Slashdot Mirror
Bush Website Blocked Outside N. America
acey72 writes "The BBC News are
reporting that George W Bush's re-election website (don't bother if you aren't in the USA) is blocked to people accessing it from outside the USA. Netcraft spotted the change on Monday, and have a report on the matter. Oh well, at least John Kerry's site still works for us outlanders." At least some Canadians can access the Bush campaign site, but Europeans cannot (without going through a U.S. proxy).
From the article:
On 21 October, the George W Bush website began using the services of a company called Akamai to ensure that the pages, videos and other content on its site reaches visitors.
Mike Prettejohn, president of Netcraft, speculated that the blocking decision was taken to cut costs, and traffic, in the run-up to the election on 2 November.
He said the site may see no reason to distribute content to people who will not be voting next week.
Managing traffic could also be a good way to ensure that the site stays working in the closing days of the election campaign.
And:
However, simply blocking non-US visitors also means that Americans overseas are barred too.
Ok, yeah, that's the ONE thing that might be pertinent, and might be arguable.
Otherwise, there's always this, and this, and this, and, um, the whole rest of the internet and every other available source of information in print, television, radio, and so on, on Earth.
This is a political campaign site with political campaign propaganda. And since there are still an extremely wide variety of ways to get at its content and information from outside the US, it's obviously not some kind of "international censorship". (C'mon, slashdot! I know you can come up with some crazy shit!) Even the Netcraft guy realizes that. It's not like the New York Times, or critical news information, is suddenly blocked. Hell, within the last week, they had to start using Akamai! That alone should prove to a normal person that there are clearly traffic concerns at play. They have little to no obligation to serve anyone outside of the US, with the statistically negligible exception of US citizens outside the US.
Ok, slashdot, let's see who can come up with the best off-the-wall looney conspiracy theories to twist this around as a malicious, underhanded tactic, and some kind of "proof" that Bush is evil incarnate! While you're at it, explain to me how it's right for the Guardian to encourage its UK readers, i.e., not US citizens, to start a letter writing and email campaign to Ohioans encouraging them to vote for John Kerry, or, better yet, calling for the assassination of the sitting US president! (Even as a "joke".)
In a regular column in The Guardian newspaper's Saturday TV listings magazine, Charlie Brooker described Bush in scathing terms, and concluded: "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr., where are you now that we need you?"
3... 2... 1...
Go!
How much of a solid foreign policy this guy has.
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
"
Does anyone see this as anything other than stupid? I mean, he's blocking all overseas absentee voters, and he's not exactly making himself look good to the rest of the world. Of course, come to think about it, he really hasn't done that in the past either. ;^)
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
people actually read the lies on any politicians re-election or election web page? i'm a bush fan, but i've taken a look at both bush's and kerry's web pages, and they are both so full of crap it's unreal. so honestly, who cares if you can't read lies? go on a search (google) for the truth, and make up your own mind on what you believe to be true, not what you are told is truth.
President Bush Supporter
Geez, at least put up a sensible message like "To reduce traffic load non-US visitors will see blah blah blah". Despite the fact that non-Americans aren't voting you should at least have some half decent PR.
Isn't this like a textbook example of institutional racism?
There's been a spat of vandalism on
Bush campaign offices. The folks who
run the campaign are probably calculating
that a DoS attack on the web site is likely,
and mostly like to originate from foreign
countries where Bush is very unpopular.
Not having the web site available for the next
few days could be devastating.
Anyone know why? I don't know I'm asking. I bet it's a preemptive action to prevent DDOS attacks from outside.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
In some way it makes financial sense, by cutting bandwidth costs. They're mostly excluding people that can't vote for you anyway. On the other hand, they're excluding American voters overseas, maybe not such a smart thing. And it's bound to generate bad publicity. Maybe not such a bright idea as they originally thought.
So what?
There are already enough anti-Bush people that will take ANY change as some sort of big fuck-the-world gesture from the Bush camp. And of course despite that fact that nobody knows for sure WHY this has been implemented there will 1000 conspiracy theories posted, and dozens of pro-Kerry propaganda garbage as well.
Until there is enough information to actually discuss the topic with facts I'm not really interested...
-This sig intentionally left blank
They don't want to waste campaign dollars on bandwidth. I'm fine with that.
Any webmaster can block connections from any IPs he doesn't want connecting, I don't see how georgewbush.com should be any different.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Except when they go through a proxy or zombie pc and the FBI bursts in on Granny running AdAware to get her PC to go faster.
And there weren't a few odd groups protesting the RNC. Almost half the country doesn't like George Bush. Sure, a few of the groups were odd, but there weren't only a few groups.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
Are we considered the 51st state?
No thats the UK is.
It's not like any of them visit the site. And why should anyone outside the U.S. care for the same reason. It's not like they are using Bush's site as a reference. They should be more concerned if Moore's or Soro's site is blocked.
