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Kerry's Record On Electronic And Civil Rights
An anonymous reader writes "John Kerry lambastes John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act, positioning himself as a crusader for civil liberties. The question is, how much substance is there to his rhetoric? This article was an eye-opener to me, in evaluating just that. Slashdotters tending to be passionate about the Patriot Act, encryption, and electronic monitoring - subjects this article tackles with respect to Kerry."
However, since Shrub certainly didn't do it while he had 4 years to do it, we can be sure he won't if he wins four more wars.
For John Kerry, the specter of Attorney General John Ashcroft trashing Americans' civil liberties has been a useful campaign prop. In campaign stops, Kerry has promised to "end the era of John Ashcroft and renew our faith in the Constitution." In a Kerry administration, he promised the liberal group MoveOn last year, "there will be no John Ashcroft trampling on the Bill of Rights." In his 2004 campaign book, A Call to Service, Kerry accuses Ashcroft and the Bush administration of "relying far too much on extraordinary police powers."
In contrast, Kerry positions himself as a civil libertarian -- or at least as a proponent of a reasonable balance between liberty and security. "If we are to stand as the world's role model for freedom, we need to remain vigilant about our own civil liberties," Kerry writes in A Call to Service. He calls for "rededicating ourselves to protecting civil liberties."
Kerry, like every other senator in the chamber except Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), voted for the USA PATRIOT Act in the wake of 9/11. Now he is co-sponsoring the SAFE Act, a bipartisan measure that restricts some of the powers that the PATRIOT Act granted the government. Furthermore, he is critical of the package of proposals from Ashcroft's Department of Justice (DOJ) that has been dubbed Patriot II. Citing his experience as a prosecutor -- he was an assistant district attorney in suburban Boston in the '70s -- Kerry writes, "I know there's a big difference between giving the government the resources and commonsense leeway it needs to track a tough and devious foe and giving in to the temptation of taking shortcuts that will sacrifice liberties cheaply without significantly enhancing the effectiveness of law enforcement. Patriot II threatens to cross that line -- and to a serious degree."
Sacrificing Personal Privacy
This isn't the first time Kerry and Ashcroft have been at odds over civil liberties. In the 1990s, government proposals to restrict encryption inspired a national debate. Then as now, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and electronic privacy groups locked horns with the DOJ and law enforcement agencies. Then as now, Kerry and Ashcroft were on opposite sides.
But there was a noteworthy difference in those days. Then it was Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) who argued alongside the ACLU in favor of the individual's right to encrypt messages and export encryption software. Ashcroft "was kind of the go-to guy for all of us on the Republican side of the Senate," recalls David Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
And in what now seems like a bizarre parallel universe, it was John Kerry who was on the side of the FBI, the National Security Agency (NSA), and the DOJ. Ashcroft's predecessor at the Justice Department, Janet Reno, wanted to force companies to create a "clipper chip" for the government -- a chip that could "unlock" the encryption codes individuals use to keep their messages private. When that wouldn't fly in Congress, the DOJ pushed for a "key escrow" system in which a third-party agency would have a "backdoor" key to read encrypted messages.
In the meantime, the Clinton administration classified virtually all encryption devices as "munitions" that were banned from export, putting American business at a disadvantage. In 1997 Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) pushed the Secure Public Networks Act through his committee. This bill would have codified the administration's export ban and started a key escrow system. One of his original co-sponsors was his fellow Vietnam vet and good friend from across the aisle, John Kerry.
Proponents such as McCain and Kerry claimed that law enforcement could not get the key from any third-party agency without a court order. Critics responded that there were loopholes in the law, that it opened the door to abuses, and that it punished a technology rather than wrongdoers who used that technology. Some opponents argued that the idea was equivalent to giving the g
Kerry's record in this regard is awful. But so is Bush's. So, I guess that leaves us with Badnarik who has all rhetoric and no record.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
If you're the kind of person who's horrified by the Gang Of Bush's encroachments on civil liberties, then you're likely to be someone who's also concerned about an entire constellation of related issues.
In that case, you're also likely to be someone for whom there's no doubt that Kerry will be at least a marginal improvement.
are stupid. Both parties are filled with a bunch of worthless liars. The only good one I can think of off the top of my head is Ron Paul ("Dr. No").
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
There's not nearly enough information there to have a suitable knee-jerk reaction. What am I supposed to do now, RTFA?
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
You miss my point.
The Bush administrattion has been *so* bad on these issues that virtually no one who's capable of securing the Dems' nomination could be equally bad, *regardless* of the historical record.
Virtually every President -- with the exception of the near-pathologically saintly, like Jimmy Carter -- secretly deems his first priority to be winning a second term. Kerry knows that moving too far to the right, even if he were so inclined, would threaten his re-nomination.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
There should really be a mod option for "I really shouldn't be laughing", or "its funny cause I can see it happening"
Brain
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
I guess this article has been put in the "Your Rights Online" to be pushed in the face of the ppl who let politics out of their /. homepage ...
#include "coucou.h"
She loves me: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0 She loves me not: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688BF
At this point it's not even a question of being better, so long as the badness is different, we have a chance of recovering from some of the damage Bush has done to our standing as a sane nation. If we reelect Bush, we are confirming to the world that 'We the people of the United States of America agree with and aprove of the actions taken by George W. Bush'.
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
On the other hand, we need Badnerick or someone else whose issues are civil liberties. I'm still weighing things to see if I can risk voting Libertarien this year.
Realities just a bunch of bits.
Right to bear arms is a fundamental Civil Right in the US. Kerry is awful in this department.
...
I'm voting for Badnarik, and we need a strong third party to help create a new, healthier political system without these two bought and paid for parties that "represent"
However, I want to be free from Mobocracy, and believe in a constitutional republic with armed civilians and with NONE of the rights being collective, all being individual.
The right to speak freely, pursue religion, marry a dog or same sex, freedom from illegal warrants and searches (like the Patriot Act provides) is married to the right to bear arms. I refuse to allow people who champion certain civil rights portray themselves and activists when the support communist/fascist notion of a Totalitarian state, the collective right - in most cases would be totalitarians disguise their fear of an armed public by saying the Framers intended the right to bear as collective, thoroughly disproved in the Federalist Papers and by many quotes from the framers and reflected in the Framer's respective state constitutions.
When thinking of the words of Rand and Kozinski, why is it that the only people who truly appreciate America escaped from Totalitarian communist regimes?
To quote Alex Kozinski - he said history would be vastly different had American slaves or Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto been able to arm themselves.
"The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - where the government refuses to stand for re-election and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees," wrote Judge Kozinski, a native of Romania. "However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once," he wrote.
And to those fools who speak of any right being collective; here is Ayn Rand to the rescue: "If you accept the Totalitarian idea, if the words "State" or "Collective" are sacred to you, but the word "Individual" is not -- stop right here. You don't have to read further. What we have to say is not for you -- and you are not for us. Let's part here -- but be honest, admit that you are a Totalitarian and go join the Communist Party or the German-American Bund, because they are the logical end of the road you have chosen, and you will end up with one or the other, whether you know it now or not.
-- That each man has inalienable rights which cannot be taken from him for any cause whatsoever. These rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
-- That the right of life means that man cannot be deprived of his life for the convenience of any number of other men.
-- That the right of liberty means freedom of individual decision, individual choice, individual judgment and individual initiative; it means also the right to disagree with others.
-- That the right to the pursuit of happiness means man's freedom to choose what constitutes his own private, personal happiness and to work for its achievement; that such a pursuit is neither evil nor reprehensible, but honorable and good; and that a man's happiness is not to be prescribed to him by any other man nor by any number of other men.
-- That these rights have no meaning unless they are the unconditional, personal, private possession of each man, granted to him by the fact of his birth, held by him independently of all other men, and limited only by the exercise of the same rights by other men.
-- That the only just, moral and beneficent form of society is a society based upon the recognition of these inalienable individual rights.
