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Bush Supreme Court Nominee Former Microsoft Lawyer
DaveM writes "Bush's most recent Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, successfully argued that people who were sold defective software by Microsoft weren't "injured," and couldn't participate in a class action against the company. The case involved unstable compression features in MS DOS 6.0, which were corrected by a $9.95 update, MS DOS 6.2. Plaintiffs wanted Microsoft to offer the updates for free, but eventually lost to Miers' arguments."
http://forums.go.com/abcnews/thread?threadID=23501 4
- involved/
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/02/bush-directly
yeah, it does. please stay where you are. please.
...because Plutonians are teh suck
How long before people connect the "Gates"? From the "Preston, Gates" firm connecting Abramoff to the rest of the Republican indictment gang, to the "Gates" whose giant monopoly was released from liability by the Republicans?
--
make install -not war
CRISIS! DANGER!
A former mail clerk in GWB's oil company once used Microsoft Windows to play minesweeper. Now that mail clerk is the Janitor at Google! Does this mean Google is evil?
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
A class action lawsuit over a $10 update? DAMNNN...
I wonder what those people think of the Cisco and Oracle updates being
you have to pay $$$$$ for subscription services. They probably
dumped a load in their boxers.
- D MAN
...I used to be a republican. They only have big business in their minds, rather than us. I fear what may happen if this one gets his seat on the supreme court. I mean, I am all for supporting my president and leadership in tough times, but this incident makes me doubt that the working class/not wealthy are on the minds of our current leadership.
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
Having the president appoint supreme court judges is wrong anyway. There should be a better process of selecting them. How's it done in other countries?
that'd be plutocracy
What was she supposed to argue? "My client is guilty."?
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
I can't say it's a great thing for America to have so many Republican justices, but I don't see how anyone can get wrapped up on this point? So she was good at her job. Is that something that we need to villify?
Fascism?
...and she did it well. Well enough to win a case that at least on grounds of common sense (which typically doesn't apply to legal rulings) she should've lost.
Are 'we' going to fault her for that ?
Microsoft pays well.
I fail to see any relevance to this story, beyond the usual anti-Microsoft rabble rousing.
I support the FairTax www.fairtax.org
So, just because it's Microsoft that she worked for, and Bush nominated her, we knee-jerk react that all this is bad?
Do you really want any vendor's software, that has bugs that aren't fixed in a given release (clue: that's EVERY vendor's software), to be liable to a class action lawsuit (translation: lawyer's legal rape and pillage) ??
I think that had the decision gone the other way, you'd see much less innovation and progress from software companies, in general.
Why is it that everyone thinks they are due some kind of money any time something doesn't work exactly right. There are a billion products on the planet and it just seems silly that every company should be responcable for every possiable use. I know how most of the people on hear hate business, especially is they have the lead in some market or another but it's business that allows you to do the things you do and live the life you lead. They are not the root of all evil.
Exactly what is the story here? Both sides had lawyers. Are you going to tell me that all the lawyers on the other side are shining knights of glory?
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
The only thing worse than big corporate lawyers protecting clients who sold shoddy products are bottom-feeding class action lawyers.
So, I guess this actually improves Miers' qualification, upgrading her from a Bush's personal pocket lawyer to a corporate small-guy-hunting one.
This is such a non-story it's ridiculous. Miers was a lawyer for a private law firm. As such, they take cases and they represent their clients and advocate for them as best as they can.
What are you guys trying to get at here? That attorney's views are the same as their clients?
This story sucks, and slashdot is obviously trying to start a flamewar here. Nice trolling, Taco.
Rather that turning this into a political farce, for someone that has an axe to grind with this new nominee, let's cut to the chase here, and look at the key phrase in that article:
"Microsoft believed that only people who actually lost data had a right to sue; that those merely with faulty software hadn't been injured."
I hate Microsoft as much of the next guy, but I don't see what's wrong with this. It's basically saying "If you lost data, you can sue. If you didn't, you can't".
Sounds like the people that wanted to sue Microsoft, but didn't have anything go wrong for them, got caught.
Besides, there are plenty of other defects in Microsoft software they probably could have sued for instead.
I'm not ready to disqualify a supreme court nominee based on their having had as a client one of the richest corporations on the planet. She was head of the largest law firm in (Texas? Dallas?) and thus had available lawyers to devote to a case; Microsoft had money to pay them; that's normal.
I would object to this nominee based on her:
* committing unethical acts while representing them;
* arguing a totally untenable or specious position or otherwise demonstrating gross incompetence;
* obviously agreeing with her client in her private speech (indicating a personal position, not a professional representation of her client's position), where that client's position was representative of unethical behavior or attitudes, etc.;
* use of legal arguments based far outside of conventional legal mainstream thought (the Bork-Wacko factor).
It seems to me we should pay attention to ethics, competence, and political leanings that don't represent the broadly accepted norm, or if she's in the past said she will legislate from the bench (which I highly doubt given her lack of being a judge previously).
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
Note that this was when computing was not mainstream and FOSS was in its infancy. I think the sucess of that argument was because nobody else really knew about what was going on at the time.
Don't get me wrong, I worship FOSS despise Microsoft the current administration, but just because someone worked for MS and defended sucessfully doesn't mean that they did because they truely believe it (hopefully this isn't the case because then it would really suck for a case involving FOSS and Microsoft to go up there).
ok, so I take that back. A bit too harsh. Sorry for the inconvenience.
:P
Microsoft + Lawyer + Bush
:/
Feed her to the Lions!
This isn't gonna be pretty. Might as well start some rumors about how she hates open-source and is a follower of Intelligent Design.
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Fractured Element
I'm sure the poster is hoping that this article enlightens the /. reader somehow. The fact is that probably 70% of /. patrons are MS hating liberals ("independent" & "moderate" == liberal). So this article is just more fuel for the flames and really does nothing else.
I guess it's pretty nifty how one article can be such a home-run with both Bush haters and MS haters at the same time!!
What stupidity. There are a bunch of reasons to criticize her: no judicial experience or constitutional scholarship; hell, she's just a Bush flunky. The fact that she was hired as an advocate for Microsoft isn't one of them. I mean, get some goddamn perspective.
The big question (at least in my mind) is this something that she argued for (as MS's paid attorney) or is this one of her core values and what impact this would have on her supreme court voting record. I would hope that during her hearing in the senate that her true beliefs will come out, and we can then decide if this is the person we want for the supreme court...
I know that I have worked in software houses before where I've done stuff that I don't believe in (removing lots of cool features from a cell phone so a provider can sell them back to the consumer comes to mind), but I did that because that is what I was paid to do.
Doh!
Didn't we see this behaviour earlier when 'independent' analists declared Linux inferior to Windows?
Funny how GWB's election compaign and the following years are such a natural match to MS beta versions and the real thing.
FTA:
As laid out in Microsoft Corp. v. Manning, et al...
Isn't the plaintiff usually listed first? Or was Microsoft the plaintiff in this case?
Bradley Holt
Miers argued for Microsoft and the new chief justice John Roberts argued for the states against Microsoft, so at least we know the discussions between the two will be lively behind the scenes of the courtroom.
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
What if the headline read "She was a lawyer at Microsoft, and she intentionally lost the case, because she secretly thought Microsoft was wrong to charge for the update."
What do you think it means to be lawyer?
Plus, that would be one long headline.
He appoints nominees, the senate makes the final decision. If the senate doesn't like what they see, the democrats (the opposing party at the moment) can filabuster, or the senators will vote against her.
:P.
You need a single point to bring people into consideration. Otherwise what are they gonna do, have all 100 senators sit at a table and talk until they can find someone they all like? riiight, like that's gonna find someone quickly
-everphilski-
I'd be a little bit more concerned about the fact that she has no judicial experience. It's apaprently not *that* unusual; Rehnquist had none when he was nominated to the Court. Thomas had almost none. The gripe that I have with Roberts--only two years' experience as a judge before becoming the Chief Justice is an outrage--doesn't really apply here. Or rather, it wouldn't if there weren't already two sitting judges with very little judicial experience.
What's really a concern is that there are a bunch of people out there, and I forget who the talking heads were, for which I apologize, who are saying that Harriet Miers is not considered a legal scholar, but Just Another Corporate Lawyer. That's troubling to me, far more troubling than her work for Microsoft.
It's also troubling, of course, that this is Just Another Bush Crony getting a job, but the stakes are far, far higher than the stakes at FEMA under Brown and Chertoff. They can be fired or replaced. A Justice can't.
After suffering one intellectually challenged Bush appointee after another, I find some consolation in the Miers nomination. First of all, she has an undergraduate degree in math, which puts her above 99.9% of all politicians in the intelligence department. Second, the fact that she successfully defended Microsoft indicates that she at least understands some geek issues.
Before Miers, all we had was Al Gore.
Ed Uthman, MD
Pathologist, Houston/Richmond, TX, USA
I was hoping he would nominate Janice Rogers Brown, a black female conservative Christian libertarian and daughter of a sharecropper, if only for the fun in watching the media and politicians desperately try to pigeon hole her. Thousands and thousands of exploding heads guaranteed with that one. Oh well...
I am about as left as you can get, but even I think this story is about as irrelevent as you can get...
Lawyers are hired to win cases. Lawyers frequently champion causes they don't personally support. It's their job to win their clients' cases. The job of a lawyer is not to be impartial or fair minded. You can't fault her for doing her job.
What concerns me more is that she has no experience being a judge so there's nothing really to base a judgement of how impartial or fair minded she would be as judge. You can't really know how she'll interpret the law until she's judged cases.
This goes back, in my opinion, to Bush hiring completely unqualified people for important positions, like Mike Brown at FEMA, only the consequences of this choice will reach much further into the future.
What is the worry? That she will vote in favor of Microsoft on any Supreme Court case about all the Microsoft patents that Linux is infringing on?
Anybody know where the cases are in the court?
Thank You Captain Subliminal.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
There are also rumors of Microsoft having influenced Matt Romney, the Republican governor of Massachusetts who then personally intervened with the plans of the state administration to push for an open-source migration (and watered the plan down to an open-standards concept). Romney is considered to be close to Bush, and is rumored to have ambitions to succeed Bush in a few years. Microsoft's "Political Action Committees" were major donors in the presidential elections last year and among the largest donors to the three or four most hopeful candidates in the Democratic primaries.
Folks, she was a trial lawyer. It was her job to argue her clients position. Unless you're working for an idealogically based organization (ACLU, ACLJ, EFF, NRA), you're basically a mercenary, a hired gun for your client.
Miers sucks as a SCOTUS nominee, but the fact that she once represented Microsoft has nothing to do with that.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
No, she's not that qualified.
Not that I mind there are actually one or two real terrorists among the other political prisoners being held there against their will and without legal recourse - hey I'm American too, turn off the Patriot Act Special Forces and call off the FBI, there's no need to come and arrest my ass for speakin....... [NO CARRIER]
[RESUME TRANSMISSION] To all Slashdot Denizons... notnAP has been inconvenienced, but we assure you, not injured.
Is this the compression code they "borrowed" from Stacker?
Some settling may occur during posting.
If she had argued the case and lost.
Then she'd be a crappy lawyer, at which point there would be a genuine objection to her nomination.
Bush wants to be a king and that's it. King bush decides all, king bush has veto over everything, King bush can take control over anything.
King Bush thinks he even owns and or has the right to tell other country what to do.
All hail king bush or throw rocks at him.
We in Canada dont have this Shit,,,Oh wait we're still a colony under the rule of england,,damn.
By that logic, any attorney who ever worked for a client _you_ don't like, should be disqualified from becoming a judge. And what about attorneys who defend people accused of murder, especially if the accused end up being convicted of murder?
Are you then going to say the attorney is a bad attorney because she "defended child murderers who ended up in the electric chair" ?
True, attorneys often have a choice on whether to take a client or not (especially if they are a partner or have a private practice), and their client selection sometimes says something of their maturity and personality; but this is not always the case. To generalize, is simply to throw mud for the sake of muddying up; of biting ankles just for anklebiting.
The next pasture is always greener
Once appointed, Supreme Court Justices are pretty much free to rise above the (nearly invisible) Republican/Democrat split if they so choose.
Individual Justices do tend to be either authoritarian or libertarian, and either punishment-oriented or goal-oriented, though; some people incorrectly assign these values to the parties (just because GWB is a punishment-oriented authoritarian doesn't mean those are the values of the people who are registered republicans).
If it makes you feel better, Harriet Miers has been reported to be a Gore supporter by the mainstream media.
Not only Do you appoint uneducated people to Major Positions *cough FEMA. Now we are appointing or giving people judgeship for no good reason. She has never heard a case as a judge what makes you think she can be a supreme court judge. This is a F#$#ing Joke.
I'm Not going to stand for it i've already written my congress persons as well as contracted the attorney general for my state. As there is a Great travisty being commited againts the american people.
..as well as Zonk's. I'm no fan of GBW and his ilk, but this...it doesn't give me any additional reason to hate the administration, it's so poor and irrelevant as to be laughable. If successfully defending a paid-for patch for DOS which should have been free is the worst IT-related crime of this Supreme Court nominee, maybe the administration is not as evil as I thought.
I don't care if it's a huge corporation or the joe next door, I demand the right to redress when their product doesn't work.
I will do everything I can to prevent America from descending back to the state of yankee capitalism caveat emptor that your post obviously envisions.
Ultimately it's also bad for business because if no one can trust their crap then they will all lose business, not just the miscreant company.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I am personally bothered by this choice W. has offered. She is his personal laywer and has been for many many many years... she has never been a judge, a constitutional law scholar, or anything-- just a representative for political people and corporations. She should not be allowed to join the supreme court.
Short Version:
1. MS DOS 6.0 has bad compression software that doesn't work and can destroy your data.
2. Microsoft is sued because people bought something, didn't get what they thought they did and are forced to pay more to just get what they should have already had.
3. Supreme court nominee argues based on the technicality that the mere presense of the fault isn't enough to count as an "injury" but you need to actually have destroy data and since the suit wasn't brought forth on that basis, calls for dismissal.
4. Microsoft wins. Lawyers win. People loose.
So remember, if a contractor ever builds your house out of paper mache instead of bricks like he promised, sue only AFTER it collapses.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Let's see
"Bush nominee Former microsoft lawyer..." Who once knew someone who represented SCO, while allowing her son to be friends with a kid whose parents had heard about Intelligent Design.
Oh, and she knows someone that thinks Linux isn't ready for the desktop.
If she were a good lawyer? Bias towards law, which means that she would argue for the RIAA.
Bitch and moan all you want, you don't have a fucking legal leg to stand on. Breaking the law in public doesn't afford you any rights of privacy, and the Internet is a public place.
Has she ever suggested that it might be OK to wire up a guy's testicles to a car battery to get answers out of him, so long as he's not a USA citizen? Working for Microsoft isn't where this administration has set the bar. Shocking people's testicles is where this administration has set the bar. I just want a justice that won't have everyone's testicles wired up and ready to go 20 years from now! Who cares about the fetusses? Who cares about prior Microsoft experience? The testicles are where it's at!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This in the write up stood out the most to me.
I wondered how, if the disk were defective they could be ruled uninjured, having RTFA I now see that Microsofts position was not one of trying to shirk the responsability, but rather one of trying to mitigate thier loses. The claim by MS was Oddly enough, it seems in this case that Bush has made a good decision in choosing his staff for once.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Harriet Miers, successfully argued that people who were sold defective software by Microsoft weren't "injured," and couldn't participate in a class action against the company.
In other words, he's a damn good lawyer, someone who we need in the Supreme Court. But he's worked for Micro$oft! Scary! Seriously, this is good news, people. Your knee-jerk reaction is unfounded this time.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
Isn't the idea to fill the supreme court with people who have a proven record of fighting in the interest of the people?
How does she qualify? Because she saved a corporation lots of money?
I hate to sound biased, but if that is here claim in deserving this job, then it truly IS a sad day for the American people.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
This isn't about BSOD. This is worse. I think I remember this feature - some sort of "disk doubler" feature. Disk Doubler might've been a competing product to the actual MS version. Either way, it was a system that would somehow make your disks have far more space. I don't know if it was a more efficient FAT, or just automatically unzipping and zipping files for you or what, but a lot of people used it until their drives magically vanished. At that point you needed a format to fix the problem, iirc.
