Slashdot Mirror
How Tech-Savvy Will the Next President Be?
CorinneI writes "We've got our candidates. We know their positions on the major issues of the day — healthcare, the Iraq war, the economy, yada, yada, yada. But Senators McCain and Obama will also have to be concerned with tech issues. Where do they stand on Net neutrality, patent protection, piracy, broadband, privacy, and H1B visas? Do their campaign positions match up with their voting records and public statements? Here's how they stack up on the big five tech issues of the day."
I think McCain has first-hand experience with a Babbage computer
mod me funny
Also, don't forget that McCain inexplicably supports telecom immunity..
I'd much rather have a President who surrounds himself with well-informed advisors, than a President who weighs his own opinions on specialized topics more heavily than a specialist's opinion. Leadership is delegation.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Net neutrality:
McCain - let the markets handle it
Obama - legislate it
Broadband Availability:
McCain - increased access via competition
Obama - re-define 'broadband', move toward universal service, increase availability at schools & libraries
H1B visas:
McCain - increase the number of them
Obama - full immigration overhaul, produce more American-born tech workers, make workers less dependent on their employers
Intellectual Property Protection:
McCain - gov't handles blatant abuses, works against protectionism
Obama - increase cooperation on international standards
Privacy:
McCain - immunity for companies that cooperated with warrentless wiretapping
Obama - expand the FTC to cooperate with international agencies to track cyber-criminals
True, but surrounding yourself with well-informed advisors requires the ability to recognize someone that is well-informed. This is difficult to do without having some level of knowledge yourself.
If the president is to have so much power, shouldn't he be knowledgeable about what he has power over? I don't want some average Joe coding my software. A president should be someone "special", if he is to be elected, he should be the role model of the average person, not the average person himself.
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
It costs $10,000 to run a cable or fiber to my house. If we're waiting for "market competition" to make it happen, then it will NEVER happen, because there is no way Comcast or Verizon would ever recoupe their investment. "Whiz to Coho" says they can't get a wireless signal at my house 'cause of all the trees, and HughesNet satellite internet sucks! My only hope is some sort of universal access initiative. But then, I was going to vote for Obama anyway.
I see... You want ME to pay for YOUR broadband. No thanks dude. You want to live in the woods? Great -- sometimes I want to as well. But I don't expect to get 3 megabits down out there, and I certainly don't expect other people to have to pay to make that happen.
Well, Obamas people went directly to Lawrence Lessig for discussing tech policies. I think that says a lot.
After reading your issue all I have to say is
You people suck.
Specifically, its people like you that give reason for this government to run us all over.
So, since you won't or cannot pay 10 grand its okay to let to government expend that money to connect your residence?
worse, you probably don't see the problem with it from the wording of your post.
The corporations are right not doing it, the government would be wrong to do so. When people put themselves into situations they should be responsible to get themselves out.
Selfish. Let me guess, I should pay for other people being fat, lazy, and drinking too?
Karma is good when you have so much to burn, but damn your type really pisses me off.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Not quite. You forgot to add the vast sums of money to the equation.
Obama: $4,022,006 (TV/Movies/Music) + $3,060,630 (Computers/Internet) = $7,082,636
McCain: $636,046 (TV/Movies/Music) + $629,315 (Computers/Internet) = $1,265,361
Gee, I wonder who's going to be listening harder to what the RIAA, telcos and other technology sector players have to say...
Let us not become the evil that we deplore.
You're right, he did it of his own free will- that should scare you.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Maybe we should look at campaign contributions instead. Hmm, notice any telecom companies accused of illegal domestic spying on his "top 5 contributors"?
I suspect the original poster is trying to imply an illegal link between the candidate and industry. I can't comment if one exists. But what I recommend is you go to Center for Responsive Politics which will tell you where the source of campaign contributions of all presidential candidates.
The Web site aggregates company donations by industrial sector. Thus to see which candidate gets the most money from "Telephone Utilities" you can try clicking on this link: Telephone Utility Totals to Candidates As you can see Sen. McCain has received $345,945 from said utilities while Sen. Obama has received $203,546.
Feel free to draw your own conclusions.
N.B. I should note that the last election fund-raising report was due on 20-May-2008 and that was for donations received in April, so the information on this Web site is usually two months old.
His personal income (as reflected in his tax returns) does not reflect campaign contributions. But then, if you had half a clue about such things, you wouldn't be defending Republicans who are the telecom industry's bought-and-paid-for toadies. The "bank records" might better be interpreted as those records that indicate who paid what to whom and when in exchange for what no-bid contracts, etc., but the point is valid, nonetheless.
The whole purpose of the 2nd amendment is to ensure military-grade weapons (flint-lock muskets at the time) remain in the hands of ordinary citizens. Today, that would include a lot more than just hunting rifles. It may seem scary to have such powerful weapons in the hands of ordinary citizens, but to me the opposite is much scarier: a disarmed, helpless society unable to defend itself from its government. Much is made of the growing trend of government intrusion into our privacy, warrantless arrests, et al, using quotes like, "When they came for___, I said nothing." Well, when they come for you, what are you going to do?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
No, instead we should be defending Democrats bought by the Hollywood community who put draconian copyright restrictions into place.
Yeah, they're all scum. Even the ones you like.
"Try England's crime rate as an example."
OK, I did. I expected the case would be ambiguous, but WOW, get a new example buddy! Based on the first figures I could find, the UKs per-capita murder rate is about one fifth that of the US, and the majority of the murders in the US used guns, whereas almost none in th UK did.
"Quit trying to pick and choose which ones you agree with."
For Gods sake why? This isn't holy scripture, it was written by men who did their best, and did by-and-large a damn fine job. The Second Amendment was muddily written, and is badly obsolete.
"you wouldn't be defending Republicans who are the telecom industry's bought-and-paid-for toadies. "
And Jay Rockefeller, D (WV), is pushing telecom immunity because he truly believes the Telco's were the innocent victims here?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
If their ages don't make it completely obvious
Spoken like a truly ignorant kid. Guys in their twenties come to me for advice on computers, kid. Can you write a battle tanks game in assembly and then hand-assemble it (without an assembler) and have it run, bug-free? I did.
And there are guys twenty and thirty years my senior, now retired, who used hollerith cards in their programming and make me look ignorant about computers.
You need to educate yourself. Your hatred of those with more experience than you limits your horizons and should be a great personal embarrassment to you.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
ISPs are a natural monopoly, so your options are basically government regulation, a government-run monopoly, or the situation you currently have in the US.
And modern socialism works a lot better than you might think. Just look at Europe.
Yes, because that would be the right thing to do.
Jesus Christ, do you have any other tired, worn out, bullshit stereotypes to throw out?
Seriously. I'm a liberal. I know a lot of liberals. But I can't think of anyone I know who wants to ban guns. Hell, I'm a supporter of strong 2nd Amendment rights, and a lot of my friends are, also.
Newsflash: different people are different. You'll find anti-gun conservatives and you'll find pro-gun liberals, and vice-versa. If you insist on attempting to group together everyone left-of-center and claim we're all this-and-that-and-the-other, I reserve the right to call everyone right-of-center a violent hate-fulled homophobic racist backwards inbred uneducated dipshit redneck. I know that's not true, but hey, what's good for the goose, right?