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Change.gov Uses Google Moderator System
GMonkeyLouie writes "The website for President-elect Obama's transition team, Change.gov, has unveiled a section called Open for Questions, which lets users submit questions and vote them up or down, in an effort to let the collaborative mind produce the questions that are the most important to the American populace (or at least the web-savvy portion). The page is powered by Google Moderator. It was unveiled yesterday, and CNet reports that when they went to post last night, '159,890 had voted on 1,986 questions from 3,255 people.'"
The republic be damned. This is true democracy in action: decision-by-mob!
1,986 questions from 3,255 people
Either a couple thousand people asked the exact same question or some questions are being "lost".
My name is Luke Skywalker and I approve this message. ADMIRAL ACKBAR!
A politician that actually listens to the people? Now I have seen all.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
The website allows for greater transparency... or greater ability to bury unwanted/uncomfortable questions while seeming more transparent.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1208/Blagojevich_questions_censored_on_Transition_site.html?showall
President-elect Barack Obama's Transition today launched "Open for Questions," a Digg-style feature allowing citizens to submit questions, and to vote on one another's questions, bringing favored inquiries to the top of the list.
It was suggested when it launched that the tool would bring uncomfortable questions to the fore, but the results so far are the opposite: Obama's supporters appear to be using -- and abusing -- a tool allowing them to "flag" questions as "inappropriate" to remove all questions mentioning Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich from the main pages of Obama's website.
The Blagojevich questions -- many of them polite and reasonable -- can be found only by searching words in them, like "Blagojevich," which produces 35 questions missing from the main page of the site.
"Given the current corruption charges involving Blagojevich, will 'serious' campaign finance reform that takes money completely out of politics through publicly funded elections be a priority in the first term?" asked Metteyya of Santa Cruz, California.
"This submission was removed because people believe it is inappropriate," reads the text underneath it.
Also removed as "inappropriate":
"In light of the recent corruption scandals (Blagojevich, Rangel, Jefferson, Stevens, etc) that have dominated the political scene,is there any ethics legislation being crafted to actually curb corruption and prevent another wave of nixonian cynicism?", a question from "lupercal," of Gainesville.
And: "Is Barack Obama aware of any communications in the last six weeks between Rod Blagojevich or anyone representing Rod Blagojevich and any of Obama's top aides?", a question from Phil from Pennsylvania.
Declaring a question "inappropriate" is different from merely voting it down; it's calling foul on a question, not just disapproving of it.
Community reporting systems like this are often vulnerable to abuse from committed partisans -- YouTube has wrestled with a parallel problem -- and the only solution is conscious efforts to remedy it.
So far, Obama's team does not seem to have stepped in to allow uncomfortable questions to rise to the top, and instead is allowing his supporters to sanitize the site.
link
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I understand our past presidents have been old... But really. Was there no person in their cabinets close enough/savvy enough to make it clear that a platform by which to hear from their populace was good and useful?
Giving the appearance of being interested in the ideas/concerns of the populace garners support. Even if they don't pay any attention to it, people will feel like they have a platform to communicate their ideas.
Overclockers
This is nice, however, partisans have modded down any questions regarding B.O.'s relationship and knowledge regarding the pay for play issue of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. This certainly raises questions, now I am not accusing, but since B.O. is the product of Chicago politics . . .
From Washington Correspondent Jamie Dupree's Blog for Cox Radio:
President-elect Barack Obama's Transition today launched "Open for Questions," a Digg-style feature allowing citizens to submit questions, and to vote on one another's questions, bringing favored inquiries to the top of the list.
It was suggested when it launched that the tool would bring uncomfortable questions to the fore, but the results so far are the opposite: Obama's supporters appear to be using -- and abusing -- a tool allowing them to "flag" questions as "inappropriate" to remove all questions mentioning Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich from the main pages of Obama's website.
The Blagojevich questions -- many of them polite and reasonable -- can be found only by searching words in them, like "Blagojevich," which produces 35 questions missing from the main page of the site.
"Given the current corruption charges involving Blagojevich, will serious' campaign finance reform that takes money completely out of politics through publicly funded elections be a priority in the first term?" asked Metteyya of Santa Cruz, California. "This submission was removed because people believe it is inappropriate," reads the text underneath it.
Also removed as "inappropriate":
"In light of the recent corruption scandals (Blagojevich, Rangel, Jefferson, Stevens, etc) that have dominated the political scene,is there any ethics legislation being crafted to actually curb corruption and prevent another wave of nixonian cynicism?", a question from "lupercal," of Gainesville.
And: "Is Barack Obama aware of any communications in the last six weeks between Rod Blagojevich or anyone representing Rod Blagojevich and any of Obama's top aides?", a question from Phil from Pennsylvania.
Declaring a question "inappropriate" is different from merely voting it down; it's calling foul on a question, not just disapproving of it.
Community reporting systems like this are often vulnerable to abuse from committed partisans -- YouTube has wrestled with a parallel problem -- and the only solution is conscious efforts to remedy it.
So far, Obama's team does not seem to have stepped in to allow uncomfortable questions to rise to the top, and instead is allowing his supporters to sanitize the site.
Wonder why it didn't get picked up? What if it was Palin, or a Republican governor selling a Republican president-elect's senate seat? Think about how many stories we have had about corruption among Republicans...guess the double standard is alive and well.
FBI agents on Tuesday morning arrested Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his Chief of Staff, John Harris, on a variety of corruption charges, including attempting to sell the US Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. The story has dominated the news since breaking yesterday, beginning with live coverage on cable news of the announcement of the indictment by US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Grant. The allegations against Blagojevich are being reported as astounding, even given the state's history of corruption, and nearly every media outlet included some version of Grant's comment about Illinois, "If it isn't the most corrupt state in the United States, it's certainly one hell of a competitor." Blagojevich also threatened the Chicago Tribune to fire editors and writers who allowed or wrote critical stories. Most reports also note that the indictments in no way suggest Obama is linked to Blagojevich's alleged corrupt schemes. Obama once supported Blagojevich but had distanced himself from the governor in recent years.
This story should have been tagged "Whatcouldpossiblygowrong". I mean, a moderation system that lets useful ideas float to the top and useless ideas to the bottom is based on the rather naive concept that the people voting are educated and unbiased. On behalf of the few educated and unbiased people present, I'd like to add the following comment to this idea: buwhahahahahahahahahaha--!!!
People don't vote their conscience, they vote their prejudices. I thought that would have been clear by now.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Maybe I'll sign in so I can submit my question:
"Why does your government web site link to and use JavaScript hosted on a corporate site, googleapis.com?"
It's bad whether it's Haliburton OR Google.
I wonder how much he's paying Filipino kids to vote up topics he wants answered and vote down questions he doesn't want to address.
This is the way government should be: good initiatives will be automatically 'dugg' up, and bad ones will be 'buried', according to the will of the people.
What could possibly go wrong?
Too bad the censor all CHANGE.GOV suggestions related to a re-opened examination of the 9/11 Commission report
That's because 9/11 wasn't an inside job, and Obama's staff don't want to lower themselves to wading in the world of truther nutjobs.
Of course they don't:
Here. Also:
Now the cranks can see for themselves just how irrelevant they are.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Don't forget that they censored questions about Gov. Blagojevich.
Obama was of course caught lying about him ever meeting with Blagojevich.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hbJzaVo_Vcuv1HtB1U1eZDQOrQuQD94VL6S03
In that story Obama states that "I had no contact with the governor or his office, and so I was not aware of what was happening."