I used it for a while, then heard stories from friends... plus, it sucked up some precious lower memory, making certain games unplayable. So I went through the excruciating process of converting all the drives back, finding the program still resident in memory, and then trying to track down how to prevent it from loading on boot.
Of course this is from a company that would want me thrown in jail for sharing a copy of there software with someone else.
If my lawyer is
defending me into the
chair? Bad Lawyer! Bad!
What's wrong /.? getting to 1 hour without a new story that a reject story needed being posted? Come on!
Karem
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
Normally I'd say Eeeew...but this is so bad I'd have to say Double Eeeew which just happens to sound like 'W'.
:P
Coincidence? I think not!
This whole thing is just wrong. No judge experience and then sent straight to the top court as one? WTF?
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
Progress can be taken to mean many things. I consider progress from microsoft to be that I'm not afraid of the system crashing when I'm doing something import. And 2000/XP is progress on that front. In more abstract terms, I consider progress to be writing software that gives the desired result at all times.
As for innovation, while I do consider it a good thing, it admittingly can come at a price of stability (in all programs, take the linux kernel's unstable builds as an example). And given my desire for correctness, I would rather programs that just do what I want, rather than do something that everyone wants (best tool for the job). An example of this would be turning services on (in any operating system) by default, that the average user will not use. Of course, the obvious other point one could make is when both Netscape and IE were in a feature race, where those features were highly unstable at times. And finally, if innovation is rushed, it can create terrible standards, that need backwards compatibility.
I would like to point out that innovation isn't as lacking as one may believe. Given that the best programmers I've both met and heard of seem to like to push the boundaries of what the machines can do. The only strain on this quality is resources.
As for the case she took, I think it boils down to a contract being signed in blind faith. And even though it may be irrelevant to the matter at hand, her position may be legally correct. Of course, I am not a lawyer, so I don't know.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
Bush is just the latest puppet, term limits do absolutely nothing, the puppet masters just find a new puppet every time. If anyone really thinks the President is calling the shots, they haven't been paying very close attention...
I think it was called DriveSpace (DRVSPACE.EXE) and was a memory hog. I think it ate something like 30-40K of low mem. I don't even think you could put it into the UMB (I am possibly wrong on this as I didn't do too much experimenting with it, but without a lot of playing I couldn't get it up there), so it was a real waste of very valuable resources.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
A lawyer's employ is to defend the position of the client. In this case, she was a lawyer for Microsoft. If she had been a lawyer for anyone else, she would have defended their position with equal fervor. Now that she is likely to become a justice of the Supreme Court, her employ is to defend the Constitution of the United States of America, and if she can successfully defend something as silly as MS-DOS 6.0, then she has my support in defending some of the silly things that come before the bench of the highest court in the nation.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
for a Supreme Court Justice.
On top of that, Bush decided to pick his personal attorney just a day after Judy Miller talked to the grand jury and there are rumors that a source in the administration has spilled the beans that Bush was in on the discussions to out Plame.
Odd... a person who is not well credentialed to be on the SC compared to those who are on there now or who have been on there ever. Even David Frum and Michele Malkin says she is not the best person, heck, Malkin even said that Miers is a crony!!!!!
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Can someone please explain how that's flamebait? It's a joke, people. Sheesh...
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
or you're with the terrorists! ;)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Strangely (and scarily), Miers has never been a judge. She's been a landshark for years though, chairing the Dallas Bar and Texas State Bar. She was also appointed a job in Texas by Bush (W) during his stint as Texas Gov, so she's obviously not been swayed by any political party ever.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
A lawyer's speech in a trial is by no means a political speech. She is just saying what she thinks is best for his client. If I believe in the death penalty, and even if I believe that my client is guilty, I WILL NOT tell the jury that. What a judge says, however, is an entirely different thing.
Please google and research "peak oil" a bit. You will discover this crisis is a lot worse than they have told you
actually, according to the constitution act of 1982, we're our own country, with nothing to do with England. it just so happens that the queen/king of Canada is also the same person as the queen/king of England.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
If I build and sell a car that can make damages no matter how careful the driver is, I am responsible for it in front of the law.
If I build and sell a toaster that will burn someone's fingers no matter how carefull she is, I'm resposible.
Why on earth if I build (literally!) and sell software that can make damages of any nature because of bugs I am not responsible?
It's a matter of how powerful the software developer is!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
IIRC, there wasn't really a bug in the disk compression; the issue was lazy writes. Users who, for example, shut the system down precipitously, might have had written data lost, but the same is true of any modern OS. I think all 6.2 did in this regard was to shut off lazy writes by default.
You might remember that Infoworld ran a major page 1 review reporting that the compression had bugs that resulted in lost data, but in fact it was their faulty testing procedures that caused system resets without flushing the cache that was the cause of the lost data. Infoworld ran a page 1 correction not long thereafter, but that wouldn't stop trial lawyers from trying to form a class.
Why such self-loathing - is it honestly for what's a good system of checks and balances (judicial selection) or just fashionable angst to score mod points and /. favor err favour?
All proprietary software manyfacturers should be forced to continue to support software until such time as it is bug free or provide a full refund when they choose to no longer support that software with out first repairing all its faults.
If it acceptable for some of the most ingenuous marketers of software to wallow in very large profits and claim support from the government to protect those profits (copyrights and patents), then it should also be acceptable for the government to protect the investment of computer users in that software (bearing in mind you are not only talking about the purchase price of software but also all the other associated costs; training, manuals, service, support, security and the creation of the data).
The bias is so far out of wack, that when the software company refuses to repair those faults it is illegal for the end user to even attempt to repair it themselves (if you want one that actually works properly, "we promise", pay for the next version and the next and the next and the next ad nauseum).
Microsoft's only actual real innovation, that unfortunately too many of the others have copied.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
While I don't disagree with you on the knee-jerk-ocity of the story, your side example isn't really the same as what happened in this case. If there's a bug in my software, I can't be held liable as long as I write out in the license "I am not responsible for blah blah". If there is some rather nasty bug though, and I choose to release the fix for a million dollars, there is definitely room for debate as to whether I should be able to charge money for my own mistake.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
surely you have to be a judge before you can be nominated to the supreme court...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
It's clear that there are a lot more lawyers specializing in tech law now than then, explicitly because of situations like the DOS case and the gazillion tech patent disputes that have been poorly defended before and since.
This argument basically says that yes, you may have a broken product, but you can only sue if you've actually lost data. You can't have "may be injured" and "injured" in the same pool of plaintiffs in this particular case. If you haven't been injured, you can't apply.
If the case had been a few years later, and about Windows 98 instead of DOS 6.0, I'm sure it would've been a lot harder to argue that the all users weren't "injured" somehow because I think everybody would've lost some data using WIN98 by then and been able to better sympathasize with the plaintiffs. (As opposed to DOS 6, mainly used by businesses and hobbists but not nearly as ubiqitious as Windows would eventually become.)
She's a good lawyer who is well paid to get people off the hook. I'm sure she would've done the same for Apple or Sun or Enron. That's her job, that's why she's headed to the Supreme Court.
there's still time!
Scott McNealy to Michael: "Suck my Sun!" Michael Dell to Scott : "Lick my Dell!"
Defense attorney running for office once defended someone accused of murder in court, and got him off using evidence and legal arguments!
His dirty little secret is out now, though. Thanks Slashdot!
While I do expect that most software will have general issues and bugs, I do not expect to be charged to have those bugs fixed, particularly when they involve potential corruption of my actual data, and not just 'whoops, I crashed'. MS was charging it's customer $10 on top of the purchase price to fix what they broke. That's ridiculous, it's a poor practice, and any company that behaves in that manner should be eligible for a class suit.
Because "liberal" is a very unfashionable word these days. Few people want to be associated with the wacko types who are prould of the label. So what happens is you've got these people who believe in 90% of democrat ideology calling themselves moderates or independents. The reason they feel they can do this is because they'll say, "If a Republican agrees with my beliefs then I'll vote for them. I'll vote for either R or D." But that's like Russia's Putin saying, "If George Bush agrees with Socialism then I'll support him." Does that mean Putin believes in a good balance between Socialism and Democracy? No.
I mean be real, you will rarely ever happen to agree with a Republican but will almost always agree with a normal Democrat. So really, what does that make you?
Answer: Somebody who is liberal but will vote for a Republican if he/she is also liberal.
If the parent comment is a flame/troll - then Taco should get the blame for posting that in the first place
... did I just stumble into some political blog?!
What kind of bullshit Slashdot story is that anyway
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
The analogy is faulty, it's more like they put an extra mirror in your car that sometimes could get bumped and not show you your blind spot, then wanted to go back and say that the mirror is broken and they didn't need to replace it unless you got side swiped because of the mirror. They then offered a replacement for $10. What they then argued in court is they only needed to refund the money of the people who paid for the replacement, not the people who had a broken mirror and didn't even know it.
Never confuse volume with power.
There are a lot of people here who love the neo-cons and MS. They will be very supportive of this choice. One of the things that I have noticed about /. is that there is a strong correlation between the two.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
At least people can sue microsoft if they have a defect that causes lost data. They may or may not win the suit, but at least they can try. But who are they going to sue if they have a problem with Linux?
. . . and the alternative to Bush, John Kerry, would have been better? The man who doesn't own SUVs but daily drives any one of seven owned by his wife? The same John Kerry who ((allegedly)) cheated his way into multiple purple hearts in his quest for an early discharge? The same John Kerry who was putting down those who did their duty and served our country? I live here in Taxachusetts and I can't stand John Kerry. In fact, I can't think of a single politician at higher state or Federal levels that I do not abhor. I vote against incumbants whenever there is a reasonable alternative, but in the last election I voted not for Bush, but against John Kerry. Granted, I checked the Bush box on the ballot, but that was because it was the only way to keep an even worse scumbag out of office. Both candidates suck, and I just fear that John Kerry would have done far, FAR more damage.
Oh, for the days of our parents when Republicans were really for smaller government, and Democrats really for the people. Now it's a matter of social engineering, controlling every facet of our personal lives, and profiteering without getting caught like Delay did.
Vote against incumbants, always, unless the alternative is far worse.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
The real problem with her nomination is that she has never been a judge before, not that she was onece on microsoft's side.
If it's dead, you killed it.
If only 9.95$ could fix windows ...
And your mistake is assuming that it's pretending to be. It's a common mistake for some reason. Slashdot doesn't claim to be journalism, they don't claim to be original, and they don't claim to be unbiased.
I don't know where people manage to get the impression that a site run by a guy calling himself "Commander Taco" should be held to the same journalistic standards as CNN.
The Slashdot editors post stories that they'd want to read as Slashdot readers. Since the editors are heavily anti-Microsoft, pro-Apple, pro-Linux, pro-Unix, anti-Republican, etc, those are the sorts of stories that they post.
Complaining about "hidden" bias on Slashdot is like complaining about "hidden" bias in a press release or at the Democratic National Convention.
Oh no.. someone said "Microsoft" and "Lawyer" in a slashdot article.. We will never hear the end of this....
Obama = Socialism.
Here, the president nominates and the senate approves or disapproves of them.
IOW, the senate decides, which they were decided by the states which was decided by the ppl.
I think that this is a pretty good approach myself.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Wow, that's Slashdot at its even-better-than-that. Amazing.
Are you done? Good. Allow me to retort.
1) What you said has absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand.
2) It's so over the top as to be ludicrous. No one has ever been "thrown in jail" for sharing "a copy with someone else" (i.e. one copy).
3) If you don't like the fact that Company X's software costs money for each licensed copy... DON'T BUY IT. They have a perfect right to offer a product with certain terms and conditions for a certain price. You have the ability to choose whether to buy it, or go with a different company, or write your own, or tap into open source. Just because you prefer one alternative or another, don't assume that your preference is the only one true way. Or you're just another ignorant Slashdotter.
Have you ever taken a US history / constituion class?
It all goes back to check and balances for our three arms of the national government.
Why is it wrong to have the president appoint a SC justice with the advice and consent of the Legislative branch? Just because you hate W does not make the process "wrong". Billy boi Clinton appointed one of the most liberal SC justices ever and had her approved in a 96-4 vote in the Senate, with little to no bitching by the minority right (or was that majority right at the time?)
Linux fan-boys might be unhappy about that, but does this article say 'therefore she is not qualified for the Supreme Court'? read it again and get back to me on that.
The new nominee seems completely unqualified for the job, whatever her past lawyering cases were, Microsoft or no. She's never even decided a traffic ticket case. How can she possibly be qualified to decide cases which will set legal precedents for the next umpty-ump years? There is an enormous difference between being a lawyer and being a judge. Her only qualifications for the job seem to be 1) friend of Bush, 2) lawyer, and 3) a woman. I think a supreme court justice should have more qualifications than those.
More like Captain Schizophrenia.
Is anyone else bothered by the fact that she has no past judging experience?
Speaking of stifling innovation, this statement would certaintly do that. The average large application has several thousand bugs in the code, most of which the user will never notice. Even NASA, which requires a substantial amount of documentation to change even one line of code in the space shuttle is estimated to have 4 or 5 bugs still left in shuttle code that has been tweaked for over 20 years. By your reasoning we'd still be using the first versions of DOS.
That is a bad analogy. Supposing that the breast implants did cause health concerns - then the defect was general to everyone who had them implanted - everyone was equally likely to become a victim. If Microsoft was being sued over a bug that affected a core feature of the OS, that too would equally applied to everyone who purchased the system. They would all be equally vulnerable, regardless of whether they happened to encountered the bug yet or not. But since the bug was limited to a feature that only a small group of people used, then only that small group of people was at risk. The courts could require them to make that particular feature availiable to all the customers who requested it, since it was advertized to work in 6.0, but Microsoft shouldn't have to pay damages to people who never intended to use the feature to begin with.
It is hard to tell from just that article whether they were suing for damages (usually the case in class-action) or just a free upgrade, or whether the judge broke up the class because it contained people who where not injured, or because it contained people who were not at risk to be injured. This could very well be a situation where the plaintiffs lawyers would have had a good case, but they got greedy and filed overreaching complaints. Without knowing more details of the case it is impossible to say.
Yes, we hate a loss against the giant, but think about it this way.
The Supreme court doesn't legislate, it doesn't take opinions, it works with the laws we have and interprets them, that's what she did, she found a way to point out it's not applicable for class action and used it, that's ALL that's important. I'd much rather a competent supreme court judge, then an moronic one who sides with the people every time.
This being said I feel we need more of a track record from her so we can see she's not a token woman, but the fact she worked for microsoft shouldn't disqualify her. If she knows the law, and can interpret it in context, that's all she needs for the supreme court. Politics shouldn't come into the Supreme court, and in most cases it doesn't.
Oh yeah ! saw his troll of a wife behind him ;)
Why did your FUD detector go off? Is it not conceivable that plaintiff's lawyers are sometimes doing things that are bad, and the corporations they are suing are sometimes trying to do the right thing? That's what I mean by "Slashdot knee-jerk reaction". You just had one.
Stop and think. You are a product manager in a for-profit software company. A successful class-action lawsuit has just transferred all the profit from your last product into the hands of a bunch of lawyers, because of some decision you made about when and how to schedule fixes into product releases. What do you do this time? Do you hold onto the next release for another month, six months, a year, while you try to lawsuit-proof it? Do you allocate resources away from new features and onto handling the most obscure situations? Do you start looking for a new career because this one is going nowhere and isn't fun any more? Is it REALLY the right thing to allow lawyers into this loop?
As to your comments on what you feel is "progress"... sure, absolutely, you have the power to choose what you view as value in software, and to spend your resources in that direction. However, this has nothing to do with the subject at hand... whether you also let lawyers and class action lawsuits into that value-determining feedback loop to the producers of the software.
Fascism is not government by corporation. That's a translation/cultural mistake. Mercantilism is government by business interest, historically to the extent of going to war to protect your foriegn markets from regulation by their own governments. If you're worried about the current trend continuing unchecked (a silly thin to worry about IMO), that's where we're heading. The Wikipedia article discusses hte economic theory, but like communism it's really both political and economic in practice. The modern version is based on control of cheap labor, not bullion, as economic understanding has matured (but is still pretty silly).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I'm gonna make a point in favor of microsoft. Don't throw me tomatoes, I'll still make them look bad. (-;
Isn't that when microsoft stole stacker (i.e. full fledged burglary), got sued, lost, paid, and claimed the 95% people who switched to DOS 6.0 from another DOS were not doing it for the compression?