Is there a chance that this is accidental? I mean I'm living in Helsinki, and both Bush and Kerry posters are appearing at bus-stops, probably for expats who are eligible to vote...
Seems silly to spend money on an poster campaign, and then block your website...
The REAL George Dubya Bush was blocked from the rest of the world.. we'd be fine!
I am the maverick of Slashdot
That citizens of the US living overseas can file absentee ballots. (Although it may be too late for that now, not sure.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Since everybody is throwing stupid flame bait around I should mention that Iraqi insurgents today said they are stepping up attacks so they get Kerry instead of Bush. Arafat and North Korea have already backed Kerry.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
First: I get spam on a regular basis from georgewbush.com, and it's *not forged*. Dubya's a spammer.
Now this.
Way to alienate users, Dubya.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I haven't probed the details of the 'site block' but it seems extremely stupid. If the intention is to block """terrorists""" from attacking the website, it's very lame. It's probably a combo of dumb ideas that further demonstrate their "ostrich head in the sand" mentality. foriegn countries might refute the lies on the website and report it, although I think we got a pretty good handle on that. they probably don't want foreign people laughing too hard at the bullshit being fed to half the country (while they happily eat it and ask for more). but of course, all one needs to do is check out google cache or find a SIMPLE proxy server inside the USA. It's kinda like how Ashlee Simpson asked on her website "Ok you people know the internet, I'm going to get rid of all these videos posted on other websites, how do i delete them?". kinda the same thing, except the fate of planet earth is a hanging chad...
I know I'm going to be modded up on this
You think the world was wrong to remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan?
For those of us that can see it, it's still a farce.
:)
Only big corporations and large republican contributors actually have access to the president. All others - "access denied."
Saving bandwidth? The Bush campaign has raised hundreds of millions of dollars--who cares about a couple hundred or thousand more a month spent on bandwidth when you're buying in multi-gb blocks anyway?
I'm living in the UK and have been for years. It would be nice to be able to view his site, if only because he has a chance (against my vote and wishes) of becoming president so it is important I know about his views, and I be able to see, for example, copies of the ads that I cannot view because I do not get US TV.
If I was undecided, like some of my collegues, I as a NJ resident are entitled to waive my secret ballot and vote by fax up until election day (some states allow this). If you are living abroad I encourage you to do this asap by going to http://www.fvap.gov/pubs/onlinefpca.pdf and following the instructions on the form. As long as the fax is received by 2 Nov, and the real ballot is received no more than I think 1 week later, that vote is valid and will be counted (well, possibly, given past experience). The fact that actual voters both civilians and potentially military personel (even if all on-base traffic went through US proxies, which is dubius, as people might feel more comfortable using the net at a cafe or otherwise off base) will be denied valuable information that is needed to make an informed electoral decision. Given that US citizens via taxes and other means provide matching funds for those candidates, what this essentially means is that we can't see the fruits of something we helped, however indirectly, fund, and by extension, create(georgewbush.com).
Also, we need to understand that whomever is elected US President has a great deal of influence not only on Americans--so it would be a positive move, in the spirit of liberty and transparency, for those abroad to be able to view the information surrounding someone's candidacy, even if those persons cannot vote.
The bottom line is that actively seeking to prevent the dissemination of information about candidates for an election as important as the US Presidential election, when we know that cost is not an issue for the campaigns, speaks volumes about the candidate and his views. It is in keeping with the tradition of the Patriot act, fingerprinting and photographing even those US vistors from countries that do not require a visa to enter the US.
I don't know why the Campaign is doing this; it's an idiot decision that can only produce severely negative PR outside the US (as if more of this was needed--we're not the most popular team in town even in the UK) and probably within the US as well. Perhaps the reason is that Bush is writing off the expatriate vote anyway (military aside, it's overwhelmingly democratic / liberal) and feels that his views are providing too much ammunition to anti-us views abroad. Blocking access, though, is a childish, counter-productive, and heavy handed solution.
But from George W.--who would expect any less?Save money!?
Either you haven't thought about it, or you're deranged or you're on the best crack I've ever seen.
SAVE MONEY?
These are the folks who with two weeks to go had something in excess of 50 MILLION dollars in the bank? The hosting costs are so trivial, they equate to the cost of a sandwitch bag for the average person. Not a cost one would even think about.
Even if the hosting cost added up to an additional 100K for 10 days, which I can't even imagine, I'll bet GWB could pay that out of his own pocket without any undue hardship.