This story, which is only a month old and yet could only be found in the cache of yahoo says otherwise.
http://66.218.69.11/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=Director+of+Illinois+Dept.+of+Veterans'+Affairs+visits+Quincy&fr=yscpb&u=www.khqa.com/news/story.aspx%3Fid%3D219212&w=director+direct+illinois+il+dept+department+veterans+veteran's+affairs+affair+visits+visit+visiting+quincy&d=Ph3CN0fiR5wF&icp=1&.intl=us
From November 8.
"Obama met with Governor Rod Blagojevich earlier this week to discuss it." (refering to the open Senate seat).
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
I'd like to know how this got modded +5 when you could verify it as false with three clicks and a search field...
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I voted on a few questions just to see how it worked, I saw at least 10 Blagojevich questions out of the 50 I voted on. If the wingnuts are gonna spam stupid questions they should be deleted when there are real questions out there. There were also five or so birth certificate questions. The Republicans are probably not going to have good luck winning elections anytime soon unless they realize people don't care about this bullshit right now, we care about the war and the economy.
Is anybody else having issues with the change.org site in Firefox? All it is displaying for me is a bunch of garblygook, but works fine in other browsers. This is the only site I have had this issue with.
A community-oriented lyrics site
I can understand the general feeling of negativity or at least pessimism regarding this, but I'd like to think that its a good step to see them continuing to embrace the web as a way to allow more people to reach them. Is it just a PR thing? Maybe. But with the questions being so 'out there' to everyone to see, I would think it allows people to call them out on more topics.
Sort of a 'Hey, on your own website people are asking questions about stem cell research. What is your answer? Don't pretend you don't see it's the number three question.'
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
That story you linked to says that people logging in to the site flagged the questions as inappropriate. The questions are still visible on the site.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I believe that as part of the Presidential Transition Act of 2000 the incoming President is allowed access to the .gov TLD to set up a "transition" web portal. Calm down.
maybe your last link can only be found in cached form because some fact checking was done and the story was found to be false?
Do you know why they removed the story? Because the claim was renounced yesterday by KHQA. Sorry to burst your bubble.
I am very skeptical that even the "Web-savvy" general population is able to correctly identify the most important issues facing humanity. Even so-called experts often can't properly place that emphasis. Take the Sierra Club, for instance: overpopulation is the 800-pound gorilla of environmental problems, yet they only give it lip service and then spend all their money dashing hither and thither fighting the myriad symptoms of that. It's really the 800-pound gorilla thrashing around that is causing all the damage, but they do nothing to restrain the beast.
Given that overpopulation is the one single most pressing problem facing humanity, and further given that we are completely incapable of voluntarily resolving it, there really is only one single solution which should be the entire planet's primary focus:
Establishing other sustainable colonies of humanity that can at least provide a migration opportunity and remove some of the pressure on the Earth's ecosystem and our social structures.
I'd like to know how this got modded +5 when you could verify it as false with three clicks and a search field...
You must be new here;-)
Yeah, Barack Obama using "Change.gov" for the name of the website of his Presidential Transition makes him worse than the Nazis.
Whatever.
I just thought the same, but the 911 censorship was on change.org not change.gov you can see what happened therethere
'all the same, it moves'.
My name is Alex Jones, and I *disapprove* of that message! Thermite, missiles, no trace of a plane anywhere, no witnesses, and - need I add - FREE FALL SPEEDS, you sheep! When in your life have you EVER seen something fall at free fall speed? It never happens, and parachutists are all IDF agents sent here to brainwash us.
I dont know about that - but they are censoring questions about our lovely Illinois Governor
How dare we ask questions about that ..
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
A better solution would to have transition.gov for EVERY incoming presidency...this would prevent both parties from introducing MORE unchecked party-line bullshit which must be paid for with taxes. This prevents bullshit from both parties. Oh..yeah, libertarians too.
THL phish sticks
That's because 9/11 wasn't an inside job, and Obama's staff don't want to lower themselves to wading in the world of truther nutjobs.
Proof! Proof! 1,986 questions from 3,255 people 1 question per person! They're lying! Conspiracy!
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
I suppose if you didn't frame your question in the form of an accusation it might stick.
Questioning deficit spending and printing currency as a response to the problems of a debt-based economy hardly seems like crackpottery.
in some superior future, google moderator itself is our government
what i mean by that is, the citizens govern themselves via internet technology that groups, edits, and resolves the important issues and what to do about them, no representational system needed
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Both the Senate and House Democratic and Republican caucuses have .gov domains, and they are frankly partisan. There's nothing strange about it in the general case.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
How dare people question the governments version of 9/11. Real skeptics only question random people on the internet!
NIST has changed its story on how WTC 7 fell 3 times now. First it was, a quarter of the building was scooped out, then it was diesel generators and now it is "thermal expansion." In their latest report they admit that the first two explanations were BS, but now they expect us to trust them on thermal expansion. Of course their proof was done only as a computer simulation, which you can't see to verify it yourself and they did no physical tests or experiments on any of the metal used in WTC7 to prove the computer simulation.
So, sorry for being skeptical of an organization that has asked me to trust them every time they change their story.
Not just "nut jobs" are skeptibal of the governments version of events. Former high level CIA people such as Robert Baer and Ray McGovern, many former MI6 members, former Gov. Jesse Ventura, German Defense Minister Andres Von Bulow, members of the Japanese parliament have monthly speeches on this topic. Countless of credible people have asked for a new independent investigation of 9/11.
If you could please explain Norman Mineta's testimony to the 9/11 commission to me I'd appreciate it.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
I doubt your burst megamerican's bubble. I would bet you reinforced it.
One can tell he/she is extremely in the right wing. I would bet any "proof" (except directly from Rush Limbaugh) would be looked at very very skeptically and that newsbusters is part of the conspiracy. Never argue religion. :B
So... use up our resources to send a few people to a different planet and let them use up the resources there?
Sadly, they'll see the public smackdown as just another example of a wide-spanning conspiracy. Some people cannot entertain the thought that they might be wrong, and therefore they cannot be taught anything. Sad, but true.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
The real questions can be buried. And then nothing has to change...
Deleted
My name is Luke Skywalker and I approve this message. ADMIRAL ACKBAR!
It's a trap!
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
"On behalf of the few educated and unbiased people present"
this instantly tells me you are extremely biased. as for "educated", unless you are talking about the hard sciences, this word means "indoctrinated into the clique"
everyone is biased. the intelligent person is always on the guard for the bias they have, and admit and accept they have some unidentified bias. in such a way, they form opinions that are about as unbiased as possible, by constantly being on guard against it
meanwhile, someone who is convinced they are magically incapabable of bias, for whatever idiotic reason, is leading forth with their biases on full display for everyone, utterly blind to how biased they are
that's you
the problem with saying that everyone is prejudiced and this is a bad thing is that it requires some sort of magical, omnipotent adjudicator of bias and prejudice somewhere. no such person or magical machine exists. as such, yes, we are prejudiced and baised in small and large ways, and this is just the way it is, and the way it will always be, and no one can ever do anything about that, so you just accept it as a fact of life, and it is not a problem to fix, but simply a fact of life to get used to
and, here's the real powe rof democracy: everyone's biases and prejudices balance out
meawhile, this sort of aristocratic opinion that there is an "us" few who are unbiased and fit for rule and a "them" who are hopelessly prejudiced and unfit for democracy is about as UNDEMOCRATIC and fascist an attitude as possible
you should try living in some place like china, where they know the common man is unfit, and only a speicla class of technocrats is fit for rule
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I know you're not really a truther because you spelled "they're" correctly.
Turns out, censorship of idiots is far less effective than ignoring them. Tends to breed conspiracy theories.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yeah, so, the fact that Obama met with Blagojevich right around the election definitely means that he knows all about and is likely involved in the governor trying to sell the seat over the past few weeks. That's definitely the logical conclusion.