Of course the compression being the only new feature and the center of the original publicity barrage don't help them win credibility!
And yes, there was 5% of the others who didn't switch to DOS 6.0 from another DOS for the compression; incidentally that was 4.7% from very old DOS versions such as 4.0 and maybe some of them switched to 6.0 for compression (easy to check by asking them, hard to prove in court).
Regardless of the whole mess and the bad-process-bad-president-appointed judge used in a case of a suit against a major reelection campaign donator, there is a point in favor of microsoft!
The class for the lawsuit should have been people who _upgraded_ rather than people who _bought_ DOS 6.0 because people with a brand new computer needed a DOS. These people weren't 95% switching on the compression feature alone (they needed a DOS because they had none).
I welcome a class action lawsuit for upgraders. Then we get to know if the system works or not. There are thresholds for how much % of the class had the harm for the class action suit to work, and upgraders most probably exceed it for most courts.
Should that new class action suit fails, then you can actually get a pure CampaignDonatorOcracy as opposed to the impure model with senate consensus judges.
then microsoft can get away with promising forever a feature per release and selling an upgrade to fix the fact that feature doesn't work - as a permanent lawyer-proof business strategy!
P.S.: why was the upgrade 9.95$? Because in some courts class action lawsuits start at 10.00$!!!
Microsoft is pure dog-ma. FreeBSD is pure cat-ma.
If M$ people are so great how come their products suck?
Stay out of politics. It makes you look retarded.
Oh, I don't disagree with what you said, at all. It's completely reasonable that I should be able to get high-severity bug fixes in the release that I purchased, without buying a new release.
That was not my point. My point was: why are we assuming that including ALL users of a release, even those who were NOT affected by a particular bug, in the class certified for a class-action lawsuit, is the right thing to do? Just because the people arguing against this are Microsoft and a Bush appointee? Maybe, just maybe, they are RIGHT, and you should analyze each situation rather than knee-jerk reacting or talking about some other issue.
Whoever posted this was clearly trying to start something, she was a Microsoft lawyer, is becase she is shit hot at her job. The reason she is being made a Senator (stupid system if you ask me) is becase she is shit hot at her job. Not because of all the conspiricy theories that keep appearing in my head. I am trying very hard not to join the ranks and have a good flame, but i wont, because im too strong for that....gnrrr....microsoft....government....Micros oftState2005....MicrosoftCountry2007...MicrosoftCo ntinant 2012....Domination....Inferior...Bug...Patch....fu ck
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
But the goverment still insist to keep a Governor in attendance and have the queen fly here when a prime minister is assermented! That's pretty pointless. We should have a president (not an american one) Like any indepedent country and get rid of those costly monarchy visits.
Kill the senate too, it's just a place were old geezers are sent to ensure that they keep a salary (friends of the prime minister) they even have a rule that attendance is required only for a couple of days per year, we pay for that type of shit.
Perfect pick, they are planning to wire her up like Bush in the debates (wires under the clothes) and everything is peachy keen.
History will show that Bush was the worse president, so this is no surprise.
The #1 alternative is for various border states to secede from the US and become Canadian provinces, or their own nation-states.
Then Bush and his supporters can have his "Jebusland."
OK, so she is willing to work for ethically questionable people for money. I think the fact that she is George Bush's personal lawyer pretty much already illuminated that aspect of her character. What I'm interested in though is her pro bono work. Who has she personally chosen to represent for free? What causes has she sought out? A quick google search finds plenty of links to her being a member of an organization that encourages pro bono work, but I have not found a single reference to a pro bono case she was a lawyer for. Has she not represented anyone pro bono? It seems like Roberts managed to avoid doing any pro bono work in criminal cases, but at least we have his record as a judge to look at. All I know about Miers is she will do things I find ethically questionable for money. Will her rulings as a supreme court justice just favor whomever pays her the most? I'd appreciate it if anyone who has any real information about her would post it.
Does she respect the 2nd Amendment
If yes then she is a very good nominee for the Supreme Court.
Does she respect Wade vs. Roe?
If no then I would have a problem with her being appointed.
Since she wasn't a judge, I'd like to know how much she used precedence in arguing her cases.
If she is very traditional in her use of precedence then that is a very good sign regardless if you are Conservative or Liberal
Did she ever argue any Civil Rights cases?
This is the most complex question I have. Without knowing how she argued these sorts of cases and the details of the cases I can't even begin to say what would be good or bad
So I urge /.'ers to pull the rope down from the tree and give her a fair chance to be evaluated before you hang her for having been a lawyer on a Microsoft case.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
This is a perfectly reasonable argument, thanks. You actually lay out the issue and give your opinion. This stands in stark contrast to the knee-jerk posted article which simply assumes that Microsoft is wrong and Miers is somehow tarred by association with Microsoft and this case.
And I completely agree with you that what Microsoft did is "ridiculous" and "poor practice".
That said... the real question was not whether a class-action lawsuit can be filed.. obviously anyone can sue anyone for anything at any time with no real consequences. (THAT is another problem, BTW.) The question is, what class should be certified by the judge? This is the critical question for the plaintiff's lawyers, because if the class isn't huge, or if they have to do work to qualify class members, it isn't worth their while to pursue the suit.
In this case, the question is: if you bought DOS, and you never used the compression feature, or you used it and never had a problem with it... are you part of the class bringing suit? In other words, did you have an injury that should be compensated?
I think THAT is highly debatable.
It was DoubleSpace, in dos 6.0. It was a compression program that made a compressed FAT filesystem in a file on a regular FAT, and loop mounted it as c: (I've applied some terminology that may not have existed back then, and either way isn't normally used in a MS OS context). You could almost do the same thing in unix as follows (semi-fake code follows for explanatory purposes only): /dev/hda1 /uncompressed
mkdosfs -C dblspc.bin [sizeof(/dev/hda1)-5mb)
gzip dblspc.bin > dblspc.bin.gz
mount -o loop dblspc.bin.gz /
mount
dos 6.2 brought the less terrible DriveSpace. It was still terrible.
I can't remember what minor stuff dos 6.22 brought, but that upgrade was free for download if you wanted to wait hours at 2400 baud...
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
Look, I know /. readership is overwhelming left-of-center, but to post an article about Bush's lawyer being "related to Microsoft" is kind of silly. At some point the Bush-bashing just becomes pointless partisanship. So she made an argument for Microsoft back in the DOS 6.2 days. She also used to be Democrat and contributed to Al Gore's campaign fund. Big deal. Is this what passes for "News for Nerds"?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
"people who were sold defective software by Microsoft weren't "injured,""
And to think that this is the same sort of logic that will be guiding the United States of America for decades to come.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
in this case, the data lost was the new-redesign of the chevy brake lines...
Good Call: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/msdos/04_ dblsp.mspx
while it appears drivespace was the MS 6.20 fix. http://kb.iu.edu/data/abid.html
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
How about...
the same John Kerry that can form complete sentences and speak coherently in public.
That was enough for me.
Kerry was more of a scumbag than Bush? Kerry was a flip flop median appeasing p-o-s politician, who actually served in Vietnam and ACTUALLY GOT WOUNDED in battle, Bush was a flip flop christian right appeasing p-o-s politician who had only held the 'governor...light' office in Texas and had failed at EVERY SINGLE business he attempted, but always got propped back up by his dad's friends, the Saudis, avoided Vietnam by having dad's connections jump him up on the list of the Texas air national guard and even illegally left his air guard unit to 'work on an Alabama campaign', joined a secret society and got the nick name 'temporary', sat around for 10 minutes looking confused when told of the attacks on 9/11 (and the DAY before his administration had issued reforms to cut counterterrorism funding, despite being fully briefed by the out-going Clinton administration about terrorism), got his lawyers to create a supposed loophole to suspend haebeus corpus and lock anyone up indefinitely without trial and USED IT, lied about nuclear weapons to start a war... that last bit alone is enough to never vote for him again.
There is probably enough 'bad' about Bush for the UN to put the son of a bitch in jail.
Cheers.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Bush's old-time friend and Supreme Court niminee Harriet Miers is a shady person and has a murky past. You might want to do a bit of research on her and your jaw will drop. Didn't anyone know about her before Bush nominated her? This should be of deep concern to any citizen and people shouldn't be afraid to voice their concerns about the nomination of Bush's friend Harriet Miers to their representatives.
This is true, but what is left unspoken is that ``conservative'' is also liberal. In the US, all of the political parties gather their fundamental principles from the classical liberalism of the enlightenment. You don't see any of the truly conservative stances such as the divine right of kings or the fundamental superiority of the nobility over peasantry being argued. The right wing in the US is the right wing of the liberal movement.
And to make matters confusing, the left wing in the US is really only the left wing of the right wing of the liberal movement. If you want to see real left wing politics you have to go to South America or Europe. What passes for ``liberal'' in the US is right of center almost everywhere else in the world.
You've been drinking too much of the Republican kook-aid. The fact is the guy put himself in danger to fight for his country, he conducted missions against the enemy, he was shot at, he saved - directly - people under his command. He found he found the war unconsciable, and came back and said so at a time when it was political death to do so. The man's a hero. He's a hero for going off to fight. He's a hero for standing up for what he believed when doing so carried great political costs. It's an absolute outrage the right were able to get away with this smear campaign, and that people still repeat misrepresentations and outright lies from those smears as "fact'.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Your conclusion would correctly be stated: You obviously don't understand how the American/English law works at all. We have the adversary system - justice is served when the two sides of a dispute present their best legal arguments against each other and a neutral finder of fact (a jury or, in a bench trial, the judge) and a neutral decider of law (the judge and appellate courts) decide whose arguments have the most merit. This system ensures that any party to a lawsuit puts his best foot forward - the only way to avoid losing is by fighting hard.
Another approach to justice is a more cooperative system - the two sides present everything they know to the neutral decision-maker, who makes the decision. Zealous advocacy is no longer the goal, but rather complete openness is. I wish I knew more about these systems.
I am a fan of the adversarial system. It works and it works well.
What is wrong with the headline? It leaves out the important "law firm". As
it reads it implies that she was on the direct payroll of MSFT. That is not
the case. The law firm she was a partner at was <i>retained</i> by MSFT. Go look at some of the comments on here and you can see many people believe she was an employee of MSFT. There is a distinct difference.
One thing that differs about Miers from most of the court -- her undergraduate degree (mathematics).
The others are Roberts (liberal arts), *O'Connor (economics), *Rehnquist (political science), Breyer (liberal arts, math, science), Ginsburg (government), Kennedy (liberal arts, economics), Scalia (history), Souter (liberal arts), Stevens (english literature), Thomas (seminary, english).
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
And what makes anyone think that this is her personal opinion? She's paid by the company to litigate in their favor, period. Her personal feelings or beliefs are irrelevent. People are so stupid as to believe this sort of nonsense. She, like you, are paid to do a job, regardless of how she, or you, feel about it.
On the other hand, she is completely and totally unqualified to be on *any* court at the appellate level - she has no experience as a judge whatsoever. What is amazing to me is that the appointment will probably sail through, just like everything else that the Bush administration has wanted, regardless of (1) how illegal or unconstitutional it is, or (2) how little sense it makes.
-- Ed Carp, N7EKG erc@pobox.com PGP KeyID: 0x0BD32C9B What I'm up to: http://intuitives.mine.nu
Only took you one sentence.
I'm sure that senators aren't quite as smart as you, but I bet they could do it in two sentences, or perhaps one run-on.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
...that's it!
sex is better than war!
I actually used this sorry piece of crap feature, and If I knew there was a lawsuit I would have sued as well...thankfully we had backups of all our data on disk but you can guess that would mean we lost everything on our hard drive because it seems they rushed this out the door before it was ready. We were running a small business and if we lost those files for good we could have been out of business.
News FLASH! Criminal Defense lawyers are PRO CRIME! Who would take the side of a criminal if they didn't agree with the crime comitted?
Or in other words: She was a lawyer, she took a job, she did her job well, and she won the case. Who's to say she has a personal bias or anything of the like because of that?
-DSX
"Microsoft believed that only people who actually lost data had a right to sue; that those merely with faulty software hadn't been injured."
I hate Microsoft as much of the next guy, but I don't see what's wrong with this. It's basically saying "If you lost data, you can sue. If you didn't, you can't".
If your car was sold to you with defective brakes, the company who sold it has the moral obligation (IANAL so i can't really say if they have the LEGAL obligation tho) to give you new brakes. You don't have to wait until you have a car accident to get new brakes, do you?
Microsoft didn't have to pay for damages to the DOS 6.0 users, they just had to give them a FIXED version of their software. Was that so hard to do? huh? The users could have paid shipping and handling, but the software should be free in this case.
This only proves how ruthless the Microsoft policies are. They don't give a sh*t about the customer, they just want da money. And check this out - this was WAY BEFORE Internet Explorer. Do we need more proof that Microsoft is *EVIL* ?
So, what's the choice those DOS 6.0 users have, if not spending ADDITIONAL money for something they ALREADY paid for? Get a copy of the fixed DOS 6.0, even if it's "illegal". So the legal system turns a victim into a "criminal". Only in America!
I'm amazed at the ignorance on slashdot. I've lost count of how many people have said, "How can she qualified for SOCTUS if she's never been a judge?"
The simple fact is that she would not be the first justice to never have sit on the bench before. Most recently Chief Justice Rehnquist was never a judge before he served http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rehnquist. (Contrary to another poster, http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/122/hill/marshall.htm Thurgood Marshall was a judge before he served.)
Of course, as some of you have pointed out, for a lawyer, what matters not are these cases where the laywer is paid for their work. Everyone (even rich companies) have the right to a solid defense. And in this case I actually agree with the decision- M$ should only be liable for data corruption that actually occured, not which might someday occur.
What does matter is what pro bono work she's done. This is where you find out what issues are important to her and gives better insight on how she would rule and write her opinions. Apparently she has been actively involved with trying to get other laywers to do pro bono work, so either she has a stack load of cases we can examine or she's a hypocrite.
Let's all get the economy of this correct - she offered her services to anyone who needs a lawyer.
Someone offered to hire her. They must have given her at lease some of the details of what the case was, who the client was, etc. No lawyer takes a case without knowing at least the basics.
She accepted their offer.
As a business, she can refuse any offer for any reason, as long as it's not discriminatory.
Now that she has done so in an informed manner, she is required to do her level best in court, and use the law to its fullest to represent her client.
She was not hired by force, nor were the specifics of the case a surprise to her.
Did she do her job? Yes. Did she do it well? Yes.
Does everyone agree with the principles or the parties in this case? No.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
"Well, it's a well known fact, Sunny Jim, that there's a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world, known as The Pentaveret, who run everything in the world, including the newspapers, and meet tri-annually at a secret country mansion in Colorado, known as The Meadows."
"So who's in this Pentaveret?"
"Stuart Mackenzie: The Queen, The Vatican, The Gettys, The Rothschilds, and Colonel Sanders before he went tits up. Oh, I hated the Colonel with is wee beady eye! And that smug look on his face, 'Oh, you're gonna buy my chicken! Ohhhhh!'"
These people have looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
You know there are more than two parties in this country. Granted, they don't have the pull that the big two do, but they are. If you don't like either of the big two candidates then vote for a third party one. It isn't throwing your vote away. If everyone I've ever heard say "I didn't like either of the candidates, but voted for X because Y was worse" had actually voted third party then maybe we'd actually have something different happen in Washington. If you keep electing the same scum bags then don't act surprised when they screw you over.
Liberal = Someone who supports money for pornographic art and manditory sensativity training.
Conservative = Someone who wants borrow zillions of dollars for the military to invade random countries that have never attacked us.
Moderate = Anyone who supports 15-55% of your political positions.
Communist = A hyperbolic name to call liberals.
Facist = A hyperbolic name to call conservatives.
Reform Party = Freak show of paranoid crazies who say the right things, but foam at the mouth while gettting into and out of and back into the race.
Christian = Someone who hates fags.
Constituency = Lobbyists.
Voting = Picking the lesser of two evils.
Supreme Court = An unelected bunch of ideologues who make decisions tangentally affecting your life.
FCC = An unelected bunch of ideologues who make decisions directly affecting your life.