-- That the State exists for Man, and no Man for the State.
-- That the greatest good for all men can be achieved only through the voluntary cooperation of free individuals for mutual benefit, and not through a compulsory sacrifice of all for all.
-- Th
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
I think one thing to remember is that if Kerry wins, he almost certainly will be dealing with a Republican Congress. And that means that draconian anti-privacy legislation is unlikely to get a fast track from either party. And that is all good in my book!
media girl
Ronald Reagan almost won the Republican primary against incumbent Ford. With the Clinton's power over the Democratic party, I think it would be very easy for Hillary to knock off Kerry in the 2008 primary. She could run either to the left or right of Kerry depending on how he screws everything up.
"Partly as a result of [Clinton's], but also in part due to the strong economy, welfare use plummeted, work rose dramatically among single parents, and poverty was reduced.". Republicans and Democrats are not equal. Find a new riff.
Bush is for it, he gets my vote.
I have personally been involved in developing IT services for Foreign Companies, Foreign Governments, and International Organizations. Anyone who is against free trade in services loses my vote. And for the economy as a whole, service exports (insourcing) are increasing much faster than service imports (outsourcing).
Kerry is not the perfect, ideal candidate of libertarians. Who'd have thunk it?
Next thing you know, some nutcase will be claiming that plurality voting requires voters to make compromises. Compromise is for weenies.
Sure, it's impractical and probably contrary to your interests in practical terms, but the symbolic gesture will buoy you with a smug sense of moral superiority for years: I say, cast your ballot for the candidate who you agree with completely on everything.
That's why I'm casting a write-in vote for myself.
Yet, somehow, the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq monthly hasn't been declining at all since the beginning of the war (not that it's been going up significantly either).
Worldwide bloodshed might be going down, but -our- body count in Iraq isn't.
1107 and counting, people.
http://icasualties.org/oif/
I'm not entirely sure but I think if any candidate manages to get 3% of the popular vote he'll receive some federal funding for the next campaign.
... and five, ten years down the road, they win!
And then what?
Maybe if you're really, really, lucky, your candidate will gain popular support
A third party president! How exciting!
And then what?
The two major parties are going to start nipping at the heels of your platform, reorganizing their own positions to eat into your party's base. You'll have to compromise, build coalitions, to remain in power. Eventually, the political coalition-building will tip to the point where one of the three parties is no longer viable.
And, voila, after all your hard work, after all those votes that sacrificed immediate advantage for the long-term hopes, you're right back where you started: two parties, both of them sprawling coalitions that don't really please anybody all that much, but please about half the population juuuust enough.
Even if you win, you lose.
This already happened once. Back in the 1850s, the Democrats and the Whigs where the two major parties. A third party came along, got their candidate elected, chaos ensued, and within five years, the Whigs were defunct, with the political boundaries redrawn, but only two parties left. That third party was the Republicans.
Yes, ponder that: the Republicans were once a third party.
The problem is, you can't escape Duverger's law: as long as we have plurality votes, we'll only have two viable parties, except in times of extreme political chaos.
OMG, wish I had some points to spend on you..... talk about FUD.
This is like saying that Linux will never achieve the Desktop...
That Linus will be thrown in jail for conspiracy
That Apple Pie will be banned
That baseball will be declared to be a communist sport...
point made?
Yes, basically you are an imbecile and incompetent to boot...
Nothing you describe will come to pass.. because we have checks and balances... if not a reasonable president....
FUD, pure and simple... not interesting at all.....
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
So after watching Ashcroft abuse the DMCA, Kerry pushed USA-PATRIOT, then was surprised that Ashcroft abuses it?
This is the guy criticizing Bush for lack of foresight?
Ed Craig "Who cares what you think?" George W. Bush, 4th of July 2001
And even then, with an unelected President, Reagan could only manage "almost won the Republican Primary".
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
<Comical Ali> I now inform you that there are no civil liberties issues here and your civil rights are completely unaffected by our legislation. </Comical Ali>
The sad thing is, when we heard this sort of spin during the Iraq invasion, you couldn't help but be amused, in a disturbed kind of way. When we hear it from a western world leader, far too many people just don't think about it and lap it up. Some of the mods of, and other replies to, your post are scary.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Dont hold your breath for much to change with the DMCA. This was a radical change to copyright laws that have existed for an eon, and this was passed in the Senate on a VOICE VOTE. Those gutless Republicans and Democrats didnt even have the honor to show their constituents what their voting record on this issue was. If they cannot even fess up to it, how can you expect it to change in ANY administration? Money buys everybody, on both sides of the aisle.
So, let's compare the number of off-shored jobs to the total number of jobs in the US (including burger flippers and such).
Why, it will take 7,000 years to replace all of those jobs at the current rate of off-shoring.
Nevermind that we're not talking about off-shoring burger flipping, just manufacturing and software and such. You know, the jobs that pay better than burger flipping and coffee-serving.
Actually, education does not help.
As long as the people willing to do the job for less money have the education sufficient to do that job, you having more education will not get that job for you.
I'd start by killing any "free trade" with any country that cannot meet or exceed our levels of worker and environmental protections (they move up, we don't move down). It isn't equal if they don't have the same protections. Then it is just a race to find the people with the fewest protections so they can be exploited.
The presidency is not a horse race. The winner is not a foregone conclusion with voters "placing bets". Your vote decides the outcome. If you and your friends and their friends vote for Badnarik, then he will win, just as assuredly as Kerry would win if you vote for him or Bush if you vote for him. If you don't vote for what you believe, you'll never get what you want. It's not as if Bush/Kerry is going to pay more attention to what you say since you voted for him - he'll just be laughing all the way to the White House.
PS You want Condorcet, not IRV.
Constitutionally Correct
Dr. Paul is only one I know of that's consistently pro-America and pro-liberty. There are a few others that are good on their pet issues. Tancredo on immigration reform, for instance.
Constitutionally Correct
Those that have not woken up yet are not going to wake up.
Until it is them being abused, most people are more then happy to accept the government's claim that the people it is abusing are "bad" people who want to hurt the "good" people in this country.
It all comes down to emotion. Once you can get someone to react emotionally, they tend to turn off the logical portion of their brain. Find out what scares people and you can control them.
That's why Bush and Co are running those wolf ads in the swing states. The US citizens aren't getting any smarter but the political parties are getting smarter about packaging their candidates.
Repeat after me, too: "The President is not in the Judicial Branch. The President is not in the Judicial Branch."
Civics lesson (continued from the Eighth Grade): Once a bill is voted on and passed by both Houses of Congress, the President either signs it into law or he vetoes it. He can either explicitly veto it, or he can simply ignore it (called a "pocket veto").
Once he signs it, there is little else (as in nada, zip, nuthin') he or a successor can do on his own but enforce it.
He can ask Congress to alter the law, which follows the above process.
He can have his Department of Justice bring suit in the courts to have the law struck down, but then the DOJ is just another party in a lawsuit. The judge can decide the case either for or against the DOJ's side, and even if the judge sides with the DOJ it doesn't mean the law will be struck down (i.e., the case can just be decided on its merits or some other way that doesn't affect the law).
sigs, as if you care.
Right to bear arms is a fundamental Civil Right in the US. Kerry is awful in this department.
.50 caliber machine guns, bazookas, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft Stinger missiles, or nuclear weapons. Nothing in the Second Amendment precluded state or federal laws which ban or limit the sale of certain types of weapons. Nor is it unconstitutional to prevent convicted felons from owning firearms. Get over it.
What utter fscking BS. Kerry is a gun owner and a hunter. He has never advocated taking all guns away from Americans.
You are just another one-issue deluded voter who wants to twist "a well regulated militia" into unregulated ownership of any and all weapons capable of killing people. Well here's a clue for you: The founding fathers didn't intend for you to be able to buy
And before you make an ass of yourself in your reply, know that I just went to a gun show in the last few weeks and bought a Yugoslavian M-24/47 Mauser (8x57mm) to add to my collection, so don't try to paint me as some kind of anti-gun extremist.