Don't be dense just because it helps your agenda. Obama wasn't trying to claim that he's never spoken to Blagojevich. He's claiming that neither he nor his team was involved in or had any knowledge of the crimes that Blagojevich is now accused of.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
What's wrong with asking to reform the debt-based economy? The US stopped using the Bretton Woods gold standard in 1971 just because it abused it and it was not possible to continue using it without devaluating dolar's value, not because it was a bad idea. Since then, the government and the FED has clearly abused of the system and created too many problems. Trying to fix it doesn't seem stupid to me.
The US may not want to fix it because it'd mean admitting that the dollar is way too overvalued. But there's no reason why countries that can get their goods by exchanging them for other goods instead loaning them should agree with the US.
Kind-of off-topic, but I'm really stunned at how this shows that people just don't understand our government. I'm seeing so many questions that assume that the president has control over state and local government issues, should be doing things that should be handled by local governments, or assume that the president has legislative or judicial powers. Seriously.
"Do you have any involvement with Blagojevich's 'pay for play' scandal?"
compared to
"Have you talked about the open senate seat with Blagojevich?"
The questions have very different implications on the intent of that answer.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Seriously? I mean, seriously? Did you come from a family that shit themselves over papal-worshiping "Fitzgerald" too?
I for one would be ecstatic if the America as you know it is dead.
are modded down to oblivion. Move along, nothing to see here! Is that what Obama meant my "transparency?"
Change.gov will be used as a political marketing tool if it picks up enough steam. I can hear it now "Well .1% of the country thought this would be a great idea."
I might be wrong, so go vote for the question!
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I was able to sign in with a Canadian postal code instead of a US Zip code. Finally, we non-USians can have our issues with the American government heard.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
OK, not this part so much, but it's not bad. Did you notice that the site also posts all lobbying efforts made to the transition team? There's some very revealing documents there. A definite step in the right direction in terms of government transparency.
Perhaps the reason it is getting modded down is because A) There are about 500 duplicates of the same stupid questions B) It's a state issue that Obama really shouldn't/can't be screwing with C) Blagojevich got caught, is losing his job/going to jail. Problem solved.
who's "they"? People going to the website? Or are you inferring that it's "Evil Partisan Operations Engineers" working for Change.gov?
You can pick your nodes, and you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your friend's nodes
Actually, to use your ridiculously hyperbolic language, KHQA, the station reporting the story, was caught laying about the meeting between Obama and Blagojevich, and was forced to retract it.
Swing and a miss. Thanks for playing.
Um, read what you linked to. They said that the meeting had taken place, now they're saying that it didn't. These statements are mutually exclusive, at least one is a lie. At best, there's a 50/50 chance that the meeting didn't take place based on the information that you have.
Do you have ESP?
People always need a conspiracy, it makes life more interesting. Sadly these people have much more faith in our government (and human nature) than I do.
NIST has changed its story on how WTC 7 fell 3 times now.
Thats how things work. You have a hypothesis, new data comes about, you change your hypothesis. Your on /., you should know this. The collapse of a building is a hugely complicated thing, with massive amounts of force and interactions, expecting any group of investigators to come up with one "story" is absurd.
Actually the process of diagnosing any failure is like this. When you have a cataclysmic software bug do you settle on your first explanation, or do you make a quick hypothesis, check it, reject it, then come up with another as facts dictate?
My problem with the "Truth" movement is I fail to see motive, nor how a government as incompetent as ours could pull of a huge conspiracy, and maintain full secrecy at all levels, with no leaks or whistle blowers. Also with an event so heinous, I really doubt that everyone involved would have absolutely no moral qualms with it, it doesn't gibe with human nature.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
"Of course their proof was done only as a computer simulation...."
Rather than, say, setting fire to a real 40-story skyscraper? Wow, those scientists and engineers sure are underachievers.
Also, it takes a considerable amount of scientific illiteracy to look at new experimental findings and declare that scientists are "changing their story." Truly, 9/11 truthers are the creationists of the 21st century.
With Obama and/or the people representing him, it will be more like a public thoughtful and polite response than a public smackdown.
When will people start to be "modded" away for opposing the One?
(Score:-1, Flamebait)
The scientific community told me that light is a particle, then a wave, then a particle, now, both a particle and a wave. So, sorry for being skeptical of an organization that has asked me to trust them every time they change their story.
Being a skeptic is good but too much skepticism, or more appropriately, unreasonable suspiciousness, is cynicism.
P.S. I'm not an american and does not follow the intricate details and controversies of 9/11.
Technically, creationists are the creationists of the 21st century, and that's sad.
But truthers are cut from the same cloth. Ignore facts and evidence that don't support your hypothesis, and hyper-scrutinize those that seem to. They've already decided what to believe, and the evidence must either support that, or be made to support that.
In other words, "You're doing it wrong!"
From your own link KHQA said that they were reporting on a planned meeting, yet the story refers to the meeting in the past tense.
Essentially you are relying on trusting that KHQA changed their story on facts and not because it has become inconvenient for the President-elect. The timing is more than suspect.
Just as the timing on Blag's arrest was more than suspect. It came a day after he spoke out against Bank of America and said they would not do business with them until they restored a credit line to a company that needed it to pay for their employees. They had been watching Blag for well over a month. Judicial Watch has been looking into him since 2006. I highly doubt that this was the first time they had evidence of corruption.
Don't worry, you didn't burst my bubble. It just proves that it is more than likely that KHQA has no guts. Either way, Obama and Blag have plenty of connections to each other. Obama served as an advisor to him. Both are well connected to scumbag Tony Rezko. It is hard to believe that a sitting Senator and Governor of the same state and party wouldn't know each other fairly well.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
That's right, Obama has so much time on his hands that he's secretly organizing masses of people to flag as inappropriate questions that he doesn't like. Where do you conspiracy nuts get this stuff?
I see three questions with the term "DMCA" in them right now. None have been flagged as inappropriate. One of them is somewhat well rated. What happened to the conspiracy?
So I just modded about 150 questions at change.gov to get a sense of the questions and what I, personally, would do as a moderator.
I modded a few 'inappropriate' for asking questions that were posted on a board devoted to politics that demonstrated racial bias or some kind of juvenile focus on sex. I found myself modding down questions that:
(1)assumed facts not in evidence
(2)were thinly disguised debating points, rather than actual questions
(3)asked for a federal response to what was a state oriented question, and/or
(4)were unduly personal for a board designed to surface policy issues important to the country.
In the course of modding, I ran across a fair number of questions about Ill.'s govenor, so censorship is not happening. I found myself modding almost all of them down for one of the four reasons I listed above.
I think what you percieve as 'censorship' is actually the result of the majority of voters coming to conclusions similar to mine, and perhaps even for similar reasons. That the questions drop to the end of the list is not surprsing. Perhaps you will find the questions you are interested in if you start at the bottom of the list where all the unpopular questions reside.
Also with an event so heinous, I really doubt that everyone involved would have absolutely no moral qualms with it, it doesn't gibe with human nature.
There you go, being all sensible. That'll never work...
What I find really bizarre is that people reject the ideas put forward by the people who were given the job of finding the answer completely, yet they believe crackpot theories with not one shred of proof.
Much like the moon landing thing I guess. Ok, the investigators got it wrong a few times, that's not good, but hell, its a very difficult question to answer.
I imagine we may never know the fully accurate reason why the towers fell, simply because the task of finding out may be too complex. Possibly there will be some plausible answers emerging over time as more people tackle the problem in a scientific fashion.
In the meantime conspiracy capitalists, you know, the guys who make a mint peddling misinformation and books for cashy money, will muddy the waters as much as they can to maintain their revenue stream.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Obama said he did not meet with him, and hasn't.