Terrorists = Muslims
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
how's that insightful?
... or any version that I can remember.
Brakes are a necessary component of a car -- you cannot operate a car without them.
Compression was not a necessary component of DOS 6.0
Bottom line: Compression's optional. Brakes aren't.
Sony ha
I as an american am too lazy to call my senator and congressman, so where is the autofaxing page for me to lazily write my complaint?
A lawyer has to be a good bullshitter. A judge has to be good at seeing past the bullshit. Since they're clearly only electing republicans to the Supreme Court these days, how many of them can we expect to recognize bullshit better than a former bullshitter? I don't trust her opinions, but she can make a good judge if she wants to.
And how much monye do I get from defective software that cost me a week of work?
Instead of the citizen. Could have guessed that one considering she was appointed by a politician..
Or could it be she was just defending her client? She was being PAID by microsoft, it doesnt mean she actually supported the decision. Attorneys are not paid to make moral judgements, they are paid to defend their client and try to win. ( and of course to make money for themselves.. )
Perhaps now her client is 'the people', and she will fight for us.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I love this idea. But not like the modern, wussy conclave, where everybody goes back to the hotel at the end of the day. I say, make it old school:
To reduce further delays, Gregory X (pope 1271-1276) introduced stringent rules relating to the election procedures. Cardinals were to be secluded in a closed area; they were not even accorded separate rooms. No cardinal was allowed to be attended by more than one servant unless ill. Food was to be supplied through a window; after three days of the meeting, the cardinals were to receive only one dish a day; after five days, they were to receive just bread and water. During the conclave, no cardinal was to receive any ecclesiastical revenue.
Source
After a week of being locked in the senate chamber with only bread and water, the senators would surely come to some bipartisan agreement. What would be even better is if you could compress the walls by a foot a day. After about three months, you would either have a nominee or a sticky goo and the need to appoint a hundred new senators.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
he is choking the beast. more spending, no more taxes. eventually you end up with a smaller government.
Of course, no one ever cuts por first, so we get 30 kids with one teacher, sevices poor peaopl need cut, and corporations that run rapant.
For the record I am not anti-corporate, but only a fool thinks any corporate orginization will be a good neighbor.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
When Moon's coronation is complete the SCOTUS will turn over permanent presidency to him and the Bilderberger overlords.
I have real links:
You see, Scientology or "PSI-entology", is a front for the "one world government" plans that Moon is a key agent for. The Tom Cruise movies they use to warp American values are secret PSI weapons that are devised by Moon's PSI research arm, the "Church" of PSI-entology. Oprah and Dr. Phil are two operatives working against middle America, which is why they performed oral-sex on Schwarzenegger on live TV - at the orders of Moon himself.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
The FUD detector went off due to the comments about innovation and progress. Because it boils down to "companies won't do anything if they fear lawsuits." Which, in a world that demands more and more, is not a good argument. Hardly a /. knee-jerk reaction, just a reaction to bullshit in general.
I say it's bullshit because of your line of thought illustrated in your manager example. If I sell a package v 1.0 and promise features X, Y, and Z only to discover that feature Z has a slight bug in implementation. Do I release a new for-profit "package" only to fix the feature that I promised (and therefore sold under a contract if feature Z was promoted) in v 1.0 called v 1.1, or do I release patches for free? (Granted, this was 1992 and that would have made a free release more difficult. But $10 for a disk + shipping + labelling for the equivilant of a patch sounds a little steep)
The later option sounds a lot more lawsuit proof to me. This means that you can focus releases on new features, rather than patching bugs which also sounds more agile. That seems to be microsoft's strategy today. Is it still open to lawsuits? yes. Is it open to a lawsuit of the nature in this case (where people don't want to pay for something they have already bought)? No. The only other type of possible lawsuit from the angle of bugs is one where damage is done due to negligence on microsoft's part. But that wasn't what this case was about (they were specific on the cost of "upgrading" due to such a bug, not the bug itself).
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
The second hand stopped working on my watch! Gimme a new one!
The Num Lock light went out! Gimme a new keyboard!
Whaa Whaa Whaa Gimme Gimme Gimme I'm a victim.
A year ago, I thought the left was getting as nutty as the right was during the 1950s McCarthy Era. But I was wrong. They're far worse. There's only one historical parallel that fits.
A case in point, Eisenhower and Nixon worked behind the scenes to set up Senator McCarthy for a fall and, when he blundered, they moved quickly to discredit him. Who in the Democratic party leadership today is trying to discredit some of the party's similarly deranged nutcases? No one I know. One of the party's loose cannons is head of the Democratic National Committee.
And there's the Senate's eventual censorship of Senator McCarthy. Only the never very brave Senator John Kennedy, a close friend of McCarthy, absented himself from the Senate vote condemning McCarthy's behavior. Both Democrats and Republicans united on that. And yet when the vote for the highly respected John Roberts came up recently, no less than 22 Democratic Senators listened to the party's Deaniacs and pro-abortion groups to vote against his confirmation. It's difficult to put into words how bizarre that is.
To find a time when a major party became as crazed as the Democratic Party is now, you have to go back to the two decades before the Civil War and listen to Democratic Senators defending Supreme Court sanctioned people as property, better known as slavery. That's why it is another foul defense of people as property, legalized abortion, that's driving the Democrats into political insanity yet again. History does repeat itself.
And that brings to mind the Greek proverb, "Who the gods would destroy, they first make mad."
--Mike Perry, Seattle
Editor: The Pivot of Civilization in Historical Perspective (2001) and Lady Eugenist: Feminist Eugenics in the Speeches and Writings of Victoria Woodhull (out soon)
Kerry was a ringer, intended to discourage the vast numbers of Democrat registered voters - and lose.
He was told to go down after 4 rounds and "make it look good". He did what they wanted.
"I do not know" say the Great Bells of Bow
"Here comes a Candle to light you to Bed
Here comes a Chopper to Chop off your Head
Chip chop chip chop - the Last Man's Dead."
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
If we don't use her previous work as a lawyer as a basis of judgement, exactly how should we judge her?
In Soviet Russia, judges judge you!
What I don't understand is why conservatives support this guy. Is it because he promises to keep the gays in their place by preventing them from getting married? Is it in hopes that he'll appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade? Do some people think that attending the right church is all that matters? Or is it that this country has become so partisan that an incompetent with money and connections will win out over someone like John McCain just so conservatives can "support our guy".
I really don't get it.
6.0 DoubleSpace compression
6.2 DoubleSpace replaced with DriveSpace due to a bug in DoubleSpace
6.21 DriveSpace removed due to lawsuit claiming Microsoft stole it from another company
6.22 Compression added back, perhaps under a new name. I don't know what it was, I never bothered "upgrading" to 6.21.
"1) some previous court cases maybe weren't decided in the way the judge would have decided, but have been the basis for so many cases, and been reviewed enough times, that they're a basic part of case law. And you don't overturn case law, because that's judicial activism. or 2) to hell with 30 years of judicial precedent, what the original writers of the consistitution intended is more important than what recent judges have said, so overturn case law"
To hell with 30 years of "precedent" if the original ruling reinterprets the orginial meaning it SHOULD be overturned. If you don't like what the constitution says, then amend it. That is the whole reason we have an amendment process.
If we allow judges,senators, etc to reinterpret the constitution according to modern standards we do a disservice to law. This is as intellectually dishonest as you reinterpreting me when I write the number 100 in decimal, by saying I REALLY wrote in binary, so my "100" is really 4.
That said, Roberts sounds like more of the pro-"big gubment" justice than a strict contructionalist.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
I hereby declare her to be an evil baby-eating witch, who must NOT gain any Democratic votes for confirmation.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Either Bush and his crew are criminally incompetent, or their primary goal was something other than promoting democracy.
;-)
Both could easily be true.
The most troubling thing about this is that she once represented Microsoft when she worked at a law firm? She represented Disney and a few other large corporations too, it's what lawyers are paid to do.
Have we perhaps overlooked the fact that she was appointed by then Texas Governor Bush to head up the oft-maligned Texas Lottery Commission and dispatched two commissioners who happned to be democrats, one of whom claimed to be instrumental in getting Bush discharged from the Air National Guard? How about the fact that when running for Dallas City Council, she considered herself to be a reformed pro-choicer (aka: anti-choice) due to a born again situation? Or the fact that she lobbied the ABA to change its stance from pro-choice to nuetral or pro-life, only to rebuffed? Then she was the one who claimed that the ABA rankings weren't valid measures of performance and standing when trying to identify nominees for the appelate court?
Don't be fooled here, she's a wolf in sheeps clothing...Dubbya's sleeping giant. He's trying to put through someone with no real paper trail so that he can establish his real legacy, shifting the opinion of the court to 'repair' the moral fiber of America. Being from Dallas, a city that she called home for a good long while, I've already heard a good deal from Texas republicans (which I, myself, used to be) about how she is more like Sandra Day O'Connor than people realize, and she'll fit that mold well, but I don't buy it. She won't play 'swing vote' in any form or fashion. I hope she gots blocked, and hard.
"How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
wouldn't the world be a better place if... everyone could just abdicate any moral responsibility to their boss/government/organization and defend even the worst crimes by saying 'I was just following orders.'
There has to be a balance between 'making the system work' and people acting in ethical way -- and yes, however scary you find it, that means individual human beings deciding and acting on their personal morals.
You are complaining that the moderators on Slashdot are too right-wing? Are we in a parallel universe? This place is as liberal as it gets. Try posting even the mildest, most fact-filled comment against anthropogenic global warming, or in favor of the Iraq war, and see what happens. You'll be modded down to -1 instantly.
If Microsoft put completely blank CDs or DVDs in the boxed edition of Windows Vista, you would have no right of reply. You aren't buying the program, ALL you buy is the license. If the company provides the program, it is strictly a bonus and is not a part of the sale.
Do I agree with this stance? Do I hell! I believe that software should be bought and sold, and that although "totally free of defects" is unrealistic, there are probably realistic variants of "fit for the purpose for which it was sold" that software could be placed under. Either that, or software should be required to carry indicators of risk. That last one might be better, as it would work even for Open Source and research software, where "purpose" is often ill-defined as it is infinitely variable.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
As a conservative, I'd rather have Bill Clinton appointing the next Supreme Court justice than Bush. This woman is far left.
Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
You sound like far-right-serving talk radio. You also sound like Homer Simpson.
That sort of reaction is what allows any traction on an issue to slip away.. You might think you're offering some kind of clarity, but what you're really doing is pumping liquified margarine under the wheels of action, when you should be delivering sand with prudence.
This woman was the president's former personal attorney. Make a joke out of that.
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
The "nuclear option" to remove the fillibuster would be a change in the Senate rules. In order to change the Senate rules a two thirds majority is needed. The Republicans would try to change the rule without that majority.
So, unless 11 Democrats or 10 Democrats and the lone Independent decide to have a brief moment of insanity the rule change can't occur. It's either a bunch of bluster or the Republicans will illegally change the Senate rules.
Wouldn't put it past them, they're politicians.
I am also religious. It's that fact that gives people the idea that he may actually *be* an (if not the) Antichrist.
He fits the profile..
The trouble is, his religion is not the religion of the people. It is the religion of the Rich, which keeps the poor from killing them and taking their jewels.
Because she has only ever argued points that she was paid for, and not whether or not they are constitutional. I am against this nominee simply because of that. The fact that she argued on microsoft's side of the case is immaterial.
But the fact remains that this is a person who is only a lawyer by trade, not a jurist. A lawyer's job is to win the case, period. A jurist's job is to be correct in the interpretation of the law. Do you honestly believe that this woman, who has been a bush family lawyer, will do that? I don't.
She has no record as a judge, no record of her opinion regarding the constitution, she only has a record of what she has been paid to do. Is that enough for you? Not me.
She is being nominated for a position that will make her one of the final arbiters of what is and is not legal in this country. And her record is that she is good at doing what she is told, (or paid for.) That frightens me.
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
You think a Buddhist could get nominated by the Democrats, then? Think again.
Lawyers have a job, so do judges. A lawyers task is to argue any point, philosophy and set of facts and precedents that he/she thinks will favorably impact the outcome of the case for the client. They are essentially sales men. No sales person ever came to you and said "Hey I think this product is a pice of total crap personaly but anyway you should by one." No they keep the discussion focused on the virtue of the product. Working for Microsoft ment she had to convince those she was asked to speak with, be they judges, officials, customers or whoever, that Microsofts positions were sensible and legally correct, not that she personally felt that way. The fact she worked for Microsoft means only she was paid to do a job.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
What made corporations powerful in the late 19th century is that had can hold the rights of "people" in the eyes of the law. Otherwise, individuals culd have bullied them around. I forget the name of this important Supreme Court decision. This is how the recent documentary "The Corporation" begins its history of the modern corporation.
... So, of course, she must be immediately disqualified.
And I made this statement where? Thanks for coming out.
Oh, and just because it has been done in the past, does not make it the best possible course to take. Yea, she may potentially be a great justice, that does not mean she is the best - and taht does not mean she is qualified right now to enter this position. Could she learn it, yea if she got this position she has the rest of her life to learn how to do the job....but then, there are the first years where she does not have the EXPERIENCE.
PLUS, since she is not a judge, I have no idea how she would have ruled over different issues - something that is very important to the people.
So until you can argue on my assumption's, keep your squander to yourself. Just so you realize - my assumption's is her lack of EXPERIENCE & lack of proof as to how she will act with regards to certain issues.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
For those of us who aren't happy with the idea of a judge who will make the GOP's philosophy the law of our land, for the rest of our lives, tough cookies. You had you're chance to change who'd be appointing our judges (or lawyers who will become judges) in 2004, and you blew it.
;-).
Regardless of *why* you think the left blew it (poor candidates, poor campaign strategies, failing to remove Diebold from the equation, whatever), it doesn't change the fact that the GOP alone is calling the shots on what people can and can't do for the next 3, and their judges will be doing it for the rest of your natural lives.
If people don't like this nominee, and she is defeated, Bush will merely appoint someone else who is as similiar to her as he can. And sooner or later, *one* of his nominees will be confirmed, and set the rules we'll all have to live by.
The only way that's going to change, is if people are *so* dissatisfied with the people he chooses that the gradually elect enough people who are similarly dissatisfied, and those people change the rule that judicial appointments are for life.
And the odds of that happening in our lifetimes is pretty freakin' slim, considering that only about 30% of us actually bother to vote in the first place.
I know this seems harsh to the left, but keep in mind this is coming from someone who's probably farther to the left that you are. I'd vote for Clippy before voting for a Republican. I just think we need to pick our battles at this point. And trying to fight against the inevitable outcome that our most conservative president yet, will put the most conservative people he can get into lifetime judicial appointments, just seems like spending an awful lot of effort to close the barn doors after the horses are long gone.
As technology experts, I think we'd get more out of spending our efforts pointing better ways of doing electronic voting, advocating better science and technology polices, and soon... devising 100% full-proof methods of birth control. And of course, developing reliable open-source data-compression that makes the outcomes of lawsuits relating to it failing, moot.
I would just like to congratulate Bill Gates
for having a personal friend on the Supreme Court.
Use her wisely, Bill, please.
AC
Can the same argument be used by one who gets a speeding ticket, since nobody was injured due to the ``speeding''? Or how about other similar situations where no real injury occurred?
Really? I left a job for ethical reasons. And took a pay cut, too. Now at my current job a client is asking for something potentially unethical and my boss has no problem if I refuse to do it.
If more people actually lived and worked by their supposed morals we'd be a much happier society. People should say no to their employer if asked to do something they consider unethical. If you don't live by your ethics you have no ethics at all.
If she was in the military and order to shoot an unarmed child, should she have done it? According to your logic, yet, because it's her job to follow all orders.
If she believed what she was doing was unethical, and did it anyway because it's her job, she's got no ethics and should not be one of my Supreme Court justices.
Developers: We can use your help.
After nominating a non-Judge as Supreme Court Justice, George W. Bush announced today that he will be nominating the monocled Monopoly game guy as replacement for Alan Greenspan!
Film at 11.
What Would Sutekh Do?
I understand the stealth appointments not giving the Democrats anything to haggle over, but if she's Pro-MSFT, screw THAT. She can go back to Texas.
Pick somebody else.
I know /. readership is overwhelming left-of-center...