===
The 2004 Republican National Convention cost almost $154 million dollars to stage, according to a detailed report filed with the Federal Election Commission. Most of the $58 million spent by the city on police and other services will be reimbursed by the federal government. Expenses included $301,460 in limousine services, $207,000 on the balloon drop finale, and $7, 000 on coffee and donuts for host committee staff and police officers. The bulk of the cost has been covered by private donations with the largest single contributor emerging as New York City's own Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, donating $5 million in cash and $2 million in legal and accounting fees. Other contributors include Goldman Sachs ($1.2 million) and Merrill Lynch ($1.1 million). The mayor stated, "The numbers will basically show that it's good news for the city. We raised all the money privately."
===
So, they can spend $207,000 on the balloon drop, but hosting the website for the whole world would cost too much.
Uh, right...
Sheesh,
Greg
While your arguments are valid (as are others' arguments about PR), I think the reasons given in the article for blocking non-U.S. IPs are just an excuse that hides a possible major concern for the Bush campaign: hackers (crackers, really, but I'm sure they don't know the difference).
By eliminating traffic from outside the U.S., they block malicious hacking from countries whose populations dislike Bush (lots of countries). Those populations don't need the information as much as Americans do, and it may be harder to find and prosecute international website crackers after the fact.
And why should anyone outside the U.S. care for the same reason.
This is just a wild guess, but maybe they want to learn more about Bush's policies?
You don't need to be a Bush-worshipper to want to look at his website. In fact, those who believe that Bush is God have very little need to do any research at all. But those who have an open mind tend to want to make decisions for themselves.
That entire post was completely irrelevant and the attitude you displayed in making it is a prime example of the reason more rational people are afraid of the generally clueless, incoherent, and ignorant folks who are voting for Bush next week.
Regardless of whether the Iraqis are happier, angrier, sadder, or just completely disinterested is irrelevant. You would have to be a singularly brainless individual to argue that the U.S. election is not affecting them, which is where the grandparent post's point starts and ends despite your rather sad attempt at turning it into a giant partisan pissing match.
You need to be modded offtopic for that post at which point I'm sure you will whine that you are being "repressed" by "evil liberals" on slashdot.
In case you forgot about your chemistry class, the mass of air is 22 g/mol at 293K, 101.315 KPa.
And I suspect that even if Jesus Christ came out of the sky escorted by angels playing harps and trumpets, and said "I support John Kerry", 50% of republicans would still say "bah, liberal messiah bias" and vote Bush anyway.
Seriously... "Blessed are the Peacemakers" ring any bells? No? Okay, then let's bomb the only country in the middle east that isn't in bed with al Qaeda. Check? wow, we don't have enough jobs, but we're leading the world in screwing ourselves. Great, great.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
> and wasn't discharged until 1970
And by all appearances wasn't HONORABLY discharged until President Carter's general amensty in 1977. Of course we can't be sure since Kerry still refuses to sign the release for his military records to be made public.
Democrat delenda est
I know domestic companies that blackhole traffic from overseas IP spaces for security reasons. Not "security" as in "we don't want you reading our page", but as in "quit trying to login to our ssh daemons and run http://../scripts/cmd.exe 200 times a night from .kr and .ca and .jp". Folks, this is not news. If anything, they're safeguarding the site against intrusions. I'm surprised people overseas can even PING it.
.ru can't get off of a dozen other places on the web. There's nothing a foreign visitor needs from the website a week before the election. The five undecided American citizens who are overseas can get to a proxy or an embassy to read the site, and they've all voted absentee from both Florida and New York, anyway. Let it go. This is a technically and financially sound decision. Has nothing to do with the election.
Anything the GWB campaign wants to be public can be distributed in 10 minutes through other sources. George can say it, and John can say what a catastrophic error in judgement it was. My Yahoo! page headline will update (with Kerry's quote and "Bush optimistic"), and it'll be out there. There's nothing at the campaign HQ page that someone in
-j
Are you saying someone in the Bush Administration is incompetent?
It's even worse.
He's saying someone in the Bush administration making security decisions is incompetent.
And to make matters worse, said person is doing something that:
A. He thinks is making things more secure
B. Is restricting access to information that should be freely available.
C. I cutting off entire countries as potential threats.
D. Is actually making it harder to run things.
My God. the web server is a metaphor for the administration.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Off-message? so is the .com ...
;).
at least it claims that Bush's foreign policy is based on:
------
The strategy has three pillars:
- We will defend the peace by opposing and preventing violence by terrorists and outlaw regimes.
- We will preserve the peace by fostering an era of good relations among the world's great powers.
- And we will extend the peace by seeking to extend the benefits of freedom and prosperity across the globe."
-----
Hello??? Have I been living in the same universe as these guys??? All three pillars involve "peace"? What happened to preemptive war, the axis of evil, not caring what the rest of world think, etc. etc.
I guess the site must have been hijacked by some crazy flip-flopping communists democrat freaks
An illustration of how everyone wants ".com", no matter how appropriate. I could joke about how politicians are for sale and thus should be in .com, but really, it's just dumbing down the whole naming system. Another I've noticed is "moneyfactory.com" for the mint; which I believe is rather definitely part of the government and thus should be a .gov. By all means, get the .com too (it's only $10) before it gets squatted by a porn site, but set it to redirect to the real .org site.
