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Sarah Palin's Stance On Technology Issues
Revolution Radio writes "BetaNews has a short description of what we might expect from Governor Palin regarding technology issues. She demonstrated her familiarity with the internet by initiating an online education program for state workers, using the web for government transparency, and a supporting the general concept of 'long-distance distribution of services' (similar to net neutrality?)."
We've previously discussed Senator Joe Biden's tech voting record and compared the technology platforms of Obama and McCain. In addition to the above story about Palin, Betanews also has analyses of Obama, McCain, and Biden regarding tech policy.
They sure can do alot with tubes in Alaska
Isn't the fact that if it was up to her our schools would be teaching creationism enough for a Slashdot reader? You can call me a troll/off topic, but I think if we have a FAIL in basic science, technology issues are unimportant.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
I remember responses on Slashdot to Biden's poor tech record being rebutted with "well, he's just vice president." Couldn't you argue the same thing for Palin as well?
How so? They quoted both the former Mayor and the Time magazine, who interviewed other people.
Now we know who taught Ted Stevens about the internets.
Okay, as mayor she tried to fire the town librarian (went so far as to give her a letter announcing she was fired) for not banning books from the library that people Palin knew found offensive. Can we look forward to a Net with all the offensive stuff removed, or else?
Perhaps to her small credit, Palin backed down from firing the librarian. She went ahead, however, with firing the police chief. There had been a bunch of serious drunken driving bashups. The bars in Wasilla are open until 5 a.m. The chief proposed the closing time be moved to 2 a.m. The bar owners where friends and backers of Palin.
The chief sued for unlawful termination. It went to the Alaska Supreme Court. They threw it out on the basis that in Alaska a mayor can fire a police chief at pleasure, without any requirement for justification.
At first, this may seem unconnected to tech policy - unlike Palin's desire for censorship. But consider how much of the Net is devoted to selling drugs. The Wasilla area is the meth capital of Alaska. Now, if you know small towns with drug problems, you know the patrons of the bars are also the patrons of the meth labs. How else do you expect them to stay up drinking until 5 a.m., before they go off to crash their trucks? Palin's in good with these country folks.
So for the Net under Palin, bottom line: less porn, more drugs.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Palin is very attractive. Pictures of her are all over the Internet. And last time I checked, that's what the Internt is used for.
Porn.
Sorry to disappoint:
Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.
Source http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837918,00.html
So you vote based on one issue.
So you understand the anti-abortion crowd not considering Obama (or even listening to what he has to say) solely based on that issue?
Her scandalous record on the environment alone should perpetually disqualify her from government.
you had me at #!
A vote for a creationist or someone who thinks both is okay is a vote for the U.S. as a backwater religious theocracy. The fact that you seem to think that teaching both in the classroom is "okay" means YOU don't understand the difference between the separation between church and state, or that you don't understand that creationism or intelligent design is NOT science, it it religious dogma masquerading as science. It has no testable hypotheses, it does not teach critical thinking, and it has no place in the science classroom! It does not deserve to be taught both as Palin states and the fact that you think she is "being reasonable" means you fell for the religious propaganda.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
wow are you deluded.
Palin is a creationist and you need to read other posts in this thread about her sneaking about trying to ban books.
libertarian indeed.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Sarah Palin knows probably as much about the Internet as any other politician of her age does who did not work in tech. Which is to say, its unlikely that she'll be able to always avoid looking like an idiot to people who know tech, but she probably has a much better grounding than McCain or Biden and people of about that age.
In the end, the censorship aspects don't really bother me, because it tends to be a very local issue. You don't censor anything without some sort of agitation behind it, and she's much more likely to find a high percentage of similarly minded people in East Nowhere, AK than in national office.
And yes, I have to say that while her stance on certain things is not where I'd like it to be, the fact is that all indications are that she'll keep her nose out of the worst of it.
Ultimately, though, I don't know many people who will for for or against her based on her tech stance. Its going to be the Economy, the War, and then the various wedge issues like abortion, in some order.