"Overwhelming"? Do you have some evidence to support this, or do things you disagree with just stand out a lot more to you? Many so-called conservatives just can't stand dissent - and I'm supposed to believe that they actually want Democracy in Iraq! (I say *so-called* conservatives because many actual conservatives are reasonable people. Too bad their numbers seem to be shrinking.).
IMO, the readership of Slashdot is fairly diverse politically, with Libertarians probably representing the largest group. But that's just a guess.
-G
www.pixelstatic.com
Justices generally recuse themselves from cases involving possible conficts of interest. Since she was Microsofts attorney, any case of theirs that reaches SCOTUS will likely trigger her recusing. So if she is pro-microsoft, even indirectly such as supporting the rights of large corporations, the balance of the court shifts against MS. On the other hand, if working with MS left a bad taste for corporations, having her off the case is a plus for MS.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Confused for 10 minutes or 7? Don't forget the 40 minutes that Kerry spent bewildered... That's 7 or 10 times WORSE than Bush! KERRY: "I was in the Capitol. We'd just had a meeting -- we'd just come into a leadership meeting in Tom Daschle's office, looking out at the Capitol. And as I came in, Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid were standing there, and we watched the second plane come in to the building. And we shortly thereafter sat down at the table and then we just realized nobody could think, and then boom, right behind us, we saw the cloud of explosion at the Pentagon. And then word came from the White House, they were evacuating, and we were to evacuate, and so we immediately began the evacuation. "
not that anyone is likely to read this way off topic post but...
:)
Technically Clinton was not impeached for having an affair, but for lying about having it under oath. Now, I was a Clinton supporter and I doubt he did anything different under the circumstances that another man would, but it was a little more serious offense, since oaths before a court of law are serious things. It didn't bother me so much because he lied about something that seemed to have little to no effect or bearing on any matter of substance. It was also clear to me this was part of a witch hunt by republicans that never accepted either of the two Clinton elections as legitimate.
Well, I am interested to see who actually reads this post
Peace, or Not?
A: Coming out of the closet to your parents.
The aforementioned terminology is (suppsedly) applicable to hyper-politicized americans. I was speaking to specific philosophies. Am I conservative or liberal because I dont think the destitute should NOT be given free drugs but think that the freedom of information act didn't go far enough?
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
We're never going to get straight answers from nominees in the US judicial system, but it would be interesting to know how nominees would have handled the cases of Derek Bentley, Carol Hanson or other such cases of political convictions or other malpractices. Why these cases? They were in the UK, after all. That is precisely why. The cases are from a country similar enough that knowing the answers would tell us a lot, but different enough that the nominee is less likely to feel pressure by one American lobby group or another. No candidate sane enough to qualify is likely to be insane enough to comment on an issue likely to cause a pressure group to block the nomination, which means questions about issues hot within the US are a non-starter when it comes to finding anything out.
So ask questions that'll get you the information you want, but in a way that is unlikely to trigger a political third-world war against the nominee.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Hate replying to myself, but on my way into work this morning while listening to NPR radio, the number of previous SCOTUS judges with no prior judge experiance is 35. So this is hardly unheard of.
This is the most forward-thinking, liberal action Bush has taken yet. No longer is it the "Good ol' boy" network. He has started the "Good ol' girl" network too!!!
"This lawyer has never been a judge - she does not have the judge experience and that is integral."
The point of my response was that prior experience as a judge is not integral to service or performance on the Supreme Court. None of the individuals I listed had prior experience as a judge prior to being appointed to the Court. You are correct that she may or may not be the best appointee for the job, but we have as of yet no evidence to use to assess that.
"PLUS, since she is not a judge, I have no idea how she would have ruled over different issues - something that is very important to the people."
IMHO, points of view regarding certain specific issues are not the proper criteria to use when scrutinizing a proposed judge. Judges should be scrutinized regarding their judgment, their overall judicial philosophy, and their ability to apply the law as written; "issues" are appropriate criteria to use when assessing legislators and executives. My thought regarding Ms. Biers and what I believe her likely views on said issues is that one would no more expect President Bush to appoint George Mitchell to the Supreme Court than one would expect Bill Clinton to appoint John Roberts. Such are the consequences of elections.
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
Because she worked for Microsoft, she should recuse herself on Microsoft issues. On some levels this makes this discussion moot -- she's one we don't have to worry about. Would the REST of the court be favorable to Microsoft?
That's "100" times.. stupid keyboard...
Ok my friend, I may not agree with you, but I read your comment and saw your point, until There is probably enough 'bad' about Bush for the UN to put the son of a bitch in jail.
Are you trying to be funny? The UN putting an American in jail? Uh... never, ever gonna happen. And I am not talking about how the UN is corrupt, how despots are on the human rights commission-
There is no chance of the UN ever having the autority to put an American President in jail. None.
And for all your ranting about Bush- saying the UN could put him in jail paints you as a one world gov't type- which makes you a nut.
There is probably enough 'bad' about Bush for the UN to put the son of a bitch in jail. I spend a lot of time on slashdot reading comments, but yours is the most ridiculous I have ever read. And the fact that it is modded +5 insightful tells everyone everything that need to know about modding on slashdot. An off topic, anti Bush, nonsensical rant gets a +5 insightful. Amazing.
Say it with me- if the UN ever came to arrest an American President, after we stopped laughing, the UN would get its ass kicked.
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
I agree with her arguments about this class action lawsuit nonsense on trivialities. I would bet 99.9% of users of DOS 6.X didn't even know there was a compression program that came with it. Of those who had some vague inkling that this was a new "Feature" (i.e.: "a bug as defined by the marketing department" -- Manual for the Apple II circa 1979) very few used it. If they did use it, very few were "injured" because of it. And let's just pretend you WERE "injured" by losing some important data, why the hell didn't you create a backup before you tried something new on your precious bits and bytes? Don't plead ignorance there, plead stupidity, and that makes you culpable. Maybe it's you who needs to be sued (or fired) because you didn't use basic procedures to safeguard your data.
Yet an attempt was made to turn this into another of those infamous "class action suits," which means, really, that anyone can jump on the bandwagon and claim injury. You know: Notices in major newspapers and magazines, lots of fine print, years of parading in the press. And when all is said and done, if these things win, you might be eligible for a rebate worth a few bucks, maybe, if you send it in, which only a handful of people ever will. You know why Norton can pretend to offer you Systemworks for free at Fry's if you send in the multiple rebate forms. It's because you never will, and they know it. It may get you to buy it, but it's just too much of a hassle to bother when you get right down to it. Mission accomplished, chump!
Meanwhile, in this case, assuming it had been able to go forward, by the time it would have ended, DOX 6.X would have been history anyway. You would have upgraded to a faster box, guaranteed, with a new OS, just like you have since the dawn of IT history. So here's big, bad Microsoft that everyone loves to hate and hassle, with yet another frivolous lawsuit to deal with.
And who gets all the money? MILLIONS of dollars change hands in these things. You get nothing (but then, you weren't really injured), but the bucks go to the LAWYERS who made up all this stuff in the first place.
So good for her. She made a good argument and they made the right decision to toss such nonsense out of court.
(And, having said that, I think she is an extremely poor choice for the Supreme Court with no relevant experience at all.)
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
The point of my response was that prior experience as a judge is not integral to service or performance on the Supreme Court
Well I disagree. I think to do a job at it's highest level you need to have experience at some point before it. For example: Do you become a senior level programmer before you become a junior level programmer? Why is she becoming TEH judge before she was even a judge, even at the lowest level. Again, she might be phenonminal, but there is no past experience. Hell, go to monster.com, and look at jobs - they all want experience...there is a reason for that.
IMHO, points of view regarding certain specific issues are not the proper criteria to use when scrutinizing a proposed judge. Judges should be scrutinized regarding their judgment, their overall judicial philosophy, and their ability to apply the law as written; "issues" are appropriate criteria to use when assessing legislators and executives.
Actually points of view are very specific for judges. In the end, her experiences, her viewpoints, her judgement will have an effect on her rulings. Many of the rulings that come to the supreme court are ambiguous and require interpretation - and no matter what someone tells you, her personal beliefs will have a role in those interpretations. And how can we scrutinize her "judgement" when she has never been a judge; how can we scrutinze her overal "jdicial philosophy" when we are told - from the get-go- that most of what she did in the white house (if not all) will not be shown. - and especially since she has no judicial experience. And how can we scrutinize her "ability to apply the law as written" when she has NEVER applied the law as written.
Why are issues valid for legislators and executives but not judiciary members? In the end her decision becomes law - she in essence makes law.
My thought regarding Ms. Biers and what I believe her likely views on said issues
Are purely guesswork since right now we have little information on her. Even the senate judiciary committee are saying they have little to work with at this point, and they are in a position to get the most amount of information.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
I did a search for "recuse" and this is the first thread that came up, and if this is the first poster who raised it, that person should get some recognition for bringing up an excellent point. She'll have to recuse herself from any future case in which MS is a party brought before the S.Ct. Not that it happens very often, but it is IMO the most interesting thing about this thread. Pretty much all the stuff about Bush is OT, all the stuff about her representing MS as if it reflects her personal views is intensely, purposefully ignorant as to the practice of law (which didn't seem to stop people from trying it against Roberts), and the dissection of the MS case itself was . . . well, ok, that was interesting too. Someone find some thread about that and mod a good post in there up, too.
Happy goldfish bowl to you.
I've never quite understood why you americans rant so much about Vietnam, when you're now in Iraq. Don't you get it? Whilst you were out fighting in Vietnam, your parents were probably still having these sorts of arguments over Korea.
And now it's come full circle - your kids are fighting in Iraq (well, the kids of poor, inner city people anyway) whilst you sit and bicker about Vietnam.
And here I was thinking that anyone who had lived through a war (Vietnam), and whose parents had lived through a war (Korea), would not want to vote for a president (Bush) who would send their kids to war (Iraq).
-Nano.
I think that Bush didn't fail at the his business attempts. His purpose was to get in and steal as much for himself and his cronies as possible regardless of the impact on the businesses just like he is doing to America now. He doesn't care how he looks or what people say as long and the billions keeps rolling in. We may call his picks for the Supreme court stupid but those people will vote anyway he chooses so who cares about public opinion when you have the Supreme court in one pocket and billions of dollars in the others. He and his thugs are laughing their way to the bank.
thing is a red herring.
l ed-law-firm-repeat_b_8277.html
N ews&file=article&sid=2835
/ 002383.html
it has nothing to do with software.
she's the person who helped wipe bush's national guard records.
it's called cronyism. just about everyone in the current administration is there because of donating to the GOP or is a close friend of the bushs.
http://www.counterpunch.org/frank10042005.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/miers-
http://www.globalnewsmatrix.com/modules.php?name=
http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives
just some interesting links.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
Absolutely, and that's right and proper.
However, no-one says a lawyer has to work for a major corporation whose actions strongly conflict with that lawyer's personal ethics.
I believe that under an adversarial legal system, every individual should be given the right to adequate representation if they are accused of committing a crime. Otherwise, anyone found guilty during a trial-by-public-opinion (which probably means a lot of people accused of unpleasant crimes, regardless of their innocence or guilt) is denied a fair chance to have their case heard, with potentially catastrophic results for that individual.
My personal ethics choose to hold certain organisations (including large, publicly-traded, commercial entities) to a higher standard. An organisation's past actions are often plain for all to see. For example, though I believe in copyright and the legal right of its holders to enforce it, I would not choose to work for the RIAA if I were a lawyer. They have an extensive history of taking actions of which I do not approve, regardless of whether their actions might be reasonable in the particular case I would be working on next.
It is my belief that such organisations will have no trouble retaining the services of legal staff, unless there is a very good reason that no lawyer wants to work for them. I further believe that if such a reason exists, any resulting damage to the organisation (including its destruction) is unlikely to be catastrophic to anyone who did not deserve to have a catastrophe befall them, such as those who chose to work for or invest in such an organisation.
Perhaps my position is logically inconsistent, but the legal world is not always logical.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
You did a great job knocking down a straw man argument. Problem is, he never said "the UN could put him in jail" he said "[t]here is probably enough 'bad' about Bush for the UN to put the son of a bitch in jail." Big difference between the two. What he meant was that Bush has committed enough war crimes to be tried and convicted. Not that he ever would be. And I completely agree that he has committed enough war crimes to be tried and convicted.
Slashdot in a nutshell: Microsoft is Evil. Bush is Evil. If Slashot can find a way to link the two together they will.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
The sad thing is, I can believe that! It seemed to me that the Democrats TRIED to pick the worst candidate they could find.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
it's a nice thought. until you realize those enraptured christian fundamentalists would control 10,000 nuclear weapons. and they'd like nothing better than to see the end times.
I used to think "no child left behind" meant a quality world-class education for all american school kids. I've come to realize that "left behind" means something entirely different to those wackjobs.
I'm still trying to figure out how to justify voting against hillary without giving an unintentional leg-up to the party-of-bush.
Yes, it's true. This man has no dick.
I have voted in every national election I have been elegeble to vote in. Only once in my life have I voted for a republican.
It was in the Illinois rebublican primary, for McCain (really against Bush). In Illinois the primaries were open, and I didn't really care wether it was Bradley or Gore, so I figured my best choice was to try to prevent the canidate I found the least pleasant from running...
I no longer live in Illinois, so this option is no longer available to me.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Doublespace, if I recall, infringed on Stacker, and was not removed from the OS because it was 'bad' per se, but because a lawsuit was brought against MS by Stacker.
Doublespace was in MSDOS 6 and 6.1,but was removed from 6.2. It was replaced by Drivespace in 6.22, which was different enough (I assume) that it no longer violated Stacker's patent.
The reason for removal was not for increased instability as much as is was required by the Stacker lawsuit.
Alternatively interesting for history buffs was the inclusion of the (terribly ineffective) MSAV anti-virus in version MSDOS 6, which was a stripped down version of Symantec's AV, which did not support updates... Gotta love that! Yep, we made this nice new OS version... and we know it is vulnerable to these ~1000 viruses, and for its useful life, no more viruses will be written. yup yup!
Judges should be scrutinized regarding their judgment, their overall judicial philosophy, and their ability to apply the law as written
And how do we know if she has any of the above?
Just because a half-dozen or so other people got to be justices without any experience doesn't make it correct. With the various other appointments up til now, Bush isn't exactly building confidence in his ability to appoint people that can do the job well.
I try for the most part to stay out of political arguments. And I know I'm risking my karma here, but the absolute stupidity of this post, along with the fact that moderators gave it a +5, "Insightful," really makes me question the level of intelligence on /.
The entire issue of war service in the '00 and '04 election is absolutely comical. In '92 and '96, draft dodging William Jefferson Clinton defeated (in large part thanks to Ross Perot) a decorated WWII aviator who was shot down over the Pacific, and a decorated WWII veteran who was permanently crippled during his war service. John Kerry's military record, while commendable, does not come close to these gentlemen... his "wounds" amounted to little more than superficial cuts. But all of a sudden, the Democrats who declared war service to be irrelevant in '92 and '96 want Vietnam service to be relevant in '00 and '04?
Furthermore, all of this nonsense about Clinton/Clarke's plan to stop Al Qaeda... fact of the matter is, Clinton did pathetically little about Bin Laden until late 2000. Even though bin Laden was a suspect in the 1993 WTC bombings, the primary suspect in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in two African nations, and even though Sudan offered to turn over Bin Laden to US authories in the middle of Clinton's tenure as President. All of sudden, on the word of former Clinton staffmembers, there was this grand plan that Bush failed to implement that would have stopped the terrorist threat, even though Mohammad Atta and his cronies were already in the US and likely would have been able to carry the 9/11 attacks anyways? NONSENSE.
But keep up with your charade that all of the US problems are Bush's fault. And let ill-informed moderators waste their points on such drivel...
Agree with you 100%.
While it sounds strange, that is one of the perks of being wealthy, you can afford to stand up for your morals.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
iraq was not unrelated. stop reading moveon.org's propagandist ignorant ramblings.
It's not just moveon.org... It is just about every fact out there. No significant amounts of WMD, not significant connection to al queda, or any other terrorist organization. The fact is Saddam was neutered, he was powerless outside of Iraq, and even in large swaths of Iraq.