But I realise this has as much hope as Linux being called "GNU/Linux", or media differentiating between hackers and crackers.
1) The Iraqis that died during the sanctions died due to a lack of medical care, the collapse of the sanitation system, war debris scattered across the country, etc. Well, guess what? The situation on those fronts hasn't changed; the US has shipped in a lot of medical supplies, but some hospitals were completely stripped during the looting (and a couple burned to the ground), and the continuous fighting has had doctors publicly complaining about how thin their resources are. The postwar violence "brain drain" has also had a catastrophic effect on the quality of medical service in the country.
- 28 -poll-cover_x.htm
/ us atoday/20041021/ts_usatoday/pollmoreiraqisdoubtnat ionsdirection
2) Net electricity production is *down* - not just in the cities, but overall. The cities are in especially bad shape because they've had the net loss of power combined with the power re-routing to rural areas.
3) Polls in poor or devastated countries are notoriously bad. For example, any non-door-to-door poll in such a place is little more than propaganda right off the bat, because the poor and those in damaged neighborhoods have little/no phone service.
However, if you want polls, let me toss you one:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04
"BAGHDAD - Only a third of the Iraqi people now believe that the American-led occupation of their country is doing more good than harm, and a solid majority support an immediate military pullout even though they fear that could put them in greater danger, according to a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll.
The nationwide survey, the most comprehensive look at Iraqi attitudes toward the occupation, was conducted in late March and early April. It reached nearly 3,500 Iraqis of every religious and ethnic group."
Want a recent poll?
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=
A couple of excerpts:
"Wrong direction: Forty-five percent of Iraqis said the country is headed in the wrong direction compared with 39% when the United States transferred political power to a caretaker Iraqi government in June. Sixty-three percent blamed "poor security" as the reason. "
"Concerns: Asked to name the most important issues to them, every Iraqi surveyed named security; 80% said the economy; 58% said quality of life; and 38% said politics. When asked to rank specific issues, they listed unemployment, crime and infrastructure in the top three. More people singled out crime as their first concern"
"Violence. Seventy-eight percent said their households had not suffered a loss of a family member or major economic damage since Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was toppled; 22% said they had."
These numbers, if you want to believe polls i Iraq, are staggering. 1 in 5 people in Iraq have suffered a loss of a family member or major economic damage since Saddam Hussein was toppled? That's insane! Of course, those numbers are backed up by what you get from the Iraqi bloggers; Riverbend's cousin had her husband kidnapped, and had to pay a huge ransom. Faiza Jarrar (the mother of Raed, of "Dear Raed" fame) was carjacked a month or two ago, and had a bomb explode on her street last week (blowing out their windows and damaging their door).
These poll numbers are made all the more dramatic when you consider the fact that the Kurdish region was (and still is somewhat) autonomous and pro-US, which skews the statistics in favor of optimism.
> And most expats will vote for John Kerry anyway
Indeed, because they've been indoctrinated by one-sided foreign media.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Yes, I hate freedom...
The freedom to choose my own healthcare insurance and providers.
The freedom to choose my own retirement plan.
The freedom to choose which schools my kids can go to.
.
.
.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
I wonder how'd you feel if the Chinese now decided to 'free' the US. Your religion is not correct, by their views. Your democracy is not correct, by their views. Your set of freedoms is also not correct, by their views.
Bush supporters (and Bush himself) don't realize the greatest error in the Iraq war was this one. The US could have built a post-cold war international law effort (as father Bush and Clinton were doing), and instead behaved like any dictator: Made up an excuse and invaded.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
You can just use a public proxy server in the US and get into the site fine.
And don't forget the genocide! That's the real lesson. To become like the US, find a large territory of land with abundant resources inhabited by a civilization with a large technological disadvantage, and murder them.
What about freedom of speech? Press? Religion?
You do know that a fair number of Bush's so-called base (to which he panders constantly) want to knock down the barrier between church and state? This isn't just some whack-job...it's the Texas GOP platform, which includes other goodies, such as invading Panama to retake the canal (because it seems that 6 years ago, a Chinese firm was interested in a management contract, though this was turned down), abolishing the teaching of any kind of evolutionary theory in public schools, and much, much more.
I'd honestly prefer the following freedoms:
The freedom to get the health care I need at a reasonable cost
The freedom to retire
The freedom from having to worry about paying through the nose for a good education for my children (good private schools are the exception, not the rule--I don't want to send my kids to school to be taught about Jesus...I'll send them to church for that)
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
You may not realize this, or you may just be using your "faith" to ignore painful realities. But a vote for Bush is a vote for another 9-11. It's a vote for strengthening alQaeda, and for making us less safe.