Yeah, Barack Obama using "Change.gov" for the name of the website of his Presidential Transition makes him worse than the Nazis.
Whatever.
But, but, he uses a ZUNE!!!!111one
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
But the story from KHQA has already been retracted, as any others will be. Newspapers make mistakes. Obama isn't lying about this, there are wiretaps involved, the truth will come out. He isn't that dumb. I know you want eight more years of Bush style government because all that torture and economic disaster worked out so well, but it isn't going to happen.
You'd renounce your claims too if DHSS goons beat on you enough.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
http://blogs.ft.com/rachmanblog/2008/12/covered-in-internet-slime/
in all seriousness though: exactly what is wrong with the idea one DEMOCRATIC world government?
i think its our future. and a good one
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
his Presidential Transition makes him worse than the Nazis.
Godwin's Law. You lose.
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
Sure it's appropriate.
Make an Idle section!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Actually the process of diagnosing any failure is like this. When you have a cataclysmic software bug do you settle on your first explanation, or do you make a quick hypothesis, check it, reject it, then come up with another as facts dictate?
Well if you are the government the first thing you do is delete the software a thoroughly and quickly as possible, then you start fresh with some super simplified assumptions and reach a conclusion that is physically impossible.
The government put a tremendous effort into cutting up and hauling off ALL of the structural steel and getting it recycled in far off lands. This prevented any forensic analysis of the physical evidence. Now all anyone has to go on is eyewitness reports, photos, videos, and a few small bits of physical evidence.
Then NIST created a still secret software model of the buildings and and then modified the "initial conditions" until they got the desired result, which was of course that the impact of the planes was exclusivly responsible for the collapse. In order to get their desired result they had to conclude a variety of things that were disproven by their own tests. They had to then cook up reasons to ignore their own test data. The reasons tend to be things like "the test data was not consistent with building collapse." Which can be translated as the test data was not consistent with our theory of the building collapse. You may also find it interesting to learn that they did not examine the actual events of the collapse. So they were able to ignore the orange hot molten metal pouring out of the building corners a few minutes before collapse, the pyroclastic flow of debris during the collapse, the ejection of structural steel in relatively small sections at high horizontal speed from the collapse, the eyewitness reports of explosions, the fact that the buildings collapsed faster than is consistent with the law of conservation of momentum, and many other elements of physical evidence which undermine the official story.
I haven't yet had a chance to read the, just released, WTC7 report. I'll hazard a guess that NIST had to go through a similar process of contortion, selective use of evidence, and obfuscated computer models to reach a politically acceptable set of conclusions.
Check out Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth ae911truth.org. Just read the right column on the main page.
-- QED
I think the problem is that much of what passes for normal in politics falls under what we call Troll or Flamebait.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
What questions are there that haven't been answered already in the press? What was Obama supposed to do that hasn't been done already?
It's just amazing. You'd think the eight years between now and the stained dress never happened, the way the Right is carrying on. Keep on fighting for the rule of law you rugged spreaders of democracy, even if it means looking like an ass on every last political forum on the Internet.
People always need a conspiracy, it makes life more interesting
You're right, 19 terrorists and a few hiding in a cave conspiring against the US makes life more interesting and fit into a neat package.
Thats how things work. You have a hypothesis, new data comes about, you change your hypothesis.
I agree with that. However, people were called crazy for questioning the first two hypothesis, which are now said to be incorrect. The problem with the new hypothesis is that the simulation they used to "prove" it is not available to the public or any researchers. I'm being called crazy for simply asking for the proof.
I don't claim to know precisely how it fell.
My problem with the "Truth" movement is I fail to see motive
Here is your motive
PNAC, a neo-con think tank founded in 1997 wanted a larger defense budget, war with Iraq and splitting it up into multiple parts. In their paper to which I linked to stated they will not get any of this without a Pearl Harbor type attack. Look at the the people who were apart of PNAC and you'll find many Bush administration members and even a few Obama ones.
nor how a government as incompetent as ours could pull of a huge conspiracy
Is it really incompetence when they've gotten everything they wanted? It isn't really a huge conspiracy. There are such things as compartmentalization. Don't forget about the use of war games and drills on the day. It's meant to confuse people as to whether what is going on is real or simulated. You can listen to the NORAD tapes and they're yelling for people to turn the phantoms (fake radar signatures) off the radar well after Flight 93 hit the ground.
and maintain full secrecy at all levels, with no leaks or whistle blowers.
Its only a secret to those who refuse to look into it. With compartmentalization there is no need to have many people "in" on the whole plot. There have been plenty of people who have spoken out, just go looking for them.
Many FBI agents have come out saying they were stopped from investigation suspected terrorists inside the US. Most of the time, the people who stopped their investigation were promoted.
One you should look at is Barry jennings. However, he died just before the final report of NIST came out. The Loose Change guys and BBC can not find out why, even though they've called his work and home many times. He was a high level employee of the city of New York working in Emergency Management.
Also with an event so heinous, I really doubt that everyone involved would have absolutely no moral qualms with it, it doesn't gibe with human nature.
Not every human has the same set of values. There are more psychopaths out there than you'd think, which contradict the majority's view on human nature. Please do some research on Bohemian Grove and then you may find out what I'm talking about.
It took me a long time to come to terms with the facts. Everytime I'd pick up a history book I'd see countless examples of false-flag terror done by the US and other countries. One good example would be Operation Northwoods and the USS Liberty (see James Bamford's book Body of Secrets). Operation Ajax, the Reichstag fire and the Germans attacking their own radio station at Gleiwicz, Operation Gladio, etc... come to mind.
Ask yourself a question, why does the government always give itself more power and more money every time they "fail?"
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
I'm not an american and does not follow the intricate details and controversies of 9/11.
There aren't any controversies over 9/11. It was at least worth giving a few seconds of thought to the idea that there was a government conspiracy, but there is really no evidence for it. On the contrary, all evidence is in favor of a dozen foreign operatives working in secrecy against a government that didn't know to be looking for them.
One of the worst arguments against the collapse of the towers is "the towers fell at free-fall speed!" Go drop a steel i-beam from the top of the Sears Tower, and using multiple video cameras, see if you can tell me if it reaches terminal velocity.
Too bad the censor all CHANGE.GOV suggestions related to a re-opened examination of the 9/11 Commission report
That's because 9/11 wasn't an inside job, and Obama's staff don't want to lower themselves to wading in the world of truther nutjobs.
I saw a couple questions about that, but rated them , "meh"
To quote the ballsiest man in mock news,
"This man believes the same thing on Wednesday that he did on Monday, regardless of what happened Tuesday".
Check out my sysadmin blog!
Your reply is greatly appreciated, however "megalomaniac" is a 9/11 truther and didn't deserve the time it took to write your well-spoken response. I say "didn't" in past tense, because he's already been picked up by the black helicopters and sent to the reeducation gulag.
A "pure" democracy? No, in truth *any* democracy is bad.
Think about it. In a democracy people voice "opinions" on various topics and the majorities opinion is selected and made law. That law must oppress the minority. In a democracy we will all eventually find ourselves in the minority on some topic so we all will loose. Also the opinion selected and made law creates a one size fits all policy for the government. The *problem* is it is a cohesive system designed to use force on other people. One size never fit's all and there are opinions that should never be law.
(Opinion is in quotes there because that is what most people think a vote is, you opinion on a topic, however this is not all together accurate. For instance, government presents you with a ballot measure to raise taxes to pay for a new park. You like parks right? You have no problem paying for a park so you vote, yes. The problem here is.. they are not actually asking you for your opinion on if *you* want a park.. they are asking you if you think it is ok for them to force your neighbor to pay for it.. at gunpoint if necessary.)