Even if many of the allegations I heard leading up to the invasion of Iraq were true, I don't think that introducing widespread chaos (the inevitable result of war) to the situation was a good idea.
i'd vote for a democrat in a heartbeat if i felt confident they would prosecute the war aggressively. but who among them who is not beholden to the dean/moveon/pacifist crowd has a chance?
Dean was a strong supporter of the war in Afghanistan, you know, the war on Al Queda. Dean is quite far from being a pacifist, he just thought that the war in Iraq was a really bad idea. And now, most americans agree with him. It's a real shame that the word of a politician is all it takes to convince most of this country to go to war.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
. . . truly conservative stances such as the divine right of kings or the fundamental superiority of the nobility over peasantry . . .
Do you live in America? I don't think a single conservative in America would think that any of this "kings and nobility" stuff has anything to do with the western (American) notion of "conservative politics". You must be from another country.
So What are you saying here the UN is going to start doing their job? Oh like they should have in the 90's after Sadaam said they couldn't come in the country to do inspections, which I remind you is what started this whole damn thing anyways. Bush is finishing up what the Useless U.N. never even attempted to resolve.
Face it, the U.N. is a crock of shit whom doesn't stand up to the challenge when called upon. As far as I'm concerned, it shouldn't even exist. They have clearly shown they aren't going to hold up to their end of the bargain.
U.N.: "Sadaam, let us in the country or else." Sadaam: "No." U.N.: "Ok, sorry. We'll just let the U.S. fix it like they do everything else."
* committing unethical acts while representing them;
Ok. How about this:
According to the 5/1/00 newsletter Class Action Reporter, Miers headed Locke, Liddell & Sapp at the time the firm was forced to pay $22 million to settle a suit asserting that "it aided a client in defrauding investors."
Details about the case here
Clinton also gave orders authorizing the arrest or, if need be, assassination of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. At the end of his term, in late 2000, the terrorists struck again with the USS Cole bombing. By this time, Clinton has stated he regarded Al-Qaeda as the foremost threat to national security.
From Wikipedia...
As I recall, the issue with the disk compression software in DOS 6.0 was not that it was defective, but that the compression method MS used infringed on the property rights of a company called Stacker. Stacker sued MS and won, and MS was obliged to change the disk compression technique to something else, hence the release of DOS 6.2.
Anyone care to confirm this?
I think you know what I was referring to - no business is bound to accept any offer.
Further, in 1996 she was president of that law firm - if the MS case was 1994 It's doubtful she was in a position to have a case dropped on her desk with a client like MS sight unseen, like it or lump it.
Additionally I would suggest that if she is forced to defend something she does not believe in - then yes. Give up that job. I'd rather a few choice people did that than simply did what they were told like the nice folks at Enron, WorldCom, etc...
BTW I agreed with you - people who don't like MS still shouldn't extend that to her competency. There can be different answers to "do you like the client" and "did she do her job". I'm not putting up a red herring - I'm agreeing that the two have nothing to do with each other. I don't care who she worked for, or who her clients were.
But many posts were skating close to "she worked for microsoft therefore she's evil".
You were skating very close to "she had no choice".
Neither of those is necessarily true.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Some people just don't want to admit the truth, though.
I think that since the potential to use that portion of the software existed, then yes, it should be eligible for a class action suit. Since the compression was a feature, to have it 'broken' amounts to false advertising. If I buy a car with AC, but I only get a fan, then I did not receive what I paid for, even if I live in Alaska.
If the RIAA and MPAA can sue for 'lost profits' and count billions of dollars in lost sales for CD's and music I (and many others) would never purchase, then we (citizens) should be able to hold accountable those vendors for promises made. Individual suits would be pointless.
The cost of litigation would far outweigh the $10 to upgrade, and MS knows it. The only way to force MS to do the right thing would be to drop it in a class action. That way, all 'victims' (users) can be grouped together and get the needed upgrade.
I work for a software company, I have to charge for tech support, but if it's a problem with the software, I will not charge that customer. I (and others here) firmly believe that if you didn't do it right, then you should have to eat the associated costs, not drop it onto the customer. But time and time again, we see these corps to exactly that and never suffer any penalty for it.
That says it all.
...especially women. Good think MS didn't lose the case because then people would probably be all prudish and uptight.
Fiscal responsibility, states rights, smaller government... Wait I am confused...
I've considered this too, not being at all fond of the typical legal fees and lack of real work done for one's money in many cases.
... but for more serious accusations of criminal wrongdoing? When a judge is forced to hear out heated arguments between two bickering people, he or she is ultimately going to start feeling bias against whoever has the personality he/she finds more "inflammatory". Lawyers, at least, serve as disconnected individuals who can present the facts to a judge or jury without all the personal resentment towards the opposing party.
But there is a flip-side to your argument. How would you like to be a judge, having to sort out right from wrong in all of these court cases where both sides came in with no formal training in a "proper" way to present their cases? You'd end up with the type of circus you can wtiness on TV every day on all of the "People's Court" or "Judge Judy" type of shows. That's fine for small arguments like "He broke my washer and I want the $75 he owes me for the repair!"
that last bit alone is enough to never vote for him again.
You couldn't vote for Bush ever again, even if you wanted to. You know, that whole 22nd Amendment two-term limit thing...
may be closer than you think.
...
And the juggernaut rushing at the American people that threatens to roll over their rights and freedoms is Corporate National Socialism.
(1) conspire with brother, news corporations, big business, and USSC to steal an election
(2) start unjustified and costly war
(3) profit!
(4) reroute some profits back into election cycle, collaborate with news corporations, big business, and tamper with electronic voting machines to steal a second election
(5) don't prepare for a predictable natural distasters, allow hundreds to perish, and cut a huge taxpayer check to go to same Iraqi no-bid contractors
(6) profit even more!
(7) lather, rinse, and repeat
I think had this person been on the bench, the disasterous MGM v grokster ruling would have gone differently.
Stop looking at this from a microsoft monopoly perspective and start looking at this from a general tech industry interest position.
This person could be a source for rulings which would be great for the tech industry as a whole (and hopefully terrible disasters which cause a failure for certain entertainment cartels)
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
As I recall, the issue with the disk compression software in DOS 6.0 was not that it was defective, but that the compression method MS used infringed on the property rights of a company called Stacker. Stacker sued MS and won, and MS was obliged to change the disk compression technique to something else, hence the release of DOS 6.2.
_ Old_DOS_new_tricks.php
I remember the compression being defective in 6.0, and it was a bit of a "big deal" in the computer press, comparable to the Pentium FP divide bug (IIRC, the compression bug was worse, giving a much greater change of incorrect or lost data than Intel's divide problem). A little googling brings up this article, describing 6.2 as a 'bug fix' release over 6.0:
http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue162/18
The release timeline in in this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS
MSDOS 6.2 was a "Bug fix release", and the next release, 6.21, says "Following Stac lawsuit, removed DoubleSpace disk compression."
Microsoft put disk compression back into MSDOS in the final release, 6.22: "DoubleSpace replaced with non-infringing but compatible DriveSpace tool"
Tag lost or not installed.
And that means she was just doing her job, which she was paid to do by a large, wealthy corporation. Of course it is logical for us to assume that we want people who will work for whoever pays them the most, to become members of the Supreme Court, who in some ways act as the moral compass for the entire United States, for their entire term. Which would be their entire lives. I can totally trust someone who can put aside moral considerations for enough money to help examine a government filled with bribery and corruption! Maybe she'll take that keen sense of money over morals in her job and do what all /. readers want, help give away information instead of profiting off of it! Yay!
And let's just pretend you WERE "injured" by losing some important data, why the hell didn't you create a backup before you tried something new on your precious bits and bytes? Don't plead ignorance there, plead stupidity, and that makes you culpable. Maybe it's you who needs to be sued (or fired) because you didn't use basic procedures to safeguard your data.
By then one was fortunate they fixed the "copy" command. IIRC it was MSDOS 3.0 (or 2.0?) that if the copy command copied over 255 files (as in "copy *.* d:"), it would skip every 256th file. No biggie, the 20 and 30 meg disk drives of the time wouldn't hold more than 255 files anyway...
Tag lost or not installed.
Actually, as I recall, the first reasons for invaiding Iraq were that they wouldn't (couldn't?) prove they destroyed 100% of their WMDs. Once we pretty much confirmed there were no WMDs, then came the story focusing on freedom. Before that, freedom was a nice side dish. But when the vaporware that is WMD never materialized, freedom got shoved in our faces as the main course.
Look, I would've supported a war to liberate people. My problem is that I feel like I was lied to.
Mind you, I don't advocate pulling out of Iraq. We made a mess when we came in, and we should NOW focus on humanity and do our best to restabilize the country. And for self-serving purposes too, because if we don't, we'll have a repeat of Afghanistan 20 years from now!
Interestingly I heard on the news a week or so ago a clip from Cheney back in the 1st Bush administration saying invading Iraq (during Desert Strom) rather than just liberating Kuwait. He said it would be a quagmire, it would take many many years and lots of lives to do, etc. I wonder why it was different this time around.
I won't go through this liar's post point-by-point, but I will point out that he's completely wrong about Stephen Breyer's alleged lack of judicial experience. You can see for yourself. He's wrong about Clarence Thomas, too.
I'm not sure what your point is, but when you go ahead and make up facts to support your argument, it tends to cast you in a negative light. I'll give props to DaZED1 for correcting himself in his blog, but as he point out there, "Which of course calls my entire damn bit into question." But his post still should be moderated down-- any post that's factually incorrect should not be marked as "informative" by any moderator. Maybe I'll have to re-think my +2 bonus for those posts.
Any nutjob can finesse the definition of "war crime" to try any US politician who isn't enough of a socialist for them. Sorry, Bush hasn't committed any war crimes.
The other reason I supported his impeachment and removal from office was the appalling risk of blackmail he exposed himself to. If the Israeli or French secret services had been privy to the Monica situation, they would have had him dancing to their tune for the rest of his term.
His messy private life would have disqualified him from obtaining even the lowliest security clearance, had he been in the military or Federal civil service, and rightfully so. A man who cheats on his wife is unfit for any position of public trust, in my opinion, for this reason alone. Never mind the moral issues; this is entirely hard-nosed realism and pragmatism.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
In Kansas (and in other states), the Republican primaries are closed primaries - the only people who can vote in them are party members (the Democrat primaries are open to anyone not voting Republican).
Usually it's the states that decide whether primaries are open or closed as is the case in California. This just in, New Hampshire permits independents, not just party members, to vote in a party's primary.
Should there be a Law?
Dear Slashdot Admins:
My PC has apparently contracted a virus that constantly spams the Slashdot thread with ranting, blathering liberal incoherence (kind of a leftist version of the penis enlargment ads, which makes one wonder if there is some corrolation between leftists and small sexual organs, but I digress!). Each message comes under the alleged author of Doc Ruby, though I'm certain it is some kind of spambot because no person could post such prolific lunacy. It's kind of like the JonKatz virus of a few years ago, yet oddly enough, makes those messages kind of make sense. Worse yet, they all run around punching the air, like Cindy Sheehan chasing the imaginary Haliburton monster under her bed.
Please let me know if there is a patch for this.
A Concerned User
However, if you want more proof, just look around /. a bit. You'll find pretty much anything that smacks of conservative philosophy is modded down as "troll," "flamebait," or anything else that hurts someone's mod points. On the other hand, comments like "Bush is stupid," "Bush is Hitler," or similar is frequently modded up as "Insightful." Since many left-of-center people are the ones screaming so loudly that dissent is a patriotic virtue, I find it quite funny to see what lengths they'll go to to silence (or at least mod down) those with opposing viewpoints. The virtue of Diversity, I guess, does not apply to political viewpoints.
Indeed, this very thread you're responding to has been modded down as "flamebait" simply because I pointed out that there is very little "news for nerds" in the story content. It reads more like "Microsoft is bad, Bush is bad, therefore Harriet Miers is bad." Sorry, I don't find anything insightful, interesting, funny, or informative about the story. But I suppose that if you think Bill Gates is Satan and George Bush is Hitler then making such a deduction is entertaining to those who "think" similarly.
Funny, but lots of posts in this thread have an "Insightful" rating of 4 or 5 that make the same point you're making in your second paragraph, a point which I happen to agree with. And support or opposition to the war in Iraq is not an ideological issue, nor is support for Bush. You call me "left of center" because I riduculed the claim of war supporters that their goal is to bring democracy to Iraq. Yet, do you know my positions on economic issues? Gun control? Abortion? Gay Marriage? The Kyoto Treaty? No, you don't. And yet, my statement about Iraq is enough for you to pigeon-hole me as "left of center." As a result, you sound like another whiney neo-con who can't take criticism of Bush who, I might add, is actually pissing off quite a few conservatives as of late, in case you hadn't noticed. Please separate ideology from party politics, and maybe we can have an intelligent discussion.
Thanks for playing!
-G
www.pixelstatic.com
Microsoft's political contributions, both at corporate and employee levels, are overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates. Fortunately nobody has to take an anonymous coward's word for this, let alone a partisan hack who has an agenda in spreading disinformation like the former poster (usually you can tell something is up when the language is overwhelmingly hostile and irrational - these are societies bomb throwers who somehow didn't fit in and "play well with others" in school).
Don't taken anyone's word for it when you can check out first-hand objective data. opensecrets.org is an excellent resource to see where people are putting their money. For Microsoft information and overall Democratic support, see Open Secrets - Microsoft Search.
Incidentally, someone's got to help re-educate the progressivists on the use of "fascist" and help them understand these are their political first-cousins. Don't be ashamed of your ancestors! National socialism was a progressivist, liberal cause as was Italy's fascism, and was understood by most American progressivists in the 1930s to be an acceptable, moderate form of socialism (where some had difficulties with the USSR's more extreme collectivism). Some would argue that it's an effective model, eliminating pressures of middle classes and creating a coalition between industry captains and the labor market with a close partnership with authoritarian government. Many of FDR's initiatives, in fact, paralleled those of the party's fascist cousins and were effective in shortening the duration of the depression.
Fascism was a socialist coalition between the state and major industries, much like the organization of today's Democratic Party and corporate sponsors like the Soros Fund, Global Crossing, Time Warner, etc. See the party's own cousins and their reporting of corporate alliance who frown on the DNC's fascist model and prefer the detachment of corporate sponsorship for true socialism. As usual, Wikipedia is helpful in providing a definition, and also points out the incorrect colloquial usage of the term.
Progressives have a compelling argument in that normal people are incapable of handling their own life, making competent decisions, etc. Look at any inner city neighborhood and you'll find evidence supporting this theory. Some would argue that a certain segment of the less intelligent populace simply needs a government to determine things. I'd support an opt-in model where citizens could elect the progressive fascist model (flat wage regardless of occupation, ability or effort, 60% income tax, government-provided housing, government health care, free abortions on demand, drug plans, cafeterias, schools, retirement, senior care, etc.) or a totally government-free option with zero of the benefits, taxes, restrictions, etc.
This would certainly test the progressivist claim that such a model is sustainable without being completely parasitic to intelligent producers, as this segment would likely opt-out of the fascist model. Still, it'd be refreshing to see progressivists get a chance to discover if their model has any chance at working.
I didn't say the UN would actually do it, hell I'm not even saying they should do it, but there is plenty of documented evidence that COULD concievably used to do it. Naturally, the UN wouldn't ever touch a US President (aside from some sort of full on nuclear strikes). I'm not talking about liberal or conservative UN idealists or even trying to allude to such a concept. I'm talking about violating international treaties and laws.
:)
I try to keep my points grounded in some sort of seemingly reasonable logic.
Dismissing my points by picking one (that was a smartass quip of my own at the end anyway) and calling me a nut looks like a chickenshit way to divert the subject matter and avoid real dialog.
Say it with me, if the UN ever came to arrest an American President, it would be after a world war we started or a near apocalyptic war we instigated (I say 'near' b/c the UN still exists in that case) and nobody would give a shit either way, and even beyond that, this has nothing to do with the original points I was attempting to make the crux of my original response.
I'm suprised you got modded up for baiting AND complaining about my own getting modded up.
Cheers.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
National socialism was a progressivist, liberal cause as was Italy's fascism
I see you use wiki, well here's some more reading from wiki, neither socialism nor it's cousin fascism have anything to do with Liberalism and liberals. True Liberals like Benjamin Franklin and the two Thomas's, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine believed in Liberty, ie Liberal, and small government. Neither socialism nor fascism want either of these, they both want large government and to restrict liberty.