Why do you support alQaeda, moronikos? Does it have something to do with your poorly chosen but totally apt moniker?
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
"The freedom to get the health care I need at a reasonable cost"
So you think you have the right to low cost health care at the expense of doctors and people who make more money than you?
"The freedom to retire?"
Good luck. Social security will not fund a retirement. Kerry's policy is a joke.
You have this absurd belief that you can claim a freedom at someone elses expense. That's called slavery.
As opposed to the one sided local media?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
BTW grandparent is mad funny.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
Show me one case where any freedom of speech, press, or religion was denied in the U.S.
The freedom to get the health care I need at a reasonable cost
Unfortunately, that's neither a freedom nor a right. That's like saying I want the freedom to by a Mercedes for the price of a Honda.
You can retire right now. You may have to live in a box. But that's another thing you want the big government to take of... it's YOUR responsibility, which is why it SHOULD BE our right to decide how we save for retirement.
W.r.t. education; in fact, I don't want public schools to end, I want them to improve, but I also want freedom of choice. You want freedom to leech off of everyone elses hard work.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
It is simply the right to life. Or does the right to life stop after birth?
Do I think it should be the government's responsibility to pay for my retirement? No, but I do expect them to make sure that it's possible for me to retire. Social Security is dead, I'll admit that. It was okay for the Depression, but it's a dinosaur now. However, Medicare is still quite needed, as most HMOs don't cater to individuals when trying to get insurance, because there's no profit in individual contracts, especially for the elderly, who have a limited income and high health care bills. It goes back to my right to life argument.
Re: Education: Vouchers will draw funding from public schools, unless the money comes from some other source. As for freedom of choice, my recommendation would be an Iowa-like system, where you can choose which school district you wish to send your child to, as long as you provide the transportation if it's not the one that you live in. That would foster the same competition, yet not drain money from public schools.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Mexico 1846
Spain 1898
The C20th has been reasonably clear insofar as yer actual shooting wars go, but there have been numerous jaunts Down South that could have triggered a war if anyone other than the hemispheric superpower had been behind them.
Just because the biggest MoFo on the block doesn't get in many fights, it doesn't make him a man of peace.
Regards
Luke
#include witty_one_liner.h
I'm guessing it's a paranoid move to prevent any possible DDOS attacks from ... well anywhere outside the US.
There's been a reasonable amount of US election coverage in the UK so far, hence why the BBC have picked this up already.
Depending on the outcome, they will describe it as the moment America joined the ranks of ordinary nations; or they will describe it as the moment the prodigal sons and daughters of the greatest generation accepted their burden as caretakers of the City on the Hill.
Sounds somewhat like the Nazis with their "arien superrace", if you ask me... what happened to "all are equal" as beeing the base of democracy?
Look, this thing is totally safe! Built it myself, you know. You just press that button like this and then turn that lev
The U.N. knew the location of, and was keeping tabs on, those hundreds of tons of high explosives. The knew right where they were, and exactly how much, and had pictures of them. Ditto the WMD manufacturing precursors ("dual use") that were reported several weeks back.
The U.S. invasion led directly to such chaos that all of this stuff was able to be trucked out. As you say, moving this stuff requires a massive effort. It's amazing the amount of incompetence and understaffing that had to be going on that this could happen. Even with full knowledge of the exact location and inventory of all sensitive materials before the invasion had even begun, they still couldn't keep the bad guys from hauling off truck after truck full of stuff. Hell, in the case of the WMD manufacturing, they even dismantled and took off with the buildings!
Before the invasion: a very bad guy had lots of conventional explosives, and was wishing for WMDs but probably wouldn't have been able to get them unless the sanctions were lifted (per the inspection group). He was an egomaniacal dictator, hated in the region, and jealously guarded what he had. It is not apparent that he would have sold his stuff to others. He was a bad guy, but was not a direct or apparently indirect threat to the U.S.
After the invasion: it's almost certain that a large chunk of the stuff we went to war so that Saddam wouldn't sell it to the terrorists is, well, in the hands of the terrorists.
I personally believe that this is NOT the fault of the troops, who did the best they could; it was the fault of the administration only seeing what they wanted to see, ignoring intelligence, estimates and requests they didn't like, and George W. "we're not going to have any casualties" Bush trying to do the job on the cheap because he thought he could get away with it.
Thus, as a direct result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there are now hundreds of tons of high explosives, plus entire buildings full of specialized WMD manufacturing machinery and tools in the hands of we know not who.
Feel safer?
Funny, I don't remember seeing American troops flying crosses as they ran into battle.
Hmmm, Try reading this or this.
FreeSpeech.org
They didn't need to. Bush's rhetoric about "doing God's work" and "God speaks through me [bush]" and "this crusade" and the interminable drivel about "faith" and "consulting a higher father" make the crosses unnecessary.