Democracy fails to provide freedom. For example look at public schools. Be it prayer is school, evolution vs creationism, the pledge, sex ed, gay friendly education, school lunch, or any number of other topics. They are just opinions people have on what values their own children should learn. Democracy creates a system of force where one group must battle another group to have their values presented to their children. Think about the ragging intensity and hate this creates. If people could actually choose schools that shared their own values, these arguments wouldn't just diminish, they would vanish.
If we had "more democracy" in out schools we would be arguing over everything from building construction to the color of the walls! Different people can't agree on anything, but that's ok. The idea that we must all come to a consensus is stupid. We don't all need to agree on things.. in fact if we did, it would cause intellectual sloth as new ideas or methods of teaching are opposed.
I believe instigating force on another person or group of people is wrong. Philosophically speaking the most ideal form of government is anarchy. (anarchy meaning without rule, not chaos.) Market anarchy provides the absolute extreme in freedom. As anarchy is a difficult state to maintain without someone somewhere obtaining power over it, and thus beings anew the cycle of people using force on people. If anarchy can not work, a second most idea form is a tiny tiny limited republic like the Constitution creates. Our founding fathers had failed however to chain down the growth of government... and perhaps it's impossible.. but at least we can try.. In either regard we should start moving in that direction.
"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist." -- Lysander Spooner
The America form of government was never even referred to as a Democracy until the 1900's. Today people use the word interchangeably with Republic, but the founders were quite clear about what it was and went to great lengths to prevent it.
Some historical reference for you:
About 370 BC, Plato wrote: "A democracy is a state in which the poor,
gaining the upper hand, kill some and banish others, and then divide
the offices among the remaining citizens equally."
About 126 BC, Polybius wrote: "The common people feel themselves
oppressed by the grasping of some, and their vanity is flattered by
others. Fired with evil passions, they are no longer willing to submit
to control, but demand that everything be subject to their authority.
The invariable result is that government assumes the noble names of
free and popular, but becomes in fact the most execrable thing, mob
rule."
And about 63 BC, Seneca, a Roman wrote: "Democracy is mor
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
When you have a cataclysmic software bug do you settle on your first explanation, or do you make a quick hypothesis, check it, reject it, then come up with another as facts dictate?
I dunno; blaming Microsoft always seemed a reliable first step.
Complain if the government doesn't listen, complain if it does. Complain if it uses fad technologies, complain that it's in the dark ages. Complain that it's too big, complain that it doesn't do enough. Complain that taxes are too high...well, there's seldom heard a counterpoint to that one.
God Bless America, and no place else.
I heard they live in the same state too! The guilt by association thing with Obama is getting WAY old. He survived Wright, Ayers, Rezko just fine. If someone, ANYONE, has ANY actual evidence that Obama has done anything wrong it would be a refreshing change of pace.
Technically, the great grandparent already lost.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I remember that from the news a while back. Frat house for old men, sued for not hiring women. Wow, it's a conspiracy all right.
Or you could go to GOP.gov and realize that both parties get to use the .gov domain.
It isn't Obama's fault that the GOP hasn't made GOP.gov into a site that people want to spend time on - clearly the GOP would gain if they could engage the electorate with their platform and their proposals to solve our problems. They have the platform, they aren't using it, and it's not Obama's problem that change.gov is so much more high profile.
---matt
Man, I looked for the +1 common fucking sense, but couldn't find it. So had to go with Insightful instead.
-anon for the obvious reason
Here is a recently published article by these "9/11 truthers."
http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCIEJ/2008/00000002/00000001/35TOCIEJ.SGM
Also, it takes a considerable amount of scientific illiteracy to look at new experimental findings and declare that scientists are "changing their story." Truly, 9/11 truthers are the creationists of the 21st century.
NIST's webiste:
As for fuel fires, the team found that they could not have been sustained long enough, could not have generated sufficient heat to fail a critical column, and/or would have produced "large amounts of visible smoke" from Floors 5 and 6, which was not observed.
Finally, the report notes that "while debris impact from the collapse of WTC 1 initiated fires in WTC 7, the resulting structural damage had little effect in causing the collapse of WTC 7."
I'll leave finding their previous statements up to you. They can be found in Popular Mechanics, which states that anyone who doesn't believe the last two statements is crazy.
Rather than, say, setting fire to a real 40-story skyscraper? Wow, those scientists and engineers sure are underachievers.
NIST claims that the collapse of Building 7 is "The first known instance of fire causing the total collapse of a tall building".
You could also compare it to other skyscrapers that have had worst fires than WTC7.
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/fires.html
You could also read a leaked NIST report which was never meant to be shown to the public.
http://www.infowars.net/WTC7Report/WTC%207%20chapter%20Pitts.doc
Chapter 1: WTC 7 Visual Evidence, Damage Estimates, and Timeline Analysis (William Pitts) is a thorough analysis of window fires by video and picture evidence, which concludes that all major fires before floors 7 and 13 died out prior to collapse.
The report states, "At 4:38 p.m. all of the windows between 13-44A and 13-47C were open, and the fires responsible for opening the windows had died down to the point where they could no longer be observed."
"Just prior to the collapse of the building at 5:20:52 p.m. a jet of flames was pushed from windows in the same area. The event that caused this unusual behavior has not been identified."
The report describes the nature of fires from floors 7-13 and also states, "With the exception of the fires on the 19th, 22nd, 29th, and 30th floors discussed at the start of this section, there is essentially no direct visual evidence of fires on other floors of WTC 7."
Don't forget Appendix C of FEMA's World Trade Center Building Performance Study, which stated:
Evidence of a severe high temperature corrosion attack on the steel, including oxidation and sulfidation with subsequent intergranular melting, was readily visible in the near-surface microstructure. A liquid eutectic mixture containing primarily iron, oxygen, and sulfur formed during this hot corrosion attack on the steel... The severe corrosion and subsequent erosion of Samples 1 and 2 are a very unusual event. No clear explanation for the source of the sulfur has been identified.
I'm sorry for have scientific illiteracy. I better tell my boss that I can no longer carry out my duties because some random person on the internet is too lazy to read the governments own reports and would attack me instead of the facts.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
NO THIS IS MUSHROOM KINGDOM!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Ignore facts and evidence that don't support your hypothesis, and hyper-scrutinize those that seem to. They've already decided what to believe, and the evidence must either support that, or be made to support that.
How is this any different from the global warmi...errr....global climate change (aka the weather)crowd?
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
But I applaud them for trying. Do you remember any other President ever asking you for your opinion or providing you an online tool to do so? I sure don't.
Slashdot's moderation system is the best I've ever seen, and is light-years ahead of the dreck that is Digg (No, I really don't want to see another top 10 list or diatribe about legalizing marijuana, kiddies). So Change.gov would do well to emulate /., but give them time--they took it live two days ago, for heaven's sake. It took /. years to arrive where we are now.
Lastly, I have designed many of these sorts of feedback systems professionally, and I can tell you that even the most staid brand team in the most monolithic giant corporations DO read the comments they get back from customers. And at the current level of feedback they've gotten, ~3K in the last two days, even one lazy intern could read absolutely every post and pass the uniques and interesting ones along to decision makers.
From my survey of the questions, it's even easier given that the potheads have spammed their usual questions, "when are you going to make cannabis legal?", the dittoheads have spammed with their usual talking points, "when are you going to reveal the true nature of your relationship with Rev. Wright?!", and your well-meaning but ridiculously esoteric single-issue people have spammed with theirs, "When are you going to normalize relations with Cuba?"
Send them a well-worded, thoughtful, and properly spelled question and I guarantee you it will be read and passed up the chain.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
This might be the most intelligent comment ever made on this subject!