I'll even go further then argue Kerry voted for the Patriot Act.
HE ACTUALLY AUTHORED PROVISIONS IN IT! AND SO DID JOHN EDWARDS!
But let's get past the political hackery that Reason is promoting... "WHAAA! John Kerry voted for the Act, and now he's criticizing it, how can you trust him!? Whaaaaa!!!!" It's an amazingly thoughtless critique, even more so intellectually dishonest in that it criticizes Kerry for criticizing the Act.
But the truth of the matter is the Patriot Act wasn't a well thought out bill, or one that was even debated thoroughly. What it was, was a collection of hundreds of little issues that various Congresscritters had brought up over the years, all jammed together. So when Kerry and Edwards wrote parts of it, they wrote the parts which deal with dealing with money launderers and things like that.
And when they criticize it, they're complaining about the parts that allow the FBI to search your Library checkout records.
And GW Bush would have you believe the opposite, that Kerry and Edwards are complaining about the parts they themselves wrote.
The truth is... Parts of the Act are Good, and parts are Bad. AND THAT IS WHY JOHN KERRY IS SUGGESTING WE REVIEW IT!
The reason.com article is intellectually dishonest in suggesting otherwise.
Harry Browne refused to take his qualified matching funds in 2000 as any good Libertarian would. If we ever do win, it will be precisely because we DONT suckle at the federal troughs with all the other pigs. A lib in NJ also qualified for state fund and did take them. The LP current stance is to let the individual candidate decide to make the takings, but no Lib that takes the blood money will ever get my vote. We want to win, but not by using YOUR money to do it.
They also have Libertarian, Green, Independant and many other choices.
Yet I have not seen much interest in other candidates aside from their usual supporters.
I find it difficult to believe that they are "energized" to fight Bush, but then give up after only looking at Kerry.
From:
h tm l
http://blog.johnkerry.com/blog/archives/000791.
"As part of his 100 day plan to change America, John Kerry will propose a comprehensive service plan that includes requiring mandatory service for high school students"
But they are only "energized" enough to look at one other candidate and not to start pushing a 3rd candidate.
I saw more energy then that with Dean's campaign PRIOR to the nomination.
How are the people so "energized" that they have to nominate someone who "de-energized" them and then complain about him?
Neither major U.S. party has rejected an incumbent President a nomination for a second term, if he has sought one, in over 100 years.
Perhaps because no incumbent President in over 100 years who has sought nomination for a second term has moved very far from his party's position?
Taken in that light it becomes a meaningless statistic.
Don't you ever call yourself a real gun owner.
I'll call myself anything that choose and you can look down the barrel of any shotgun, rifle, or pistol that I own if you doubt that I'm a real gun owner.
He voted yes on legislation to ban ALL CENTERFIRE.
Liar. It was a ban only on armor piercing bullets: "a projectile for a centerfire rifle, designed or marketed as having armor piercing capability, that the Attorney General determines, pursuant to section 926(d), to be more likely to penetrate body armor than standard ammunition of the same caliber." 34 of 97 Senators present voted in favor of that legislation, so don't try to portray Kerry as wildly out of step with the mainstream.
John Kerry gets an F in Civil rights because the NRA give him an F on his voting record. PERIOD. END.
I have zero respect for the NRA since fringe element nuts like Wayne LaPierre and Tanya Metaksa shifted it to the kind of organization that attracts kooks, so don't waste your time quoting what the NRA has said about Kerry. Not interested. PERIOD. END.
You are a horribly uniformed voter and you will lead to totalitarianism in the USA. You could never be a Libertarian with your communist views on Gestapo like agencies like the Treasury, BATF, FBI and totalitarian LEOs crushing the American people with superior {snip}
You support totalitarianism and your position is indefensible. Maybe when you are being shoved into a crematorium by an Islamo-fascist alive you'll finally realize what an ass you are.
If you honestly believe what you wrote, then you need psychiatric help. The paranoid, delusional rantings you've posted are way outside any definition of normalcy and sanity. It's really sad that you are going through your life so afraid. You don't have to. Seek professional help and your life might really turn around.
Now go talk to those people. See how many of them blame Clinton for the recession and how many of them claim that the economy is improving now because of Bush. But whatever you do, don't vote for Kerry because he will only make it worse. Fear a Kerry administration.
And they blame Clinton and believe Bush will fix it. But whatever you do, don't vote for Kerry because he will only make it worse. Fear a Kerry administration.
It's all about the Fear.
I want to cut your legs off with a machete and feed them to dogs, you fuckign ANTI-GUN-NUT. Your treason against my civil rights is noted. You have been slated to have your legs removed by a knife and fed to dogs. That is the fate you deserve for treason against me.
Okay, I've been trolled. I admit it. At first I thought that you were serious (nutty, but serious) and now I see that you were just trolling. Good one.
Kerry flip_flops in his imitable manner in this one article.
John Berlau seemed to be rambling, but it was actually John Kerry zig_zagging and flip_flopping.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
When I come to kill you, it will be with a quantity of battery acid, duct tape, chloroform, an electric meat cutting blade.
You'll wish I'd have used a gun to kill you. Right before you die, you'll be begging to be coup de gras with a gun.
You really are pretty good at the trolling, but you might want to look for another mark. As I read that, I just imagined some scrawny 14 year old kid at a keyboard pecking away after getting his ass kicked again at school. Whatever floats your boat.
no one I have ever met thinks Kerry is pro gun.
.50 caliber bolt guns are banned in CA. The rounds cost $3-$6 per round, .50BMG, and the gun weighs 40+ lbs, and the guns cost $2200 and up. Never has one been used in a crime. But they are banned.
Kerry, unlike Bush, does not have a black and white view of the world. He isn't pro or anti gun. Nor am I. I think that there is a right for the citizenry as a whole to own guns, but I do not think that such a right is Constitutionally mandated to be unlimited in scope.
There is no rhyme or reason to most gun laws.
Nuclear weapons have never been used in crimes, but they, too, are banned for private ownership. The rationale for the bans is two-fold:
1. How much have they been used in crimes?
2. How dangerous would they be in the wrong hands?
Now the politicians don't always get this right and that assualt weapons ban was a good example of that. Many people from both sides will agree on that.
All gun legislation has one goal in mind. It is another step closer to a total and complete ban,
I disagree completely with that. Legislation requiring background checks is to keep guns out of the wrong hands. So is legislation which seeks to prevent those convicted of domestic abuse from owning guns. I'd support legislation that banned unsafe "junk guns", grenade launchers, bazookas, and shoulder fired missiles, but I don't support legislation aimed at taking away all arms.
It's a mistake to subject all politicians to a 'Second Amendment Purity Test' in which any vote limiting any kind of arms ownership results in a failing grade. Don't just assume that everyone who votes for a ban on certain types of weapons is trying to take away all guns. In most cases, they aren't.
Hearing statements like this worry me about your sanity. I can't imagine a situation occuring where a militant group could ever have any hope of overthrowing the US government, or even affecting any kind of change. Your "right to bear arms" extend to at best, a rifle, and that isn't going to achieve much against tanks, planes, and a well trained US military. Groups like that will always be quickly (and rightly) labeled as terrorist groups and have little or no public sympathy. As long as the US remains a democracy, change (though usually slow) will be possible through peaceful means. You have to remember that the founding fathers were just a little bit radical, which isn't surprising considering they had just rebelled against a very powerful nation, were traitors, and were advocating what at the time was a very different form of government. Taking seriously the suggestion that a revolution is something we should have fairly regularly is a not-so-great idea in my opinion. Just like any source, you can't take everything every founding father said as gospel on how things should be done hundreds of years later.