How does that work? Bush says "God" so it automatically becomes a Christian invasion? That's leaping to conclusions.
I went to the website you link to and I saw no proof for terrorism link to Irak. Lie.
Human rights violation ? Ok, the US violates the human rights too with the Guantanamo camp. W should invade the US too.
The 350 tons of explosives didn't disappeared under the UN's nose but under the US's nose. They disappeared in April 2003. Check it now.
You are too stupid to admit that there are simply no WMDs in Irak despite that even GWB himself and his administration admitted this fact. I believe you are definitely lost.
Iraq: war to save the U
Those tons of weapons went missing right out from under the Bush Administration's nose, you moron! In case you forgot, we left the UN out of our little obsession with invading Iraq. And that dreamops site you link is a great source of selective information filtered for the dittohead, but get real; there was no Iraq-alQaeda connection, there were no WMDs, and there was no threat to the US. Saddam was an evil thug who the world should be glad to be rid of, but the war has made al Qaeda stronger and the US more vulnerable. That is what we should be concerned with, not still gloating about the sight of a miserable old man climbing out of a hole in the ground.
Don't even get me started on the Iraq war. John Kerry should be thrown in jail for aiding the enemy.
This "insightful" comment is the reason I distrust Republicans and won't vote for Bush. Too many seem to equate reasonable dissent and constructive criticism with treason.
Every time I ask self-proclaimed democrats why they support abortion, they say they believe in a womans right to choose...
There are many here in the US without the hubris to proclaim that they know the mind of God and who do not wish to force their religous beliefs down the throats of others. Abortion is a difficult personal choice that only a woman and her own conscience can make. I find it particularly disturbing that the religious zelots on the right would outlaw late term abortions with no provision for protecting the life of the mother. By doing so, they will surely kill some women whose pregnancy has developed serious life threatening complications. It must truly feel rightous to have such moral clarity that you know that the fetus's life is always more important than the mother's.
FreeSpeech.org
These aren't the crusades, and we're not doing this for the missionaries.
This brings up an excellent question. Who did we go to war for?
the iraqi people?
GW?
the poor?
the rich?
soldiers?
oilmen from texas?
jesus?
satan?
israel?
If you really understand how interconnected the world has become, you wouldn't have that attitude.
The US is an economic powerhouse, one that is tied with trillions of dollars of international trade and debt. What's bad for the US economy is bad for the world economy. If the US debt keeps going up, and the US has problems paying it, a whole lot of foreigners are out of a lot of money. If the US imposes tariffs on trade, it's not just American workers who suffer, but workers in countries that trade with the US suffer.
So from the point of view of a foreigner, it makes perfect sense to keep abreast of American politics. This is something many people due, because it has a direct impact on their lives. Even as an American, I make it a point to keep abreast of politics in Europe and Canada. These regions are important strategic allies, and important partners in trade. In the future, the EU also looks like it will become an important competitor economically. As a result, I would be foolish not to keep informed of their politics, because they have a direct impact on my country's economy.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
There aren't any abortion advocates really trying to argue about things after the third trimester.
;-).
Um, so what's so different about the fetus's personhood 1 day before the third trimester?
I don't think grossing people out is necessary in the abortion debate. I just don't get how there can be such a disconnect for people between something in the womb and something that just came out if it. Even if it's a stinkin' embryo, thousands of years of observation STRONGLY suggests that, left unharmed, it's going to become a human being. If somebody has an abortion, simple logic dictates that they effectively prevented a human from existing, even if they don't think its a human at that point.
I was totally incensed this past April or whenever when CNN had the Pro Choice march on. All these woman would come up to speak about the virtue of a Woman's Right to Choose(tm) and then they bring up their daughters and tell them how they're doing all this for THEM!!!! If given the microphone for a moment, most of them just said something along the lines of "go pro-choice!", I was waiting for one to say, "I'm glad mommy didn't abort me!".
Seriously, it's a self-defeating argument- they're trying to protect their daughters, yet some of those potential daughters won't be around to enjoy that protection.
Personally, I think you should be able to abort until the end of potty training.
As long as it's legal, I'd have to say it should be okay until they move out
Insightful: 76, Off-Topic: 379, Flamebait: 24, Funny: 152, Interesting: 201, Underrated: 55, Troll: 9, Total: 896
I have three pillars for you too..
War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and the Truth is a Lie.
Why is it religious zealots all the time? I'm not a religious zealot - I don't need god to tell me taking an innocent life is wrong.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The soldiers aren't the ones making the agenda. It's the politicians above them; who happen to be Christian, with a blatant agenda.
The original Crusades were for profit first, religion second. The first one's so blatant this time that only the ones being attacked see the second.
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"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
--John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790.