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Anyone have an informed opinion on what hit the pentagon then? Surely it wasn't a big plane judging by the small'ish hole, and the lack of major plane debris on the unblemished green lawn. Plane crashes leave quite a mess, and this was a big plane. I honestly would like to know what facts and evidence you've come across that support a 757 hitting the side of the pentagon and leaving almost no wreakage behind.
I'm being called crazy for simply asking for the proof.
Not calling you crazy, and you have every right to ask for proof. But... Most people who believe in things like this have a constantly moving idea of proof. Anytime you disprove a statement, they move the target, and thus remain correct. A theory is only valid if it can be disproven. I'm not saying your in this boat, but you must admit that many are, which really hurts the credibility of the theory, and its adherents.
PNAC
I am aware of that, but I still think that Bush could have sold the war in an simpler manner. Looking at his view of politics, he would have just invaded anyways, 9/11 or no. He doesn't need a reason, ever. If he just invaded Iraq for shits and giggles (without 9/11), the American people would probably have supported it anyways, the patriotic idiots that we are.
Its only a secret to those who refuse to look into it. With compartmentalization there is no need to have many people "in" on the whole plot. There have been plenty of people who have spoken out, just go looking for them.
If there was incontrovertible proof of a conspiracy, then the media would be standing on every elevated platform in the country screaming it. So its either a real secret, and the "Truthers" haven't found a smoking gun. Or the smoking gun they found isn't real.
Not every human has the same set of values. There are more psychopaths out there than you'd think, which contradict the majority's view on human nature.
Perhaps. But all it would take is ONE person inside who had a conscience to end the whole affair. People generally only appear as sociopaths to others, but generally lack the actual criteria that would make them one (via the DSM). We forget the existence of others who are not closely tied to us, we abstract them to general scenery. Either that or we are blinded to them by strong ideologies, where people become a means to an end that we see as the supreme cause. These two things are true for all of us. We often forget the human element, when we watch our military operations on cable news how often do we stop and think "all of these 'bad guys' are people, just like me, they have families, loved ones, children who depend on them, etc..."?
That said; for every person blinded by ideology, there is going to be one person who betrays the cause. Especially when it comes to killing people we identify with. We value Americans more than the alien 'bad guys', thus killing a large amount of 'us' would cause some moral qualms. And judging from the scope of 9/11, one of these people would rebel, or at least come forward after the fact.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
> I fail to see motive, nor how a government as incompetent as ours could pull of a huge conspiracy, and maintain full secrecy at all levels
The beauty is that you don't have to maintain secrecy. Our willingness to believe that all is right with the world and to have faith in our leaders leads people to selectively filter out truths which don't gibe with that world view. Don't believe me? How many people in your country still believe that Iraq had something to do with 9/11? How many still believe that Iraq had WMD? The fact that events like (for example) the Gulf of Tonkin incident are well documented, does not mean that that truth is widely known let alone widely accepted. Politicians all over the world have figured out that it is all about managing the message. The few people that can see through the spin are ignored by the majority who choose to believe what they are told and look no further.
The other thing to note is that it doesn't have to be a "huge" consipiracy. If I order to you to run a war-game on that day, why would you question my motives? You don't have to be aware that 3 other similar war-games were called on the same day. Compartmentalisation and need-to-know practices ensure that large projects can proceed to conclusion with little or no knowledge amongst the lower ranks of the bigger picture.
> Also with an event so heinous, I really doubt that everyone involved would have absolutely no moral qualms with it, it doesn't gibe with human nature.
Are you kidding? We've just left a century which saw the Armenian massacre, Stalin's purges, the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, Pol Pot's killing fields, the carpet bombing of Vietnam, the Rwandan genocide, Central American death squads and many more than I can remember. We are currently seeing Robert Mugabe slowly starve his people to death.
Don't kid yourself, human nature can self-justify the worst possible atrocities.
See http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Evil-Ordinary-Genocide-Killing/dp/0195148681/
There was a lot of debris and the hole was large. The truthers tend to show pictures that omit a large part of the debris, obscure the hole with smoke, show the field after cleanup had commenced, show awkward angles, etc. If you google around for actual pictures and testimony, you will see that there is a lot of debris strewn about, a lot of it was stuck inside the pentagon, and the hole was actually fairly large.
Like I said, truthers selectively seek evidence that seems to support their hypothesis and ignore that which does not.
I guess I've only seen specific pictures provided by people trying to push the truthers line. I'll look into it more as I never bought that the WTC was an inside job, but the Pentagon... something didn't seem right. Assuming that a small plane did hit the Pentagon, it always struck me as being practically impossible to try and fake the roster of dead people who should have been aboard the 757. Thanks for your reply!
Check out the Loose Change guide: http://www.loosechangeguide.com/LooseChangeGuide.html
"When will you come clean on the the Black Mesa incident? The creation of portal technology allowed the creatures from Xen to this planet.... And When Is Episode 3 Coming Out?!!?!?!"
http://moderator.change.gov/?embed=http://change.gov/openforquestions#9/e=8&t=black+mesa
The beauty is that you don't have to maintain secrecy. Our willingness to believe that all is right with the world and to have faith in our leaders leads people to selectively filter out truths which don't gibe with that world view.
Generally true, but not universal. Even when we were ramping up for invading Iraq, there were dissenters, and generally critical individuals and groups. I actually won $50 from a classmate, since I bet that there were no WMDs. Its an single self-serving example, but thats all we need to show that critical thought is possible.
If it isn't a secret, and true, then it would have been exposed long ago. And even with the groupthink of the time, it would have exploded sometime in the last 3 years, with our confidence and agreement with the government at an all time low.
Are you kidding? We've just left a century which saw the Armenian massacre, Stalin's purges, the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, Pol Pot's killing fields, the carpet bombing of Vietnam, the Rwandan genocide, Central American death squads and many more than I can remember. We are currently seeing Robert Mugabe slowly starve his people to death.
The difference here is that these events, we perpetrated by dehumanizing the victims, the perpetrators of these actions saw their victims as less than human, as aliens. They weren't killing people, they were killing "vermin". This process wouldn't be possible with 9/11, since we would have been killing people who we accord humanity to.
I'm not saying that there is no chance of there being a conspiracy, but that there isn't enough evidence to prove that there was one. I generally don't believe in anything that doesn't have proof. Right now the burden of proof is on the "Truth" crowd (a rather heavy one at that), and they have failed to meet it. Bring me the smoking gun, and I will happily believe and be convinced.
The conspiracy crowd, though, keeps having their points disproven, then they change their standard. They operate as if it MUST be true, and no amount of evidence to the contrary will change the fact it happened. This discredits it.
To me one of the biggest things invalidating the hypothesis of the "Truth" movement is that WE SAW IT COMING. We knew (or at least some people smarter than those our administration listens to) that there was a plot, we knew it involved planes, we knew who planned it, etc... The coincidence is too much for me, that an alien organization was plotting to do the exact same thing as the US government was plotting to do to itself, at the exact same times, with the same MO, etc...
Yes, we can disregard US intelligence to this ends for the sake of paranoia, but we also have foreign intelligence. To accept that the US controls all intelligence is a leap that I can't take without a HUGE burden of proof.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
...from Germany. Still can't watch your shows on Hulu though.
When you say "we saw it coming". Yes. We did. As Colleen Rowley, former FBI agent attests:
http://www.apfn.org/APFN/WTC_whistleblower1.htm
And yet, "its coming" intelligence, seems to have been actively blocked from reaching people whose job it is to make key decisions. To me this is indicative of people desperate to keep their "eyes wide shut".
Colleen Rowley was of course not the only investigator whose actions were blocked. You may have heard of Sibel Edmonds, the former FBI translator:
http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/050704SibelEdmonds.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/25/60minutes/main526954.shtml
Don't be too sure of yourself dude...