I'm Flamebait - you're Flamebait - this WHOLE DAMN ELECTION is Flamebait! If only mod retards were fire retardant...
--
make install -not war
John Kerry thinks he can win this election by simply not being George Bush. He is in for a big surprise.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
What I don't understand is:
Kerry was and still is in position to submit Bills to Congress to enact the concepts he champions on the campain trail and yet he chooses not to do so.
He harps on Bush for letting the Assault Weapons ban expire as if Bush can implement new law.
Yet, Kerry has/had the power to introduce a Bill to Congress to extend the ban.
If it is such a big deal to Kerry, why doesn't he do this?
I think Kerry doesn't do this because that would mean having an Ideal he cannot change to get what he wants - The Presidency.
TIME is the Aether...
You don't know what you're talking about. Politicians don't "cause" economic growth and prosperity; the best they can do is to get out of the way. They can cause economic ruin by intervening in the free market, regulating, inflating the monetary supply, taxing, and telling others how to run their lives; but they cannot cause economic prosperity.
Democrats and Republicans are the two sides of the same coin: the Welfare/Warfare State. Both support various socialist interventions into the free market (it's just a matter of whether those interventions are Communist, such as welfare, or Fascit in nature, such as corporate subsidies at the taxpayer's expense).
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
This is an example of a liberal losing an argument.
No, this is an example of a liberal realizing that his opponent, who has threatened his life, is a nut case.
This isn't about patriotism, this is about treason. His thinking is treasonous
Oh no! I'm guilty of a thought crime!
If you think that I've committed treason, then turn me in. Otherwise, shut up and go away.
14 year olds cant buy guns. I can.
But I thought that everyone had a Constitutional right to bear arms. Why not a 14 year old?
I'm so far past school and your level of thinking its unreal.
I'll grant that your thinking is not based on reality.
Maybe if you owned a small business you would start disliking Kerry a bit more.
Maybe if my small business had survived George W. Bush, I'd start liking him a bit more. It did fine under Clinton, but didn't survive Bush. There have been more small business failures since GWB took office than can be counted. The economy has lost jobs. Pay is down. The national debt is at a record as is deficit spending. Consumer confidence is down. Each U.S. household is in debt for the Iraq war to the tune of well over $1,000.
You want small businesses to prosper? Cut middle class taxes to stimulate consumer spending.
Amazingly, now that you have linked to it, the page is "Not Found".
Kerry gets a "F" from all the major gun advocacy/civil rights groups.
I thought that the ACLU thought highly of him.
Being Brady (which is unconstitutional
Says who? The Supreme Court? If it's so clearly unconstitutional, why didn't the NRA challenge it in court?
Being a Kerry is flat out gun grabbing totalitarian.
Please, give me a list of people from whom he has taken guns.
Baseball bats, golf clubs and knives are dangerous in the wrong hands.
Would you rather have a mentally unbalanced person show up on a busy street with a golf club or a fully automatic AK-47 with a 100 round drum?
People who have nothing to argue take the analogies to the extremes. No gun owners I know want RPGs, Nuclear weapons, tanks or artillery.
People who want to make a point use extreme analogies to do so. Either arms control is reasonable or it is not. If it's okay to say that someone can't have a shoulder-fired Stinger missile, then the right to bear arms is not absolute and laws can establish limits. Besides, this isn't about the people you know. It's about everyone. Bill Gates can afford a nuclear missile, so does the 2nd Amendment mean that he's got a right to buy one if he wants?
Legislation is about two things: control and distrust of the public.
It's possible to trust the public as a whole and not trust each member of it individually. It only takes one nut-case with a fully automatic AK-47 with a 75 round drum to kill an incredible number of people in a drive-by shooting. Sure, he can kill people with a Glock or a baseball bat, but it's a lot fewer people. So we try to come up with laws that do the least harm to sportsmen, homeowners, and even gun enthusiasts while limiting the damage that one deranged person can do.
You are guilty of treason, you are wrong.
What happened to presumed innocence? If you think that I've committed treason, then turn me in to the authorities. If they prosecute, then you have a case. If not, you're just making unfounded, defamatory postings.
Firearms are completely banned in DC, yet you think this is reasonable?
No, I do not. And unlike the right-wingers, I think that it is wrong that D.C. residents have taxation without representation. Will you back an amendment granting DC two Senators and Congressional representation? They have more population than Wyoming and about the same as Vermont, so why should they get no representation?
So your biz tanked because it was a bad idea.
Yeah, software engineering and consulting was a bad idea. Sure.
Now you blame Bush. HAHAHAHA.
Double standard! It's okay for you to say that Kerry could hurt your small business but it's wrong for me to say that Bush could hurt mine.
I started a new business just 15 months ago and everything is going just fine.
And what does your business do? Is it your sole means of support? What's the web page of your business?
Funny how every person I know who runs a small business did just fine.
Try looking at statistics rather than polling your buddies.
No. You lost.
The original poster said that Kerry tried to ban all centerfire bullets and I pointed out that it was a ban only on armor piercing bullets. He never responded to that and instead went into an unreasoned tirade. Thus, he lost.
And you were teh first one to give out death threats.
I wrote "I'll call myself anything that choose and you can look down the barrel of any shotgun, rifle, or pistol that I own if you doubt that I'm a real gun owner." Where is the death threat? I said that he "can look down", not that I would make him or that I would hunt him down. Nice try.
If you submit your information here I will get a prosecutor to come after you no problem.
Slashdot has my IP address and the feds can get a warrant if there's cause, so turn me in big man. Go ahead. Why don't you give me your name and address? Post it right here, big man.
I couldnt buy new "assault weapons" for years because of Kerry and his cohorts in the Senate. I hold him responsible for blocking the ownership of large cap mags and denying me the right to purchase many firewarms I wanted from 1994 until now.
But he did not prevent you from owning and buying guns -- only from getting certain types and models of guns and gun accessories. You could still go down to your local Walmart and buy a shotgun or rifle, couldn't you? So you could still have been part of a well regulated militia, right?
The ACLU is anti gun.
The NRA is pro gun.
The ACLU is a special interest group with no absolute understanding of civil rights.
The NRA is a special interest group with absolutely no understanding of civil rights. The ACLU is a special interest group about civil rights. That's their main focus and they understand it well.
Well, thank god most people elect intelligent congressman and senators that dont vote along with Kerry, Feinstein and Schumer.
It was Schumer who said "The broad principle that there is an individual right to bear arms is shared by many Americans, including myself."
You sucked at being a consultant and a software engineer. You never wrote anything of value.
Actually, I was damned good at both and am still employed (though not self-employed) as a software engineer working under someone who hired me previously as a consultant. Code that I wrote has been used for everything from NIR spectrophotometry to satellite communications.
What makes you think I trust you not to actually give out death threats to me and firebomb my business!
What a pathetic cop-out. You didn't even answer the questions of what your business did or whether it was your sole means of support.
I know the statistics, and things are looking up. The economy had a cycle end that was independant of who was president and exacerbated by 9/11.
Bush was the first President in over 70 years to lose jobs. The markets are down. Oil prices are up. Wages are down. Deficits are at an all-time high. It's not a regular economic cycle and it's fucking pathetic how you Republicans will use the deaths of about 3,000 people as an excuse for your pathetic failed economic policies. The World Trade Center was destroyed. Not all of New York. Not all of Los Angeles. You people have no ethics.
All centerfire bullets can be made AP. The law was written in a way that if it could be AP, its banned.
Wrong again. The law was just as I quoted: "a projectile for a centerfire rifle, designed or marketed as having armor piercing capability, that the Attorney General determines, pursuant to section 926(d), to be more likely to penetrate body armor than standard ammunition of the same caliber." Did you see the "more likely...than standard ammunition of the same caliber" part?
I know a few lawyers who could make life miserable for you, so do it. Let me see you post up a name & address.