To be peaceful does not mean to be passive. It just means that one won't fight without a good reason. I'm sure whether that was a good reason is up for debate, but let's not equate "strong" with "peaceless." Sometimes you need to fight to find peace.
The Penguin Producer
OK... if you're after stupid, emotive arguments, here's a nice example of the opposite kind for you:
Summary: She's 19 weeks pregnant. She discovers her baby is dead. Very dead. She's bleeding. The baby's skin is starting to slough off inside the womb, its skull might be collapsing. The corpse needs removal. The safest way for the mother is to remove it in pieces.
But the years of angry debate (this means you!), restrictive state laws and violence targeting physicians have left very few institutions willing to do the job - meaning that she is advised to go through delivery. Comparatively unsafe and traumatic. So she chooses to look for a doctor willing to do the procedure, phones around, and finally finds someone after a long hunt. But he's busy. She spends days in a motel room feeling her dead baby inside her and watching herself bleed, until finally, someone condescends to remove it.
The moral of this story, in case you didn't know, is that for every bleeding-heart emotive story you can contrive, there's a counterexample. I don't really care how you feel about Kerry, but you do want to watch that tendancy to sensationalise.
- "[moving the explosives was] a major undertaking" (i.e. more noticeable, easier to disrupt than minor looting)
- "[we had the capability to] bomb...anything on the roads" (which seems to imply the U.S. had the capability to stop the "10-30 trailers worth of explosives" in transit)
Yet, your tone implies that you disagree. Sir, I must then ask you, what is your point?Um, so what's so different about the fetus's personhood 1 day before the third trimester?
It's not viable, even with serious equipment.
Now the intersting thing is that "serious equipment" is a moving target. But the basic argument is that it can't develop outside the womb if it were, for instance, born that prematurely.
I think this is the definition of viability for fetuses, but I'm getting a little murky on the terms. Of course that's a grey area too, which is why doctor's have to consult with women to determine that a fetus is not viable before a regular abortion takes place. Please disagree with this if I'm wrong.
However, I do agree with your point that it is the snuffing out of a potential human life. It just doesn't bother me, what with the overpopulation and AIDS killing a zillion people a day.
Shit, starving people all over the world who have kids are basically sentencing a certain percentage of them to death. Where's the outrage about that? At least abortion is a well reasoned choice, where you take responsibility for your own action when it matters: before you make a mistake that leads to years of easy-to-measure human suffering.
To really clear the air, I'd even let you say life began with conception, and that abortion was actually killing a real live person. I just wouldn't call it murder, with all the punishment attached. If we're gonna have penicillin, clearly a human invented way of choosing which people to keep alive, I can't see the moral dilemma in choosing which people to prevent from being alive. The same could be said about distribution of food and medicine on a world wide scale. The Catholics are at least consistent on this one, they're pro-life for everything.
Interesting point about the not-aborted daughters, but I totally disagree. Certainly some of those girls are happy and have an excellent life and relationship with their mothers because they were born at the right time. How many too-young unwed mothers produce children that will go with them to political rallys? So I think their sentiment does make sense, choosing to end a pregnancy through abortion allows you to provide the best life for your eventual child.
"I had a dream the other night that all the babies prevented by the pill came back.
They were pissed."
- Steven Wright
dea9: Visualize your mailing lists to actually SEE trolls!
I vote Republican for one big reason - Democrats are big cry babies.
So, let me get this straight. You vote Republican because when Democrats see something seriously wrong, they challenge it? It's better than sitting idly while your freedoms, liberties, and livelihood is challenged.
They proved that with the 2000 election.
Gore won that election, even in Florida. I was a Republican, but crossed over to the Democratic party after watching the Republican party steal the presidency. Bush is president only by title. Even this election, several republicans funded by the GOP have been caught disposing of tens of thousands of valid democrat voter registrations in swing states, and rarely vice versa, probably a fraction of the total fraud going on.
Don't hate me because I think John Kerry is a douche bag
But I'm voting for him anyway
We aren't concerned with terrorism, because terrorism is mostly affecting the US.
But it's not. The USA faces practically zero terrorism. 9/11 was a spike, and we've caused at least 20x the damage to innocent civilians in our fight against terrorism. Americans have a better chance of having a new disease named after them than dying in a terrorist attack.
Bush wants Americans to be afraid, so he can push his agenda and use that fear to get reelected. Bush has many killed more Americans than have all the terrorists combined, through fear and budgetting, and even more foreigners in the name of preventing another 9/11. Americans will vote for Bush because they believe his lies.
We didn't catch many of the terrorists behind 9/11 because Bush allowed them to leave by plane the next day to Saudi Arabia, when all other planes in the country were grounded. Among them were several members of the bin Laden family. Authorized by the president himself. The bin Ladens gave the Bush family $1.4 billion before the 2000 election. If we caught the terrorists, there could be no war on terror, no war for the control of middle east oil production, which is the greatest concern of the Bush family.