Hence the pregnancy...
her strong libertarian views means she would leave it up to states and local regions to decide what they teach.
Her other views -- and more importantly, McCain's other views -- make it highly likely that they'll be appointing more judges to the bench whose readings of the law allow *increasing* amount of power vesting in the federal executive and congress.
Do you really think they're going to pick people who are going to go with state's rights on abortion?
If you think habeas corpus and other procedural rights and civil liberties are important, do you remember how close Hamdan vs Rumsfeld actually was?
This is before we even touch the problems with Palin's qualifications as a candidate to even be in the whitehouse.
I think moving power more locally is a great idea, but I don't think handing the Presidency to Palin is really going to do the job.
Tweet, tweet.
Sen. Barack Obama has made government transparency part of his platform. Gov. Palin has indeed taken that a step further by actually taking action in Alaska government. Currently, any check written by the state government over $1,000 is posted to the Division of Finance Web site.
I am intrigued to see if this act spreads any. Having government spending records more freely available to the public is always good in my opinion.
She is not libertarian. If your definition of libertarian is "good for business, and lower government spending", then you are woefully ignorent about true libertarianism.
Republicans talk up the Economic issues (which are not the only ones libertarianism hold to) and totally ignore the most important governance portion.
It ain't libertarian if you support the Republican governance platform. It is mild fascism.
Actually Creationism is an affront to God as it teaches us that God, who is supposedly all powerful and all knowing, was not smart enough to develop a dynamic system but had to settle for a static one.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
The simple fact is, if she came out and said creationism was bullshit, she'd lose tens of thousands of votes. Actually, likely a lot more if she said it during the presidential election.
You *can't* be all out against it and get anywhere in the extreme conservatism of modern US politics.
It doesn't matter that pushing a version of how life arose which was discredited two centuries ago is insane for the US as a country.
Its all about the fact that if you say such things as 'Evolution is a proven fact, creationism is a philosophy with no basis in fact', you won't get anywhere in politics, at least not to a high level.
In reality this is all about pandering to the right wing christian voters.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
with basically one kind of business, oil.
That is completely untrue... Alaska's primary business sources may almost exclusively be exploitation of natural resources, but there's a lot more to it than oil.
If oil were to shut down tomorrow, Alaska would be hurting, but it wouldn't become like a 3rd world nation or anything - it would continue to have a steady source of revenue.
That statement shows such a simple-minded understanding of things that it would be the equivalent of saying that California only has the Movie industry.
Really? So how does a student see a "mistake" after learning Creationism? What does said student "learn" from that "mistake"?
No, you cannot. Not in a high school science class.
If you want to teach Creationism, then you do it a class on comparative religions.
NOT in a science class.
And when you want to teach BOTH in a science class you will only confuse the issue MORE.
SCIENCE is taught in a science class. Not religion.
Why do you have a problem with that?
This one is soooo cool:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086&title=Sarah-Palin-Gender-Card
You know, I don't care if they are right or left or nuts or both. But double standards are double standards and the right wing conservatives have a lot of issues where doublethink is required.
Disclaimer: I used to like McCain back in the 90s when I read some smart foreign policy stuff and when he was working for campaign finance reform and generally across party lines. But I am not sure if he would make a better president than Obama.
It ain't libertarian if you support the Republican governance platform. It is mild fascism.
The vibe I get from the current RNC platform is that of nationalism.
"Country First" was heir big theme at the convention and it was creepy to me.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
I had to think of that quip when you mentioned "Powerful people starting wars because they think their supreme being would like that".
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080903/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_palin_iraq_war
Unfortunately I'm not aware of any sources that don't cite the AP release, but no particular rebuttal either.
Yum.
Thing is, though, she's not even for less government spending. She took plenty of handouts from Ted Stevens until his fortune started to sour, at which point she jumped on the bandwagon in labeling him a pork peddler. She was for the bridge to nowhere, until that became politically sensitive. And from what I've read of her time as mayor, she took a town that had a budget surplus when she came into office and squandered it, taking out loans to cover unnecessary civic works projects and leaving the city with massive debt. Hardly in line with even the most basic libertarian viewpoint.