After the threats that you've made against my life? Yeah, right. You said that I committed treason, so turn me in for it. The feds could get a warrant for Slashdot & my ISP to identify me in a heartbeat -- but then you know that. You're full of shit and just want a name and address so that you can harass me, vandalize my home, commit arson, or even attempt violence. Hell, you're such a pathetic coward that you post anonymously.
Youre they guy with the small penis
Your interest in the size of my penis is disturbing.
No. You sidestepped the firearms ban and talked of people voting and being represented illegally.
You are a lying sack of shit. Here's the exchange:
You wrote: "Firearms are completely banned in DC, yet you think this is reasonable?"
I replied: "No, I do not. And unlike the right-wingers, I think that it is wrong that D.C. residents have taxation without representation."
You asked. I answered in no uncertain terms. Now admit that you lied or that you lack reading comprehension.
You are too much of a fucking pussy to reveal yourself, there are many others watching this thread, waiting to find out who you are so we can campaign against you.
That's coming from someone who posts as "anonymous coward." What a hypocritical little wuss you are!
Taking your words out of context to try and sugar coat them.
That's all that I wrote on the subject. I didn't separate that sentence from a longer paragraph. There were no sentences before it and none after it. Read it yourself if you doubt me.
Who the fuck are you to decide what should and shouldn't be legal.
Who are you to decide? You're the one telling me that no guns should be illegal.
If you ever attempt to take guns away from the people more than has already been done (believe me, FuckHead, 1934, 1968 and 1986 are FUCKING PLENTY, no FUCK OFF).
That's not even a sentence, you illiterate fuck.
Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.
Idiot. What's next, holding your breath until you turn blue?
You believe in the state crushing the people.
I support waiting periods for handguns and background checks because I want the state to crush me. That makes a lot of sense.
I am a Jew for the Preservation of Firearms, how could I be a Nazi!
Ever heard the term "self-hating jew"? It fits you well.
You skipped your meds again, didn't you?
You accused me earlier of planning to perform a drive by shooting with an AK with a drum. You fucking accused me of planning to do that!
Liar. Quote the passage or admit that you are a liar.
Now, you just called me a Jew.
You wrote "I am a Jew for the Preservation of Firearms." I just responded to that.
You must be a Jew hater.
You used the term Jew first, so I'll assume that you're the Jew hater.
By the way, I know who you are. We've spoken before. Your pathetic ploy of calling everyone who disagrees with you a Nazi makes it obvious.
You never wrote any code. You cant prove it. You lie about being a coder.
As you say, "I have nothing to prove to you." As to being a "coder", I'm a software engineer.
I have nothing to prove to you. I know what my resume says, and what yours doesn't.
You know nothing of my resume or credentials, coder boy.
I've fired better people than you.
Sure you have. Like anyone would put you in charge of others. What a joke!
Oil is up because demand is up.
Sure. It has nothing to do with the situation that Bush caused in Iraq that paralyzed their oil industry.
Oil is commodity sold by OPEN and other nations
I've never heard of the nation of "OPEN."
And your tree hugging liberal assholes caused the Oil Hegemony of today by resisting Nuclear power with self centered Volvo Driving NIMBY bike bath not in my back yard attitude towards nuclear power. You caused it, now live with it, Hippy scum.
I've been a proponent of nuclear energy for over two decades. But you right wing conservative assholes have been resisting any kind of pollution regulation that would force a switch from dirty oil and coal burning powerplants to nuclear. Bush and Cheney are yet another pair in the long list of right-wing dicks who want to keep the oil and coal industries rolling in money.
Id like to note about the deficit, you don't chart the spending deficit against the size of the total economy. The reason federal spending is higher now than ever before is because the economy has been growing at about 3% year for a long time. What % is the current deficit compared to the size of the economy?
We have a deficit of over $440 billion under Bush in an economy that has lost jobs with a stock market that's dropped by 10% since he took office. Under Clinton, we had a surplus by the time that he finished up in office. Funny how the 3%/year "growth" hasn't happened under Bush.
Outline failed policies. Explain how Bush has made the USA a worse place to do business.
1. Rather than stimulating consumer spending by giving big tax cuts to those of moderate incomes, the majority of his tax cuts went to the wealthy. Hiring happens when businesses grow to satisfy demand for their goods/services -- and the people who drive spending are those of moderate income. The leading association of small business, the American Small Business Alliance (ASBA), released the following statement on the President's 2003 tax cut: "President Bush's newly enacted $350 billion economic plan is the wrong policy at the wrong time for America and the nation's small businesses...Leading economists assert the plan will have almost no stimulus effect and will inevitably force massive budget cuts in the future."
2. He caused an increase in oil prices by destabilizing Iraq, which both reduced their oil output while causing concern among investors who drove prices up.
3. He devastated many small businesses by calling up reservists for one tour of duty after another with no tax breaks or other compensation for the affected businesses.
4. Despite everyone knowing that world demand for oil was going up, Bush did nothing to increase U.S. vehicle fuel economy, choosing, instead, to give money to big oil for research into hydrogen fueled vehicles, something which has no chance of having any near-term payoff. As a result, businesses are struggling with higher fuel costs for fleets, higher shipping, more expensive airline tickets, etc.
5. He sided with big drug companies in dragging his feet on importation of cheaper drugs from Canada. This increased health care costs.
6. Because Bush's Iraq war has increased animosity towards the U.S. throughout the world, consumers in other countries are avoiding U.S. branded products like McDonalds, Coca Cola, and Nike. According to a study by NOP World, the percentage of consumers worldwide who "use" US brands was found to have falle
Well, why would I, a law abiding person, not be able to pruchase an AK with a drum?
1. Most guns used in crimes are stolen. Your AK-47 with a drum could end up in the hands of criminals were your house to be burglarized.
2. That you are law abiding now does not mean that you always will be. Everyone starts out as a law-abiding citizen.
Why would I, a law abiding person, not be able to purchase C4, hand grenades, and dynamite?
You, by preventing me from having it, assume I will do a drive by with an AK with a drum.
So I never actually accused you of anything. You made that up.
Throughout this threat I have felt anti-semetism.
You "felt" it? Wow, you really are way out there, aren't you? You need to get your paranoia treated.
Now this proves you hates Jews.
Believing your claim that you are Jewish proves that I hate Jews?
As to knowing who I am, I know you know who I am.
It wasn't a tough guess given your paranoid 'I'm-a-victim' rantings. And it's not like normal people have ever accused me of anti-semetism.
When you reporting me to your Waffen SS Einzatgruppen commander for gassing in the truck?
Sorry, but I'm not even familiar with what "Einzatgruppen" means. Unlike you, I am not trying to relive WWII, imagining evil enemies, spies, and assassins around every turn, all in an effort to spice up an otherwise dull life.
All laws to try and keep criminals from having guns have failed.
Untrue. According to an NBC News report on Sept. 8, 1994, a spokesman for the Georgia Bureau of Investigations said that in the first 6 months that the Brady law was in effect, there were 40,846 background checks on gun applicants, 11,962 of which had criminal histories (almost 30%), causing them to be rejected. Furthermore, approximately 1000 of them were wanted on criminal charges or out on bail. That's 5 wanted criminals a day put away by the Brady law. The BATF Statistics indicate that, nationwide, 5% of the applicants have been rejected because of prior criminal convictions detected by the background check mandated by the Brady law.
You are a certified anti-semite. Anyone who takes guns from a Jew is planning to kill them in the ovens.
I hope that you recognize how totally insane that statement is.
I never doubted you were an idiot you doesn't know anything about recent/modern history.
I know quite a bit about modern history, but I'm not obsessing about the Nazis to the point of studying their military command structure and titles like you do.
Since when do perons who did a crime no longer have civil rights.
When it is a felony, they lose various rights, including the right to vote in some states, and the right to bear arms. It's been that way for many years. Just like pedophiles not being allowed to teach in public schools after their release from prison.