FalconShould there be a Law?
that was the most insightful post of this thread. touche, sir, touche.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Not everything is a 'dem vs repub' or 'lib vs consrv' issue. Clinton ALONG with the CIA fucked up on bin Laden. Bush spent all the time up until Sept. 11, 2001 trying to get a goddamn Ballistic Missle Shield built and ignoring and trying to CUT FUNDING for counter terrorism, despite specific warnings about terrorism and bin Laden from the outgoing Clinton administration.
By the way, please explain how you basketweaved Clinton into this?
The issue of war service was a HUGE talking point for republicans, then when the Dems turn around and say 'oh yeah, got a decorated hero this time' the reps say 'its not important!' and 'superficial wounds!'. hypocritical and evil, despite being so effective. what the that bullshit group did to kerry was exactly on par with what bush did to mccain in the republican primaries... republicans do it to their own, too. The dishonor and disrespect shown to people who actually got shot at in a war for this country by the antagonists proclaiming to be patriots of is sickening and degrading to our citizens.
But keep up with your charade that all of the US problems after invading Iraq a second time are Clinton's fault. And let *random* moderators waste their points modding us both down b/c we're so fscking off topic.
Cheers.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Freedom. Autonomy. Equality before the law. Those are all liberal ideas. My argument for lumping the ``conservatives'' in US politics is far stronger than your bald assertion that ``moderates'' and ``independants'' are really liberals. With the exception of those who would equate Patriotism with Christianity, there aren't any genuinely conservative ideas in all of American politics. At least there aren't any serious Monarchist parties in the US so far as I know.
FYI, I was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio. I've never been out of the country in my life. You have to go back about five generations before you find any immigrants in my family tree.
The UN teams WERE in Iraq and WERE doing inspections, they just weren't finding anything. Bush and republican talking heads spun the hell out of it to make it sound like the UN wasn't even there. And guess what, Bush invades, and we STILL HAVENT FOUND A DAMN THING.
Cheers.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Just because someone can argue a point for someone (remember that was her JOB to give MS's argument, not her own preference) it does not automatically mean they believe it to be correct.
Your (accurate) argument implies, if it applies, that our new Supreme Court nominee is a professional liar.
No, all it means is that she did as good a job for her clients as she could. It's the responsibility of an attorney to represent their client the best they can whether s/he believes the client is guilty or not. When I first read she, the nominee, once worked for MS I was ready to dismiss her as well but on thinking it over I realized that just because she once worked for MS it doesn't mean she's bad, actually I'd say it was bad if she didn't do all within her power to defend her client. Now as for whether I'd want her to be on the bench, I don't have enough info to make an informed decision.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Really, where are you getting this "Conservative == Monarchy" stuff? I keep up with politics on an almost hourly basis and I'm still under the impression you are talking about Monarchy like the Kings and serfs and patronages and such. Could you point me to a web link where this is explained (not monarchy, but where political American Conservatives are supposed to believe in monarchy).
Or are you trying to take some awkward jab at conservative christians like they are thinking that God should be the one ruler over america? Where in the world are you pulling this "Conservatives want Monarchy" stuff from? If anybody else is still watching this thread please chime in with your input on this also.
Thanks.
I frankly don't have a problem with that. So sue me.
> So basically what your saying is that she's a shill for whoever has money
Umm.. that's what a lawyer is.
Um, not all lawyers, some are more concerned with justice than with money. A good example may be judges, even Supreme Court Justices, as they can probably make more in private practice than as a judge.
FaclonShould there be a Law?
it is interesting that it is now conservatives (myself included) that are disappointed with the Miers nomination while liberals (Feinstein, Reid, etc.) are happy. I seriously want to know this, howexactly is Bush conservative? Big spender, lax immigration, "diversity", federalized health care, education, and now emergency management. if he wasn't Christian, the liberals would not have a problem with the guy.
It's interesting that like too many you've switched the meaning of "liberal". The original liberals were for liberty, ie liberal, and for small government.
if he wasn't Christian, the liberals would not have a problem with the guy.
This Liberal, because "liberal" has been so maligned more often I call myself Libertarian, has a big problem with him, the least of which is religion. There's the matter of liberty and the size of government, the first is being reduced while the second is being increased.
FalconShould there be a Law?
BSBSBS... the only substantive mention about Clinton administration warnings came from Sandy Berger and Condoleeza Rice. Berger in a TIME Magazine article was so adamant that this was such an important topic to him, that he left in the middle of the meeting when terrorism and Bin Laden was being discussed. Get your chronology right. 1992-2000: Dems argue (and win the argument) that war record is not a criteria by which you judge presidential qualification. My charade? Uh... you're the one that started this entire crapfest....
You know, the philosophical basis for all of modern liberalism?
Read up on Liberalism. In a nutshell, Liberalism is the idea that governments should rule with the consent of the governed; that individuals have a right to life, liberty and property; and that all citizens have equal rights under the law.
I would have expected someone of a libertarian bent to be a bit more educated about liberalism.
And I take it that Berger was the only person from the Clinton administration or CIA/insert govt agency here/ of the day in question that was in the meeting with Bush administration people? Berger was not the incoming newbie that needed details, Rice was.
1992-2000 Republicans argue (and lose) that war record is a criteria. 2000-2004 Republicans argue (and win) that war isn't a criteria. Maybe war really ISNT a criteria (which would be a positive development for politics) and the strategy actually works. I for one didn't focus on John Kerry's war veteran status, I didn't even like him from the field of Dem primary candidates. Hell, even Sharpton would've been more upfront about precisely where he stands on a larger variance of issues.
And I sure as hell didn't start this crapfest, this person did.
Cheers.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
This person started it.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
If you are conservative, your non-activist Hero is Scalia, who believes that constitutions and statutes should be interpreted according to the words written in light of their meaning at the time they were written
First if you believe the USA Constitution means what it says and follow with the Federalist Papers in believing in a liberty and small government then you're talking about Liberalism and liberals. Scalia is pretty much a Christian Conservative translating the Constitution with a Christian bias:
How the conservative justice legislates from the bench.
Cathy young
With the Supreme Court back at the center of national attention, left and right alike point to Justice Antonin Scalia as the very model of the modern conservative jurist. President Bush has cited him, along with Clarence Thomas, as the sort of strict constructionist he'd like to see on the bench. Meanwhile, as the country debates whether John Roberts deserves to replace Sandra O'Connor on the Supreme Court, the left's greatest fear is that the president's nominee will turn out to be "another Scalia." For many liberals, the justice is a conservative crusader whose professed adherence to the Constitution is a cover for a social, religious, and political agenda of his own.
Commenting on Scalia's strongly worded dissent in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which struck down state sodomy laws, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd blasted him as a black-robed Archie Bunker, "misty over the era when military institutes did not have to accept women, when elite schools did not have to make special efforts with blacks, when a gay couple in their own bedroom could be clapped in irons, when women were packed off to Our Lady of Perpetual Abstinence Home for Unwed Mothers."
Contrary to the caricature, Scalia has delivered some surprisingly "liberal" opinions over the years. In 1989, three years into his tenure on the High Court, he ruled with the majority that flag burning was a constitutionally protected form of expression. (Centrist O'Connor and liberal John Paul Stevens were among the dissenters.) More recently, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), Scalia joined Stevens in a dissent that went far beyond the majority opinion in arguing for drastic restrictions on executive power to detain terror suspects without due process. (His frequent ideological ally, Thomas, took the most pro-government position in a separate dissent.)
But Scalia's liberal critics have a point: His moral views have a habit of grafting themselves onto his constitutional philosophy. No one expects him to be a libertarian; he has stressed that his opposition to expanded federal power applies only to instances in which it is explicitly limited by the Constitution. But you might at least expect him to be oppose federal intervention within the parameters of his originalist vision. Or rather, you might have expected that until Gonzales v. Raich, this year's medical marijuana case.
Scalia voted to uphold the federal government's prerogative to go after medical consumers of homegrown pot, on the grounds that this activity supposedly affects interstate commerce. This ruling prompted Thomas to note in a caustic dissent, "If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything--and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers."
You could easily conclude that Scalia is a hypocrite willing to cast his principles of limited government aside in order to further his anti-drug social agenda. Writing in The American Spectator, John Tabin offers a different theory. Tabin points to a 2001 case, Kyllo v. United States, in which Scalia wrote the majority opinion siding with a convicted marijuana grower who contended that drug agents had engaged in an
Should there be a Law?
Maybe so, but what have you done to stop them? You're helping, too. Especially by distracting from the imminent threat, Republican tyranny, with disproportionate callouts to Democrat cooperation. When the Democrats ran the government, we were never this bad.
I'm not helping at all, as much as I can I vote for those who stand up for the Constitution of the USA, which means most of the tyme voting for a Libertarian. The big difference between the Democrats and Republicans is what part of government will be big, dems want big governmental social programs and entitlements while reps want a big police and military state. The only ones who want liberty and small government are Libertarians.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Scalia is an originalist,as you point out, and since I am a conservative, yes, I think he's great. Supreme Court Justices who believe that the Constitution is a "living document" and that we ought to look at what the laws are like in other countries (!) are completely off-base.
If you believe this, you should read this article in "Reason" magazine, Antonin Scalia, Judicial Activist
FalconShould there be a Law?
Sorry, but this is crap. Doublespace *itself* was, in my extensive experience with it, 100% stable.
The problem arose when using DISK COMPRESSION along with MULTI-TASKING -- and it didn't matter whether the compression tool was DoubleSpace, Stacker, or one of the two competitors whose names I forget; nor whether the multitasker was Windows (in that era meaning Win3.x), Desqview, or some other multitasking environment. Sooner or later, the combination of the two WOULD eat a hole in the compressed volume file. (I personally knew two BBSs that got eaten by the combination of Stacker plus Desqview.)
However, this did NOT happen on systems that did NO multitasking.
The other major cause of data loss on compressed disks was using a disk tool that didn't speak disk compression, such as old versions of Norton Utilities or PC Tools. They saw the CVF as a corrupted drive and tried to "fix" it, with disastrous results.
But I never once saw Doublespace *itself* fail. Never. Not even when pushed to the limit (frex, a hard drive always full to the gills).
I always found it ironic that the same people who swore up and down how dreadful Doublespace was, would sing the praises of Stacker. Well, DS was just stolen Stacker code -- remember the lawsuit about that? and *that* was why we had DOS 6.1/6.2x, not because DS was bad. The diff was that Stacker had a more complex front end and more features, which of course looked better to the geek set of the day. But Stacker had the exact same vulnerability to corruption IF used in a multitasking environment -- so why single out Doublespace as a data-killing culprit?
As to performance, I benched DOS5 against DOS6, and on a variety of systems from XT thru 486, DOS6 was *consistently* 5% faster than DOS5 (and about 30% faster than DR/NovellDOS7, which was annoying because despite that M$DOS6 was considerably more stable, I really preferred DRDOS's feature set.
DR/NWDOS7 would occasionally crash, mainly due to a buggy EMM386. MSDOS6.00 *never* crashed of itself, tho it could be crashed by bad RAM.)
If you compressed the disk, there was indeed a performance hit (somewhat more so with Stacker than with Doublespace). But M$DOS6 did NOT install compression by *default*, and in any event it's not fair to bench uncompressed DOS5 against Doublespaced DOS6. Add Stacker to a DOS5 system, and that would be equivalent.
Yes, M$'s marketing was overblown -- at best, disk compression got you 30% more usable space. And yes, they probably should have discovered the problem with a multitasker running on a compressed drive *before* releasing the product. But they're hardly the first company to toot their own horn louder than was good for 'em, or who failed to discover a major flaw prior to product release.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Corporate responsibility is a big thing. If she argues, say, that only the residents of a small town who got sick from a toxic dump can be part of the class in a class action suit against ToxicCo? What about the people who had to live next to it but didn't suffer from anything visual yet?
And how can Microsoft get away with passing the bill for software fixes to consumers?
I, for one, question her intelligence. I found a White house Q&A from late October, 2004...
Read it here!
The highlights?
Hi, I would like to say that Bush is has the right idea about the "No Child Left Behind" program. Now clebrating its second year, for the first time children in the grades 3-8 will be tested with reading and math tests to figure out their abilities to work with such subjects. Great job and keep up the good work. Billy
You may notice the flagrant grammar errors, and wonder to yourself about just how effective NCLB has been. I'd like to point out, that the above is not a question! What does Miers think?
Harriet Miers
Hi, Billy, and good next question!
Question? You'd think a laywer would be able to tell the difference between a question an a suck up, but yet... here we are!
Last March, the Council of Great City Schools released a study and reported that the achievement gap in both math and reading between African Americans and whites, and Hispanics and whites, is narrowing.
Either Whity is getting dumber, or you actually believe this program is working.
Thanks for your question, Billy.
There she goes again! WTF indeed!
The ret of the page is largley made of questions that look like they were writen by staff. No real hard, serious questions.
other commenters have complained that there are other countries that are not democratic. yes, but how many of htem had long-standing terrorist ties, a history of violence towards the US (and more importatnly, its neighbors), wmd programs, a history of using them, and was actively pursuing new ones. plus, we were at war with him, as inthe no-fly zones, the US forced inspections (100,000 troops), etc.
Um, now let's see, who aided and supported a regime in invading another country with a democratically elected government where upon 200,000 were massacred? Ford and Kissinger. They both supported Suharto's Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975-6 and in between then and when the East Timorese voted for independence in 1999 200,000 East Timorese, 1/3 the population, was massacred. Or who supported the overthrow of Chile's democratically elected government by Gen Pinochet after which tens of thousands were tortured or simply "disappeared"? The same one's above, Ford and Kissinger. September 11 isn't just a date for those in the US to remember, 11 September 1973 was the day Pinochet seized control. And who first supported bin Laden? The Reagan and Bush Sr admins. They supported him when he first went to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet Union there. These were also the same admins that supported Saddam when he was using WMDs against Iran and Kurds along with others in Iraq. When congress was debating on putting sanctions on Iraq calling for a halt to U.S. military aid, commodity credits and loan guarantees and a ban on U.S. imports of Iraqi oil in 1988-9 the admin said they "would hurt U.S. exporters and worsen our trade deficit" (as reported in the New York Times, 1/8/89, 9/15/88). This support only ended when he invaded Kuwait which was neither then nor is now democratic.
US admins only support democracy when it doesn't interfer with the admins plans. Simply the US has a longer history of violence and supporting terrorists than Saddam and used Saddam as an instrument of violence.
FalconShould there be a Law?
This is what bugs me about the liberals in this country. Iraqis have as much right to freedom as anybody here in the US, and if it takes the US invading that country to get rid of their horrible dictator, then that is what we should do. Our nation is founded on the priciple of "all men are created equal" not "all Americans are created equal."
If invading another country should be done to get rid of dictators then why isn't the US invading other countries? Say North Korea? Libya? China? And why did Bush support the military coup against a democratically elected government in Venezuela? And that's just mentioning recent events not history, which is much worse.
Ooh, and I'm speaking as a true liberal, ie one who believes in liberty and small government, not as one of those who pass themselves off as liberals today with hugh governmental social programs.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I don't think that's actually the case except in situations where justices have an *ongoing* conflict of interest. For instance, if they have stock in Microsoft or something, then they might recuse themselves. If they worked for Microsoft a long time ago, I don't think they would.
It certainly isn't true that justices recuse themselves when they might have strong feelings on, for instance, "the rights of corporations". That's what they're there for: to express their strongly held beliefs as to how the law should be interpreted under the Constitution. They aren't judges. They are mindful of precedent and take the facts of the case into account, yet most of them have a certain slant that they're going to take regardless, and they don't recuse themselves because of this. The SC must deal with difficult questions, oftentimes unanswered before, and if they don't have some guiding principles to go by then there isn't much point in them being there at all.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
And my benchmarks were on machines (286/20 and several 386s - remember, this is back in the neolithic) that also had doublespace or stacker removed, and 6.0 was slower, no question about it, specifically the disk-access routines. What I found amusing, though, was that, after putting things back to "normal" (no compression, dropping back to D0S 5, etc), I decided to benchmark the drives using a set of routines I wrote in assembler rather than C, and was able to achieve way OVER the disks' rated performance in terms of data transfer rate.