When someone believes the earth is flat when we know different and can easily prove it.
She isn't saying the earth is flat though, is she? She's saying she doesn't oppose the teaching of ID.
Now I personally do not believe in ID. But it seems obvious to me it's not harmful to teach, for it can also serve as an introduction to the scientific method and explanations about why it's not a theory in the scientific sense.
Which leads me to the thing that really bothers me about your post. Precisely because ID cannot be proven, it also cannot be disproven - yet you claim in fact that it's easily proven. Where then sir is your grasp of the scientific method?
The simple fact is that Palin as VP, or President, would be fine even she she believes some things on faith that you do not. There has been a great tradition of scientists that also held strong religious views and I do not see that holding her back from making good choices in science policy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"there appears to be no truth to the claim made by the commenter, and no further documentation or support for this has turned up."
It looks to me like Jessamyn's saying there is no evidence to back up the commenter's list, the one people are complaining contains books published after Baker left.
There doesn't appear, however, to be any evidence that Time's original claims regarding Palin's confrontations and threats against Baker are false.
Tweet, tweet.
Economist:
...Alaska's economy is built on two things... The first is federal spending, especially the little-scrutinised grants known as earmarks. Between 1996 and 2006 per-capita federal spending in Alaska rose from 38% above the national average to 71% above. Scott Goldsmith, an economist, reckons a third of all jobs in the state depend on it.
...the other pillar of Alaska's economy: windfall taxes. Last year (Palin) championed a tax hike on oil companies which is helping bring in huge sumsâ"more than $10 billion in the fiscal year that ended in June... Suddenly flush, the state has promised $1,200 to every man, woman and child...
So Alaska's growth streak, now in its 21st year, is unlikely to break soon. But the good times obscure a big weakness. The state government has become dependent on revenues from oil, which are likely to decline as the major fields dry up.
Palin is a social conservative, raised taxes numerous times, expanded the size of government in both her role as mayor and governor, and made questionable use of eminent domain to seize private property in a manner that had previously been unprecedented in Alaska.
Basically, her position is the exact opposite of the libertarian one on most issues you care to look at.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
"Country First" was heir big theme at the convention and it was creepy to me.
Far better than "Party First".
Nationalism combined with Libertarianism means strong states rights. You are combining nationalism with a philosophy of tight federal control, neither of which Palin or McCain share, and which would indeed be "creepy". That's why Obama's national volunteerism program freaks me out, a whole new federal department to do something that high schools across the nation are ALREADY DOING quite well.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Read this if you want to understand her management style. I would never work for a boss like her.
And if you have read any of the many books about problems in the Bush administration, you'll know that this paranoia over loyalty is one of the things that has made Bush such a terrible president. Bush hires cronies instead of people who know what they're doing, which is how we got to "Heck of a job, Brownie!"
At least there, you can make a stark contrast with Obama. His campaign has had the least internal drama of anyone and all the reports about how he manages people say that he does exceptionally well, as you can read here.
I don't know about anyone else, but I want a leader who doesn't think serving the community doesn't count as experience, but telling people "it's my way or the highway" does.
This is not "Sarah Palin's Stance On Technology Issues". This is "What BetaNews thinks Sarah Palin's Stance on Technology Issues are".
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
...fish, lumber or gold. These are also things that will eventually disappear...
Well, you got one out of three.
Even speaking as an atheist, I have no problem with teaching *about* creationism, different religions, etc. because it never hurts to have knowledge of other methods of thinking. (Frex, in my junior high anthro class, we learned about ancient Egyptian gods. What's wrong with knowing about that??)
However, I would have a problem with any of them being taught as Correct Thought.