5 people caught while tens of thousands denied the right to buy a gun without the government stamping you like meat with a seal iof approval.
No, that's your poor reading comprehension. 5 people per day. I've not had trouble buying guns since the Brady Bill was passed. Just what kind of background do you have? Domestic violence conviction? Felony sex offender? Maybe I don't want to know.
You are a Totalitarian Jew Killer.
Not yet.
Your totalitarian leanings shows you know nothing of Mao, Stalin and Hitler.
Gee, only a few posts back, you were saying I was a Nazi. A Nazi who knows nothing of Hitler? Wow, that's a new one.
Just a little liberal faggot
Nothing like a little right-wing bigotry and homophobia.
Watch the little twit flip out when Bush wins next Tuesday.
Bush will probably win because education levels are dropping. In Bush/Gore, Bush was the overwhelming favorite in the states with the lowest education level while Gore took those with the highest.
So now you claim jurisprudence means that you can look in unrelated case law for contextual definition of words to effect your current case?
There was no "contextual definition" of anything. There was a recognition, by the court, of the concept of "limited infringement."
You wrote: "There is no degree of infringe. Either you are defined as infringing or not. There is no partial infringement or limited infringement."
In an earlier post, you wrote: "Now, I consider "shall not be infringed" to mean nothing else but what it says. Specifically, that means "without limitation".
I proved that the legal system recognizes that the word "infringe" is not a "boolean." I don't need to find a case about gun control to prove that. All I have to do is find any legal case in which the court recognizes the concept of partial or limited infringement. I did that. Now it's your job to find one which supports your position. Good luck.
You do not possess an engineering degree. No accredited institution has awarded you a degree in engineering, nor have you passed any of the engineering tests to become a certified engineer nor to you belong to IEEE.
The best and brightest didn't need degrees when I got into the field. Just ask Wozniak or Gates. I dropped out of college to do software engineering on Near Infrared Spectrophotometers using state of the art development tools (in-circuit emulators, high-speed scopes, high-end compilers and assemblers, etc.).
People like me control people like you because we are your intellectual masters and your arguments here make that easy to see.
You are just another drone at Apple, one of hundreds, if not thousands, of coders. You'll always be that -- just a "bit player" if you will.
've never heard of the nation of "OPEN."
OPEC. Sorry you can't use context to figure out meanings. I always thought you were that dumb.
I always knew that you were so stupid that you thought that OPEC was a nation.
Lies. Liberals are the champions of resisting nuclear power. You protested it.
No, I never protested it. You are a liar.
The economy has grown.
In what sense of the word? Jobs? No. Wages? No.
Wealthy people already pay the bulk to the taxes. If you cut taxes across the board, the people who pay the most get the most back.
And they don't spend it. That's why across-the-board tax cuts don't work to stimulate an economy.
Your friends, and John Kerry's friends, the terrorists, did that. Not Bush.
Bush attacked Iraq, not Kerry. Bush bombed the pipelines, not Kerry. Bush provoked the terrorists, not Kerry.
They volunteered to subject themselves to the possibility of being called to arms. The armed forces may be doing something unpopular, but it wasn't illegal to use the reserves.
I didn't say that it was illegal. I said that it hurt businesses.
Simple Economics shows that retooling GM's plant that makes 30 million cars a year will cost a too much to make the resulting cars affordable.
Gee, then how did American car companies thrive after CAFE was enacted?
If you want affordable fuel efficient cars, you will have to let financial experts plan it out, not reckless failed businessmen like yourself
You don't even have a business. You're just a drone working at Apple and will never have your own business.
By the way, less than 25% of the petrol used is from vehicles on the road. The rest is burned by heavy industry, and consumers like yourself drive that demand. Too bad you cant blame that on Bush either.
I already did. Rather than pushing nuclear (or "nuc-u-lar" as you ignorant conservatives say), you right-wingers resisted efforts to impose tougher pollution limits on oil burning powerplants so that they could remain in operation.
The drugs are cheap in Canada because the Canadian taxpayer SUBSIDIZES the cheap drug.
You really are completely ignorant, aren't you? The drug prices are not subsidized. They are negotiated by the government as part of the socialized medicine there.
Anti Americanism is simply the King of the Hill effect. You cant make the RoW happy by licking their boots, you must beat them. We have the largest economy in the world, second to only former enemies of ours, Japan and Germany namely. If you think the US is destined for failure, put your money where your mouth is - remind yourself you failed at business - and sell America short.
My business made me hundreds of thousands of dollars and I shut it down voluntarily with no monetary losses when the economy turned sour for software consulting. I do invest heavily in overseas companies and they are helping my stock portfolio immensely right now.
Funny, I've never been a beneficiary of the SBA.
That's because you are jus
The GOP has a history of civil rights.
That's why the NAACP is so strongly in favor of the GOP, eh?
Kerry is a flip flopping liar that betrayed America in Vietnam,
Kerry was honored for his service in Vietnam while Bush was getting arrested for DUI. Bush had daddy pull strings to keep him from going to 'nam and then he went AWOL, never fulfilling his commitment to the Air National Guard. Something about mandatory drug testing seemed to make him nervous. Like you, he's a coward.
Failures in business don't qualify for honorary degrees. Sorry.
I never failed in business. I opened a consulting business, raked in money for quite a few years, and closed the business down when I took W2 employment. I do not need the dick stroking of an honorary degree to validate my life.
Never worked at Apple in my life.
Sure John, whatever you say. Enjoy your little fantasy life and your imaginary company.
Not its a consortium of oil producing nations. You might want to find out the member states, you obviously don't know.
You were the one who said "Oil is commodity sold by OPEN[sic] and other nations." You didn't say "Oil is sold the the members of OPEC and other nations." And, by the way, OPEC doesn't sell oil.
The people you support protest nuclear power.
So first you lie and say that I protested nuclear power when I did not. Then when confronted, you claim that people I support protest nuclear power. Kerry's Web site states that "nuclear power can play an essential role in providing affordable energy while reducing the risk of climate change." His aides also say he is for nuclear power.
I know of no people with high tech expertise out of a job right now.
That says a lot about how few people are willing to deal with someone like you since tech sector unemployment is higher now than it has been in decades according to reputable statistics and analysts.
So it's okay to tax the rich more because they can afford it while your poster boy, Kerry, uses tax shelters?
Yes. Anyone, including you, is entitled to legally write off certain types of investments. If you put money into a 401K, that's a tax shelter and it's not "hiding" anything. John Kerry is for policies that will raise his taxes far more than yours. Unlike you, he's interested in the long-term good of the country, not just his own wallet. What's next? Criticizing him for writing off his charitable donations?
So we should just act like Neville Chamberlain and appear the Muslim terrorists, the new Hitler incarnate (who was a gun grabber like Kerry).
As the 9/11 panel stated in their report, Iraq had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Nor was Iraq linked to sponsoring Al-Qaeda. Face it: We attacked a sovereign nation, killing countless thousands of civillians, based on lies about "weapons of mass destruction." Now they hate us and that's doing more to fuel terrorism than anything else. In fact, there were more terrorist attacks last year than in any year in the past according to the government's own numbers.
We should have acted in concert with the U.N. and our allies. U.N. weapons inspections were taking place and our allies voted in favor of continuing those inspections. We should have let them run their course. Had we done that, we would have learned that there were no WMDs and could have avoided a war. But Bush wanted to attack and wasn't going to wait until his concocted reason for attacking was proven to be false.
There is an oil crisis looming and the US attempts to secure a huge oil field for long term strategy and you people bitch and whine.
It's just a giveaway to oil companies. Bush wants to hand over drilling rights in Alaska so that oil firms can sell the oil on the world market to the highest bidder. If China is willing to pay more, then the oil will go from Alaska to China. There's no guarantee that the oil will only be sold in the U.S. or that U.S. citizens will pay below-market rates for the oil extracted from those publically owned lands. The U.S. Geological Service says the amount of oil that could be recovered profitably in ANWR is roughly 3.2 billion barrels -- a six-month U.S. supply. Moreover, it would take 10 years for that oil to reach the pump, and even when production peaks in the year 2027, the refuge would produce less than 2 percent of the oil Americans are expected to use that year.
