kerry-Edwards campaign has claimed that the Bush campaign got $300,000 from the coal industry. Kennedy's claim is about $1.7 million short of the truth. Strike 3.
Yet another moronic statement. I can predict with equal certainty that nobody will die from mercury poisoning due to contamination in the waterways of the US this year. Thats because so-called "estimates" are based on populations and "risk factors". So 30,000 people out of a population of 280,000,000 people equates to a .00107% risk per unit (person) of death by mercury contamination. I'll try not to stay up late at night.
That, however, is not your strike 4. Your strike 4 is blaming Bush for allegedly relaxing standards for mercury emission at all. The truth is that there has never been a standard for mercury emissions. Bush's 'Clear Skies' plan placed the first ever cap on mercury emissions, and mandated a 54% reduction in emissions by 2010. Clear Skies also mandates a 73% reduction in SO2, which is what is killing our forests - those forests being essential to carbon fixation and sequestration, reducing CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Clear Skies will also reduce NOx emissions by 63%. Bush also fronted an energy plan which would encourage the construction of newer designs for coal plants which would produce zero mercury emissions, and reduced CO2 emissions. Additionally, it would allow new safe nuclear plants to be brought online so we can decommission and clean up the 50 year old designs which are now posing a tremendous imminant threat. Lastly - and most importantly - Bush will commite $1.7 billion to developing hydrogen fuels for power production and automobile transportation. Kerry's answer? He fought the Clear Skies initiative, and the Energy Plan whose provisions he claimed to support. In turn, Kerry wants to offer $10 billion in corporate welfare for car companies - including non-us companies - to develop alternate fuel vehicles. The problem is they are already doing this without one dime of taxpayer money. So for blatently misrepresenting the Bush record,