As to stances on technology, I found this more disturbing than Palin's lack of same:
http://www.betanews.com/article/Where_does_Joe_Biden_stand_on_technology_issues/1219872202
"Biden's pro-business stance is evident in his efforts to expand copyright legislation, often siding with the entertainment industry. His pen has produced significant pro-copyright legislation, and most notably in 2002, he asked the Justice Department to take a tougher stance on those who commit copyright infringement."
OTOH, this is noteworthy (from TFA of today):
"[Palin] used the Internet to make Alaska government more transparent. Sen. Barack Obama has made government transparency part of his platform. Gov. Palin has indeed taken that a step further by actually taking action in Alaska government. Currently, any check written by the state government over $1,000 is posted to the Division of Finance Web site."
I see shining a bright light on how gov't spend our tax dollars as a GOOD thing.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I don't usually reply to my own posts, but while looking around further, I found this chart showing the actual federal dollars spent among the states. It also includes spending for the District of Columbia (58.6 BILLION DOLLARS). Alaska received such a small amount that there isn't enough room on the graphic to even write the state's name. The USA Today article referenced in the grandparent post doesn't mention total federal spending per state.
This kind of bullshit -- trying to show that Alaska is a boondoggle dollar sponge by listing per capita breakdown of a portion of federal spending per state instead of actual totals -- is why people think that the mainstream media is in the tank for Obama.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
We can, and did, observe the process of evolution. Note that "God" has nothing whatsoever to do with this physical, replicable in the lab, observable process with mountains of evidence to support it. Just as it is with the shape of the Earth. Creationism on the other hand has exactly zero scientific evidence to support it, very much like the existence of "god".
This statement indicates that it is you who does not grasp even the most fundamental principles of science and wish to confuse your audience with your fained "outrage" as to our supposed scientific "heresy".
If one feels that Palin is unqualified to be VP, then certainly Obama is unqualified to be President. And, by your same reasoning, Obama is being told exactly what to say and how to say it.
I know who is pulling Palin's strings - who's pulling Obama's?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
The proper acronym is VPILF. That may be hard to pronounce now, but it's just a heartbeat away from PILF!
You should feel silly, for making such a joke of a comment. You pre-emptively call anyone who disagrees with you a troll, yet your post is full of completely unsupported assertions about Palin's supposed inability to make independent decisions. If her background says anything, it is that she does not just do what she is told.
Sincerely, Derek
A curious little blog
Here's one measure of "readiness" to be president: The ability to face the press. Where is Palin on the Sunday talk shows? She is missing (we do not see Obama hiding from the press). This is highly unusual for a VP candidate. If that Kilkenny letter has any truth in it (and it appears to be legit at first blush), she has a lot to answer for on her record, and our country is in great danger if this person ever gets put into power. I think we have had enough of authoritarians already. I get the impression that she is a female Cheney or Nixon.
Sorry, but she helped write that speech with the aid of a speechwriter. She;s very much her own person which you'd realize if you studied her past - especially in relation to the Republican party which she had to fight VERY hard to become governor.
Hahahahahahahahahaha.
Evidence, please.
If you've heard her speak on her own, or seen things she writes, you know that she can barely put together a grammatically sensical sentence. Sometimes "with the aid of a speechwriter" means polish, and sometimes it means that the candidate stood there and had maybe a little input.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Considering that the vast majority of American(possibly all, but I'm not certain) logging companies specifically plant their own supply to avoid deforestation and much of Alaskan salmon(Not all by any means, but a quite sizable portion) is grown in fisheries, you're barking up the wrong tree on those. Yes gold is limited, but I'm pretty sure they know that and they also know it's completely non-renewable.
"I think you'll find that this is precisely the problem - education is being replaced with rote learning of stuff "
One, you're wrong. Two, I wish you were right.
Rote learning used to be part and parcel of US education, especially at the middle and high school level. It was absolutely essential. And we chucked it aside starting in the late 1960's in favor of more "organic" learning methods.
And that's precisely why students can't recall important dates, names, places, and events. This is one reason why we're worse at math. This is why we can't recite lines of important poetry anymore.