The latest I hear on the NAACP is that they are being audited by the IRS. This because they have endorsed political parties and candidates. But of course, this must be happening because evil Republicans are pulling strings, rather than the fact that the NAACP has violated the tax laws that govern their tax-exempt status.
And are you one of those people who feel that Bush somehow hasn't served four years as Commander-in-Chief?
How could he receive an Honorable Discharge without at minimum, fulfilling his commitment to the ANG?
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
Not everybody "gets" technology. I'd even make the claim that you don't have to "get" technology to be a good or even a great leader. Leadership is something orthogonal to technology. Dick Cheney's flub about factcheck.com versus the correct factcheck.org is a good example. Sure, it would have been nice for him to get it right, but it was a reasonable mistake, and made me realize how brittle this whole web system is for getting out information to people.
As far as vietnam veteran's rights go, you owe it to youself to find out what happened in 1971 when Kerry came back and started spewing falsehoods about his fellow soldiers. Seriously, when his own compatriats are calling what he did treason, you have to stop and think about it.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
Good job Sherlock, you uttered on of the most common English names ever.
Okay, then how about John C. Randolph (jcr@_INSERTED_TO_PREVENT_SPAM_idiom.com -- because, unlike you, I am not a dick). Sound a bit closer?
Open. Failed. Closed. Simple. To the point.
It's not failed if it made money, which it did. I could have kept it open had I chosen to aggressively pursue clients, but I had the business acumen to know that I was better off waiting out the tech sector bust in a W2 job and then reopening my consulting business.
OPEC doesn't have any effect on pricing. Yeah right. Your stupidity amazes me to no end.
You're the fucking idiot who first called OPEC a "nation" and then said that OPEC sells oil. It does not. It controls price and supply but does not sell anything.
You have supported people who oppose nuclear power. There is no question, this is by self admission.
You lied and said that *I* protested nuclear power. No, I never admitted anything of the kind, you liar.
None of which you can cite, none that cant be shown to show anything arbitrary by the survey taker.
The IEEE-USA analyzed BLS numbers and reported the following high-tech employment trends on July 26:
* The number of employed software engineers in the U.S. dropped from 856,000 in the first quarter of 2004 to 725,000 in the second quarter.
* The number of computer scientists and systems analysts dropped from 672,000 in the first quarter to 621,000 in the second. An average of 722,000 people were employed as computer scientists and systems analysts during 2003.
* The number of people working as computer programmers dropped from 591,000 in the first quarter to 575,000 in the second.
* The number of employed computer hardware engineers dropped from 86,000 to 83,000 from the first quarter to the second.
Kerry and Heinz stretched the legality of their deductions.
If they are illegal, prove it or STFU
The only charities he has given to is to Vietnam's communist party and through Theresa, several organizations linked to terrorism.
You lie and fabricate. Show any evidence for your statement, liar. In his 2003 federal return, Kerry reported charitable donations of $43,735 on a total income of $395,338. In 2002, Kerry made charitable contributions of $18,600 on a total income of $144,091. In 2001, Kerry gave $22,370 to charity on a total income of $137,499. In 2000, he gave $19,221 on a total income of $137,012. And in 1999, he contributed $21,955 to charity on a total income of $140,928. That's a lot better than the donations you have made to Israeli terrorist organizations.
Flawed thinking. Saddam was ineffectively punished by the UN and the oil flow was down and there is a resource war going on because of people like you who consume.
My VW Golf diesel gets 45mpg. What does your car get? As to your claim, why did oil prices skyrocket since our war on Iraq if it was just normal global demand for oil?
But Saddam would still be in power, and murdering people.
So you think it's fine for a President to lie in order to get support for wars that he wants to wage? Since you are someone who blatantly lies for personal gain, I'm not surprised that you'd take that view.
The UN is watching people get murdered in Darfur, they do nothing to stop murderers.
You'll notice that Darfur has no significant quantities of oil, so Bush and Cheney are perfectly happy ignoring the genocide there.
You create a demand for that resource.
As do you. And I'm willing to pay for it. If it goes to $8/gallon, I'll pay for that oil and won't recommend sucking our reserves dry while oil is still available on the world market.
You are a hypocrite to say you do not demand these products,
That was just another of your lies since I never said anything of t
Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) - U.S. employers probably added 175,000 workers to payrolls in October, the most in five months,
That's not even enough to keep up with immigration to the U.S. Nice try.
"according to a report from Tim Kane and Rea Hederman, analysts at the Heritage Foundation,
The Heritage Foundation's "mission" from their own web site:
Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute - a think tank - whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.
In other words, a bunch of right-wing assholes with a goal of promoting the Republican agenda.
I know what you are up to, you neo-Nazi loser. You announce that you are Jewish and then play into all of the bigoted stereotypes about Jews being obnoxious, arrogant, thinking they are better than everyone else, etc. in order to foment anti-semetism. Well, it won't work with me because I know way too many Jewish people to fall for your little scheme. Unlike you, they are decent, respectable people.
Sherlock. Wow, you are a "finder" aren't you?
It was easy. You have a unique combination of irrationality, ignorance, bigotry, paranoia, and cowardice.
There was only a bust for the incompetent or those seeking VC money. Real engineers always had a job the whole time. That wouldn't be you.
You aren't a "real engineer." You are just a low-level coder boy. Don't flatter yourself.
Only a fucking drooling mongoloid idiot would assume someone saying "OPEC" sells meant it literally.
Don't blame me for your inability to express yourself clearly. And please stop using offensive ethnic slurs, Nazi-boy.
No, you support anti-nuclear candidates.
But you lied and said that *I* protested nuclear power.
No information on retirements, no information on the fact less people are going into engineering now and the last few years. No fresh blood plus retirements. Simple.
Yes, you are simple if you believe that 15% of software engineers retired in one quarter. Moron.
Theresa giving to terrorist organizations is illegal in my book. A quick search of any news sources will highlight these blnuders[sic].
Here's a solid debunking of your idiotic claim.
No links. These are just numbers. Balderdash. Poppycock. Lies.
You provide no links because you are lying and no reputable links support your lies.
Your 45 mpg is your feel good excuse, no one cares what you do - it isn't fixing the problem.
Yes, it is fixing the problem. It's reducing world demand for oil.
Bush and Kerry saw the same intelligence. Kerry authorized force.
Kerry authorized Bush to use force in the hopes that Bush would be smart enough to use it to pressure Saddam.
His own medals. His own betrayal of America, his own voting record.
Kerry earned medals in Vietnam. Bush had daddy pull strings to keep him out of 'Nam, went AWOL from the Air National Guard, got busted for DUI, and snorted crack cocaine. And he's your boy!
No, the UN is perfectly happy doing nothing. People like you kick and scream like fucking pussies every time someone goes to free oppressed people an/or get resourced for the economy you leech off of.
Nice try at ducking the point, but Bush/Cheney are letting genocide occur in Darfur because there is no oil there. You may support attacking sovereign nations to steal their natural resources, but I do not.
Doesn't fix the root power problem. Foolish ignoramus response. You would fuck the working class you claim to love the MOST with this ridiculous elitist bullshit philosophy. How they supposed to get to work, Daddy Warbux?
By purchasing fuel-efficient cars, moron. That reduces demand, which results in lower oil prices.
Let's get one thing straight, you are the liar and the fact twisting sicko here, not me.
Nice try, but I caught you in yet another lie.
If it was economical, it would be competing already.
So why is Bush spending our tax money on hydrogen fueled cars? If they were economical, they would be competing already. People don't tend to buy cars that use biodiesel if biodiesel isn't readily available. Fuel station owners aren't going to sell biodiesel if there isn't much demand. That's why tax incentives can get the ball rolling -- much as Bush claims to be doing with hydrogen-fueled vehicles.