I thought the same thing. However, first understand that while I agree that a debt-based economy is a bad thing, that doesn't mean we have to return to precious metals, which would be even worse.
"NIST has changed its story on how WTC 7 fell 3 times now."
Sounds like they don't know.
Look:
A couple airplanes hit the main towers - If you want to dispute that, forget it.
It seems entirely possible, that somehow, one way or another, this led to the building next door falling down too. I don't know exactly how; it sounds from your report NIST doesn't know exactly how, but whatever; seems like a posibility.
What doesn't seem like a posibility is that anyone would go to the trouble of hijacking airplanes and crashing them into different buildings in order to cover up a demolition that could be much more easily passed off as an entirely ground-based terrorist attack.
So you've got the possibility that the obvious, plausible way things seem to have happened is reality. vs. some huge number of people before and after the event deciding to participate in a conspiracy to cover up, what exactly? What could possibly be covered up by such massive destruction but not more subtle means? in any case, this conspiracy must be brilliant, since theyv'e been so amazingly successful, yet they've pursued this entirely brain-damaged byzantine plan.
How about answering truthfully whether or not Obama spoke to Blagojevich about filling his Senate seat, and to what extent? Axelrod is on record saying that they spoke, and then Obama's handlers come out and say that Axelrod "misspoke." Either they did speak, or they didn't speak. The two are mutually exclusive. Your fuzzy, ethics of convenience liberal thinking doesn't apply here.
You're right, 19 terrorists and a few hiding in a cave conspiring against the US makes life more interesting and fit into a neat package.
Except that those people hiding in a cave proudly claim responsibility. Because of than that admission, I would tend to believe the government and the terrorists when they both say the terrorists did it.
I agree with that. However, people were called crazy for questioning the first two hypothesis, which are now said to be incorrect. The problem with the new hypothesis is that the simulation they used to "prove" it is not available to the public or any researchers. I'm being called crazy for simply asking for the proof.
Here's a problem with asking for the proof as you state it: It's not like computer simulations are small files that they can post on a website. Any simulations they have would likely be large files. And do you have the supercomputer and software to run said simulation? So why should they make it available when no one can use it. Instead, NIST releases reports and updates about the simulations which are generally available. At best you get an animation of collapse. But that would never satisfy anyone who demands unreasonable amounts of proof.
Is it really incompetence when they've gotten everything they wanted? It isn't really a huge conspiracy. There are such things as compartmentalization. Don't forget about the use of war games and drills on the day. It's meant to confuse people as to whether what is going on is real or simulated. You can listen to the NORAD tapes and they're yelling for people to turn the phantoms (fake radar signatures) off the radar well after Flight 93 hit the ground.
To provide a counter example to your counter example. There are many people who insist the moon landings were faked. Time and time again, their assertions are proven wrong. Yet in 40 years after the landings, no one from the thousands of people who worked on the Apollo programs has claimed that anything was faked.
One you should look at is Barry jennings. However, he died just before the final report of NIST came out. The Loose Change guys and BBC can not find out why, even though they've called his work and home many times. He was a high level employee of the city of New York working in Emergency Management.
For someone who claims that he "needs to see the data", it's interesting that you also claim the lack of data is proof that something suspicious was going on. Perhaps how he died is a private matter that they are not going to discuss with you. Hell, he might have had a heart attack because he decided to take up Street Luge for all we know. But just because you don't know, doesn't mean it was suspicious.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Depends on which crowd you mean.
There is a crowd of climate scientists who are discussing the evidence and combining that evidence with what we know about greenhouse gasses and our CO2 emissions. They then come up with predictions about global climate change and the degree of human impact upon that. Most scientific discussions I've seen allow for a range of impact, and are certainly willing to address skeptics arguments (with the result that most are debunked). Naturally, their results are refined and tweaked as new evidence and models become available.
There's also a crowd that reads these summaries, understands them, and concludes that certain actions may or may not be warranted in order to curb that impact. Some of these people think that we should just accept it and deal with it, while others think we should transition to new fuels.
Then there's the vocal crowd. The one that treat science as a religion and the scientists as the priest. Any dissenting opinion is shouted down as being against the consensus without addressing the actual science.
The first group is looking at the evidence and drawing conclusions. They are not trying to make the evidence fit the hypothesis. The second is looking at a summary of those conclusions. That requires some faith in the consensus and process, yes. The third group is willing to ignore any arguments that may contradict their bias, so they are really no different from the truthers or creationists.
Of course, there are plenty of "scientists" in the third group too. You just tend to not see their work as much, because they are not doing science.
The vast, vast majority of climate scientists accept that global warming is happening. The vast, vast majority believe humans are responsible. A tiny minority does not. However those that are most vocal in their opposition are not scientists but rather advocates from industries that would be impacted if climate change were accepted. "Climate change is not caused by humans" is this the same as the "Earth is flat" movement to me. It won't matter what proof you bring; they will never accept it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The truthers are nuts, but the "asset-backed currency" people are not necessarily such and most people really have no opinion or idea on what an asset-backed currency entails and what its advantages and/or disadvantages are. To compare truthers with them is more of your political perspective more than them being "crazy."
I have no real opinion on asset-backed currency, myself.
This colin guy you linked to, are you saying,
"Will you consider removing "In God We Trust" from our money, given that this violates a true separation between church and state, is unconstitutional in spirit, and is insulting to the ~30 million citizens who choose not to share in this belief."
is a bad idea? I hardly think so! Yet the majority are against it.
Many people feel the government should remain neutral to the political parties. They exist, but the workings of the government should not serve to favor them. You use this as an example of trying to suggest that it's "OK" but to me it sounds more like even more of a reason to restrict usage of the .gov TLD even more.
You're implying a conspiracy between the PEOTUS, almost certainly members of his staff, an independent TV station's reporter and editor. Just sayin.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I didn't say they were "nuts," just cranks. Maybe I should have been more specific-- I didn't mean to imply that the gold standard is a bad idea (though I think it is), but that the people who advocate it are belly-aching autodidact complainer types that think they know more about economics than professionals. Believing in the gold standard is no longer an economic theory, it's become a cargo cult social identity movement, that they drop the moment someone asks them to vote.
A good example of a crank would be a UFO conspiracy theorist, or a timecube-style physics crackpot. Maybe they're right, but it doesn't help that he's a reclusive weirdo that thinks posting his question on the POTUS's website will be productive.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
You are not a skeptic. You are an evidence-denying anomaly hunter. There is a difference. Rather than get lost in the minutiae of details you can twist to make it look like you're right, kindly give us the big picture. Tell us who did it, who planned it, why they did it, and how they've gotten away with it.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
All of your governments are belong to Google
Damn, I was about to post that. That guy did an awesome job of digging into the REAL truth, not the Truther truth.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
For the discussions previously hosted on change.gov I could log in with my openid account. Now I am required to sign up for a new account. I was very disappointed by this development. I believe this is because google does not support being an openid consumer in contrast to the company used for the Health Care discussion. Im tired of having 40+ different login names and passwords. I quite.
"I'm sorry for have scientific illiteracy. I better tell my boss that I can no longer carry out my duties because some random person on the internet is too lazy to read the governments own reports and would attack me instead of the facts."
So you're claiming to be an expert in all the relevant fields who can not only verify your claims, but verify that the supposedly leaked documents aren't fake?
I am scientifically inaccurate.
Curse you and your government shill doublespeak! Double-darn you! How dare you question the TRUTHERS? They're the TRUTHers after all, not the LIARS!
I am scientifically inaccurate.
"Um, read what you linked to. They said that the meeting had taken place, now they're saying that it didn't. These statements are mutually exclusive, at least one is a lie. At best, there's a 50/50 chance that the meeting didn't take place based on the information that you have."