Rote learning is painful, boring, and hard work. It's also a necessary ingredient in a good, well rounded education, and I'm a bit tired of this faux-hippyish ranting against it. Learning... real learning... isn't all fun and games and personal fulfillment. Like anything else in this world worth achieving, it takes work, and not just the kinds of work we like
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Someone (possibly Thom Hartmann during his radio show) talked about a conversation he had with disenfranchised Ron Paul supporters. Unhappy with both McCain and Obama, they would have supported Dennis Kucinich! Paul and Kucinich seem in many ways polar opposites, but they share honesty and the willingness to speak truth to power.
I don't blame them. Bringing back accountability, ethics, and good old fashioned non-felonious conduct is a top priority in my book. For what its worth, I don't trust Palin to move us in that direction.
"She's very much her own person
As an Aussie watching the circus from a far, I agree. I belive she was picked because she is pro-life, pro-creationist, and anti-gay. She will draw the vote from a certain demographic that votes for the person their church tells them to. The demographic is not huge but they are an important minority because they will enthusiasticly jump on the church bus at polling time.
In other words McCain is throwing a bone to the far-right religious crowd, he doesn't share their values but he has given them a voice that makes it possible for them to vote for him in good faith (pardon the pun).
IMHO he has shot himself in the foot with a bazzoka.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
There are plenty of theologians, philosophers and scientists who would disagree with you. In fact if people weigh up evidence and act based on the conclusions they reach, having made good use of their mental faculties, then it could be said that they are acting reasonably. Just because someone else comes to a different conclusion based on the same evidence does not necessitate that one or the other party must be acting irrationally.
You must not be very well read on the subject to make a comment like that. There are vast numbers of books and reams of scholarship on the very subject of evidence for Christianity. Again, you may draw a different conclusion form the evidence, but that does not mean there is no evidence or that it isn't good evidence.
God being the best solution is not the same as God being the only solution. Sufficient evidence is not the same as absolute proof. By your standard, pretty much all of science would have to be dismissed because it's always possible that every experiment has gone wrong due to faulty equipment or incorrect measurements being taken. Extremely unlikely things, but possible.
Just because God doesn't make a useful scientific hypothesis doesn't mean he isn't real. The thought isn't antithetical to science, but rather irrelevant. There is no way of telling with science whether God moves the photon or if the photon moves itself. It doesn't matter to science and it says nothing to support either viewpoint.
Science has nothing to say about that. And just because a belief is old does not make it false (not that I'm saying you meant that).
What makes a teacher insightful?
To a certain extent, Jesus encouraged scepticism - he warned against false teachers, including the teachers of the day. At the same time he taught about the utter reliability of God and the Scriptures he had provided and encouraged faith in both them and himself.
How can science possibly answer spiritual questions? Christianity makes claims that are utterly untestable by science. In fact, science ultimately tells us very little about reality. All science does is allow us to construct models that fit our observations of reality. These models do not necessarily reflect the workings of reality, but they don't have to as long as the results the models produce line up with the observations we make of reality.
Here's a guy who, with his Harvard law degree, and the ability to make hundreds of thousands of dollars, instead put aside his own greed and got his hands dirty on the streets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_and_career_of_Barack_Obama
If you notice, the Harvard Law degree came after the Community Organizer phase of his life.
It's good to keep your facts straight, just so people don't use those errors to pull apart your argument.
That said, after reading your post, are there any presidents in recent memory that lived up to their campaign rhetoric?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Huh, kinda like Obama won't go to a debate with McCain until just recently? Or how he wouldn't take Hillary up on her debate proposition?
Sure is ready.
What insight. Why didn't I realize that? Palin is more qualified than Obama! Let's just run down the timeline here:
When Obama was graduating from Columbia University (Ivy League) with a degree in Political Science with a focus in International Relations, Palin was graduating high school and competing in beauty contests.