I wrote:{lies
Good. Maybe that will counter some of the Republican intimidation of black voters and the illegal efforts to refuse people their right to vote.
They've both been accused of corruption, clamping down on free speech, and tampering with elections. The big difference is that Putin still thinks that the war on Iraq was wrong.
Look at the facts from the 2000 election:
>These are the top ten states rated by percentage of residents over 25 with bachelor's degrees or higher and who they voted for:
1 Colorado Bush
Massachusetts Gore
Maryland Gore
Virginia Bush
Connecticut Gore
Minnesota Gore
New Hampshire Bush
New Jersey Gore
Vermont Gore
New York Gore
And now for the bottom ten states (those with the smallest percentage of residents over 25 with bachelor's degrees or higher):
Wyoming Bush
Kentucky Bush
Alabama Bush
Idaho Bush
Nevada Bush
South Carolina Bush
Mississippi Bush
Arkansas Bush
Indiana Bush
50 West Virginia Bush
So it looks like Gore was the strong favorite in states where the population was educated while Bush was the candidate of choice in states where education was low.
Bush attacked Kerry as a tax-and-spend liberal
Better to have a tax-and-spend liberal than a borrow-and-spend Republican.
Lies. 175,000 people do no arrive every month. Ding, tiwsted liar.
No, a mistake. Unlike you, when I make mistakes, I admit it. In 2003, just over 700,000 legal immigrants arrived in the U.S. Illegal immigrants is a huge number, also, though.
No, a bunch of people who, unlike you, rnu businesses that dont fail, like yours, and give out factual data through Bloomberg, a recognized source of quality information.
You don't seem to understand the difference between a quote and an editorial. When Bloomberg quotes someone from The Heritage Foundation, they are reporting that the person said something, not that what they said was factually correct.
"The great object is that every man be armed . . . Everyone who is able may have a gun." (Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution.)
Convicted felons and those who convicted of domestic violence will rejoice in that opinion, but it was one man's thoughts, not the law of the land. That's like quoting Kerry's interpretation of a law and declaring that interpretation as law.
Most of your thoughts on the gun control issue is simply you infringing on my right to bear arms. There is no time - you dont ask that I lock my assault weapons in a locker on Sunday. No, you grab them and take them away.
When did any assault weapons ban take guns away from you? When did federal agents show up to confiscate any gun you owned? More lies and distortions.
You never read the Federalist papers, and you have misrepresented the framer's intent, but why on earth do you think that after Amendment 1 comes Amendment 2? Why? Because the framers thought of those two rights as the most important.
And neither is without limitation. You can't scream "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. You can't use free speech as a defense when you reveal state secrets to foreign nationals. You can't falsely accuse someone of being a necrophiliac.
What a presumptious little man you are.
I'm a bigger man than you are.
Now you want to close the borders
Nope. I want the borders open to those who wish to become U.S. citizens.
to stop the tired hungry and poor from taking your job away because they are better qualified (not that hard when competing against you) and are more motivated.
My job could not be taken by by a non-U.S. citizen. It's code-monkeys like you who have to worry about being outsourced. My concern is that the economy is being harmed by outsourcing, not that my job is in danger.
So Bloomberg runs a perpetual OP-ED website.
No, Bloomberg runs a business-oriented website. Like the Wall Street Journal, they publish both news and editorials. In the case of the copyrighted news article that you posted, they quoted someone from The Heritage Foundation without taking an editorial position as to whether his take was correct or incorrect.
A (US federal) bill that passes both the House and Senate becomes law under only two conditions: 1. The president signs it into law, or 2. The bill gets at least a two-thirds vote in each house.
Where do you get that idea? From U.S. Const. I.7: "If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law."
A friend of mine sent me a link to the parent post, and I feel it necessary to state for the record:
1) I am not the AC with whom fmaxwell is having this argument. When I argue with someone, even if that argument escalates into a flamewar, I do not do so from the cover of anonymity.
2) I had a little dust-up here on slashdot with fmaxwell a few weeks back on the subject of H1-B visas. Anyone who's interested can track it down, I suppose. It's expired off of my recent posts lists, and I don't know offhand how to dig it up.
3) In the course of that discussion, I became convinced that fmaxwell is someone who loves to dish it out, but can't take it. I found his behavior disturbing, and have not responded to any of his posts since that time, until writing this particular message.
4) Unlike the AC with whom fmaxwell is arguing in this thread, I am entirely aware of what OPEC is and does. It is a trade cartel, whose members are some of the countries that sell oil on the global market.
As it happens, they are both are mistaken about the function of OPEC: OPEC is a forum in which the members negotiate production quotas (which they may or may not honor, there's always a lot of cheating going on), which quotas affect, but do NOT *determine* the price of oil. OPEC's members possess about 3/4 of the world's proven oil reserves, and they account for something less than half of the world's oil production. Oil prices change from minute to minute on the market, and are affected by many variables, including (for example) the state of the global economy, the weather, consumer demand for larger or smaller vehicles, changes in goverment policies, improvements in extraction technology by domestic suppliers, developments in alternative energy supplies, etc. (I learned a bit about the oil and other commodities markets when I worked on trading systems in NYC.)
Regarding the ANWR: I really don't have any strong feelings about it. Generally, I'm opposed to the practice that Teddy Roosevelt started of claiming vast tracts of land as "government property", because it necessarily distorts the process of deciding what to do with the land in question. If someone wants to preserve open spaces, they should buy land and leave it undeveloped (like the Nature Conservancy does), rather than make it a political football.
5) I do not carry a concealed weapon, because I live in an area where I don't feel a need to do so. If I still lived in Manhattan, I might feel differently. I do hope that many of fmaxwell's neighbors are armed, wherever he may happen to live.
I support the right to bear arms for one overiding reason, which is that government has a different set of options available to it when the people are armed, than when the people are unarmed. The founders of this country had overthrown their legal sovereign by force of arms, and they wisely chose to preserve for the people, the power to apply deadly force in dire straits. Trial by Jury, and the right to keep and bear arms, are the ultimate checks on the power of the state by the public at large.
Also, about the idea of a gun being a "penis substitute": I think that whenever anyone trots out that pop-psych 101 canard, what they're really saying is what a gun is to *them*. For me a gun is a tool with no more symbolic significance than an amplifier or a belt-sander.
6) On the subject of nuclear power: I am neither for nor against nuclear power per se; I believe that it should compete in the market like any other energy source. I do call for the repeal of the Price-Anderson act, which caps the liability for a nuclear power accident at $200 million. If the underwriters of a nuclear power plant had to face the *full* liability potential, then we'd either get nuclear power that is safe enough to convince those with billions to lose if a plant melts down, or we'll get no nuclear power because the risk proves untenable in the market. Either way, it would be far better than what we have now, which is a nucl
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
To quote Alex Kozinski - he said history would be vastly different had American slaves or Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto been able to arm themselves.
"The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - where the government refuses to stand for re-election and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees," wrote Judge Kozinski, a native of Romania. "However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once," he wrote.
While all this is true, it does ignore the other critically important purpose for keeping arms in private hands, which is to deter crime. It doesn't take many people arming themselves before the risk/benefit situation for burglary changes quite a bit.
The fact is, that the police are unable to protect us. They can retaliate against a wrongdoer after a crime has already happened, but when someone goes berserk and starts shooting up a school or an office, the *best* hope for the people he wants to kill is for another person (hopefully several other people) to *also* be armed.
When that nutcase shot up the commuter train on long island a few years ago, he reloaded twice before the passengers realized he wasn't going to stop, and that they had nothing to lose by mobbing him. If even one other person on that train had been armed, he would have had fewer victims.
Trying to disarm everyone discards the natural advantage of good people outnumbering bad people.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."