That's false. There is no chance the meeting occurred, because it didn't occur. The newspaper never bothered to do its followup research.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
"Essentially you are relying on trusting that KHQA changed their story on facts and not because it has become inconvenient for the President-elect. The timing is more than suspect."
In other words, in your mind, a lack of evidence of a conspiracy is evidence of a conspiracy. Do you ever bother to think about what you're saying?
I am scientifically inaccurate.
I, for one, welcome the way America hands parts of it's democratic power to Google.
Hail to the first Google employee who learns to dictate public opinion!
The site is fun to use. I voted on 200 questions mostly because the random crap that people ask is pretty entertaining.
The concept isn't bad -- think of it as wisdom of crowds in action...
When in your life have you EVER seen something fall at free fall speed?
Actually, pretty much every time an aeroplane noses down. Those jets work a little faster than gravity, don'cha know.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Honestly, if you try out the system yourself, you'll probably start reflexively modding those questions down as well, simply because there are so many of them, and a great many of them are poorly written rants, not actual questions. Quite a few of them certainly fall into the inappropriate category, such as this one: "Why did you twice campaign for Blagojevich? I guess you're equally corrupt." -Akira The user "Akira" seems to be quite prolific with these, as Ive rated a bit over 300 out of over 12,000 posts, and I've already modded down or flagged at least half a dozen of these as inappropriate. Clearly, some sort of post delay would have been a good idea.
Support more choices in goverment-Vote 3rd party.
A further note: It appears this user is simply repeating the same questions endlessly. The first five I saw from him were as follows: The one listed above. "Why do you act black?" "Is it hard to be such a fucking phony all the time?" "Will you pardon Ronnie Gardocki?" "Will you support the decriminalization of lysergic acid diethylamide?" http://moderator.change.gov/?embed=http://change.gov/openforquestions#11/e=8&t=aghhc2tvYmFtYXIQCxIIRG9yeVVzZXIY9a4BDA I think any censorship of his views are entirely deserved, and feel there is a desperate need for metamoderation or something similar to minimize this sort of systemic abuse.
Support more choices in goverment-Vote 3rd party.
I think the vitriol was a bit excessive, but its easy to see why its there. The truthers are in grade-A denial.
I also liked Maddox's argument.
The problem, as so clearly seen in the final days of the Bush administration, is that the government is, in fact, far too powerful.
And makes more mistakes all the time. The histrionic BS about Banking and Automotive bail-outs show this very very clearly.
You need to replace Presidential assent by electronic referendum so bad law, and flawed decisions, are slowed down. The media howls 'do something', and that is almost always wrong.
The present economic crisis is the result of that.
See Direct Democracy in Switzerland
... who bitch about the /. moderating system remember what this site looked like before it was introduced.
To me one of the biggest things invalidating the hypothesis of the "Truth" movement is that WE SAW IT COMING.
I think you have a problem with your logic. If I may:
1. The hypothesis: our government paid off the terr'sts to do 911.
2. A fact: WE SAW [the terror plot involving planes, etc.] COMING.
How does #2 invalidate #1, exactly?
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Sensible? Larry Silverstein said in an interview on PBS that they decided to pull the building (7) because of the fire. What exactly do all of you smart fellers on /. suppose "pull the building" means?
The Towers? They fell because some airplanes hit them. I think that is understood. Why building 7 fell, much less caught on fire, is where the investigation needs to be. I guess I am just a conspiracy theorist nut though.
All points of time and space are connected.
This must be a different version from the one I read awhile back, before losing interest; that the CIA/TLA did it covertly.
I really doubt, though, that we'd have to pay AQ to attack us. I think they would do so joyously.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
OK, I actually agree with you there, at least in the terms of "identity." Most people barely know that the Federal Reserve exists so seeing that question marked up so high is suspicious...
Do note that a lot of these "gold bugs" (e.g., Ron Paul) do not necessarily prefer returning to a gold standard but some sort of hard asset.
But I think that their view, if you grant them wanting to limiting government spending, is perfectly rational as it does limit government spending.
all that National Guard service stuff and Bush eh?
Sorry, the land of whackos is the most equal opportunity non discriminatory place on this planet.
Still, I do have to give credit to the op for linking the Governor of Illinois with the Birth Certificate story in order to neutralize the one. Sorry but there are many of us who still want true campaign reform and such. The only reason its not a big deal now to the Democrats is because it worked for them this time, before this they were always crying it wasn't fair that privately funded campaigns had such an advantage...
As for the economy, the same fools who created it are making it worse. Bailout is code for "reward friends" and will only sink the economy further into a pit making it even harder to get out of. The only correction needed is to sweep the current Congress out of power but that ain't going to happen because people vote them back in regardless. After all, its never their Senator/Representative that is the bad one.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
You are acting vindicated that mob rule is determining what crosses the president's desk?
in a nation ruled by television, do you think anything remotely related to copyright reform will make it through the mindless hordes who will mod it down "because hanna montana say's downloading is bad" into obama's "must read list"?
What about gay rights, which a majority of citizens in "the people's republic of california" voted to strip away?
I'm sorry, but "change" doesn't happen when the mindless hordes are deciding what crosses the president's desk.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
mod parent up.
i've been taking notes on this as it's crossed my mind and may some day write a paper or book on it "the alternative to democracy"
one of the biggest problems which is making this more and more evident today is the fact that, until recently, the world was simple enough to get a basic understanding of how everything works.
It's no longer the case anymore, and this allows politicians to pull blatant stunts of corruption and claim any experts that speak against it are a "fringe group".
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
the latest archive seems to be utterly riddled with dupes, pretty much all of them focused on the war on drugs, to the exclusion of almost all other issues, including an economy quickly sliding to 1933 levels.
I say they need to go through multiple rounds of moderation.
First to categorize them generally, then to choose the best from those categories to avoid most dupes.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Open for Questions because Closed for Questions at 12AM today. I pity the poor souls who now have to wade through that drek and formulate answers that don't begin with "In response to IheartDick443@hotmail.com's dumbass question..."
No, it didn't. It said, "Here is a model for how light works. It works well to describe many of its observed behaviors." Then they said, "Here is another model. It works better that the previous model to describe some behaviors, but is worse at others." Then they said, "Here is a new model that combines both of the previous models to better correlate with our observations."
Gee, I don't know how the Science Organization can go on without your trust. It will probably just lie in bed all day with the curtains drawn.
Sarcasm aside, scientists are not asking you to believe anything. They never said "This is end-all, be-all One True TRUTH about what light is." They're just modelling how they see it working, so that they can hopefully predict its behavior under different circumstances. That's what science does.
If Truth is what you seek, go to church, worship a tree, cow, or dead ancestor, talk to Yoda, whatever. It's not science's job to provide it for you.
uhh, well, of course they claimed responsibility. I'm by no means a "truther," but if you were part of a "terrorist organization" (lol) and wanted to rally support for your cause in a region dead set on anti-west sentiment (supposedly), wouldn't you? and, I mean, if I recall correctly (and I do), there was first no evidence whatsoever of Bin Laden's involvement -- Bush esseentially just declared "Bin Laden did it" and there was no proof for quite some time, until, suddenly (after previously denying complicity), a "tape" was randomly found in the desert where Bin Laden was discussing the successes of his attack... I usually record tapes of myself admitting to crimes after murdering people also.
Because WTC 7 fell down three times right?
The Reichstag fire was done by a handful of people, maybe even just one, with a few gallons of gas and a match.
For 9/11 to have been a government conspiracy, about 4000 people from the janitors to the President would have had to have been in on the secret and kept it, even though several hundred of them would have been planning for their own deaths.
Occam's razor, pal.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.