*yeah, I know, Borland still exists, but it sure as hell isn't the same Borland that we all knew and loved way back when.
``You are saying that Americans who are characterized as "Conservatives" don't believe in that.''
I said no such thing. I said that ``conservatives'' in the US are really liberals. No more, no less.
``"Liberal" judges that just voted to screw the private citizen who owns private property by kicking them off their property to allow big greedy tax-generating business to have it (right to own property).''
``Conservative'' judges largely agreed with the majority opinion. And your beef, in this case, is with the Constitution. The role of a judge is to interpret the US Constitution which specifically grants local and state governments the ability to confiscate land for any reason they deem to be in the public good so long as just compensation occurs. Aside from which, eminent domain is rarely exercised.
``It's the "Liberals" who like the fact that it is legal to terminate unborn human life (right to life).''
But there is presently a dispute at what stage an embryo becomes a human life. The Supreme Court has said in Roe v. Wade, that at the point where a fetus is unambiguously a human, that the states have the right to limit abortions. Further, the case of abortion presents a case where the right to property of one person and the right to life of another are in an irreconcileable conflict. There are good arguments made by those who think that the conflict should be resolved in favor of each of these. No matter which way the argument is resolved, someone's rights are going to be infringed.
``And it's the "liberals" who are responsible for affirmative action which unbalances opportunity against the white male and in favor of any "minority" (that all citizens have equal rights under the law). ''
This is probably your best argument that ``liberals'' in the US don't genuinely hold liberal principles. But at best, it suggests that such people hold contradictory beliefs.
Further, all of these examples are cherry-picking. You're looking at only those aspects of ``liberals'' that piss you off and none of the aspects of ``liberals'' that mesh well with liberal values.
``I believe in republicanism, not federalism.''
Many of the writers of the US Constitution certainly thought that federalism was a subset of republicanism. A quick perusal of the Federalist Papers will supply the arguments for this. I realize that many people define republicanism in various fashion. Kant argued that republican governments are those that entirely separate the executive power from the legislative power. But in the Federalist Papers, Hamilton argued that the republican form of government is the one that represents the general will of the people as a whole. So how would define republicanism and how does federalism differ from that definition?
you know, this debate came up last week in my law class. the governor-general does more than just standing there looking nice. they act as the official head of state. that means when some foreign important guy comes along, she/he is the one who greets them, leaving the Prime Minister free to be (hopefully) doing something more important.
as for the "costly monarch visits" they're relatively rare. i don't believe that the queen came over when Paul Martin became Prime Minister. that's typically done by the G-G. Royal assent (the final bit in making a bill into a law) is also usually handled by the G-G, with the queen coming over only for really important laws (like the constitution act of 1982, for an example)
as for the senate, i agree. it's fairly much pointless, as it has very little power in this age (as it should, as it's appointed by the PM, rather than elected like the house of commons) and has just as little ceremonial value. i don't think that a bill has failed in the senate for over 20 years.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
To say it once again, because the stupidity that prompts it has appeared again:
Note that, in the most recent US presidential election, >50% of the votes went for Bush, but >50% of the US mass media has been, and is against Bush.
This would imply that more advertising is targeted to people that voted against Bush.
In turn there is the implication that advertising works better on people that didn't vote for Bush, because businesses prefer to invest where there is more expected return.
Thus it is not unreasonable to deduce that the people that voted against Bush are more gullible.
Meshing very well with this argument is the current circumstance: The myth that Bush supporters are stupid is commonly disseminated in the mass media, including the internet, and non-supporters of Bush so easily believe it.
One VERY IMPORTANT difference (which you may not be aware of, since you don't sound like a US citizen) is that the current US military is all volunteer. There is no draft, conscription or cumpulsory military service.
There are other essential differences between Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq (etc.), but this one seemes to directly apply to your stated concern.
All of the "kids" (your word) being send to Iraq (and other places) are adults that voluntarily put themselves under the orders of other people. These adults knew when they signed up that they can be sent to die anywhere, even without knowing why.
You may think that these adults made poor decisions when they joined the US military, but it was THEIR decision.
I'm sure that many of these people didn't actually believe that they would get shot at, but if so, it's becuase they fooled themselves.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Thanks for the info!
I comented based on thing i saw on news and reports and other source!
But dont you think we should have a president instead of a prime minister, Should we get rid of those fake titles and everything.
As fot the governor, it's just a face to greet people, he or she has no power whatsoever.
Senate, as far as i know can overrule any law that is proposed, no?
If someone has better information I would be glad to be corrected.
I had understood that MS called for people to contract to design a disk compression program that MS would include in MSDOS6.
Stacker sent in their program.
MS changed their minds and said, "Never mind, we'll make one ourselves."
MS then released MSDOS6 with Stacker included as Doublespace (perhaps with some minor modifications).
Stacker sued, and amazingly won.
MS found it cheaper/easier to buy Stacker instead of pay the damages.
MS included more/better Stacker in the later versions of MSDOS with a new name.
AS I said, I'm not sure exactly how close this is to reality, and would appreciate references to more correct versions.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
"For example, in the nearby park here, the kids play in a walled off pen. Where is freedom? They play with their parents 50% of the time and hardly socialize with other kids."
I've seen some kids like that, but if that's all you see, you live in a WIERD place. (Like New York City)
Disclaimer: I live near NYC, and like it alright, but anyone who thinks that it is a normal place to live hasn't been very many places.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
not to mention corporate hegemony (complete domination over all hardware manufacturers that deal with MS).
That's why MicroSoft fears Linux so much - you can get the same level of security, or far better, for free, given enough (freely obtained as opposed to MSDN subscribed) knowledge.
And you would not want to pay for home security what you pay to secure a Windows PC... that and it's next to impossible to secure a Windows machine no matter how much stuff you buy.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I have a brother who is a Major in the Air Force. He is a scientist. He told me, though, that he has accepted the possibility that any day they could hand him a rifle and send him to the front lines. He says if they ordered him to, he would do it. That's part of what he signed up for.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
But don't you think we should have a president instead of a prime minister, Should we get rid of those fake titles and everything.
[nitpick] how is the title of "Prime Minister" anymore fake than the title of "President"?[/nitpick]
yes, senate can overrule a law, but that hasn't been done in over 20 years. they may in theory have the power, but in actuality, it's political suicide to try to do so (as the senate is appointed rather than elected). if the government tried to defeat a bill in the senate after it passed the house of commons, it would be like invoking section 33 of the charter of rights and freedoms (the so-called "not-withstanding clause", which allows the government to temporarily overrule some of the rights granted by the charter.). they would be quickly removed from power in the next election.
another good reason to keep the G-G is, it would be A LOT of hassle to eliminate the position. it would require amendments to the constitution, a process that is (and was intended to be) really long and cumbersome, not to mention expensive (it generally require a referendum, which are expensive due to all the work needed) i might mention that no attempt to make large changes to the constitution in Canada have succeeded (both the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords were defeated, though there have been 10 more minor amendments, such as the one regarding the creation of the territory of Nunavut.)
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Try to leave your preconceptions aside for a moment.
Now, supposing (wishing) you have, I offer a couple of questions:
You suggest that the advertising is meant to appeal more to Bush-supporters. If that were true, how would that work with the obvious leanings of the mass media in the opposite direction. (Remember, no matter what they tell you, the primary purpose of all television/radio/newspapers is to sell advertising. Those with different purposes went out of business long ago.)
You also suggest that advertising isn't effective. Can you think explain why all the successful soda, beer and car companies spend so much on advertising? Next, would you explain the size of the microsoft marketing budget in terms of the ineffectiveness of advertising, and how Microsoft would be nearly as profitable without advertising?
If you had a better knowledge of history you would know that the market for Listerine (and its competitors) didn't even exist before advertising created it. (Many pharmaceuticals have recently had great success using the same strategy in their advertising.)
When I bought my first PC I was aware of three GUI operating systems that would work (i.e. install) on it. None of them had a monopoly to start. Windows was the least capable of the three in nearly every way, but MS excels in advertising. Since Windows has less market share on the PC than either GEOS or OS/2, I guess you're right when you say that advertising doesn't work.
I will freely admit that there is plenty of stupid advertising to go along with the effective advertising, but I'm amazed that you would even claim to believe that if Pepsi stopped advertising for a year they would lose more than they would save, and Coke wouldn't get any of their market share.
----
We're Code 4 here.
"Todays' [sic] consumer isn't the same country bumpkin."
Unfortunately your naive belief that basic human nature has changed in the last century (not to mention self-contradiction of assertions/suggestions from your earlier posts) does nothing to diminish the fact that Halitosis was advertised to sell Listerine, and it worked. It also does nothing to change the behavior of modern consumers in response to drug companies selling their drugs by advertising diseases/illnesses/conditions.
It also doesn't explain why heavily advertised breakfast cereals that taste exactly the same as the less advertised (less expensive) brands make more profit. (You'll notice that I only compared cereals that tasted exactly the same. The good imitations, not the poor ones.)
Your use of Pepsi in the previous post is a perfect example of the lack of real thought you have shown in this discussion. You point out the Pepsi "originally" gained some market share through selling more for less, then forget to explain the rest of the market share. You also conveniently ignore the MANY more sodas that use the same tactic (selling more for less) with much less advertising that barely make a dent in the Pepsi/Coke market.
You also (using your previously-noted logic) use the Microsoft monopoly to explain how Microsoft gained a monopoly. Next, you'll explain how to use our colonies in other star systems to achieve interstellar travel, how to to start a fire from scratch using only a simple fire and how to become rich by starting with a fortune.
The existence of other ways to sell a product in no way proves the non-effectiveness of advertising. Most is not all (and when you used it in the parent it was not even accurate). The fact that advertising is not all-powerful is insufficient to prove its non-effectiveness.
You have so consistently ignored the obvious self-contradictory implications of your arguments that I'm wondering if anyone is really that dumb, or if you're just pretending.
Then you go on to misquote me, which is what I expect from little fuckers who can't read, when you say"
Read what I wrote. I did not say "some market share". I explained their tactic of marketing long-term, by getting the kids to buy pepsi vs coke by using a larger bottle. This is what gave them their market share a generation later.Then you go on with this distraction:
Never mentioned cereals. Then you write this brain fart:... again, that is NOT what I wrote. I wrote that they used illegal tactics to get to be a monopoly. Fuck, are you dumb.You have consistently ignored history, facts, etc., because you want to believe that advertising works. Most of it doesn't. As I pointed out, and you ignored, massive volumes of advertising isn't helping Ford or GM, whereas Toyota is eating their lunch with much less advertising, because they have a MUCH better product, and people no longer trust advertising.Finally found what I did with the reply notice :)
... turned out it wasn't due to any difference in floppy drives, but rather that DOS3.x could not read floppies formatted by DOS5/6, because the boot sector is different. However, DOS5/6 CAN read disks formatted on DOS3.x. Start the DOS3 box with a DOS5/6 boot disk, and all of a sudden it can magically read disks formatted on the DOS5/6 box. -- XTreeGold formats with a DOS3.x boot sector, which was how I twigged to the real issue.)
That's not actually a DOS problem you're describing -- and before you lay too much blame on DOS6 vs DOS5, they are almost identical, the source base is the same (the source code IS, ah, "out there") -- so any major faults that are in DOS6, the OS itself, would also be in DOS5. They just aren't different enough for DOS6 have a core problem that DOS5 didn't also have.
But major data loss does sound exactly like what happened with Smartdrive when write-behind caching was active -- it could take up to 5 minutes to write data to disk, and meanwhile the files were open. If you turned off the system in the meantime -- well, all those files got toasted. Smartdrive first shipped with DOS6, and did install by default, with a default of write-behind caching active. There was a switch to disable write-behind, which cured the problem.
IIRC, the disk I/O stuff is actually IBM's code from DOS 3.1, not changed much. And your experience of poorer performance with DOS6 goes against all my experience with old hardware (I still have a working XT and 286, both with DOS6. The XT even has VGA!) -- I remember how back in the neolithic era, a lot of people insisted on using DOS3.x with XTs, because it was "faster" and "used less memory". Well, one day I grabbed the wrong boot disk and oops, here's an XT starting with DOS6. Man, what a difference. Almost twice as fast as DOS3.x, and wound up with about 50k more free conventional memory even prior to tweaking it. So much for popular wisdom!
(Then as now, popular wisdom often wasn't. Frex, there was the "different floppy drives can't read each other's disks" issue, much bewailed
Have to wonder about your disasters with Win3.1 as well -- my WFWG ran for 7 years, doing all sorts of heavy lifting day in and day out, and I could count the total number of crashes on one hand. And this was typical for my clients as well (in fact I still have one person using Win3.1). Crashy behaviour in Windows, then as now, tended to be mainly due to hardware/driver bugs. Notably system and video BIOS bugs, but sometimes other stuff. -- Frex, Win3.1 did not get along with Rockwell modems; the swapfile would get corrupted and then Windows would refuse to start. You could either replace the modem, or delete the swapfile prior to starting Windows, and the problem would go away.
Borland-built apps stop being good the moment they start using 32RTM or its cousins... lordy, what a lot of weird behaviour...
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I did this, and stuck some old DOS games on it, as well as compilers, etc. Pretty neat trip down memory lane. The old DOOM, Arkanoids, Rescue Rover, etc., are still fun, and they all play fine off a CD.
I remember the smartdisk cache problems. I was lucky on that - used PCTools cache instead (okay, 7.0 had problems too, but Central Point was pretty good about issuing the bug fixes on disk, mailed, for free).
Yeah, Win2.0/3.0 wasn't any big improvement over the GEM desktop or various other task switchers, and I gather GeoWorks actually did for-really multitasking (I know a guy who used it to multitask with an XT -- he'd be surfing the net with a DOS client for AOL, while printing memos in the background.)
:) I still have the complete archive, tho, and one of these days may resurrect it onto one of the older systems. Mine ran atop NWDOS7, and DR/NWDOS's memory manager doesn't get along with newer chipsets (won't play nice with iBX440 at all).
... I saw more trouble directly due to QEMM than any other single DOS era utility. Other folk would sing the praises of such stuff yet bitch about crashes, and here my 286 with its vanilla M$DOS5.00 had all of two reboots in 5 years, one due to HD needing a fresh LLF, the other due to a power outage beyond the UPS's capacity.
I never had any problem with Win3.1, but WFWG definitely was smoother/faster, and had some other nice improvements. I finally retired it, with reluctance, in 2001, mainly because Netscape had addicted me to right-click, and I thought everything ought to have a context menu.
Odd setups: my Win95 OSR2 box uses the default M$DOS7, but the DRDOS7 EMM386 and DMPI host. Works great!
Never cared for PC Towels, er, Tools myself. Or any of the 3rd party memory managers
Speaking of power, think I'd best flee... we're having a whopping big lightning storm and the power keeps cutting out. I can feel a tingle in the keyboard through two layers of surge protection (surge unit and UPS).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Er, typo dept, that 286 ran M$DOS 6.00. You've got me having 5's on the brain, or at least in the fingers :)
:)
Oh, and the current primary function of my Win95 box is to run... DOOM
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
You're making me homesick for my old 286/20. Cold boot to ready-to-do-what-you-want in 17 seconds, warm boot in 15. (or was it the other way around?)
Then a few years later read that the supplier "got nailed" for selling computers w/o an OS. Its like nobody realized that you CAN buy an OS at retail. They all just assumed that bare box == pirate.
[laughing] Mine, a lowly 12MHz, didn't boot that fast, it took about two minutes -- but it had a slow HD (ST225), was DS'd (later Stac'd), and loaded a whole bunch of crap -- there were a number of TSRs I just HAD to have, like Snipper. Plus it had to prep the 2mb RAMdisk on a memory card. But after that... all the real work was done on the RAMdisk, so it was slick, and since it was rebooted seldom to never, how long that took didn't matter anyway.
:)
And in a pinch, that 286 still does everything I absolutely can't live without. Ah, life was so simple then...
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
My 286 was acquired used and came with DOS6 and some other stuff. I never had any manuals while I was learning to use it (tho various retail-box editions fell on my head in later years), but I did have Buerg's LIST. To this day I think it's normal to peer at binaries with a hex viewer. :)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?