Bush should have kept my $300 check. It pales in comparison to the bonus check we get on good years. The year I got a $300 check from Bush, not only did I get no bonus, we had to fire 100 people. It could have been me.
Don't worry. If you were paying attention, you would have noticed the very next year that the IRS took back that $300. It's not like Georgie gave you anything you wouldn't have gotten anyway. And woe befall those people who did run right out to WallyWorld and bought that new 32" TV, then got laid off. Then found out they owed a few hundred dollars in taxes the next year.
(Iran is less of a threat in *that* regard as Alqueda is racialy oriented, and Iranians are not Arab)
Huh??? Boy do you need to do a little studying.
First Al Qaeda is not a racial organization, but a religio-political one. It started out as a CIA=funded group to help the Afghanis (they're not Arabs) rid themselves of the Soviets. They receive much support from the Pakistanis (not Arabs). They are known to have ties in Indonesia and the Phillipines (yep, you guessed it, not Arabs). And, get this, perhaps the biggest gap in your logic, reports indicate that Al Qaeda (and specifically the 9/11 guys) did receive support from Iran; the same reports have still failed to find any significant Al Qaeda-Iraq link.
Iraq was unprovoked. Go to the CIA site and check out Duelfer report, or go to your bookstore and pick up the 9/11 report, or just listen to what our own government is now saying. No ties, no weapons, we were horribly mislead, and it appears that the misleading was totally willful.
The inevitable result of mixing religeon and spiritual views with a political system is injustice and delusional visions.
Georege Bush, Ayatollah Khomeini, Usama Bin Laden... different levels of fundamentalist whackery, but the root cause is all the same.
Religeon and politics. The two do not mix - each is a powerful corrosive on the other.
Cheers,
Greg
999 out of 1000 terrorists agree: vote Kerry
Do you realy think terrorists care who is president of the US?
Or that Bush would protect the country better then Kerry would?
That's pretty naive
It's not very likely terrorists care who is president since quite a lot of them see the entire nation (and the rest of the western world) as their enemy.
And neither presidental candidate can guarantee to stop terrorist attacks. The more realistic view is the one the British have.
They assume that a successful terrorist attack is inevitable whatever preventative measures are taken. (And they know what they are talking about since they have decennia of experience with dealing with terrorism.)
Any promises made by the candidates to keep the country 100% safe are just hot air unless of course one of them has psychic powers.
Actualy it is not self defeating. Allow me to explain it to you: they sacrifice some of their potential children so that they can provide better for their children they decide to actually give birth.
While I am sure most of the children they bring up to speak share the, "I'm glad mommy didn't abort me!" sentiment all of the ones they possibly aborted were never around long enough to have sentiments. Problem solved. Also, if the daughters had more time to speak they would probably say, "go pro-choice! Because if mommy was forced to carry the pregnancy that she foolishly ended up with while partying one weekend at college she would have never finished and earned her degree. She would have had 3 children now instead of 2 and she would be working two jobs earning minimum wage instead of getting the managerial position that she needed her degree to get. Thankyou Mommy for waiting for the right time!"
No..probably they have been better informed by that foreign media and of course have discovered that there is more to the world than the US.
I watch both US and European news broadcasts and the US broadcasts are heavely polarised and polished. It seems they are afraid they might hurt their viewer ratings by being too critical or reporting on issues that may alienate their viewer base.
The reports generally lack depth, especially when it comes to reporting on events outside the US. With the US networks we can see over here it seems the facts are secundary to the entertainment value of a story.
Some of the European channels are guilty of the same, particularly some of the many commercial ones, but generally the European channels present the news in a far more balanced and neutral way. And they pay a lot more attention to what is going on in the rest of the world, which helps to bring a lot of what is happening into perspective.
As a bonus of being in Europe you get to watch the news from different countries as long as you speak more than one language. That should help offset any bias. (I speak Dutch, German, French and English so that gives me access to quite a selection of sources.)
O..and as for the US elections the reporting I have seen on the European channels is mostly neutral and professional which can't be said for the American channels.
In the case of saving a mothers life, you're taking a life either way you hack it, so why should *you* get to decide which life is more important? SHouldn't that be the choice of... oh... say... the MOTHER?
This will most likely be modded down as troll or flamebait, but it is not.
I am from Australia, and your democratic system, while appearing so very similar to ours is unbelievably different.
I cannot understand the way a lot of you (Probably not many slashdotters) get behind your political parties like it is a form of sporting team.
IMHO there is way too much grandstanding, not enough core politics.
Seriously, we take rugby less competitively.
I see the waving of banners and screaming of 'fans' for these people as if they are heros.
I hope this doesn't get modded down as I would like to hear an American take on it.
ps. posting AC because I am having trouble logging in.
Biscuit.