When Obama was President of Harvard Law Review, then organizing Chicago's largest voter drive in history and teaching Constitutional Law, Palin was switching between six low-key colleges before finally getting a degree in journalism (polisci minor)
When Obama was in the state senate drafting over 800 bills (so many that he created a backlog; there's still some working their way through today), Palin was being elected of a tiny town of 5,000 (at the time) with 53 employees that she didn't even control (a city administrator did that) with just over 600 votes. Pushed for policies that drove the town into $22 million dollars of debt -- and that *with* the massive sales tax increase (spending increased ~34% during her tenure) and over $20 million in federal earmarks. $1.5 million of the debt due to bungling an attempt at eminent domain to build a sports complex.
Obama was elected to the senate from one of the US's largest states with 3.5 million votes, where he has served for twice as long as Palin has been governor (elected with 114,000 votes, to run a state with about as many people as Fort Worth, Texas). Obama served on 13 committees, including the prestigious Foreign Relations Committee, and has met world leaders in dozens of countries across Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Palin got her first passport in 2007, and her campaign claims the following foreign policy experience: Canada, Kuwait, Germany, Ireland, and Russia. Canada because she's crossed the border before. Kuwait because she flew there to visit the Alaska National Guard (never left the base). Germany because she stopped at a base there on the way back (never left the base). Ireland because her plane stopped there to refuel (never left the airport). Russia because "Alaska is close to Russia".
Hmm... since Obama's senate term (involving sponsoring over 500 bills and drafting over 100, including the most sweeping piece of ethics reform since Watergate) is twice as long, that's probably not a fair comparison. I guess we should merely compare his *presidential campaign*, which is about as long as her governorship. 1.5 million donors versus ~680,000 taxpayers. ~80,000 campaign volunteers versus ~50,000 state employees.
You're right -- Palin is clearly more experienced!
Do you work at Taco Bell? The guy at the drive-through said that to me last night.
Maybe I read it wrong, but your post implies Obama has a cult of personality. If I didn't misread that, you're confusing charisma and perspicacity with what a true cult of personality is - where the government forces the media to unquestioningly and unhesitatingly extol virtues of a political leader - real and fake - in order to prevent citizens from ever hearing anything bad about their whitewashed leader.
Cult of personality notably has a negative connotation, and indeed it should, it's a form of repression. If you want to see what a true cult of personality is like, examine Eric Lafforgue's Flickr photo set from North Korea, where citizens are required by law to wear patriotic pins, and required by law to have photographs of their illustrious leaders in their home, tilted slightly downward so the eyes follow you everywhere. Where citizens are required by law to have a radio in their home which they cannot turn off that periodically spouts political propaganda. Where every hour, on the hour, from 6 am to midnight, loudspeakers blast out a patriotic song. Where reading material for children is war propaganda espouting the virtues of their leader and speaking in vague terms of the threat of the west.
Obama doesn't have a cult of personality. He has the clarity, insight, and speaking ability to make people feel good about the chance for change in the future, to feel good about themselves and who they are and can be. He inspires people. And even though you try to make that out to be a bad thing, it is in fact a very good thing.
Perhaps you haven't looked. Here, Obama covers current foreign policy issues in detail, giving a good background on each, and detailing his plan for each: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/foreignpolicy/
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
First, Obama and Hillary had 21 debates, including four one-on-one debates. I believe it set a record for debates during the primaries.
Second, McCain and Obama just recently finished making the schedule for debates, on August 21st. Three debates and a VP debate is pretty much standard.
Third, McCain invited Obama to town halls to debate questions from normal folks, and Obama never showed up. But wait... turns out that the "town hall" was actually invite-only, and filled with only Republican supporters. (link) I wouldn't exactly trust any town hall that was set up by McCain's camp.
Anyone who votes for candidates because they say they have 'faith' is a moron.
1. Belief in God has nothing to with whether a person has the attributes for leadership.
2. True people of faith don't wear their faith on their sleeves and brag about it; they walk humbly, respect and honor other human beings, and never assume that their 'faith' makes them better than someone else or that their faith is right while someone else's is wrong.
No I am not a 'psychic'. But I am an intelligent consumer. And I don't buy bull.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful