Carly Fiorina: I Supplied HP Servers For NSA Snooping

MFingS writes: According to an article at Motherboard, shortly after 9/11, NSA director Michael Hayden requested extra computing power and Carly Fiorina, then CEO of HP, responded by re-routing truckloads of servers to the agency. Fiorina acknowledged providing the servers to the NSA during an interview with Michael Isikoff in which she defended warrantless surveillance (as well as waterboarding) and framed her collaboration with the NSA in patriotic terms. Fiorina's compliance with Hayden's request for HP servers is but one episode in a long-running and close relationship between the GOP presidential hopeful and U.S. intelligence agencies.

Comments

Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[WillAffleckUW]

Let me guess, does she waterboard in her spare time?

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Spy Handler]

Trump says her face is a form of waterboarding.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[reboot246]

What's wrong with waterboarding? Just think of it as involuntary nasal irrigation, and you don't even have to buy a Neti pot! People do it to themselves all the time.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

It's like she's bragging that she supplied the gas chambers at Auschwitz, and for a very reasonable fee.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Calydor]

It's the "involuntary" part that is wrong.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[WillAffleckUW]

It's like she's bragging that she supplied the gas chambers at Auschwitz, and for a very reasonable fee.

Or IBM providing the computers for the Nazis to run the death camps (which did happen)

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Fire_Wraith]

That, and the fact that it's TORTURE, the sort of thing we prosecuted people for in the past as a war crime.

It's also completely useless for gathering information, because all you get is garbage - someone will tell you whatever they think you want to hear to make it stop, even making shit up. Jesse Ventura put it rather well when he said something on the lines of "Give me Dick Cheney strapped to a folding table and a pitcher of water, and in 5 minutes I'll get him to confess to the Manson Family murders."

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[WillAffleckUW]

That's really amazing especially when considering that ENIAC, which is regarded as the first digital computer, wasn't introduced until after VE day.

IBM did, however, manufacture M1 Carbine rifles for the US during WWII.

Your problem is you know nothing about computing. The first computers were literally punch cards with counter accumulators. We emulated those on chips and circuits later, as "registers". You probably don't even know why Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper are why those electrons flicker on your screen.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Not when you realize that IBM tabulating machines, aka, non-digital computers, date from the founding of the company as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[msauve]

Tabulating machines were not computers. Nor were comptometers. There were analog computers before digital ones, but IBM didn't make them.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[WillAffleckUW]

Tabulating machines were not computers. Nor were comptometers. There were analog computers before digital ones, but IBM didn't make them.

(stares at moron who fails to understand what a computer is)

I see.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think reboot246 was being serious.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, he did do it. So, using Cheney wouldn't be a good test.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

The first decade of the 20th century was marked by a number business launches and consolidations, all of which eventually led to the formation of the Computing- Tabulating- Recording Company (C-T-R) - IBM's predecessor - in 1911.

IBM itself is calling you out on your lies.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[msauve]

"(stares at moron who fails to understand what a computer is)"

They do make displays with matte instead of glossy screens.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Locke2005]

Kind of like the difference between voluntary and involuntary sex?

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Black Parrot]

IBM did, however, manufacture M1 Carbine rifles for the US during WWII.

Sounds odd, though I suppose carbines could be considered to be a type of "international business machine".

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[WillAffleckUW]

They make transparent ones too. But I'm presuming you've never even seen a ribbon LED display, or used a magnetic wire to store results, because your understanding of computing is based on TV, not historical reality.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

I was waterboarded as a child. Go ahead and pretend because that what you are. A pretender because you have never breathe water and it fucking hurts.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

No, IBM quit manufacturing displays a good while ago.

There was a time though.

A time.

Now the T221 is gone.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[hambone142]

Note that Carly's undergraduate degree is in medieval history. This (of course) has prepared her for her previous position as CEO of Hewlett-Packard and will surely come in handy should she ever become elected to office.

I worked for HP under Carly's reign. Frankly, she'd sell her mother to get what she wants.

I find it interesting that she didn't mention any of this or the "flopping fetus" video crap when running for California Senate.

What's really scary is that some people actually believe she'd be a good President.

I guess we're scraping the bottom, given our choices.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but ONLY as long as it was a patriotic act.

I think the only reasonable response to American "Human Rights" demands is "pot kettle black"... followed by laughter

The USA will become a much better country when they actually become the country they think they are.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Ungrounded Lightning]

IBM did, however, manufacture M1 Carbine rifles for the US during WWII.

Sounds odd, though I suppose carbines could be considered to be a type of "international business machine".

A number of companies manufactured M1 carbiines for WW II. IBM, Saginaw Steering Gear division of GM, Rock-Ola (jukebox manufacturer), Underwood, National Postal Meter, etc.

"Out of ten primary contractors that manufactured .30 Caliber Carbines, Winchester was the only one with prior experience manufacturing weapons."

The main requirement for beating plowshare factories into sword factories was having the right equipment. Being able to drill a straight hole through a long steel rod to make a barrel was one way to get drafted into the effort. (Thus Saginaw Steering Gear, which had machines to drill a hole down the steering wheel shaft for the horn wire.) Another was having equipment able to accurately mill a high-accuracy complex machine part (for receivers and other parts with cam or shaft bushing surfaces) out of hard steel alloys that would survive thousands of beatings and keep working.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Ungrounded Lightning]

That's really amazing especially when considering that ENIAC, which is regarded as the first digital computer, wasn't introduced until after VE day.

The ENIAC has a claim to be (one of the) first stored-program ELECTRONIC computers.

But digital computing had been done for a very long time, using mechanical devices, electro-mechanical devices (including both motor-driven mechanical calculators and relay-based, often plugboard-programmed, card counters, sorters, collators, printers, ...)

Hollerith invented the digital tabulation punched card and sorting/counting machinery for it for the 1900 census, after the 1890 census was taking nearly 10 years to process the data and the 1900 looked like it wouldn't be finished until after 1910. (Tab cards, AKA "IBM cards", were the size they were because, after the papermakers gave him an unreasonably high bid, he obtained the recently-retired bill making machinery from the US mint, which had redesigned the money shortly before. The cards are the same size as the previous generation of dollar bills.)

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

And then they get brain-eating amoebas.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Undergraduate degrees don't mean squat. My specialty was medieval history too, and I've been doing IT for twenty years. You aren't defined by the rag you bought to check off the box to get a job while drinking too much and smoking too much pot. It's what you do with it.

I'm no fan of hers, but she did manage to become CEO of HP either by building on that education or in spite of it. That's more than 99% of people do with their "superior" STEM degrees.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Or IBM providing the computers for the Nazis to run the death camps (which did happen)"

That would be completely believable if IBM made computers when the Nazi's were exterminating Jews and said death camps actually required computers to run them. Congratulations on posting one of the most stupid posts on Slashdot ... ever (which really did happen!).

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

You see jack shit.. in the modern sense computers are capable of things such as.. oh.. you know.. loops and decision structures.

Sit down Will, you're embarrassing yourself again.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Undergraduate degrees don't mean squat. My specialty was medieval history too, and I've been doing IT for twenty years

She, like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, are statistical anomalies.

That's more than 99% of people do with their "superior" STEM degrees.

LMAO.. you're on a help desk, aren't you. Do you know what formal methods are? IEEE 754? Amdahl's law? Do you even know what the fuck numerical analysis is about?

Let me tell ya son, it's okay to be butt-hurt, but don't show it in public.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure dude, hang your hat on that.

What next, you going to say that Booth did not assassinate Lincoln?

Re: Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how you know people could appropriately judge the effectiveness of torture centuries ago. People did, indeed, believe that torturing a witch to get a confession of witchcraft was effective, but hat doesn't mean there was actually a witch. Your argument fails because there's no way to show torture's continued use has anything to do with effectiveness over perceived effectiveness. Kind of like how it still is now.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Undergraduate degrees don't mean squat. My specialty was medieval history too....she did manage to become CEO of HP either by building on that education or in spite of it. That's more than 99% of people do with their "superior" STEM degrees.

If you had a STEM degree with a few stats classes you would know you are so off-base that you are not even wrong.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[WindBourne]

I worked at Bell labs when she broke us apart and then later when she was in charge at HP. What a fucking nightmare she was. In both companies, she was only interested in making the stocks rise so she was happy to part out the companies. She and Romney share so much in common.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[WindBourne]

putin is schooling O? Are you fucking serious? When Putin invaded Georgia, W/neo-cons did NOTHING. When Putin invaded Ukraine, O pushed for sanctions on Russia, which is seriously killing their economy. That is why Putin was willing to talk to O on the side. Right now, he would LOVE to have these sanctions removed. Russia will not tolerate these for another 2 years.

Schooling by Putin, or the thought that Fiona who is only destructive to America will hurt Putin? Zero chance. She would remove the sanctions and push our businesses over there.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[garyisabusyguy]

The expedient thing about torture is that you get to punish somebody, look like a hero and satisfy the fear of the people

It is not about 'justice' or the 'truth' it is about public display, might as well be apes beating our chest and hooting

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[garyisabusyguy]

"the IBM punch card and card sorting system-a precursor to the computer. IBM, primarily through its German subsidiary, made Hitler's program of Jewish destruction a technologic mission the company pursued with chilling success. IBM Germany, using its own staff and equipment, designed, executed, and supplied the indispensable technologic assistance Hitler's Third Reich needed to accomplish what had never been done before-the automation of human destruction. More than 2,000 such multi-machine sets were dispatched throughout Germany, and thousands more throughout German-dominated Europe"
https://www.jewishvirtuallibra...

cite, or stfu

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and his hair is a form of cotton candy

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[gweihir]

And it just happens to be among the most evil acts that human beings can commit, as it is not merely about killing somebody, it is about complete destruction of a person.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[gweihir]

I am sure people very much like her have bragged about that in the past. Some people barely qualify as human. She is one of them.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Zero__Kelvin]

You should probably look up the word pre-cursor. Understanding its definition will probably save you from looking like an idiot in the future.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[fustakrakich]

I guess we're scraping the bottom, given our choices.

Or, we could just open another barrel, you know, given our choices... There's lots out there... They're not being shut out by anybody but the voters who will *dance to anything*...

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[MBGMorden]

World War 2 was a conflict the likes of which we have never seen again. All companies that had almost any manufacturing capacity were making weapons.

Which is why we have rifles from the time manufactured by IBM, Smith Corona, the National Postal Meter Company, and a ton of other companies that traditionally had made far more innocent items. Heck the stocks on some of the M1 Carbines were made by Milton Bradley.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even believe she would be a good lay.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Jeremi]

Jesse Ventura put it rather well when he said something on the lines of "Give me Dick Cheney strapped to a folding table and a pitcher of water, and in 5 minutes I'll get him to confess to the Manson Family murders."

I think Mr. Ventura would be better served by waterboarding Cheney until Cheney agrees that waterboarding is torture.

Once that's been accomplished, there are only two interpretations: either Cheney has finally admitted the truth, in which case we have established that waterboarding is torture and therefore illegal; or Cheney was lying in order to make the waterboarding stop, in which case we have established that waterboarding is ineffective as means of extracting truthful information.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

> she'd sell her mother to get what she wants.

Isn't Carly's mother selling herself how we got Carly?

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Or IBM providing the computers for the Nazis to run the death camps (which did happen)

Exactly...it's not something that one should be bragging about.

She should be ashamed of it, and it should disqualify her from any serious consideration for the presidency.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[TapeCutter]

Rifles, computers, they're both "International Business Machines"

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

That's really amazing especially when considering that ENIAC, which is regarded as the first digital computer, wasn't introduced until after VE day.

Ummm, IBM itself admits to providing the Germans with "computing and record keeping" devices.

No matter whether you want to class their equipment as a "computer" or not, the fact is they did aid and abet the Germans in their war efforts, of that there is no doubt. Just like Volkswagen did.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Tabulating machines were not computers. Nor were comptometers.

And those M1 rifles weren't guns, they were merely "lead pellet acceleration devices".

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[TapeCutter]

A punch card loom and a modern computer are both programmable state machines, but the OP said nothing about "modern", he could have been talking about the IBM abacus and still have been correct. A "computer" is something that computes, pre-WW2 that literally meant a human with an adding machine, a pencil, and lots of paper. A modern computer is nothing more more than a simple finite state machine, with a very large number of possible states, it is not an example of Turing's UCM in the strict sense of the term because no physical machine can ever have an "infinite tape".

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Zero__Kelvin]

"(stares at moron who fails to understand what a computer is)"

Stop staring in the mirror. I have it on good authority that you aren't that good looking.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[TapeCutter]

Of course, adding machines are not modern general purpose digital computers, but AFAICT that's just a straw-man to support your ad-hom attack. Look around and re-read the comments, nobody in this thread is actually making that claim.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Zero__Kelvin]

You are clearly not a computer. If you were, you would understand how if and and work. We can argue all day about exactly why it was a stupid fucking comment. For example, what executive of Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft ran for president of the US and defended the Holocaust? I don't care if you find the post stupid because it mistakenly identifies Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft as IBM, because it ignorantly claims IBM made computers before they were invented, because it quite stupidly asserts that the machines that Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft somehow did make and sell "ran the death camps", or because it has abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do with Carly Fiorina or any other presidential candidate ever. There is enough fodder for any person of reasonable intelligence to conclude that it was a phenomenally stupid Godwinism post. M'Kay?

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Splitting hairs are we?

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

looking like an idiot in the future.

You are, as far as I can tell, completely oblivious to the fact that you are looking like an idiot right now, aren't you? Your little semantics game isn't working. IBM itself admitted long ago to what was stated earlier in this thread. You flailing about has exactly one effect: Painting yourself in a very bad light.

Feel free to continue flailing, though. It's entertaining.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[cold fjord]

The US CIA used "enhanced interrogation" in secret. That doesn't seem to mesh with your statement. Apparently it wasn't the same thing.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[cold fjord]

You can't think of any other possibilities?

Re: Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[jxander]

We can argue the semantics of torture later**, but your second point is significantly more important: it doesn't fucking work. Literally NONE of the intel gained during "enhanced interrogation" was actionable. They told us about old plots, wild fantasy targets, and long abandoned bases.

Meanwhile, whether or not it's technically torture is moot, because it pissed everyone off. Enemies, allies, the world at large marked it down as just another reason that America is a dick.

**I've been water boarded. Yeah it's certainly unpleasant, but it's pretty tame compared to literally anything else we call torture. When we bring back the rack, the hobbling wheel or the iron maiden, give me a buzz. You bust out the blowtorch and a pair of pliers for torture, not a wet blanky.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[cold fjord]

It's like she's bragging that she supplied the gas chambers at Auschwitz, and for a very reasonable fee.

That is unhinged. The NSA isn't the SS. Unlike the SS the NSA isn't involved in genocide, running death camps, gassing jews, gypsies, homosexuals, et. al. It is a signals intelligence agency that helped to defend the West against Communist bloc aggression, and the tens of thousands of terrorist insurgents trained by al Qaeda.

And since the NSA was operating against al Qaida you apparently consider them to be a wrongfully oppressed virtuous minority integrated into greater society when in fact they are extremists with a goal of conquering the world for Islam and exterminating the Jews (rather like the SS). It is unclear to me if you approve or disapprove of this goal. Since you apparently cast them as the Jews in your twisted rendition of this shall we assume you approve of their goals?

You apparently cant' tell friend from foe, or separate a Mengele from a Wallenberg or Schindler. And you Goodwined the thread to boot.

How did you end up so morally confused?

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[KGIII]

Perhaps you should look at what "compute" means and then learn what the device you're currently using is doing beyond it's abstracted results that you see on your screen.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[KGIII]

'it's" Hmm... Yes, yes I should look at the preview screen.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't think of any other possibilities?

He suggested 1) Cheney tells the truth, and 2) Cheney doesn't. What other possibilities do you see here?

Re: Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, at least he didn't use the "holocaust never happened" argument...

Yet...

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[jandersen]

Trump says her face is a form of waterboarding.

Which leads us to the question: what kind of atrocity is Trump's face? Or are we getting into something too horrible to discuss even on slashdot?

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[jandersen]

"Give me Dick Cheney strapped to a folding table and a pitcher of water, and in 5 minutes I'll get him to confess to the Manson Family murders."

It would also make for an excellent reality tv show. I'm in favour.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[gl4ss]

well hp hates its customers too.

since "re-routing" basically in the case of HP _should_ mean that someone they made a contract with to deliver the servers on time didn't get them on time.

otherwise it would just be "sold as normal" instead of "re-routing".

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Undergraduate degrees don't mean squat. My specialty was medieval history too, and I've been doing IT for twenty years. You aren't defined by the rag you bought to check off the box to get a job while drinking too much and smoking too much pot. It's what you do with it.

I'm no fan of hers, but she did manage to become CEO of HP either by building on that education or in spite of it. That's more than 99% of people do with their "superior" STEM degrees.

Yes but you didn't attempt to put the lessons you learnt in medieval history to practice torturing nerds and burning down one of their most cherished companies.

Re: Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[dbIII]

it doesn't fucking work

Not for the sake of finding the truth but It does when you want the victim to admit to whatever is in your script so that you can make a North Korean style show trial look more convincing. The spooks knew this, which is 90% of the reason why it's a problem that it came to be in use. It's a sign that any idea of investigation, justice and all the rest had gone out the window. They wanted people to pin crimes on for the sake of their own advancement instead of doing the job of actually solving the crimes. Some time in the 1980s these spooks acting against the Soviets effectively became them, and the poison has crept through the system. Under Bush+Cheney they no longer had to hide in the shadows since nobody was going to attempt to bring them to account, and they still pollute the place.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[dbIII]

The thing that is making you look like an idiot is that the issue is that IBM supplied the tools knowing what they were to be used for and not the name of the tools.
The issue is overblown anyway. There was so much trade with Nazi Germany that Charlie Chaplain was called a dangerous communist for being critical of them and potentially endangering the trade. It wasn't just IBM.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[dbIII]

I guess we're scraping the bottom, given our choices.

With Trump getting rich by having other people pay his bills four times over and tollbooth guy the wrecker of HP fits right in. Of course on the other side we have Hillary who asked spooks to get the credit card details of allied foreign diplomats so that they could potentially be blackmailed - and wrote such an instruction down where Manning could find it.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Zero__Kelvin]

You really can't make up your tiny little mind, can you? On the one hand I look like an idiot because I just don't understand the gravity of the situation. OTOH, It wasn't just IBM, the issue is overblown anyway. I don't quite think that you get the that the real idiot is anyone who thinks any of this has anything to do with the topic, even remotely. Now off you go little mind ...

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[dbIII]

Both. The childishly simplistic all or nothing shit you are suggesting is more along the lines of "a tiny mind". IBM did what they did but so did several US banks and a large number of US companies while the news was coming out about rounding up the Jews from every major media outlet.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Zero__Kelvin]

The "All or nothing" part is that you either get the this, or you don't. Clearly, you can't wrap your tiny little mind around a post that both gets the fact right, and points out why those facts are completely irrelevant to the subject at hand.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[RabidReindeer]

Tab-card machines are digital computers. They operate based on the presence or absence of holes in the cards.

The simplest of the tab-card machines was the sorter. You "programmed" it by turning a screw that moved a wire-brush sensor to one of the 80 column positions, then ran a deck of cards through it. There were 12 pockets and when a hole was detected at the corresponding column/row, a deflector would send the card into the corresponding pocket.

IBM also made more sophisticated unit-record devices, including some with primitive arithmetic-logic units. Those devices were programmed using wires jacked into plugboards that were imprinted with markings that indicated which holes wired what data source or destination. All digital signals again.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[silentcoder]

Yeah... I'll be impressed by Americans complaining about ANYBODY wanting nukes when America does NOT have nearly 3000 of the damn things anymore.

Now THAT Is hypocrisy. If the only country that has EVER used a nuclear weapon in a war gets to have them - then anybody else who wants to gets to have them as well.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[silentcoder]

You're assuming that "become CEO" is an achievement.
Invented a polio vaccine and refused to patent it - now THAT is an achievement.
Found the Higgs Boson - that's an achievement.
Found a proof for Fermatt's last theorem, there's a real achievement.

Those are the kinds of things those with STEM degrees set out to do in their lives, of course, not all of them get something quite that famous but they all play instrumental roles in the processes that lead to those, and the ones who do the famous things are all from among them.

Becoming a CEO even of a company like HP just requires a sufficiently brutal and blustery persona - all you have to do is convince one single room full of people that you can make them money, just once...
Bernie Madoff convincing dozens of smart people, dozens of times, of the exact same thing - had a much bigger achievement.

Now becoming CEO of an ailing company - turning it around and making new, awesome products while saving thousands of jobs - THAT can be an achievement.
But becoming CEO of a highly successful company and running it INTO the ground so somebody else has to come and do that, that's decidedly not an achievement... in fact it is, what's the word... oh yes, the exact OPPOSITE of an achievement.

Now to what extent her degree may or may not played a role I don't want to comment on, my own was in English Lit but I first taught myself to code at age 7 and have been self-taught in my primary career my entire life (and today I'm a very senior software engineer for a pretty major company, my work involves legally confidential customer information so I'm not allowed to say which one but I CAN tell you my previous job was an engineer for Oracle - which I quite because I couldn't ethically live with their business practices).
I agree, what you do with your life is far more important than what schooling or degree you took - I took a degree in something I found fun because I already knew more about my chosen career than a graduate program teaches and wanted to learn something new, not just pay for a sheet of paper, what you're wrong about is to think that what Fiorina has done with hers is admirable or remotely counts as an "achievement".

If anything, she's an insult to everybody who studied a medieval history degree and gained from it a deep and abiding insight into human nature which allowed them to excel at something.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

That is unhinged. .... (snip) How did you end up so morally confused?

Ever hear of "hyperbole" or "sarcasm" or "exaggeration"? I thought not.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[silentcoder]

You do KNOW that the other side has Bernie Sanders as well right ?

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[tehcyder]

Trump says her face is a form of waterboarding.

Which leads us to the question: what kind of atrocity is Trump's face? Or are we getting into something too horrible to discuss even on slashdot?

Don't. Mention. The. Hair.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[dave420]

You apparently don't know that the word "computer" was used to describe anything that would perform mundane computational tasks. Before electronic computers we had manual computers, and before that we had human computers. You not knowing what a word means does not make for a strong argument, but it sure does a good job of showing your ignorance.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[tehcyder]

Tabulating machines were not computers. Nor were comptometers. There were analog computers before digital ones, but IBM didn't make them.

Oh fuck off, you're just playing with words. It doesn't matter if IBM just supplied them with bigger abacuses, they still contributed towards the Nazi's final solution.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[dbIII]

As I wrote very clearly above - they supplied the tools and the name of the tool is not really important, it is that it was supplied.
The other bit is about you not having a monopoly on idiocy in this thread, as should be very clear to anyone without a "tiny little mind" so I don't get why you want to pretend that you cannot work out what I have written even when it agrees with your own point!

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[dbIII]

You do KNOW that the other side has Bernie Sanders as well right ?

I didn't list the entire circus of Republicans either, just the dead wood that would not be there under normal circumstances.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Zero__Kelvin]

You apparently don't know that it isn't 1939 anymore, or that you are posting on a site called Slashdot where the word computer has a very specific meaning; one which I have no doubt the initial idiot was using when he wrote his phenomenally ridiculous post. Now off you go to smoke another doob Dave 420 ...

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Zero__Kelvin]

My point now is that you keep acting as though you are making some kind of important point, even after I have made it perfectly clear that the thread was started by an idiot with no idea what he is talking about who was making a ridiculous off topic and ill informed point - to the degree that he was making a point at all at least. Get the point?

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Zero__Kelvin]

I forgot to mention one thing. IBM wasn't calling what they sold computers, so why do you idiots keep insisting on trying to do it? If they were, the company would be called IC, not IBM.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[JazzLad]

Oi, my kingdom for a mod point.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[rockout]

off-topic, but since it's in your sig, I wanted to help out:

Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. - Isaac Asimov

As quoted in The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) edited by Geoff Tibballs, p. 299

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[tehcyder]

That is unhinged. .... (snip) How did you end up so morally confused?

Ever hear of "hyperbole" or "sarcasm" or "exaggeration"? I thought not.

One of the disadvantages of modern education is that the whole subject of Rhetoric is a closed book to most people.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[tehcyder]

Invented a polio vaccine and refused to patent it - now THAT is an achievement.

Found the Higgs Boson - that's an achievement.

Found a proof for Fermatt's last theorem, there's a real achievement.

Those are the kinds of things those with STEM degrees set out to do in their lives

They also produce things like H-bombs, facebook and Donald Trump's rug.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[jsepeta]

I thought she liked watersports

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[jsepeta]

Yes, the NSA does not run torture camps like Gitmo or the outsourcing facilities the CIA has used throughout eastern Europe and Israel.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

So too would be a Repugnant-can president.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather see Mr. Ventura become a moderator for a debate, dressed as Jesse "The Body" Ventura, then wrestle any candidate that supports holes in encryption standards. It would thin the herd rather quickly. It would also make for great TV.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like she's bragging that she supplied the gas chambers at Auschwitz, and for a very reasonable fee.

Or Ford providing the motors for german vehicles during WW2 ..

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[MooseTick]

"clearly because its effective"

Even if its effective, that doesn't make it right. Slavery is an effective way to get work done cheap and has been for thousands of years.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

One of the disadvantages of modern education is that the whole subject of Rhetoric is a closed book to most people.

Agreed. Most people have only heard of the word "rhetoric" in terms of something like "political rhetoric" and then mistakenly think it means lying or being deceptive, or being solely the province of demagogues.

The art of argument and debate is quickly becoming a lost art, because most "debates" these days start and end with comments about who or what one's mother has copulated with.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[MooseTick]

"until Cheney agrees that waterboarding is torture"

What if Cheney never agrees that it is torture? That's an alternative possibility.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[azav]

Who doesn't?!

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Atrox666]

Yes excellent analogy, the Nazis just did it all for dick pics. They really need to teach the controversy in school.
Godwin's law strikes again.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Yes excellent analogy, the Nazis just did it all for dick pics. They really need to teach the controversy in school.
Godwin's law strikes again.

Guys, I think it's trying to communicate.

"Dick pics"? "Controversy"? What are you babbling about?

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[kilfarsnar]

Intellectuals think this answer is clever but it's completely wrong. Humanity might take a few thousand years, but eventually we figure out the world's not flat. Torture has been around far longer than that, clearly because its effective.

Really, is that the only conclusion you can come to? Even if correct, the next question is, "Effective at what?"

People being tortured certainly may say anything, but it's not like they let you go free afterwards. The threat is that if you're lying, they're going to come back and make it even worse. Eventually the threat is to be merciful and just kill you outright. It always works.

You seem tot be under the impression that the point of torture is to elicit reliable information that can be used to stop bad actors. That is what we have been told, after all. However, I would counter that the point of torture is to elicit confessions. You know, so you can say things like "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of 9/11". For that it is indeed quite effective.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[kilfarsnar]

And it just happens to be among the most evil acts that human beings can commit, as it is not merely about killing somebody, it is about complete destruction of a person.

Unfortunately in 2015, despite all of our experience, there are many people who think the ends justify the means. They still do not understand that the means determine the ends.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[kilfarsnar]

Tabulating machines were not computers. Nor were comptometers. There were analog computers before digital ones, but IBM didn't make them.

Do you seriously not know this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

This is known history, and not controversial.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[kilfarsnar]

How's that "red line" in Syria holding up?

Given how thoroughly Iran has been schooling Obama, I'd bet money Fiorina could stand up to Iran better.

Iran is soon to be a nuclear power and is now taking their own damn samples to find out if they're cheating their agreement with Obama. Given that Iran had already broken the NPT that they'd signed, Iran breaking an agreement with a weakling like Obama is a foregone conclusion.

Yep, the Middle East will be a really fun place after the fruits of Obama's capitulation to Iran become apparent - and Saudi Arabia and Egypt both start working on getting nuclear weapons. Think with all those nukes floating around those wonderfully stable regimes, ISIS will be able to get their medieval paws on a few so they can pop 'em off in New York, Washington, London, or - in an attempt to return al Andalus to the realm of Islam - Madrid?

It wouldn't exactly be hard for Fiorina to better Obama given how Obama's reached rock bottom and has started blasting his way to China.

Bibi, if you're going to post here, at least create an account.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[dcw3]

How many other US computer companies did well during the end of the bubble?

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[WillAffleckUW]

Exactly. As an example, we used to program the S/36 using punchcards. I was pretty fast on those, but I realized you could steal console keyboard at shift change and enter programs directly.

It's a shame how little people on slashdot remember about how computing and computers started. You probably don't even know what a slide rule is.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[unixisc]

They did better than HP did within the same period window. Which is one of the things that has been debated whenever she has been interviewed or discussed

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[david_thornley]

From what I've seen, we never generally used "computer" to apply to mechanical devices. We had mechanical calculators and machines that would do all sorts of neat things with punch cards, but the computers were human.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[david_thornley]

The US Army interrogation manual says that torture is ineffective as well as being immoral, dishonorable, and illegal. One difference between the Army and the CIA is that the CIA won't lost hundreds or thousands of men because they screw up. The Army has to act on its intelligence, while the CIA has to provide something that's probably useful to higher-ups. I'm trusting the Army here.

If you can get everyone in a group to torture people (you can remove people who refuse, or use them as torture subjects, both techniques have been used), you've got a group bonded together by guilt and shared experience, who will be willing to do some abhorrent things. That's very useful for some people.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[AK Marc]

One can argue semantics forever, and try to claim that an accountant in the 17th century was a "computer," but that's not what the word currently means.

"Compute" is what an accountant did. A "computer" is a device which does computing. Computers existed as digital mechanical computers long long ago. Even by today's definition, Charles Babbage's difference engine is a "computer", and pre-dated WWII by 50+ years.

They existed. They were around. That you refuse to update your mind when reality conflicts indicates a problem with you, not reality.

Re: Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Hang it up champ, you got taken to school several times by several different people. Kelvin is looking like a complete fucking idiot right now. And we are all laughing at you.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[AK Marc]

The adding machines of WWII era could replace a CPU in a modern computer (well, an early computer, MMX and such would be much more difficult). What you think of when people say "computer" is all the I/O, pepephrials and such. Like the people today who point to the monitor and call it a "computer". It's hard to correct someone who is both wrong and close minded at the same time. Stop looking at the monitor and calling it a computer.

Punch cards were the keyboard and monitor. The computer was the computer. You "key" in input, and get a result "displayed". Computer. 100% computer. No reasonable definition of "computer" excludes them, unless you add in additional qualifiers.

Re: Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw that show on TV. My son watches it. I believe it's called iCarly.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Agent0013]

Then you just keep warterboading him until he drowns. It isn't that complicated folks!

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Zero__Kelvin]

Now you are frigging hilarious:

"What you think of when people say "computer" is all the I/O, pepephrials and such. Like the people today who point to the monitor and call it a "computer"."

I designed a computer from the ground up, breadboarded it, and wrote an OS that was located in some of the first FLASH chips on the market, and could be upgraded remotely. In other words, I implemented some of the first FLASH programming algorithms ever. You should probably go hang out with the people you surround yourself with to confuse yourself into thinking you sound smart, because here on Slashdot there are far too many people like myself who will recognize you as the idiot you are.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[dcw3]

They who? That's the question I asked, because from the statistics I've seen, it doesn't appear that you're correct.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[dunkelfalke]

that helped to defend the West against Communist bloc aggression

You do realise that this was exactly Hitler's excuse for his atrocities?

The NSA isn't the SS.

That is about the only thing you have got right. The NSA is far closer to the Abwehr.

How did you end up so morally confused?

Well, judging from your comment history you would feel right at home in Nazi Germany if you'd bother to learn German.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[AK Marc]

So, you know that things like "gates" were named for the physical gates in the first computers. Yes, they were literal gates, not figurative ones, right? The mechanical computers were no less computers than what you worked on. You just apparently hate things you find "different". Makes you a Republican, right?

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Yes, they were literal gates, not figurative ones, right?"

No, you moron. Logic Gates were first implemented with relays, and were always electrical. The "mechanical computers" you refer to were analog in nature, and were never referred to as computers except in your little fascist fantasy world. But you have now established beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are clueless. ROTFLMAO. BTW, I have a very long memory, and you have a long history of supporting fascism, so claiming you aren't a republican would be as stupid as claiming that logic gates were named after mechanical gates.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Exactly. As an example, we used to program the S/36 using punchcards."

Explain how this is an example of anything even remotely related to this thread.

"It's a shame how little people on slashdot remember about how computing and computers started. You probably don't even know what a slide rule is."

Well we certainly know that a slide rule isn't a computer.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[Jeremi]

You can't think of any other possibilities?

Can you? If so, why not post them?

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[unixisc]

Companies like IBM, Dell, and some others. It was discussed in a panel discussion b/w Neil Cavuto and some others who were analyzing the HP stock history under Carly

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[dcw3]

These all indicate that she wasn't the terrible CEO that her detractors would like you to believe. But, she wasn't great either.

http://fortune.com/2015/09/21/...
http://time.com/money/4042662/...
http://www.bloombergview.com/a...

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[dbIII]

I don't know why you want to act is if there are only two people on the internet. Several people have replied to you instead of one and you seem to be mixing them up. The original idiot however was referring to IBM selling stuff used for an immoral purpose and their mistake about the name had little or nothing to do with their actual point.
But yes, computational tools were called names such as "tabulators", even a "predictor" for anti-aircraft use while a "computer" was a person.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[thoughtlover]

Just because there's a manual doesn't mean people will read it...

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[thoughtlover]

Just change the way it's done... Prisons are the new form of slavery.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[unixisc]

I agree w/ that. She was mediocre. So there ain't a compelling reason to prefer her over Trump, if business acumen is what's being considered as a qualification for being president

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[cold fjord]

The art of argument and debate is quickly becoming a lost art,....

As you've unintentionally demonstrated.

...most "debates" these days start and end with comments about who or what one's mother has copulated with.

So you think that is bad, but it's OK to compare an ordinary business transaction to acts of genocide? .... See my first statement in this comment.

If you think that constitutes sound rhetoric perhaps you should avoid those techniques as you seem to do it badly.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[cold fjord]

One of the disadvantages of modern education is that the whole subject of Rhetoric is a closed book to most people.

Based on the poor technique he demonstrated I don't think he opened the book either, and you're building doubts about yourself.

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[cold fjord]

I thought naught.

FTFY. ;)

Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution

[cold fjord]

Guantanamo Bay is an ordinary prisoner of war facility holding some extremely dangerous prisoners.

Big Surprise

[MightyMartian]

Good old Samuel Johnson, he sure understood Fiorina's type very well indeed.

Re:Big Surprise

[lgw]

I would care so much more about Carly here if I believed that any of the candidates won't cooperate fully with the NSA. Heck, one of the very few things Obama actually promised as a candidate was to cut back on this sort of thing, and he reversed as soon as he was in office. Either the NSA has some good shit on everyone in power, and/or everyone in power values convenience over the interests of the people. Sorry, I wouldn't even believe Bernie or Rand Paul here. We've created a monster.

"Do not summon that you cannot dismiss" - H. P. Lovecraft

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the NSA knows something really scary that presidential candidates only find out about once they're in office.

I want to believe...

Re:Big Surprise

[Noryungi]

Either the NSA has some good shit on everyone in power, and/or everyone in power values convenience over the interests of the people.

No, they have some good shit on everyone. They have said as much, without really coming out and saying it outright, if you see what I mean.

Read all about it here and here.

Re:Big Surprise

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I would care so much more about Carly here if I believed that any of the candidates won't cooperate fully with the NSA.

Sanders is the only one that I think would give them any pushback.

He voted against both the Patriot Act and the Iraq war, and in my book that counts for something.

Re:Big Surprise

[Black Parrot]

I suspect that sometime between election day and inauguration day a small committee sits down with the president elect and explains to them that they will be allowed use the turn signal and the horn, but not the steering wheel or the pedals.

Re:Big Surprise

[Fire_Wraith]

Skepticism is certainly warranted - however, far better to go with someone whose track record indicates that they could oppose mass surveillance, or take actions to roll it back. I would choose someone who might go back on their word later over someone who PROMISES to do the very thing I don't want them to.

Re:Big Surprise

[quantaman]

I would care so much more about Carly here if I believed that any of the candidates won't cooperate fully with the NSA. Heck, one of the very few things Obama actually promised as a candidate was to cut back on this sort of thing, and he reversed as soon as he was in office. Either the NSA has some good shit on everyone in power, and/or everyone in power values convenience over the interests of the people. Sorry, I wouldn't even believe Bernie or Rand Paul here. We've created a monster.

"Do not summon that you cannot dismiss" - H. P. Lovecraft

You don't even need a conspiracy to explain it:

NSA: I need to look at anyone's email I want without a warrant.

Obama: What? Absolutely not, that's a huge invasion of privacy I was elected to stop!!

NSA: Ok, if there's a significant attack on US soil we'll investigate afterwards and find an email that plausibly could have warned us. Someone will then leak this email to the media and everyone will know that if you didn't take away this power we begged you for there was a non-trivial chance we could have saved the tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people who died in that attack.

Obama: Snoop away!

Re:Big Surprise

[cbhacking]

I mean, I agree with you... but given how good politicians are at keeping promises, maybe we *should* want one "who PROMISES to do the very thing I don't want them to"! I mean, which do you think is more likely: a politician keeping a promise to do something that is in the public good, or a politician lying *regardless* of reason?

I'm joking. I hope...

Re:Big Surprise

[PRMan]

I have come to believe this as well.

Re:Big Surprise

[PRMan]

NSA: I need to look at anyone's email I want without a warrant.

Obama: What? Absolutely not, that's a huge invasion of privacy I was elected to stop!!

NSA: We have irrefutable proof that you were born in Kenya, not Hawai'i.

Obama: Snoop away!

Re:Big Surprise

[s.petry]

This would assume that the outcome is not predetermined, and in the big (President, Governor, US Senate//Congress) I have come to believe it's fully controlled.

As much as you may disagree with him, look at the press coverage of Ron Paul. My kid in 7th grade noticed how any time they showed a clip on TV it portrayed him as crazy, and the commentary was always about him being crazy. Now look at Hillary who has not dropped out and the Democrats only other candidate is "Socialist Bernie Sanders". Listen to the messages, and the brainwashing becomes pretty obvious. Subtle, but obvious.

There is a whole lot of psychology involved in these campaigns, and even though people claim politicians are stupid that's not really true.

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

I would care so much more about Carly here if I believed that any of the candidates won't cooperate fully with the NSA. Heck, one of the very few things Obama actually promised as a candidate was to cut back on this sort of thing, and he reversed as soon as he was in office. Either the NSA has some good shit on everyone in power, and/or everyone in power values convenience over the interests of the people. Sorry, I wouldn't even believe Bernie or Rand Paul here. We've created a monster.

"Do not summon that you cannot dismiss" - H. P. Lovecraft

Rand Paul. Why does everyone seem to ignore the best chance we have?

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

The best promises are the ones you will never have to live up to.

Re:Big Surprise

[circletimessquare]

my dream is trump carries the nomination

and sanders beats hillary (not impossible, she's weak, bland, uninspiring... i'm not sure why republicans get so upset about her, it's not possible to feel great hate nor love for someone so boring)

sanders can't beat a rubio (i don't know why, but people have a thing for plastic liars in suits, the man is a lizard)

but sanders can beat a trump

can you imagine a president sanders? i would weep for joy

Re:Big Surprise

[tnk1]

The President needs a lot of information in order to do his job. It can be difficult to tell the people who you expect to get you that information that you don't want them doing so much of that.

The good shit that the NSA has on the President is that they're the people the President needs to combat threats. The problem is that they've gone outside their mandate, but their actual function will make it difficult for any President to just walk in there with a broom and kick them all out.

So the reason NSA is calling the shots isn't their files on everyone in power, it's that they're the go-to bureaucrats that the President needs to work with to do his job. They've built up their position in the government for decades, do you think one guy is going to simply blow in there for 4-8 years and change all that without a lot of experience and an understanding of what he's really going up against?

I never doubted that Obama wanted to make changes, I just doubted that he knew what he was getting into. That's how he managed to get captured despite the hopeful rhetoric and good intentions. It isn't enough to be popular or beat some lackluster Republican candidates to face off against the bureaucracies, especially the intelligence bureaucracies.

At this point, he should feel lucky to have even managed to get Obamacare through with a Democratic majority in Congress.

Re:Big Surprise

[maeka]

Doesn't matter where he was born. His mother was a citizen.

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

J. Edgar Hoover basically confirmed this is exactly what's happening but not enough people give a shit.

Re:Big Surprise

[tnk1]

Republicans aren't upset about Hillary, they love her. Which is to say they think she's a much easier mark.

However, that "easy" label is one that they are secretly sweating about because she's still likely to beat any of them in a general election just because of how bad the Republican field is and how incapable they are of nominating a real moderate. Even with the email situation and Benghazi she's still the winner at this point.

Unless they indict her or something, of course.

Trump is a clown. He won't get the nomination, but he is having an effect. Mostly a bad one for the R's because he's making them all roll around in the mud with the Tea Partiers and the anti-immigration folks instead of being able to safely ignore them like the Democrats can with the Black and wacky-left vote.

Sanders has even less of a chance than Trump because of the way the DNC and the convention is stacked against him. Most of the Democrats can be Sanders-lite and still win, and everyone knows that. The Democrats have their voting blocs so well lined up that you have Unions voting for the same candidates that want to let more low paid immigrants into the country, thus driving down wages even more. Think about that for a second.

This is the sideshow. I'm waiting to see who actually emerges as the real Republican candidate, but you can be pretty sure that Hillary will be on that ballot unless Biden decides to run. Biden's really the only person who can take away the nomination from Hillary.

Of course, Biden running could split the Obama Democrats from the Clinton Democrats. And here you thought that the Republicans were the only ones who might fall apart.

Re:Big Surprise

[circletimessquare]

because benghazi and the emails are fucking jokes. she didn't do a damn thing wrong in benghazi. she did do something wrong with the emails. but it's a minor fucking thing, and the republicans treat it like she handed top of the line drones to north korea. it's such a pile of trumped up bullshit. just like with planned parenthood: lies, edited footage to suggest different meaning, pictures of unrelated miscarriages. they even tried to plead the fifth when the original footage was asked for! all to try to get rid of an organization focused on women's health, and isn't even legally able to use federal money for abortions. the republicans are pretty pathetic in how they substitute deranged outrage for reality. do they think they fool anyone besides some low iq hysterical grandma?

Re:Big Surprise

[tnk1]

You're mostly right, but I don't think it is determined in the same way you're thinking.

There may or may not be a committee that does that, but the real fact is that certain paths are pre-determined for a candidate these days. It's not that there is a conspiracy, it's that the government has attained a weight and momentum that allowed it to become an unstoppable avalanche already, and nothing is slowing it down. Certainly not some clown elected for two four year terms.

He or she isn't going to start another war
He or she isn't going to be able to do much to reform the government
They might be able to get some new entitlements through, because everyone loves money for nothing, but don't expect for a second that existing ones will be reformed in any meaningful sense.

Such a person might do something, but they best gift that they're going to get is if some outside force does something to the US which coincides with their campaign promises, because they sure as hell won't be able to do anything from within.

Re:Big Surprise

[circletimessquare]

that's communism. that's not what sanders stands for.

here is actually a range of economic systems in the world, thousands of them, of varying complexity. it's not just social darwinistic capitalism versus gulag and toilet paper lines communism. the problem is you're uneducated and you can only think in these ignorant simpleton cartoons. try looking at how the government of denmark, sweden, or norway works. or just canada. that's modern socialism. and they are richer, healthier, safer, freer, better educated, and happier than americans

american exceptionalism seems to be about thinking how you're better when everyone pities you. we do many things wrong, like our pathetic education funding and healthcare debacles, and we need to look to other countries who clearly do it better than us. but no: "america #1! drool, snort". american delusional derangement

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

They killed JFK for standing up to an intelligence agency. Every President since has left these agencies alone to do what they want.

Re:Big Surprise

[lgw]

It's part of the executive. He just needed to tell them "stop snooping on Americans inside America" and done. No congress or courts involved. He can fire anyone he needs to fire until he gets an NSA boss who complies. The buck stops with Obama right now.

Re:Big Surprise

[tnk1]

I'm not a big fan of the Democrats, but honestly you're absolutely right. I think the conservative wing of the Republican party has lost the culture wars and they are now just squawking on their way down. It's embarrassing.

And some of that BS is good riddance, although I am very concerned that the complete failure of the Republicans will mean that the tendency towards all encompassing government is now unstoppable. Entitlements and the NSA are just two different faces stamped on the same coin.

I'm not really comforted by the Democratic options either. Hillary is a corporate stooge, and Sanders is... well a stereotypical white liberal who would do a fine job running Sweden where everyone is also white and thinks the same, but I don't think his ideas scale. As for Biden, it says a lot about how bad the Democratic field is that he, of all people, could be a front runner if he stepped in.

Nevertheless, the fact is, the Democratic party has won the war until the Republicans either break up or there is an internal revolution that completely overthrows the existing status quo. The Democrats own the needed voting blocs, and as in a lopsided game of Monopoly, the Republicans don't really have many places to land that aren't already owned.

To be a factor in elections again, the R's are going to need to take a hunk off the Democrats, just like Reagan did. Not impossible, of course, if you look at the wide variety of groups the Democrats take for granted. Unions, Hispanics, Blacks, even gays could see that a Republican party that drops some dead ideas that have lost the war for them are now a party that can advocate for them more strongly than the Big Tent might.

Once the parties have figured out that Republican or Democrat ain't nothing but a name, a shift could easily happen. Probably not this election though. This one is going to the Democrats.

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

The NSA serves the rich. The people who suffer from the NSA are the poor class. Rich dignitaries do not get, and never will get, waterboarded. But insignificant poor people like Snowden who suddenly become problematic will get the works! This is exactly what most of our congress critters want, on both parties.

We are a country of mice ruled by cats. It does not matter which cat you vote for, you will get eaten either way.

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm so fucking awesome and smart! If I use profanity in my fucking arguments, they're twice as fucking convincing and I sound like a fucking genius instead of an angry partisan hack repeating the same talking points as the rest of my fucking party sheep! Why can't all other fucking political parties be as fucking smart as mine is?

Re:Big Surprise

[circletimessquare]

your analysis is correct

the democrats suck like the republicans. they simply suck slightly less

that's why i vote for them. not because i love them, but because i'm not an airhead idealist who holds his vote hostage, until somehow the entire country miraculously matches them ideologically perfectly, with a pathetic temper tantrum (the right has the same temper tantrums but, wisely, they vote).. all you get to do in politics is compromise, that's all politics is. and turn the country in the correct direction, slightly. that's the best you can ever, ever do

you never get to cross your arms and insist the country be by your side in philosophy right now, or you're not voting. fucking moronic. this is why republicans win elections, too many airhead lefties think this way. by not voting all they do is ensure the person further from them ideologically wins. and all because the left leaning choice doesn't match them perfectly. it's socially retarded, immature, and ignorant. politics is *compromise*. that's all it ever is and ever will be. if you have a temper tantrum and withhold your vote because the world isn't exactly like you want it, you will never, ever see the world become even slightly like you want it. the only way is to contribute: vote. an inability to compromise is immaturity and social stupidity

sorry for the rant. i can make peace with the existence of tea party morons: they're morons, they can't help themselves. what i can't understand and makes me eternally angry is liberals who don't fucking vote. it is, in many ways, far far worse for the country than tea party morons, and is certainly why so many tea party morons win

however, one problem with your analysis, there will be no shift:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

with enough anger, a third party may indeed appear. then it either gets cannibalized by the existing party closest to it ideologically in a few year, or it cannibalizes that party

it happened before:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

it could happen again

but, simply because of mathematics, no plots in smoky rooms, we will always only have two major political parties in the usa. unless or until we fundamentally change our election system, which i do not see happening in a long time

again: people need to understand reality and make peace with it, then work within those confines. or get angry at reality, throw a temper tantrum, and be completely ineffectual to what you care about. ridiculous

Re:Big Surprise

[circletimessquare]

it's not about me, it's about the subject matter. you may make it about me, but this is merely a symptom of your social ineptitude, that you need to make things personal that aren't

i'd work on making friends in real life, having an actual social life where you have an identity which is appreciated. then you won't have this need to hide on social forums and pick interpersonal fights with people you don't know and don't care about you

Re: Big Surprise

[kenh]

Hillary can beat any one of the Republicans When the Republican vote is spread across a dozen candidates a year before early election starts in 2016... Big whop.

A year before the 2008 elections she was the odds-on winner, head and shoulders ahead of all Democrats... Then she wasn't.

And now, after TWICE launching her second presidential campaign (traveling to Iowa in a Sprinter? Wow.), her leadership position is tenuous, based on the whim of Joe Biden and his decision to run or not. Without even entering the race Biden is only 20 points behind Hillary - imagine what his poll numbers will be once he actually decides to run and campaign!

Republicans like Hillary, because she's so easily defeated, as Joe Biden will demonstrate in a few weeks.

Re:Big Surprise

[gl4ss]

it's not predetermined. that would mean that you had no choice in your voting.

the real problem is your shitty two party system to begin with.

Re:Big Surprise

[unixisc]

He is an asterisk in the poll. It's just a question on who'd be next to drop out - him, Christie, Huckabee, Rubio, Jindal, Patakis or Santorum

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

All the world's blackmail information in a searchable database.

Re:Big Surprise

[NicBenjamin]

Don't hold your breathe on blacks ever leaving the Democratic Party.

As a Slashdotter, I am statistically virtually certain to be right in my racist assumption that you are white. So I will play the odds and say:
As a white person what American history has taught you is that a) the current political and economic system protects freedom, b) the main threat to freedom is centralization of power, and c) if the system causes you problems it will be fairly simple for you to get it changed.

Constrast this with blacks. For them the system the Founders set up was quite literally slavery. The way that slavery was defeated was by a highly centralized network of US Military units, literal jack-booted thugs from the point of view of most white southerners, engaged ion behavior (war upon the states) that the previous President had decreed was so unconstitutional that it should not even be considered. This was followed up by a series of centralized Federal initiatives (the 15th Amendment, the Freedman's bureau, the use of said Union troops as law enforcement) that allowed blacks to have equal political power to their white neighbors. Then some white people got their complaints about excessive centralization heard at the highest level, the Feds passed the Posse comitatus act to ban the Army from stopping lynch mobs, and the lower the level you got the less pro-freedom the government was. This was ultimately solved by renewed centralization in the Roosevelt to Johnson era.

Why does this happen? Because the Tyranny of the Majority sucks in the US Constitutional system. The Courts are designed to discourage activism, we elect every official, so a state whose population is steadfastly determined to fuck over some arbitrary minoritywill rapidly have a) a State House that wants to pick on them, b) a State Senate that wnats to pick on them, c) Judges retained solely because they support picking on said minority; and d) Frederal offficals who can gum up the works when the minority protection act comes up for a vote.

Economically the same thing happens. You have learned that hard work yields rewards, and distrust any attempt to take money from the successful to aid the unsuccessful. In 1860 the second largest source of wealth in the country was slaves (land was first, factories didn't really exist in any sizable scale in 1860, we industrialized to equip the aforementioned armies of jack-booted thugs), the poorest class of Americans (and in most eyes, they weren't even really Americans) was slaves; and thus from their point of view taking from the rich to give to the poor is freedom. Then Roosevelt appears, starts some history-changing economic redistribution policies, and is followed by desegregationists and redistributionists until Nixon gets elected on a Civil Rights Skeptic, and government-spending-phobic platform.

Which means that a small-government, low-trax, pro-states rights party is not gonna break the teens in the black community. You have your logic, based on assumptions your ancestors have learned over a century or two in this country. They have theirs, based on assumptions their ancestors learned since the 1630s. Dubya got into the teens (high teens, IIRC) because he was pro-Federal Spending. He doesn't pass that Medicare Drug Expansion he doesn't do that.

Re:Big Surprise

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

can you imagine a president sanders?

I'm voting for him, he's the only acceptable candidate as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Big Surprise

[fustakrakich]

We've created a monster.

Nah, we're just lousy at delegating...

Re:Big Surprise

[fustakrakich]

He voted against both the Patriot Act and the Iraq war, and in my book that counts for something.

If his vote was needed, he would have answered the call. This little game works both ways... Keeps everybody guessing

Re:Big Surprise

[Antique Geekmeister]

> He just needed to tell them "stop snooping on Americans inside America" and done.

Or better yet "stop burning so many billions for what is such amazingly poor quality results.

Re:Big Surprise

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

>If his vote was needed, he would have answered the call.

And you know this how, exactly?

If there's one thing Sanders has been for the last ~30 years, it's consistent. I won't twist his doing the right thing into something that goes against his entire public record. But I like the way you can take his opposition to the war and the Patriot Act and spin it as proof that he'd do the exact opposite of what he actually did. Neat trick.

You probably don't molest children and never have, but no doubt you would if the opportunity arose, right? See how that works?

Clinton voted for the war and the Patriot Act, that much is clear. Her record, such as it is, speaks to exactly what she is: a fascist and a war monger. She's a Republican in all but name.

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

The theory I prefer is that each incoming President is seated in a room and shown footage of the JFK assassination, seen from a new and very compelling angle. At that point, the only question is: who's running the projector?

Re:Big Surprise

[NicBenjamin]

It's not a small committee.

It's 435 Representatives, a couple non-voting members, 100 Senators, the Vice President, and Nine Supremes.

Americans love to boast about how great Checks and Balances are, without quite making the connection that the entire fucking reason our government is so small-c-we've-aleways-done-it-this-way-conservative is that any change is a new law which can be trivially checked.

In this case if you oppose the NSA, an you are talking about anyone then a Congressman you are delusional. They are the ones who have the power to a) Check the President by withdrawing funding, or b) force the President to continue the program by continuing to appropriate funding. The White House can stop asking for new Evil Programs, but it can't stop the Old Ones because of Checks and Balances.

Re:Big Surprise

[circletimessquare]

thank you

the biggest obstacle to a sanders presidency is not tea party morons. they vote. that's what you're suppose to fucking do

the biggest obstacle is liberals who don't fucking vote

tea party morons are vile, but they're morons: you can almost forgive them, because they're stupid people. there is no excuse nor understanding nor forgiveness for someone who doesn't vote. that tea party morons vote, in fact, makes them infinitely wiser and better than liberals who do not: the recognition that you count in a democracy means something. everything

"my district/ state is always republican/ democrat, it won't matter..."

hey, douchebag: political strategists look at voting turn out and decide funding, strategy, message, etc. based on turn out. so it absolutely essentially fucking matters if democrats win or republicans win by 1%, 10%, 20%, or 40%. and who makes that matter? YOU MOTHERFUCKER (not you, JustAnotherOldGuy, but anyone reading). VOTE ALREADY YOU DUMB ASSHOLES

Re:Big Surprise

[unixisc]

I think Hilary's ultimate obstacle won't be Republicans. It will be Obama. Both Bill and Barack want to remote control the party after their term, so that their respective legacies are intact, at least within the party. For Barack, that's not possible if Hilary walks w/ the nomination. That's why Barack would either back Biden to run, and if the latter refuses, he might end up throwing up his weight behind Barnie.

However, we have yet to see the first Democrat debate - I wanna see whether Webb, O'Malley or Chafee impress at all.

Re: Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary can beat any one of the Republicans When the Republican vote is spread across a dozen candidates a year before early election starts in 2016... Big whop.

A year before the 2008 elections she was the odds-on winner, head and shoulders ahead of all Democrats... Then she wasn't.

And now, after TWICE launching her second presidential campaign (traveling to Iowa in a Sprinter? Wow.), her leadership position is tenuous, based on the whim of Joe Biden and his decision to run or not. Without even entering the race Biden is only 20 points behind Hillary - imagine what his poll numbers will be once he actually decides to run and campaign!

Republicans like Hillary, because she's so easily defeated, as Joe Biden will demonstrate in a few weeks.

I don't want another Clinton or Bush. I don't want Hillary, but I'll vote for her before I vote for any lunatic that can win the Republican primary. You guys have sung the crazy song so much that the regular people get screamed down by birther conspiracy nuts.

Re:Big Surprise

[cold fjord]

Either the NSA has some good shit on everyone in power, and/or everyone in power values convenience over the interests of the people.

That's all you've got? You can't think of not only more possibilities, but better ones? How about: Incoming Presidents quickly come to the realization that they grossly underestimated the threat to the country once they receive full intelligence briefings and realize that their campaign stance in some cases was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation. That seem more likely than the nonsense false choice you offered.
.

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the NSA gave Obama the existing stuff they dug up.

There's probably thousands of people in the US who raise major red flags. 99.99% of them are harmless, and the rest are probably so atypical they slip through the net, but it does look like a big deal.

Besides, intelligence gives Presidents a break from their much more boring responsibilities. Can anyone here really say they'd rather have a meeting on tax reform than have a General salute them and ask what the response should be?

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

It does if you want to be president. RTFC.

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look closely you will notice your keyboard has to keys labeled "Shift". Choose one of them, and hold it down while you type a letter. See? Capitals!

Re:Big Surprise

[KGIII]

I throw my vote away on a third party candidate and pretty much always have (though I did vote for Bill Clinton's second term). I know I am throwing it away and, honestly, I don't even want the people I vote for to win. I just want the number crunchers to know there's a growing number of us who are disenfranchised.

Re: Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

> Big whop.

Oliverez? Rubio? I think you'll find they're dagoes.

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they just have a wish to stay alive?

Captcha: brothels

Re:Big Surprise

[dbIII]

The ideal would be to ditch that bunch of toy soldiers and get the military to take over the bits that need to be done at military wages, with none of the current money siphons to contractors like the "Booz Allen Hamilton" losers that should never have had the intelligence Snowden got in the first place (even if he was correct to leak it). However it's an octopus with a lot of people making a lot of money out of it so it would be a difficult thing to fight so it has been left alone. The number of former government and military types on inflated salaries sucking on the public teat as intelligence contractors in staggering and whoever takes them on is going to lose a lot of votes, which is going to generate a lot of resistance within their own party. It's not just 55,000 jobs at stake in Virginia but a vast food chain leading from them. Whoever does anything at all about them is going to have to be strong enough to be branded as "soft on terror" for a start - and I don't see anyone strong enough to do that going anywhere near the White House any time soon.

Re:Big Surprise

[dbIII]

It may as well be predetermined because so few Americans do their duty as citizens to even bother to turn up and vote.

Re:Big Surprise

[dbIII]

Doesn't matter where he was born. His mother was a citizen.

Since that is not seen as being important it demonstrates which century leading Republicans have their heads in.
I don't know how many years it's going to take to clear away the dead wood. With tollbooth guy and Trump still in the race it's looking like a complete joke.

Re:Big Surprise

[dbIII]

Consider how he couldn't even get the prison at GITMO closed after announcing it - there's a lot of pushback from an astonishing number of spooks and hangers on.

Re:Big Surprise

[maeka]

no it doesn't. RTFC

Re:Big Surprise

[buck-yar]

No, you're a fool if you thought he would reign in the NSA. Obama ran on big govt authoritarianism, and he's doing exactly what he said he would do.

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, what I think happens is that once a candidate becomes The President and begins receiving daily briefs, they then realize how dangerous the world really is and they sober up to reality.

Re:Big Surprise

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

VOTE ALREADY YOU DUMB ASSHOLES

Agreed..although sometimes I think that if voting changed anything, it would be illegal. ;) lol

Seriously though, I couldn't agree more. Get out there and vote. You may or may not get what you want, but not voting certainly isn't going to get you what you want.

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

People are not stupid. Some don't vote because they know it is a futile act. Some make it further, to the realization that the act of voting actually validates a broken system. Both end up withdrawing their support the only way they can: by going on strike.

Re:Big Surprise

[circletimessquare]

i used to have a problem with people like you (after 2000 and gore losing states by tiny amounts, possibly made up for by nader voters)

and it is absolutely true that tactical voting is far more effective and decisive than idealistic voting

however, you vote. therefore, as a measure of what you really owe your society, you're doing what you have to do. so i thank you. because you're right. you do count and the number crunchers do notice these spikes for 3rd party candidates and act accordingly

as long as you vote you have my respect

Re:Big Surprise

[silentcoder]

>the democrats suck like the republicans. they simply suck slightly less

I would put it a little harsher... the democrats a horrible center-right corrupt politicians, nobody should vote for them under any delusions that they even remotely resemble a good party. You should vote for them because the alternative is fucking batshit insane !

Re: Big Surprise

[silentcoder]

And in the latest polls Sanders is only 9 points behind her (though, in fairness, he drops lower if you ask people what they would do if Biden ran).

It's early days yet, but do not count him out of the nomination. If he gets it though, he could even win - that would boost the republican chances though because he dares use the term "socialist" (why does the media always leave out the word that goes before that which is "democratic" or the fact that his actual policies really are not socialist, they do however meet that weird definition of "socialist" which American use and which literally doesn't have a single thing in common with socialism whatsoever), if the reps don't choose their candidate perfectly though - it's in the bag. Sanders would trounce either Trump or Fiorina, and probably any religious-right candidate with ease. Rubio would be a stretch, Rand Paul would be a very close-run thing.

Re:Big Surprise

[cusco]

Keep in mind that Obama is the product of the Chicago Political Machine, where you don't succeed until you 1) prove you're dirty enough to buy into the club, 2) prove you're immoral enough to truly belong to the club. I never thought he'd be the second coming of FDR, but I never imagined he'd be Bush-lite.

Re:Big Surprise

[circletimessquare]

they're not center right. they are slightly left, and the republicans are slightly right

to say the democrats are right-leaning is to apply your own ideological judgment that does not have more authority than the people of the country en masse

in fact if the usa drifted extremely rightward, or if it drifted extremely leftward, the democrats are still slightly left, and the republicans are still slightly right. ideology is not fixed to a particular time. center of mass is constantly on the move, and right and left are merely relative to that center, at any given time

you also can't compare the usa to other countries or regions. those are other countries or regions. they are external. they don't count when making an internal, domestic judgment. the gravitational ideological balance of a country is it's own thing, and is the only subjective measure of left and right in a given country

and truthfully, the usa is a moderate country: left of the muslim world, right of europe, etc

Re:Big Surprise

[dbIII]

People are not stupid. Some don't vote because they know it is a futile act. Some make it further, to the realization that the act of voting actually validates a broken system. Both end up withdrawing their support the only way they can: by going on strike.

That only works in bad SF novels with a political message. If more people took part it would be far less of a broken system.

Re:Big Surprise

[KGIII]

I'm 57. The closest I've come to an idealistic vote would be Clinton's second term. I've been voting third party for forty years and am kind of, sort of, proud that I almost never vote for the winning candidate. To be honest, if half of the people I've voted for had a chance of winning then I'd probably not have voted for them. Nader, Perot, etc...

I wish Sanders would be honest and run under the Libertarian tent or the American Socialist Party. I'd be more comfortable voting for him then but he's probably got my vote if he makes it that far. I vote in every election. I even vote in the small elections and the State elections. I vote in the mid-terms. I do not vote in Canada though I'm entitled to do so - I don't live there so don't feel entitled to impact those who do. I'm a citizen by grace of my heritage, nothing more. I do own property there but, no, I don't vote in Canadian elections and never have.

I pounded out some other gibberish and don't feel like repeating myself. It ties in, abstractly, with this and gives a more rounded view - albeit a vulgar view.
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

If you dig through my post history you'll find that I'm running for State Senate for my district in Maine. I don't want to but, really, someone has to do so. However, this is not a political platform site nor is this my personal blog. I'm certainly not anonymous but, well, I try to pretend I have some distance between my 'private' conversations here and my real life. (I don't. I just like to pretend I do. I'm sure someone can easily find me. Hell, I've visited a few people in real life that I met here on this site already so it's not like I'm all that worried.)

Re:Big Surprise

[dave420]

What the fuck does skin colour have to do with anything? You really need to get out more.

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

and Sanders is... well a stereotypical white liberal

We should try electing a black guy this time and see what happens.

Re:Big Surprise

[dave420]

To a scared, small-minded person I'm sure it does seem more likely.

Re:Big Surprise

[circletimessquare]

Good luck from New York!

I was born in CT and my family has roots in New England dating back to participants in King Philip's War. I have shameful Tory branches (British ass kissers) in my family who fled to that Northern area of unincorporated USA territory that goes by the name Canada. Quebec independence is rightfully deserved from the Red Coat douchebags and I hope it is tried again. I hope you're not an anglophone Canadian. In which case, fuck you, sycophant to some bejeweled bitch from another continent... even though that means we might be related.

What you want is exposure. Get a gimmick.

Doesn't have to be like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Or this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

But it should be something that makes absolutely anyone instantly comfortable with you and makes you immediately noticeable and identifiable. People will tune you out immediately if you just project earnestness and seriousness. Zzz.

You may be angry that it sounds like I'm encouraging you to become an entertainer. Well, welcome to politics!

You have this swamp yankee's endorsement.

Re:Big Surprise

[MooseTick]

That's what I've always hoped was the truth. That once someone gets into office, they are told about secret stuff that makes the NSA, CIA, etc. all seem more than necessary. I can't imagine what that would be, but maybe there really are shape shifting aliens lurking in our midst waiting to take over.

Re:Big Surprise

[lgw]

He certainly could have done so - but it would have been amazingly stupid and likely he saw that. Still, the power was his.

Re:Big Surprise

[kilfarsnar]

can you imagine a president sanders?

Free stuff for everyone!

Thanks for confirming you haven't been paying attention.

Re:Big Surprise

[kilfarsnar]

that's communism. that's not what sanders stands for.

here is actually a range of economic systems in the world, thousands of them, of varying complexity. it's not just social darwinistic capitalism versus gulag and toilet paper lines communism. the problem is you're uneducated and you can only think in these ignorant simpleton cartoons. try looking at how the government of denmark, sweden, or norway works. or just canada. that's modern socialism. and they are richer, healthier, safer, freer, better educated, and happier than americans

american exceptionalism seems to be about thinking how you're better when everyone pities you. we do many things wrong, like our pathetic education funding and healthcare debacles, and we need to look to other countries who clearly do it better than us. but no: "america #1! drool, snort". american delusional derangement

You mean 65 years of American propaganda have somehow led us astray? Well, I just don't know what to think anymore!

Re:Big Surprise

[tnk1]

Uh, the fact that there is a "black vote" in the USA is not exactly a controversial position.

Yes, having a certain skin tone is meaningless if you remove the other variables.

However, having that skin tone in the context of being African-descended living in the USA has certain cultural, social, and economic implications. And the vast majority in that grouping, for whatever reason, have not and are not going to vote for present-day Republicans.

Re:Big Surprise

[KGIII]

The problem is that anything I have to say doesn't fit in a neat slogan or fit on a bumper sticker. :/

Re:Big Surprise

[circletimessquare]

you don't have to say everything in a slogan, just something that hooks people. that makes them come to hear the rest of what you have to say

Re:Big Surprise

[KGIII]

I'll have to ponder some things along those lines. I'm not the most creative person but I can hire someone who is. I'm hoping it's not a pain in the butt and I won't violate my ethics to do it. I am pretty flexible though. ;)

Re:Big Surprise

[david_thornley]

Did Hilary do something wrong with the emails? I genuinely don't know. What I do know is that the people I see talking about it are generally the ones who tried to sell me the idea that she screwed up at Benghazi, and the idea that Planned Parenthood sells tissue from abortion (which they call "baby parts"). This means that I don't trust what I hear about it, which means I'm not worked up over it.

The right-wing ideologues might want to read about the little boy who cried "Wolf!" sometime.

Re:Big Surprise

[s.petry]

I'm not sure if you missed or ignored the obvious statement I made, particularly with _this_ election. Democratic choices are currently Hillary or Bernie. There are no other candidates from one of the two major parties which have controlled politics in the US since the early 20th century. Is this really a voter making a choice of who's best? No, it's a choice for the voter to pick the best smelling turd.

Now when you extend that logic to the Republic party, you have the same issue. Jeb Bush was the front runner by party terms and funding for nearly a year, and the only reason Trump only upset the apple cart because he can pay his own way.

And then we get to the actual election: The best smelling turd from two parties are the choices you have on the ballot. Your "choice" is not for who's best, but who the parties gave you to vote on.

Finally, look at the last caucus in numerous states for the Presidential election. The amount of corruption and magically missing votes to ensure that Ron Paul didn't become the candidate is as plain as the gray in McCain's hair.

Re:Big Surprise

[david_thornley]

The Democrat coalition is fragile, and it includes groups that would be natural Republicans if the Republicans would accept them. Hispanics and Muslims are typically religious conservatives, and are in general more aligned to the Republicans, but the Republican establishment keeps driving them away.

Re:Big Surprise

[david_thornley]

Skin color is unimportant by itself. What's important is how people react to various skin colors. If you don't think there's racism all over (in greater and lesser amounts), you need to get out more. The racism ranges from the old-fashioned white supremacist to the liberal who works for racial equality in the abstract but won't practice it in person.

Re:Big Surprise

[AK Marc]

Free stuff is cheaper than not free stuff.

Head Start is free stuff for everyone. And even the conservatives indicate that the success of that cuts the costs of things like prison that they would spend money on that "free money" is cheaper than saving money.

The spiteful conservatives don't care about "money". They want to pre-punish all the rapist Mexicans and the like. It's not about finances. It's about spreading hate. Republicans, the party of Hate.

Re:Big Surprise

[david_thornley]

They show up to caucuses and vote in primaries in even smaller numbers. That means that the general election is often between Tweedledum and Tweedledumber.

Re:Big Surprise

[AK Marc]

because benghazi and the emails are fucking jokes.

She has been under constant investigation for criminal wrongdoing for 20+ years. If she actually did something, why haven't they pressed charges? Instead, we get a conservative witch hunt, spending money we don't have on things we don't want or need. Yup, that's modern conservatism.

Re:Big Surprise

[david_thornley]

If I oppose the NSA, who's President becomes very important. The NSA is part of the Executive Branch, meaning the President gets to tell them what to do. It's not going to be completely successful, but a good President could restrain them a lot.

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Sander's record is one of integrity. I would trust him implicitly to work to uphold our constitutional civil liberties. The corrupt oligarchy is deeply entrenched, but they are not invulnerable. Fiorina, like Ms. Clinton and all the other "not Bernie" candidates being presented to us so far, are tools of the broken system where government bashing, fraud, hate mongering, bigotry and terrorizing of the public reign as the status quo substitute for competence and leadership.

Re:Big Surprise

[david_thornley]

He was explicitly barred from using Federal funds in any way to close Gitmo. He could have closed it if he'd gotten everyone involved to volunteer their time and all necessary materials, I suppose.

Re:Big Surprise

[david_thornley]

That's one thing about Obama that disappointed me. I figured that, as a successful Chicago and Illinois politician, that he'd be more effective in using dirty politics to push his policies through.

Re:Big Surprise

[AK Marc]

Not under the law at the time. A minor woman can't confer citizenship, at the time. Though, the Obama campaign was lawyered up ready to go to The Supremes with an argument, if it had come down to that issue. That was never challenged in court, and suspected to be an "illegal" law in violation of the Constitution. The age of the mother is currently irrelevant to whether the child is a citizen. Under today's laws, he'd have been a Natural Born Citizen, even if born in Kenya. But not under the sexist laws of the '50s.

Re:Big Surprise

[billstewart]

Even better - GOP picks somebody exciting, like Ben Carson or (ok, it's too late to get Rick Perry, maybe Santorum?), Trump says "Bah, I can do better than that on my own", starts a "HUUUUGE Party", THEN we get Sanders. Or Lessig, with Sanders as VP.

(Disclaimer: I'm a Libertarian, so I get to pretend to be neutral between the two big-money parties, which is going to happen shortly after the Republicans clean up the corruption of the Rove/Cheney/Koch/Bush years, or at least get it down to the average Democratic level of traditional personal corruption, like having another Warren Harding instead of the Military-Industrial Complex's latest mouthpiece.)

Re:Big Surprise

[Grishnakh]

Huh? The Tea Party morons win elections because in the Congressional districts where they win, the majority of the people there agree with them. Just look at the places where they've won: they're districts dominated by Republicans, not places where liberals have any big effect. The most famous instance is Eric Cantor (R) being ousted in Virginia for a TP candidate named Dave Brat (what a name!). That wasn't in some district with a significant liberal presence, it's been reliably voting Republican ever since 1971.

I'm pretty sure you will not find any examples of TP candidates winning races in districts which were not already dominated by Republicans. TPs are extremists, farther right than regular Republicans, so they're only going to be popular in places which already are pretty far-right. In those districts, it doesn't matter how many liberals get out and vote, they're still going to lose, no matter what, unless they can all somehow get together and enact a secret plan to drug most of the Republican voters on Election Day so they can't get to the polls before they close.

Re:Big Surprise

[circletimessquare]

you have ethics?

man, politics is not the place for you! ;-)

Re:Big Surprise

[Grishnakh]

It depends on what election he's voting in, and on which side he considers the "lesser of two evils".

For instance, if he thinks the Democrats are better, and it's a Presidential election, then he is absolutely wasting his vote if he votes for the Democratic candidate in Texas or Alabama. There's no way the (D) candidate will take those states, so you might as well vote 3rd-party to show support for that. Same goes if he leans more towards Republican ideology and he's in Connecticut.

However, if he's in Florida or Ohio, it's an entirely different matter. Swing states are the only states where your vote actually matters in a Presidential race.

The same principle works in other elections too, just differently depending on your state (for Senatorial or Gubernatorial races) or Congressional district (for House of Representatives races). Voting Democrat in some of California's eastern counties is a waste of a vote, while voting Republican in the California general election is too.

Re:Big Surprise

[Grishnakh]

Sanders isn't a libertarian by any stretch of the imagination. He's a self-proclaimed Socialist (though I imagine Socialists in Europe probably think he's farther to the right). Like most serious liberals, he's "libertarian" on social issues like gay marriage, it's the economic axis where socialists and libertarians diverge completely.

And running on a different Party's ticket is a sure way to not be elected. Sanders actually wants to be elected, that's pretty clear. He's doing almost the same thing Ron Paul did a while back, basically trying to swing the party towards his way of thinking by getting popular but sticking with an established party to try to co-opt it. Sanders seems to be having a lot more success however.

Re:Big Surprise

[circletimessquare]

exactly

it's 2015, the soviet union is long dead, and the slightest hint of the word "socialism" (in reality, a system used by the richest and happiest countries in the world: canada, nordic countries) provokes complete morons to act like it's mccarthy's 1950s america

Re:Big Surprise

[Grishnakh]

the biggest obstacle to a sanders presidency is not tea party morons. they vote. that's what you're suppose to fucking do
the biggest obstacle is liberals who don't fucking vote

Well that's why we need someone like Sanders on the ballot. When you just have people like Hillary on the Democrat side of the ballot, then of course liberals don't vote. When someone like Sanders is on the ballot, then people get excited and think they're making a difference instead of voting for another corrupt politician.

It happened before, with Hillary: she appeared to be a shoe-in for the Democrats in 2008, and then suddenly Obama appeared, got people excited about hope and change, and Hillary was a has-been. The Obama was such a big disappointment that liberals didn't bother to vote much, especially in mid-term elections. Now we have Sanders, and unlike Obama, Sanders actually has a very long political history which backs up his rhetoric.

Re:Big Surprise

[NicBenjamin]

And how effective has Obama been in getting rid of GitMo?

If Congress wants to spend money on a program there's not much the President can do. If Congress doesn't want to spend money on a program there's also not much he can do.

So while the new President is somewhat important in this then the Queen would be for a Canadian version, you're simply mistaken if you think the NSA will stop doing this shit without Congressional agreement.

Re:Big Surprise

[KGIII]

Hell, I don't even WANT the job, really. I'm just in a position where I have a realistic shot at winning the election given the dislike of the incumbent and nobody running against him usually. So, yeah... I don't want to be in politics. I generally hate most politicians. My plan is to simply run for this one election and, ideally, not have to do it ever again as there might be someone willing to take my place and actually represent the people.

Re:Big Surprise

[circletimessquare]

the guy who doesn't want to run is generally the best guy for the job

Re:Big Surprise

[imac.usr]

Well, Ron Paul *is* crazy, so that's not the best example.

Re:Big Surprise

[david_thornley]

The NSA is going to have a budget, no matter what and no matter what you or I may think of that. It has certain legal missions. How it carries out the legal missions is basically the President's responsibility. I know of no Acts of Congress that require the NSA to spend money on mass surveillance and snooping on innocent US citizens, and that means whether to do that (up to the boundaries of the NSA's interpretation of the laws) or not is really up to the person in charge, which if you go up the hierarchy is the President.

I'm not saying it's necessarily easy to control what subordinates are doing, but it doesn't look like Obama or Bush even tried.

Re:Big Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

try looking at how the government of denmark, sweden, or norway works. or just canada. that's modern socialism. and they are richer, healthier, safer, freer, better educated, and happier than americans

Hey progressive/socialist moron, you left Venezuela off that list. A President Sanders will make us all equally miserable without jobs or money.

Re:Big Surprise

[NicBenjamin]

And if Obama announced he was cutting an anti-terror program Clapper said was useful how long do you think it would be before there was a movement in Congress to thwart him by adding a line item to the budget? A couple of those schmucks would actually switch over from strong pro-Civil liberties to strong-anti Civil Liberties simply to spite Obama. Hell, the NSA's specific budget is classified. For all we know there's already that line item.

And I think you're severely under-estimating all of DC's culpability in this. Bush had pretty much a blank check to do whatever he wanted on September 12th, 2001 (note: this is actually how Checks and Balances are supposed to work. The President gets checked, and can do jack-squat, until there's a crises, then he assumes powers similar to those of an Ancient Roman Dictator). He approved this programs. Any attempt by him to disclaim the damn things is one of those age old "lying or stupid?" things. Obama has a little more deniability, because PRISM was actually passed as legislation by Congress before he became President. But not really, because he voted for it.

People like to delude themselves that some stupid bureaucrat deep in the bowels of some agency that nobody had heard of prior to these programs being enacted is the whole problem, and that One Simple Trick (either a Court Case, or the President's signature) will end it.

But the Courts aren't gonna step on Congress's toes, especially when all Constitutional cases against the programs can be brought into pretty serious question law simply by checking a couple legal dictionaries, both Presidents clearly prefer a world where this shit happens to one where it doesn't, and Congress itself has ay least one statute authorizing the whole shebang.

The least difficult fix is Congress.

Re:Big Surprise

[david_thornley]

Yeah, I've been hoping Obama comes out all in favor of oxygen and water. The remaining Republican lawmakers would have at least a little common sense.

However, you're saying that the President doesn't matter because Congress would thwart him. I'm saying that, to stop NSA misconduct, we need a President who's not going to allow it and a Congress that won't override him with the budget. This would have to be something specifically required in the budget, and that may be too much micromanaging for a classified budget. Other than that, just because the NSA is allowed something specific by act of Congress doesn't mean the President has to carry it out exactly as Congress wanted.

I don't know how specific Congress can get here. Congress was able to shut down the Gitmo shutdown by refusing to allocate money to do it. I don't know how much they could mandate mass surveillance in its present form. It might be a matter for the Supreme Court to decide.

Things are not going to happen or not happen in the NSA because the President says one thing or another, but it's the best place to start.

Re:Big Surprise

[NicBenjamin]

Agreed both would be better.

My issue with your argument isn't so much in the facts, it's that people who don't understand the process completely will only remember the bit about the President being more important 18months from now, and thus they'll be stunned when (pretty much inevitably) the winning candidate runs on a platform of restricting the NSA. But fails completely in all attempts to revolutionize privacy protection at the NSA because the entire fucking system is specifically designed so that replacing one individual can not revolutionize anything. Then instead of drawing the logical conclusion (that the system is working precisely as the Founders intended, with nobody having the power to change anything unilaterally), they'll start talking about the dirt the NSA must have on Hillary/Rand/Marco/whomever.

The case of GitMo is actually quite instructive. You would think not spending money shipping food to Cuba for prisoners would be cheaper then wrapping up operations, and you'd be right. The problem is there's be costs involved in wrapping up the operation, and those need to explicitly approved by Congress, despite the fact the entire point of the facility is to keep the prisoners subject to said President's "Commander-in-Chief" powers rather then his more restricted law enforcement powers. In the case of the NSA if there's a termination fee to some contract involved, or even a guy who would have to be paid for a couple days of doing nothing before he got transferred to another project, then Congress has the capital-P-Power to extent the programs indefinitely unilaterally.

Re:Big Surprise

[cold fjord]

So you're saying that even dave420 agrees? That is refreshing, usually he is baffled by ordinary facts and isn't able to accept reality.

oh?

[Fwipp]

I thought she was all about keeping the government small & outta your business.

Re:oh?

[Anonymous Coward]

hehehe

Re:oh?

[Anonymous Coward]

It really does seem that those who preach small, non-intrusive government are the same that embrace mass surveillance ( and all the associated man power, infrastructure, and costs).

Re:oh?

[Black Parrot]

"small government" is just a b.s. mantra to support reduced taxes and regulations. Its proponents generally advocate a big, intrusive government, so long as the haves can have and do whatever they want.

Re:oh?

[CanadianMacFan]

Yes, to them a small government is just a larger military industrial complex and nothing else.

Re:oh?

[painandgreed]

"small government" is just a b.s. mantra to support reduced taxes and regulations. Its proponents generally advocate a big, intrusive government, so long as the haves can have and do whatever they want.

More to the point, "small government" is just a b.s. mantra to do away with the other guys political programs. People pushing for it never talk about how they're going to limit the ones they're in favor of.

Re:oh?

[Anonymous Coward]

"small government" is just a b.s. mantra to support reduced taxes and regulations.

Usually not even reduced regulations, really. More like regulatory changes that disproportionately benefit large, established players in the market. The regulatory hurdles often remain quite high to individuals and small businesses.

Ahhh

[Anonymous Coward]

So that's why the rest of us couldn't get replacements for 10 days or more. Nice.

Like any other customer?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see how this is different than HP providing servers for any other customer, government or commercial. You get a big enough order, you figure out how to fill it.

Re:Like any other customer?

[amiga3D]

I don't fault her for selling the servers to the NSA. That's the job of a CEO at a hardware company. I do not like her defense of warrantless wiretapping. It's obviously a violation of the Constitution and her attempts to justify it is a disrespect to that fine document and a free society. It bodes ill for a government with her as guardian of the Constitutional rights of US citizens.

Re:Like any other customer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dammit I don't care that I'm Godwinning but enough of my family are dead because IBM took that same bullshit, "Hey I'm just making profit lol it's not my problem!" line when selling to Germany in the '30s.

An ethical code is more fundamental than an economic practice. Whether I'm telling Bob how to get past the guards or selling him the equipment needed to get into the safe, if I have a good idea what he's up to then you better fucking believe I'm morally responsible when the bank is robbed.

The duty of every human being is to act ethically. Their "job" is constrained by their ethics. A position which requires the holder to ignore ethics is unethical to fill, and nobody should be doing it. Nobody is ever just following orders - especially not the guys at the top of the food chain who have all of the knowledge and all of the power to say no and all of the alternatives without causing them significant hardship.

Re:Like any other customer?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a good person and although Anonymous, I have a deep respect for you.

Re: Like any other customer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wiretapping and eavesdropping are not obviously unconstitutional unless you own the medium.

Re: Like any other customer?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's obviously unconstitutional for the Federal government to be doing it.

Re:Like any other customer?

[Anonymous Coward]

But we learned under Reagan that the only duty of a company officer is to maximize profit for shareholders. That's the most ethical thing they can do!

Carly destroyed $60 billion in shareholder value, so she's unethical, despite her good intentions in supporting the NSA's surveillance.

Re:Like any other customer?

[CanadianMacFan]

Well, it would have sucked for the stores when their orders suddenly got delayed because the computers got shipped to the NSA instead of them.

Re:Like any other customer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the thing, HP would have had ZERO idea what the NSA planned on using them for. This would not have been knowledge they would have been privy to. The NSA is not in the business of telling everyone its business.

I am pretty certain the head of the NSA did not ring up Carly and say hey I need truckloads of servers to monitor every phone call in the United States. He likely just said, hey we need a lot of servers, national security reasons and we'll pay you extra if you get them to us super quick! Any CEO would get fired for NOT taking up that sort of offer, talk about unethical...

       

Re: Like any other customer?

[kenh]

Because she single-handedly created the dot-com bust?

Re: Like any other customer?

[kenh]

Right, the NSA bought truckloads of desktops to implement massive warrantless wiretapping, just like the ones sold at Best Buy and Frys... Oh wait, the NSA bought servers?

Huh - I didn't know retailers sold rack mount servers...

Re: Like any other customer?

[kenh]

The Tenth Amendment?

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

So your argument is that it's the STATES, not the federal government that should be collecting phone call metadata?

I think you meant the Fourth Amendment...

Re:Like any other customer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't tell if trolling, but: People like you are the primary reason the world is so shitty. If you're serious, please just die, already. (I really loathe telling people to die, but in your case, everyone would be better off, including yourself.)

Re:Like any other customer?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a bit hard when the system punishes ethical behaviour and rewards corruption and exploitation.

Re: Like any other customer?

[dbIII]

Huh - I didn't know retailers sold rack mount servers...

Some are starting to which is a very nice development. Just over $1k for a 3U box good enough to run some accounting stuff for half a dozen people to use at once.

Re:Like any other customer?

[Anonymous Coward]

People seem to forget that Godwin is just an observation; he made no claim about the content of the thread in question.

Re:Like any other customer?

[silentcoder]

Oh there is a difference all right, but the difference is not in the deal.
The difference is that SHE chose to BRAG about it now, as if it's something to be proud off -and while bragging she chose to defend the practices it was used for.

Re: Like any other customer?

[silentcoder]

How about because she bought compaq despite every industry expert telling her that is was an insane move ? How about because she figured the best way to up the stock price was to fire all the great (but expensive) engineers, which, to be fair, did make the next quarterly earnings report look fantastic because she was selling all those awesome things they designed and not having to pay them - but then discovered (to her apparent shock) that you can't keep selling the same things for every and without good engineers it's really hard to design a good next generation of products and it's ESPECIALLY hard to maintain profitability when you have only shitty products to sell.

The fundamental flaw Fiorina made at HP is one many a CEO has made at many an American company - she confused the wage bill with an expense, instead of realizing it's her single most important profit-generating asset. Lay-offs can only ever cost you more than it saves.

Re:Like any other customer?

[oh_my_080980980]

I didn't realize Bernie Sanders was a Libertarian....

Re: Like any other customer?

[mschaffer]

That may be so, but this is 2001 we are talking about.

Re: Like any other customer?

[CanadianMacFan]

I know that on /. it's not fashionable to actually read the article so here's a quote:

Fiorina acknowledged she complied with Hayden’s request, redirecting trucks of HP computer servers that were on their way to retail stores from a warehouse in Tennessee to the Washington Beltway, where they were escorted by NSA security to the gates of agency headquarters in Fort Meade, Md.

Re:Like any other customer?

[amiga3D]

You seriously think it's immoral for a US company to sell product to the NSA? An agency that has a duty to protect and defend the US and it's citizens. Never mind it has failed miserably at times doing that duty it is still the agency charged with spying on potential adversaries of the US. The main problem with the NSA is that Congress has failed miserably in their duty to oversee it's activities. The fact that Carly supports these policies of trashing the Bill of Rights is far worse than selling hardware to a government agency.

Re: Like any other customer?

[amiga3D]

They're only unconstitutional if it's the government doing it. For everyone else it's simply illegal.

Re: Like any other customer?

[amiga3D]

Their rationale for ignoring the 10th is simple. They don't feel anything is beyond the Federal government's power.

Re: Like any other customer?

[dbIII]

Good point, though back then I had the misfortune to have to deal with "shelf mount" servers while contracting for a place too cheap to use anything other than normal PCs in normal cases for servers, even the MS Exchange servers. They had a room full of shelving with PCs lined up side by side.

Fiorina and the ruling class

[jodido]

That stuff about small government is for the chumps. The NSA and the rest of the police agencies are there to protect US capitalism. HP is a big US corporation. There's no reason in the world why she wouldn't cooperate with the NSA. Nor is there any reason why any other big corporation won't, whatever they may say publicly.

Re:Fiorina and the ruling class

[JBMcB]

The NSA and the rest of the police agencies are there to protect US CORPORATISM.

There, fixed that for you. Having government "protect" capitalism is kind of a contradiction in terms.

Re:Fiorina and the ruling class

[cbhacking]

I know the AnCaps hate to hear it, but you do actually need a government even to have a chance of making capitalism work. It's all very noble to talk about how using force is unethical, but the violent will laugh in your stupid face while they rob you blind. Without an official government - authorized, equipped, and publicly funded to commit violence - all that you'll get is an unofficial one built by the best warlord to rise up to pluck all you idiots busily making economic value that you can't protect. At that point you'll have a choice: produce for the warlord (keeping a fraction, if any, of the profit), fight for the warlord's army, or a shallow grave courtesy of that army. Your option to pay off the warlord will last until the amount you pay + the cost of just rolling over you becomes less than could be squeezed out of you at gunpoint. Don't bother pretending you can hire you own armed protection agency to protect you; that's just setting up your own warlord whose guns point at your back instead of at your face.

That's not even considering external threats, which of course do exist. You can't overhaul humanity as a whole. An invader doesn't care that they'll wreck your pretty little fairy-tale economy; they want your land, your natural resources, your skilled laborers who will work for them if the only other alternative is a taking a bullet, and your technology. You know what the easiest way to get somebody's trade secrets is? Point a gun at them and ask.

Any way you cut it, if you don't publicly set up a government to enforce the will of the populace and fund it through social contract that says it's OK to coerce payment (and you'll still have defectors even then), you're just going to get a tyrannical government run by whoever has the biggest / best-trained guns and/or the best ability to convince others to fight on their behalf (and believe me, people are always willing to do that). The odds are very strongly in favor of you being nearer the bottom of the new government - possibly a couple feet underground - than being anywhere near the top.

Re:Fiorina and the ruling class

[Jeremi]

The irony is that anarchy is a system that only works as long as all parties are willing to play by the (unwritten) rules :)

Re:Fiorina and the ruling class

[Anonymous Coward]

Friends do not let friends buy HP... So there.

Re:Fiorina and the ruling class

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the AnCaps hate to hear it, but you do actually need a government even to have a chance of making capitalism work.

You are not in scope of the GP. There is a difference between an absence of law and an absence of rulers. Governments can be wholly voluntary and wholly involuntary in their nature. Your failure to know this shows a true lack of education.

so hp provided product

[Anonymous Coward]

to a customer.... so what? they aren't the only ones with federal procurement contracts.

Re:so hp provided product

[Anonymous Coward]

What if ISIS made an order?

Re:so hp provided product

[unixisc]

A variation of that was HP selling printer and ink to Iran - using an intermediary company Reddington Gulf through Dubai. Carly denies that this was done w/ the knowledge of HP management at the time. The relationship b/w HP and Reddington Gulf was terminated 2 years after Carly left.

Misleading Summary

[neonv]

Being that the program was classified, they would have just ordered are large number of assets without telling her the reason for them. If I were HP and the NSA wanted to buy a large numbers of servers, I would sell the servers to them as well.

From the article

Fiorina said. “They were ramping up a whole set of programs and needed a lot of data crunching capability to try and monitor a whole set of threats... What I knew at the time was our nation had been attacked.”

The summary makes it sound like she purposely did it to screw over Americans. There's nothing to indicate that. The waterboarding issue is added on even though it is not related. This is a flame bait summary, and a misleading article. We really don't need articles on Slashdot that demonize people like this.

Re:Misleading Summary

[gatfirls]

True, but she's still a not very good human being.

Re:Misleading Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there any doubt inyour mind if the NSA said they were going to grind up babies for parts, that Carly Fiorina would have sold them the tools, assuming HP had the capacity to provide it and the NSA's checks were good?

She made up a fabricated conceptualization of what happens at Planned Parenthood and expects the rest of us to react in horror without thinking, but some of us know she cares very little about anything.

Except herself.

Re:Misleading Summary

[amorsen]

She brags about her security clearance and about how she knows so much about what is going on. She may not be all that bright, but surely given that information she could figure out why they needed the server capacity.

Her defence of waterboarding shows what a disgusting person she is. I am ashamed that I was working for HP at the time.

Re:Misleading Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but she's still a not very good human being.

Well, Fiorina does at least have BEING human over Hillary!

Re:Misleading Summary

[meta-monkey]

And that face!

Re:Misleading Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Now she has security clearances. Doesn't mean she had them back then.

Re:Misleading Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

And when we justify it in this case where does the line get drawn, when someone waterboards you just because your an american and your government kills people in your name all over the world? Or when your waterboarded because you say something someone high up in a corporation or your government doesn't agree with?

  You cant claim to be all about freedom and democracy and take the moral hight ground when using the same tatics or paying some other nation to dirty their hands doing it for you.

May as well just admit we are going to force our will on you because we can and be done with it - your still a bastard but at least your more honest to your self.

Re:Misleading Summary

[PRMan]

You watch too much TV.

Re:Misleading Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

It is very torturous to someone from the Middle East as many never been exposed to large quantities of water (it's a desert). So water in this form of torture is more brutal on people from this region than people from other regions that have lakes, rivers, and oceans. That's why many western politicians have no problem agreeing with this kind of torture though they might have a problem with forms of torture used by the Nazis.

Re:Misleading Summary

[Qzukk]

Think of it as truth serum that never fails.

Never fails to what?

Never fails to get the subject to tell you whatever it is you tell them to tell you to make it stop?

Never fails to get the subject to tell you bullshit that you can't verify in order to get you to stop? (Why don't you ask McCain about his Vietnam tour?)

Re:Misleading Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

You're advocating torture as a means of punishment rather than as a means of coercion.

As a means of coercion torture has shown itself over thousands of years in written history for which it has been done as being ineffective. You only get noise coming from the person. If you want to find those babies that have been kidnapped then you figure out what the person wants and make a deal to give it to them or you take it away after they get what they want. The FBI has a long history of actual interrogation tactics that are not torture and are very effective.

The reality is that waterboarding is not nearly as pleasant as you make it sound and many people are permanently injured. Now imagine you torture the shit out the guy and then someone comes in and lets you know that he's just some guys Barista that screwed up a Starbucks order. That's the reason we in the country follow the mantra of innocent until proven guilty. This ignorant idea that you can torture people with any justification just flies in the face of what it means to be a free country with liberty and justice for all.

I can't imagine how the mainstream Republicans think this country is so weak that we need to give up all of our principles in the face of a weak opponent with no where near the resources we have available at will.

Walk softly and carry a big stick is clearly long forgotten.

Re:Misleading Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Just look at that face! That's some kind of messed up shit right there. With a face like that no wonder she's mean and vindictive.

I don't agree with Trump on much but his comments about her face were spot on. Too bad he had to retract because of political correctness.

You really should stop talking to the mirror buddy, gets kinda creepy after a while. You might also want to work on that self esteem a little bit.

Re:Misleading Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop masturbating to 24

Re:Misleading Summary

[cbhacking]

Think of it as truth serum that never fails.

Do you work at the Pentagon? Because that is some weapons-grade bullshit right there!

Torture will produce *some* answer, sure, but if you think it's true I've got an "enhanced interrogation" technique to sell you. The FBI knows it doesn't work. The army knew that too, and in fact still does (pages 97 and 351, or just search for "unreliable").

As for rapists and such, a bullet is good enough for them, once guilt is established beyond a shadow of a doubt. I feel the same way about anybody who permits or engages in the use of torture, whatever side they're on, by the way.

Re:Misleading Summary

[Fire_Wraith]

The reliability of Intelligence is very important. Bad intelligence gets our people killed, wastes resources on snipe hunts, etc. Torture is entirely counterproductive to getting good, reliable intelligence.

You know why the North Koreans/Chinese/North Vietnamese/etc tortured prisoners? It wasn't for intelligence, it was for the purpose of brainwashing and propaganda. That's why they kept doing it long after any intelligence those poor bastards had was of no more use.

Want to know what works for getting intelligence? Stuff like the time-tested tactics outlined in the Army Field Manual - not Hollywood Tough Guy bullshit.

Re:Misleading Summary

[CanadianMacFan]

Your actions are measured right or wrong based on the current situation. The previous actions of other people don't have any impact on the morality of yours. It doesn't matter if you are waterboarding a baby or a serial killer it is still wrong. Torture is torture.

Re:Misleading Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's ok if we hand over the perpetrators of the My Lai massacre to Vietnam for torture?

Or Robert Bales?

Re:Misleading Summary

[Zero__Kelvin]

"I don't really get it. Waterboarding is shooting a garden hose up somebody's nose, along with an attendant that tilts the subject to insure the lungs don't fill with water and drown them. It feels like drowning, only you can't die from it. Think of it as truth serum that never fails.

Sounds like you need a good waterboarding to really "get it." Ladies and gentleman, I think we have found the one and only legitimate use for waterboarding!

Re:Misleading Summary

[kqs]

Odd how every example of someone doing this voluntarily that I could find in a quick search says that it is torture. Quick example: http://waterboarding.org/node/...

And "truth serum that never fails"? Huh? Torture is famous for making people say whatever they believe will make the torture stop, which turns out to be very different than "the truth". Think of torture as "truth serum that makes them scream whatever you want to hear". Great for confirming your wrong information, if you're into that sort of thing, I guess.

If you choose to do it, say three times, and still think it's not torture, then I'll respect that. If you say it is not torture without having the guts to experience it yourself, and in direct contradiction of those who have experienced it, then clearly you only care about your own empty words, not facts.

Re:Misleading Summary

[towermac]

You're advocating torture as a means of punishment rather than as a means of coercion.

I'm not. I was talking about freshly captured people with current intelligence. Let's just get that part straight. I'm not defending Gitmo if that's what you think; I asked about waterboarding Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

As a means of coercion torture has shown itself over thousands of years in written history for which it has been done as being ineffective. You only get noise coming from the person. If you want to find those babies that have been kidnapped then you figure out what the person wants

It was already quite clear what they wanted.

and make a deal to give it to them or you take it away

Take what away? Immunity? A lesser sentence? You're kidding, right? They wanted to die on the battlefield, and in this scenario, you've already thwarted that plan.

after they get what they want. The FBI has a long history of actual interrogation tactics that are not torture and are very effective.

Against criminals. People that still have something to lose, something to gain, family to worry about, etc. Not these people, whose only hope is to die while killing you and getting their 72 virgins.

The reality is that waterboarding is not nearly as pleasant as you make it sound and many people are permanently injured.

Now that would be news to me. Any links? I didn't hear that from any of the Marines who voluntarily had it done to them in training.

Now imagine you torture the shit out the guy and then someone comes in and lets you know that he's just some guys Barista that screwed up a Starbucks order.

Wait, what? If you did that to a barista then you've really fucked up, and are probably going to prison. Now we've got to pay the guy out of public funds. How did we get from Al-Qaeda to Starbucks employees?

That's the reason we in the country follow the mantra of innocent until proven guilty.

For criminals. Not the same thing as these people. We didn't give trials to German and Japanese POWs either. And if they didn't cooperate we shot them right in the face. I guess that was wrong too?

This ignorant idea that you can torture people with any justification just flies in the face of what it means to be a free country with liberty and justice for all.

Now we're back to the real question of "Is it torture if you can walk away symptom free?" I don't think you can really get hurt from it, and have yet to see anything to the contrary.

Your next paragraph bringing Republicans into it I think gets to the crux of it. Every single thing, either has to be against Bush, or for him. The whole world is vied through that lens. I understand that CBS has already decided this one for us, and the issue was tied off long ago. The problem is, I had a waterhose shot up my nose plenty of times as a kid, and it's bad, no doubt. Hard to believe I'm the only one.

I just have trouble buying the torture part.

Re:Misleading Summary

[towermac]

You're getting out the weeds a little on people's answers; maybe you've seen too much TV. I would tell the truth and confess everything right off, no need to even reach for the water handle. I bet you would too. I don't think I'd be in that position in the first place, because I would have cooperated at the front desk.

Yes, I'm sure the people we are talking about will lie. I bet the CIA or Army people know that too. Personally, I'd follow up on initial things they told me, personality profiles, etc. But I'm not qualified in that field, and I bet you're not either. We're both qualified, however, to read the political opinions you linked to.

Bullets for rapists, sure. (But not the 19 yr old Camaro owner with the 16 yr old girlfriend kind of rapist) And the CIA family man who directly saved somebody's daughter by uncovering a plot? He's exactly the same, is he?

I'll remind you of this: Malcolm 'tortured' Jayne, who really thought he was going to die, in an attempt to get his head right. Cap'n Reynolds would get your bullet too I guess.

Re:Misleading Summary

[towermac]

Oh I laughed out loud - waterboarding.org. Holy crap, I did not know that was a website. Just the facts, no agenda at all there.

http://waterboarding.org/tortu...

1. Torture: "...It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions."

So basically, if it is within the law, it's not torture; if it's against the law, then it is. Circular logic cancels that whole first part out.

2. "prolonged mental harm"
Not buying it.

3. "Article 32 of the Fourth Geneva Convention any measure of such a character as to cause the physical suffering"
That covers waterboarding, only these Al-Qaeda people are not covered by the Geneva Convention. It is quite specific in that regard.

4. "...the Fourth Geneva Convention..."
Again, not applicable. (Your website is political btw)

5. " the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court..."
Not applicable; these are not criminals.

6. "...The concept of torture shall not include physical or mental pain or suffering that is inherent in or solely the consequence of lawful measures..."
So again, torture is illegal if it is illegal. Another wonderful feel good international convention (not a treaty) that legally means absolutely nothing. Strictly political in nature.

7. "the color of law"
Also again with the "incidental to lawful sanctions" clause. Which simply asks the question, is it legal or not?

Another thing: "the threat of imminent death", which the waterboarded scumbag knows will not happen, does actually apply to actual US citizens on death row. I guess we should let those heinous murders go, or just give them college degrees a 3 squares a day forever? We owe them at least that much; is that the narrative? I guess I drift off topic here, sorry for that.

The star of that website is fine after the fact btw. You probably want to tell me he's mentally fucked up now, are you sure he wasn't before? Sean Hannity couldn't take it. That is sort of the point; nobody can take it.

I remain unconvinced, but I do appreciate your cogent answer.

Re:Misleading Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no good guys and bad guys. Only people that are doing what they think they should. Most educated adults understand this. It is called a value system. You really need to take a long look at yours and decide why you think one person bombing villages deserves to be tortured even if the information they give up is always wrong to the point that you are willing to literally go medieval and redefine what torture is while another person bombing villages should never be tortured because of their citizenship status.

Re:Misleading Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe you've seen too much TV
and
Malcolm 'tortured' Jayne
in the same post. Congrats, you've got cognitive dissonance down to a fine art.

BTW, here's an expert who would think your 'truth serum that never fails' line is incredibly moronic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Misleading Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no point telling idiots like towermac this stuff. Same problem we have with the slaver senators. They can't learn from you telling them.

You have to demonstrate, for the slavers what we did was enslave them. Suddenly, finding themselves enslaved, it dawned on them that all their talk about what a good life slaves had was actually just bullshit to pave over their callousness. Whoops, too late slavers. For the torture proponents we torture them. Each time they face the same question, didn't you lie about torture? Wasn't your opinion a worthless fabrication? And they can tell us the truth, or they can keep lying.

And once they've finally told the truth and been released from torture, they'll try to take it all back. Of course they will. But then they've got a very simple problem. They say torture works, if it works, then they told the truth and we were right. If they were lying under torture, it doesn't work, so we were right. They're stuck with admitting it doesn't work or proving it doesn't work.

Re:Misleading Summary

[KGIII]

When this whole thing first came out with the waterboarding, my brother and a friend of mine all took turns trying it out on a decline bench in my basement. I suspect it's something to do with the mentality or with the method because, frankly, I'd not tell you shit if you did that to me. Now we were all drunken former Marines but I doubt it matters. You're going to get your face wet, inhale a little water. It sucks. They're not going to kill you, if they were going to kill you then they'd have already done so.

We got wet, giggled a lot, and generally concluded that it is probably torture to those in the right mindset but otherwise pretty tame. It sucks but it's not deadly or anything. Maybe we did it wrong? We used a big jug of water and a black t-shirt to cover the face. We weren't exactly gentle about it. We poured it reasonably slow and stopped once in a while to ask the person if the were ready to say, "I want to join the Air Force." Or a few other things. The other two went twice - I was not one of them.

So, yeah, it could suck and I don't think we should do it to people - regardless. However, it's not that terrible in the scope of terrors. Just chill out and allow your head to wander to a different place.

I guess, that's my take-away. Don't do it. However, it's pretty damned mild. I think it may be a mental thing. I imagine it would suck if I didn't know I was going to be fine afterwards and that I had no chance of ending up dead. I suppose the bravado, ego, and alcohol helped as well.

Re:Misleading Summary

[dbIII]

Wasn't she in charge when there was the scandal about spying on HP employees, or was that someone else?

Re:Misleading Summary

[dbIII]

I'm not. I was talking about freshly captured people with current intelligence.

What's the use of torturing them to get them to sign a confession you've prepared earlier? Oh that's right - a show trial and someone to pin something on so the person who ordered the torture can advance their career. That's how torture "works". Not even the USSR did it to get information, they had plenty of experience to show that it was useless for that purpose.

Re:Misleading Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

You have absolutely no idea of what you're spouting from the shit-flecked orifice in the center of your face.

Re:Misleading Summary

[silentcoder]

> Think of it as truth serum that never fails.

Actually... it's more like guaranteed-lie serum.
Many people will tell you that torture does not yield good intel - that people will say ANYTHING if they think it will make you stop, but studies have actually found more than that - the one thing it absolutely guarantees they will NOT tell you is the truth.
When being tortured for information - that information becomes their single most valuable thing, they will cling to it for dear life and never, ever reveal it - because they always fear that tomorrow may be worse, and tomorrow they may need it more. It is saved for a rainy day, and the harder it rains - the more they save it out of fear that tomorrow it will rain even worse.

Re:Misleading Summary

[silentcoder]

>Great for confirming your wrong information, if you're into that sort of thing, I guess
For the party of guns AND god ? That's basically their entire goal in life isn't it ?

Re:Misleading Summary

[dave420]

You were drunk and with friends, and you don't know the protocol. If you can't see how that compares to the real deal, you might want to reconsider posting in public on this topic.

Re:Misleading Summary

[tehcyder]

If you believe in torture, and especially if you discount anything that doesn't maim you as torture in the first place, you are on the same moral level as Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Re:Misleading Summary

[kqs]

So you ignored all of the content in my reply, and just complained that the site I posted has a particular point of view. "Oh no, the anti-waterboarding site is... against waterboarding!" Color me amazed.

Even if torture worked for getting good intelligence it would be wrong. But since it doesn't work, it doesn't give the truth, any many professional interrogators have publicly said that it is counter-productive, that other methods work better, well, I have no idea how you can justify it. Doesn't matter that many of those people were scumbags (and some weren't, but clearly "the constitution" and "bill of rights" are just scraps of paper that you want to work around whenever possible, not follow whenever possible). You don't torture just because you think someone is a scumbag; if you do, then please move to Saudi Arabia or some other place where the authorities get their jollies with public punishment. The US has laws, and has good reasons for those laws, and just because you hate the principals of freedom which we are founded on (and mostly, but not entirely, follow) doesn't mean that you or any other american get to ignore them.

Re:Misleading Summary

[KGIII]

Meh, we tried it at least which is probably more than you've done all while assuming it's tragic - and it is evil and should not be done at all. It just isn't nearly as bad as people seem to think it is. Calm down, wait it out, and you'll be okay.

Re:Misleading Summary

[AK Marc]

Lasting physical damage is not required for "torture". Torture is harm or threat of harm to elicit a desired response. Bamboo under the fingernails doesn't necessarily leave lasting damage, so that's not torture, right? Sleep deprivation, starvation, and such aren't torture either, right?

Nope, temporary harm is torture as well. And the original definition explicitly included threats. "Tell us what you want to know, or we'll kill your [loved one]." That's a threat. Causing pain to that loved one in their presence is not torture of the loved one, but torture of the subject.

Most definitions of torture include plea bargains as torture. "Sign this confession, or we'll anally rape you every day for 10 years, I mean you'll go to prison, and we'll let you get raped, as that's fun and how the Justice system in the US delivers justice."

Re:Misleading Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Other than SEER.

Suitable as President

[Anonymous Coward]

... of China.

Enlightening

[Anonymous Coward]

It's always interesting to see who the left chooses to target. I always assume they must consider them to be a viable candidate. Conversely, their choice to endorse is typically those that they believe to be beatable candidates. It would be nice if their focus was more on who would make the best candidate, rather than who is easiest to beat.

Re:Enlightening

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I can't actually edit here (hey - it's only 2015 - I'm sure that's a hard feature to implement), just wanted to clarify that when I say "endorse" I'm specifically referring to the left's endorsement of Republican candidates.

Re:Enlightening

[Anonymous Coward]

... (hey - it's only 2015 - I'm sure that's a hard feature to implement)...

twitter and facebook have the same "issue"...

Re:Enlightening

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook has an edit feature. Twitter at least lets you delete your tweets. Slashdot post are forever.

Re:Enlightening

[Austerity Empowers]

I think people on this site have plenty of reasons to hate Fiorina that it hardly matters if she's the right-wing candidate or simply putting her face in the news.

Re:Enlightening

[kqs]

My experience is that the left mocks those rightwing candidates who have said incredibly stupid things recently. For over a decade it has been a rather target-rich environment, and this past six months you can't turn around without hearing some R candidate make a obvious provable lie.

The right, on the other hand, tries to pile on only whoever they see as the biggest threat at the time. Which is why the birther lies have started to die down, but the Select Committee To Prove That Something Anything Was Hillary's Fault At Benghazi has been trying to find something to pin on her for a very long time and spending many millions of taxpayer money to do so, and is now becoming the Select Committee On Hey We're Sure She Broke Some Email Law Somehow Let's Keep Talking About It.

Re:Enlightening

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point.

Re:Enlightening

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama went to 57 states - incredibly stupid thing.

Not really, it's something hundreds of millions of people do every day, start to say one word, then go on to the other. The fact that so many on the right desperately want to believe Obama was confused, even to fabricating some Islamic narrative to it, while ignoring their own candidate's mistatements is a problem.

That's the kind of hysteria we got.

Meanwhile the deliberate and intentional comparison to the size of the US Navy after WWI? Gets treated as both true and meaningful.

Seriously, the Republicans have plenty of dirt.

People can still tell you who can't spell potato correctly. They can't tell you who has no idea who the founding fathers are.

Yeah, and Dan Quayle was still no Jack Kennedy. Meanwhile you're making up a false accusation yourself. And I don't doubt you believe you are serious.

PS, Michelle Obama was literally correct when she said none of the Founding Fathers were born American citizens. That was a declaration of law after their birth. A bit pedantic, perhaps, but I can make some allowances for figurative language. Because I'm not a Republican Ass-turd who has a freak-out when somebody I don't like says something so I try to pick it apart. I at least try to pay attention to what they said.

Server sales. Meh. Torture, though...

[Anonymous Coward]

Servers.... don't care. NSA will get servers and Fiorina would be liable to her board and shareholders for refusing the sale. It is much more damning of Hayden, assuming there was no bid and I'll bet there wasn't.

The TFATFA had a lot more damning allegations that Fiorina was cozy with the Intel community, if those are considered damning.

I'm much more hopeful she's shot herself in the foot by condoning torture. But I'm sad to be skeptical that she's just appealing to her base.

Oh, and why didn't Slashdot link to the orignal article that Motherboard was quoting?

Let us waterboard her

[Anonymous Coward]

and see if she still thinks it isnt torture.

Re:Let us waterboard her

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're serious, you should start with Dick and Shrub.

Re:Let us waterboard her

[Anonymous Coward]

No point I believe they are guilty of war crimes and a just court should and would hand out the the death penalty.

She is still a horrible person...

[Lumpy]

Just ask anyone that worked for her.

Honestly is she that delusional or is there some secret money machine from running for president? Because I can not figure out WHY she is running.

Re:She is still a horrible person...

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

It used to be that person would ask themselves, "Why should I run for President?"

Now they ask themselves, "Why shouldn't I run for President?"

Re:She is still a horrible person...

[Anonymous Coward]

Presidential Elections

now that you have screwed over every one that worked for you and made so much money that you can't figure out how to waste it...

Re:She is still a horrible person...

[meta-monkey]

Isn't that kind of better?

Re:She is still a horrible person...

[Black Parrot]

One hypothesis is that a lot of the candidates are just running to drive up their speaker fees and the demand for them to speak.

Re:She is still a horrible person...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why shouldn't I run for President?"

Let's face it: If you've got the psychopathic urge to lie to people and abuse them, the internet offers an instant fan-base of people with the stupidity and money to support you. Just look at Mitt Romney and Donald Trump. Making it through the selection process like Ronald Reagan or George Bush Jr did is rare though.

Re:She is still a horrible person...

[Fire_Wraith]

There's certainly very little downside to it, these days, for most candidates. Even if you gain no traction/little notice, and you drop out early, the net resultis likely that nobody really remembers so it doesn't matter.
On the other hand, if you make a splash, but you lose out after a while, you can write/sell a book, get hired as a contributor on Fox, go give speeches, etc, and do a lot more than you could have before.

The really sad/funny thing is that Fiorina ran in 2010 as a moderate for California Senate. Now she's trying to sell herself as a hard-right ultraconservative republican. It's a bunch of flimflam, and you shouldn't buy it, any more than you should hire her to run your company.

Re:She is still a horrible person...

[Greyfox]

She wants a chance to run the USA into the ground, just like she ran HP into the ground.

Re:She is still a horrible person...

[dbIII]

She probably sees a chance since even Trump and tollbooth guy haven't been kicked out for being dead wood. If there's enough "anybody but Hillary" votes even someone as wildly unsuitable as Carly to be in charge of anything has a chance.
How on earth did she get to run HP in the first place? That seems almost as unlikely as being the last one standing when the current circus is over.

And then Obama did what he said and turned em off!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, wait. No he didn't

Obama bought more of them. Hillary! didn't say a word. Biden didn't say a word.

Sanders voted against it since day one.

Oh Really?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Well there's a ringing endorsement for our new dictator, err, I mean "president".

I'm sure she's keen to do all she can to protect my privacy and limit the data collection powers of all these 3-letter agencies that are scooping up our info wholesale.

Carly Fiorina

[Anonymous Coward]

She's a Giver!

Success...

[Anonymous Coward]

How much of her business success is attributable to government contracts?

Re:Success...

[Black Parrot]

What business success?

Re:Success...

[fustakrakich]

She did well for herself... Makes the front page every so often. Got more money than Clinton.

there is only one

[ganjadude]

rand paul

Re:there is only one

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure about Rand Paul anymore he isn't his father. Also hes likely a short hop away from dropping out. Also Bernie Sanders the man with a clear voting record of snubbing the military industrial complex and the vastly overreaching intelligence establishment.

Re:there is only one

[dog77]

Rand Paul 11 hour speech against patriot act renewal http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Rand Paul swipes against GOP on another Iraq war http://www.mediaite.com/tv/pau...

Re:there is only one

[hairyfeet]

The GOP will never let ANY Paul have a shot, just as they are trying their damnedest to get trump to sign a pledge that he won't run as an independent so they can find an excuse to kick him out the race, all they want is corporate booty kissers that don't have a chance in hell.

With that criteria it will probably be Bush (no chance in hell) or Rubio (less than no chance in hell) because that is what they want, somebody that will scream about "entitlements" and how the rich are paying too much and the poor are just lazy for not being willing to work in a cancer city like they do in China for $5 a day.

So I'd say the best bet at a non spy loving POTUS would be Sanders, didn't think he would have a chance just a few months ago but apparently the press hates Hillary as much as they loved Bill so he is getting tons of good press and shooting up the polls, so he may have a real shot at the brass ring.

Re:there is only one

[tnk1]

Like Trump, Sanders really has difficult road. People might be turning out for him, but people turned out for Ron Paul too.

He's easy to like if you don't like the other options. The problem is, like Trump, he's no more a real Democrat than Trump is a real Republican. You or I may not care, but the actual party organizers DO care, and they have a lot of power in the primaries. Sanders might fare better than any Republican, but so will just about any other Democrat.

Unless they *need* Sanders to win, and they currently don't, he's not someone they need to play nice with.

Re:there is only one

[Jeremi]

... and he's currently bringing in a whopping 2.4% of Republicans in the polls.

A cynical person might interpret this as suggesting that the conservative voters are motivated much less by "freedom" than by the sweet, sweet indulgence of their fear and hatred of (whichever non-majority social groups have been selected as their official scapegoats for the season).

Re:there is only one

[NicBenjamin]

They never loved Bill. Her problems with the press actually date to his administration.

The thing about the Press is their entire job is to gin up an interesting story. Since the Clintons are considered virtually inevitable, most of the time the story the gin up about said Clinton's is attacking one or the other.

At some point "Hillary in trouble" stories will stop getting ratings because viewers will expect her to be in trouble, and at that point they'll do a switch and turn on the Hillary love-fest.

Re:there is only one

[NicBenjamin]

As a former precinct delegate to the Democratic Party, I can tell you you have no clue what you're talking about with Sanders.

We have always loved him. He talks far-left, but he votes very tactically so (unlike some actual Democrats) he voted for every version of ObamaCare because to a socialist a market system with everybody in it is superior to a totally free market system not with everybody in it. If you look at his voting record, his sole differences with Clinton are old news like the Iraq War vote and the PATRIOT act in '01. To us activists President Sanders would probably be better for most of us on financial regulation then President Hillary Clinton, because Clinton has long-standing links to the money-men on Wall Street. Thus he's leading amongst white democrats.

Which is actually his problem. Non-white Democrats are not pursuing the white whale of Wall Street regulation, so that doesn't move them. What does move them is that everyone believes Sanders is less likely to win the General then Clinton, that their daughters could see a female President, and (especially in the black community) Clinton did her duty as a Democrat and supported Obama after he beat her in a very divisive campaign in '08.

Re:there is only one

[unixisc]

They've gotten that pledge from Trump, but they know that if they treat him unfairly, he will break that. Which is why this time, they're doing things differently than they did in the past - w/ Forbes, Tancredo, Bachman, et al. For the first time, I think it's pretty likely that it won't be Bush - heck, in the GOP polls alone, his net favoribility - positives minus negatives -is 1%. Even Trump has a better number than that. I think it's likely to end up b/w Trump, Carson, Cruz and maybe Kasich.

Re:there is only one

[dbIII]

apparently the press hates Hillary as much as they loved Bill

Citizen Murdoch liked Bill. Do you think he keeps his newspaper empire going because he likes losing money, or because he likes the influence it provides that the profitable cable, movies etc do not?

Re:there is only one

[Anonymous Coward]

Sanders would meet twice as much resistance than Obama did considering a good 90% of the DNC has no interest in the Sander's platform.
 
If Sanders makes it it'll be at least 4 more years of stalemate for anything.

Re:there is only one

[buck-yar]

Sanders is the epitome of the Democrats. Socialism is what the Democrat party core is supposed to be. He is overtly socialist, something the Democrats have never been proud about.

Trump is mostly neo-conservative. But the libertarnian leaning part of the Republican party will probably back him as they realize a fractured Republican party will allow a Bernie or Hillary to become president.

Re:there is only one

[jsepeta]

The biggest problems for Trump and Sanders is that the RNC and DNC have committed state governors who run the untrustworthy voting machines, and who are likely to engage in the kind of manipulation that prevents us from getting an accurate and true count of who really got the votes.

She is f***ing establishment

[Anonymous Coward]

Fiorina can never be allowed to be a president.

She is not "for the people". Simple as that.

We have heard this arguments: manufacturers are not responsible for what their products are used for. Same logic, however is not well liked by authoritarians, by assaulting all the guns, gun owners and manufacturers.

Pure evil.

Patriotism?

[ledow]

Maybe it's the country I grew up in, but anything "framed... in patriotic terms" is usually only ever a disguise for some of the worst atrocities and general scummy behaviour possible.

Be wary of people who are doing things "for their country" rather than, say, "for humanity", "for peace", etc.

My country is a geographic statistic of my birth. How that justifies criminal and/or amoral behaviour against those with a slightly different statistic, I've never quite fathomed.

Fuck, even "I did it because it looked like the right thing to do" holds a billion times more weight than any patriotic shit.

Patriotism is racism without mention of colour. "Not born here" syndrome.

Re:Patriotism?

[Black Parrot]

Excellent post.

FWIW, I knew there was going to be trouble as soon as they stuck a flag on the ruins of the WTC.

Re:Patriotism?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Be wary of people who are doing things "for their country" rather than, say, "for humanity", "for peace", etc.

I'd be wary of people saying they are doing it "for humanity" or "for peace" too. Just as bullshit an excuse as for muh country.

Re:Patriotism?

[Tablizer]

Remember the "Patriot" Act?

A translation guide for bill names:

"Patriotic" = Behavior we like only when our party is in power

"Liberation" = Endless war

"Defense" = Offense pork

"X Child Act" = Get up into our business to protect a net 1.7 children

"Affordable" = Open your wallet wider

"Care" = Socialism

"Jobs Bill" = The 1% get a raise

"X Accountability Act" = More slacking inspectors at your expense

"X Transparency Act" = Your personal info is outed

"X Voting Act" = Longer booth lines

"X Justice Act" = Bloated jails over J-walking

"X Cost Cutting Act" = If you lose your job, you're hosed

"Digital Rights" = The right of Big Media to silence you with mob lawyers

"Tax Simplification" = Renaming corporate welfare clauses to sound better

Re:Patriotism?

[Anonymous Coward]

My country is a geographic statistic of my birth. How that justifies criminal and/or amoral behaviour against those with a slightly different statistic, I've never quite fathomed.

In short: Charity starts at home.

A simple technical explanation: Morality is heavily dependent on ability. Without a can, there is no ought. Those that you have the most influence over are those closest to you. Thus higher moral care must be given to your own country than one on the other side of the planet. How much so has yet to be studied seriously in academia.

Re:Patriotism?

[Anonymous Coward]

* Waving US flag *

Patriotism, guns, free speech, like anything, depends on the the use. It seems pretty clear that the US is better than Mexico. Even most Mexicans seem to think so. In this case, it comes down to less corruption and a more free economy. Europe's partial socialism is coming apart because they are finally running out of other people's money. I don't any of us would choose to live in one of the other more corrupt dictatorships.

So Yes. It's not perfect, but that's not what the flag means. It's definitely one of the best.

* Wave, Wave *.

Re:Patriotism?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. That patriotism is seen as something positive by a large majority is the number oy ne problem in the US today. Many of the issues that make the US such a crappy place compared to other western nations are a direct result of overzealous patriotism.

Re:Patriotism?

[Anonymous Coward]

... looked like the right thing to do ...

So how many Americans claim it's wrong to be patriotic? You haven't changed the problem: Sure, people own the shit-storm a bit more by saying they made a choice. But the choice is the same: Will the birthday cake be shared 'equally', or will I take what I want because I can?

... Patriotism is racism ...

Being owned by a government frequently translates to owing something to that government which must be repaid by blind obedience.

... "Not born here" syndrome.

A 'them versus us' conflict permeates most of human thinking. It is not going to change. What we need to change is our point-of-view. That is, a recognition of other persons. Other persons have a job and loved ones; other persons like fucking and wealth too. And mostly probably, other persons need a social structure that defines their importance and who leads them.

on to destroy the executive branch just like HP

[xeno]

disclaimer: I have a household member who's worked as an engineer at HP under Carly.

The unending wellspring of universal hatred for Carly as a leader from those who worked under her (especially at HP) is impressive, and remains constant even from people whose politics are somewhat to the right of Genghis Khan. She did what she was told, she laid waste to that not-so-micro economy, and she shows no regrets whatsoever -- for either the human or financial disaster in her wake. There's no surprise, then, to find she was unquestioningly supportive of what she perceives to be rungs above her on the ladder of power. Godwin's Law is entirely appropriate for examples of where this leads; don't mistake "comfortable sociopath" for "hawkish."

Carly is precisely the sort of person who should never be allowed to have power over others, or even a sharp knife at dinner: Total obedience and no discernible ethics at all.

Re:on to destroy the executive branch just like HP

[Anonymous Coward]

My father worked at HP in the early years when Bill and Dave ran the company. He spoke fondly of them. I ended up working there as well under Platt and leaving under Fiorina's reign. She was rarely in her office, but when she was she had the door closed. She never wandered the halls and engaged with the rank and file. She wasted lots of money on herself when she was asking the rest of employees to contain costs. She also constantly preached the HP Way, yet never practiced it. She was utterly ignorant of company history and it showed when she retold stories to employees that had been with the company for decades. I remember a time she flubbed the retelling of how Disney came to use our audio oscillators for Fantasia.

For somebody that thinks they are a patriot, she had no problem destroying employment and moving those jobs to other countries.

That scares me.

[AndyKron]

There are people in this country who want her to be president, and that scares me.

Re:That scares me.

[unixisc]

Don't worry. She'll either lose to Trump or Carson, or to Cruz or Bush

Re:That scares me.

[dbIII]

Sometimes I think the entire purpose of the bunch of crazies in that circus is to make a third Bush look like the good option - but that's assuming far more competence than is likely.

Grandstanding nonsense.

[forgottenusername]

Does anyone believe that the NSA shared any details or scope about their hardware purchase? Or any of their vendors?

"Hi we're building out datacenters so we can do some probably illegal data snooping, can you help us?" I'm sure an agency that is cloaked in as much secrecy as possible goes around sharing that sort of information. Especially without gag orders.

Not only is she a massive tool she's obviously full of it. She needs a gag, it's an order.

Re:Grandstanding nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly.

Around that time, I was a systems architect at a Fortune 10 company and was purchasing about 300 HP servers for a project - mostly N4000s, but some bigger stuff too. They delayed shipment on about half our N4000s, which impacted our project timelines significantly. It wasn't my fault, but gave me time to work on 19 other active projects which didn't need HP equipment - Sun and IBM were happy about that.

Carly didn't know details - just that the government wanted all the servers they could get - probably all the storage too- full with RAM, NICs, HBAs, etc .... ASAP. It was a state of emergency back then and I completely understand redirecting shipments. It wasn't patriotic, it was a way to get more orders from an important customer. Nothing more, nothing less.

At the time, the NSA was running lots of perl, we know from other whistle blowers. ;)

Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

Snowden for president! Sigh -- he's too young to be eligible for the office this time around. Laura Poitras for president!

Click-bait title, Kudos to HP & Carly

[Anonymous Coward]

Every American old enough to remember the events would have responded, extraordinary, in their own way. HP responded with the ways and means it could, for the benefit of this country. I have mixed feelings about the scope of the NSA but what I see posted here is amounts to a majority of A) tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorists B) angry teen hammering away at their keyboard in their parents basement, without a clue how the world works C) not old enough to know what that day really meany and finally D) some, honest people who have a sincere beliefs the NSA is going to far.

Re:Click-bait title, Kudos to HP & Carly

[dark.nebulae]

I watched with horror the impact of 9/11 just like many other Americans.

But I never offered to give up my privacy for a false sense of security. I never felt the Iraq war was justified and wouldn't have believed so even if they did find WMD (given the hawks involved, though, it's no wonder we went to war without there being any WMD).

Unfortunately too many people were fooled into believing that giving up their privacy and going to war with Iraq was the only way to get our security back. The fear mongering that has prevailed in most of our political discussions since 9/11 have consistently pushed for massive surveillance in the face of evidence showing that even through the worst of the bulk surveillance exposed by Snowden that no actionable intelligence had ever been gathered.

Personally I don't believe Carly or HP were doing anything for the benefit of the country; I'm sure the NSA was willing to pay a premium to get hardware as soon as possible and Carly/HP would have been more than happy to cash the NSA checks. That means that I don't necessarily believe that they did it for any personal reason worthy of attack, I think that it was just a business decision that anyone in the same position would have made.

Re:Click-bait title, Kudos to HP & Carly

[silentcoder]

>I think that it was just a business decision that anyone in the same position would have made.
That was my assessment as well - right up until the moment she bragged about it, and bragged about what it was used for.
I'm not so concerned with what she did, I am very justifiably concerned with how she feels about it now.

So let me get this straight...

[Overzeetop]

The government calls up your company for a big order of you product, and you make it happen and get the product delivered, and now you're going to crucified for it?

Carly was a horrible CEO and I want to see her ripped to pieces by rabid monkeys and dance about on the incinerated remains of her entrails. But I'm having a hard time seeing how - as a businesswoman - delivering a product for money makes her somehow worse because she happened to sell to the NSA. I'll still hate/mistrust her for the moral support of the questionable practices of the spook community in the 00s, but not for selling stuff.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[Locke2005]

Her fiduciary responsibility as CEO of a corporation was to maximize profits, thus maximizing returns to shareholders. CEOs have no fiduciary responsibility to act ethically, they only have a responsibility to not get caught, if getting caught would effect share price. The best thing Fiorini ever did for shareholders was to get fired -- HP share prices jumped 7% the day she left the company.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[Anonymous Coward]

The government calls up your company for a big order of you product, and you make it happen and get the product delivered, and now you're going to crucified for it?

If you sold someone a gun while knowing they planned to use it to murder someone, would you get in trouble? Should you be bragging about it after the murder?

Re:So let me get this straight...

[rastos1]

The best thing Fiorini ever did for shareholders was to get fired -- HP share prices jumped 7% the day she left the company.

If only she could have been fired twice. Or ten times. The share prices would skyrocket.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[rastos1]

Her fiduciary responsibility as CEO of a corporation was to maximize profits, thus maximizing returns to shareholders.

And the kids would like their parents to let them do nothing all day just roll in peanut butter and icecream and play games. But a responsible parent should see beyond that.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[Anonymous Coward]

A) The textbook definition goal of most CEOs is to increase stakeholder value. Stakeholders include shareholders, employees, and customers.
B) It depends on the corporate charter. If the charter mandates that the company adhere to some list of ethics, then a failure to adhere to those ethics opens them up to lawsuits from shareholders.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[Overzeetop]

Your analogy is entirely flawed. If you sell guns to the government, you expect them to be used in a war (police action, call it what you will). If you sell computers to a TLA, they're going to use it for spying.

It's not like they came to HP and said - we need to monitor every private citizen's communication in a way the is highly illegal and intrusive - what can you sell us for that? They said "we need X machines, it's a black project, can you deliver?"

This should be a season of House of Cards

[Anonymous Coward]

The head of the NSA goes to a computer exec, says "If you send me a boatload of systems for this, this, and this and keep it quiet, I'll use those systems to shape the media and public awareness for the next few years, then put you in the Whitehouse."

She's got the formula

[Ol Olsoc]

All she needs to do now is demand we teach creationism, Nuking the Mexian rapists, and burning gays at the stakes like they used to do before liberals emerged from hell and took over the world, and she's a shoo-in for the Presidential nomination>

Maybe put cameras in everyone's bedrooms - but please gawd, not hers!

Re:She's got the formula

[Anonymous Coward]

This post has a score above -1? Is this how people really feel? This country is doomed.

Re:She's got the formula

[tehcyder]

This post has a score above -1? Is this how people really feel? This country is doomed.

I suggest you google "sarcasm".

Directions

[SuperKendall]

So I guess you want us to vote for Clinton since she'll just use her home servers to spy on you instead?

Re:Directions

[unixisc]

They are not home servers. They were servers in a bathroom in Denver. I think there was plenty of cache flushing going on in those

Wipe this!

[Tablizer]

Eventually there's going to be an entire debate about servers

Did Clinton's email server run on HP gear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone know on what hardware Hillary Clinton's email server was running on? I wouldn't be too surprised if HP also sold that hardware.

Re:Did Clinton's email server run on HP gear?

[unixisc]

Itanic?

Equivalently bad headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama admits signing papers funding Secret Service hooker party.

Bitch needs to be publicly executed

[Anonymous Coward]

Death to all fascists.

Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Sanders is the only one that I think would give them any pushback./i>

Then you haven't been paying attention. Rand Paul ALREADY gave them a BUNCH of pushback.

Just one example: He one-man filibustered the renewal of the Patriot Act for 10 1/2 hours, making it actually time out and creating a gap (to invalidate any claims to legality for information collected before the expiration and not destroyed after it.)

Re:Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback.

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Rand Paul ALREADY gave them a BUNCH of pushback.

Except that Rand Paul lives in his libertarian fantasy land, favors his "smaller government" policing women's bodies, and he says that if a state wanted to reinstate slavery, he'd be okay with it because, you know, "states rights".

He's also fine with Kim Davis not issuing marriage licenses to anyone she doesn't personally approve of.

Sorry, but all those things are a FAIL in my book. Sometimes he makes sense...but the rest of the time he's a loon, just like his crackpot daddy.

Re:Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback.

[KGIII]

Rand Paul is not a Libertarian. He's a fucking neo-con who coopted the title without actually knowing shit about the platform. Any Rand was a fucking moron. The fault is not yours. The fault is ours for not having spoken up. I am working to change that. We Libertarians are fine with protecting the commons and, you know what, letting gays wed has jack shit to do with the government and should never have been an issue in the first place - make legally binding civil unions (contracts) and leave weddings and such to the damned churches. Let them have their primitive ceremonies.

It's in the name - 'liberty.' It hasn't got a damned thing to do with businesses, in fact. Businesses, well, they have rights but they're pretty damned low on the list of priorities and take a back seat to the individual and the commons.

Sorry, I get a bit riled sometimes but I hate Paul. His dad was marginally better. Well, maybe an order of magnitude now that I think of it. As a fairly moderate Libertarian you'll find that I'm more likely to vote for Sanders than for any other candidate at this point. That tells you how screwed the spectrum is. I, a Libertarian, am further to the left (in practice - though my reasons are different) than any elected official that I know about.

Why am I on the left? Well, how about the whole personal freedoms thing. Let's ensure we have the rights to act on our freedoms. Now, I support a strong social safety net, libraries, roads, etc... Why? It stops people from stealing my shit. I like my shit. I paid for it because I wanted it. I don't want the poor and destitute to turn into roving hordes of thieves. I want them fed, housed, educated, and able to be at liberty to control their lives in an upwardly mobile fashion for the long term. Feed them. Protect them. Educate them. Give them the same chances I had.

I sure as shit don't care what you do in your bedroom (with consenting individuals). I sure as hell don't want the government snooping unlawfully - or at all, if we can realistically help that. I want my rights protected. I want my liberties. I want them for you, too. I'd seriously consider going to jail for cracking Paul in the jaw, live and on public television. I probably wouldn't but, man, he's done nothing to help the image. And yes, the image is our fault. Let me apologize for having been so lazy and inattentive. The fault is my own, and of others, and I'm striving to change this but it will take time. You can help, if you want, but first you may need to readjust your views and decide what works for you.

Re:Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback.

[dbIII]

That time wasting stunt got nothing done apart from boosting his reputation.
Mission accomplished.
He gets to keep his job a bit longer without actually changing anything.
What is he going to do when something actually matters? We don't know and since he's such an outsider he's unlikely to ever be in a position where we can find out.
He's a seat warmer drawing salary until he retires and despite bold words he's unlikely to ever be anything else. If he really wanted to make a difference he would found his own party instead of being a noisy nobody in a party that is never going to do what he suggests.

Re:Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback.

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I sure as shit don't care what you do in your bedroom (with consenting individuals).

Whew, I was worried there for a moment. ;)

Seriously though, this was all I needed to know about Ron Paul:

Ron Paul gets the answer wrong.

(The question was, "If a 5-year old child of illegal immigrants shows up at an emergency room, does he get medical care?")

Re:Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback.

[silentcoder]

What did you expect from him ? He's following in Daddy's footsteps with the greatest political scam ever invented: getting elected to serve on a government where literally the only thing you EVER do is give long speeches about how the government shouldn't be allowed to do anything. Think about that... you' get employed by the people, then spend all your time convincing the people that they should never ever allow you t do your job.
It's brilliant... and sad.

Re:Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback.

[dbIII]

There's a lot of that about.

Re:Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback.

[KGIII]

We Libertarians aren't all crackpots and we actually can make sense when we're not too stoned. We may have some outlandish ideas from time to time but we're generally harmless. Unfortunately, we've been coopted by ashamed Republicans, angst-filled teens, people with Asperger's (spelling?), and more. The 1980s was the start to our downfall. We were pretty high, to be honest. It was great seeing the new interest. It was awesome to let anyone use the name and bring us more publicity. Good idea, they said... Good idea... *sighs*

So, now we've got a mess and a bunch of semi-literate, mentally handicapped, pseudo-rugged individualist who are more interested in oppressing and corporatism than they are the rights of the individual. It is illegal for me to cause them bodily harm.

Re:Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback.

[tehcyder]

Your vision of libertarianism is not the same as 99% of the right wing loons who post on slashdot. I don't think it's just a matter of presentation though, it is a genuine difference in defining what is right and wrong.

Re:Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback.

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

We may have some outlandish ideas from time to time

Yes, yes you do. And yes, most of you seem harmless, but that's mainly because your ideas haven't been implemented.

Libertarianism conflicts strongly with reality, which is why there has never been a society, country, or government based on libertarian ideas. It just doesn't work in the real world.

Most of the libertarians I've met have been genuinely nice people, but they've also never dug down deeply into their ideas, at least not deeply enough to see why the ideas are, at their most basic levels, impossible to implement in the real world.

I'm not saying this to make you angry or to start a fight, I'm saying it because I have dug down pretty deeply into those foundational ideas, and while they're great on paper, they fall apart when put into practice.

Re:Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback.

[KGIII]

That's because you're probably thinking it is an all or nothing thing. No one system, not even capitalism, is going to ever work. No political ideology will work in its pure form. They're all unsustainable. Maybe you need to do a bit more thinking and digging.

Re:Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback.

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

No political ideology will work in its pure form

Agreed...and this brings me to another point, namely that every single libertarian I've ever spoken with has a very different definition of what "libertarianism" is.

The same isn't true with capitalism. Capitalism is fairly well defined, and most people can agree on what it means even if the finer points get a little fuzzy. But in terms of libertarianism the definitions are all over the map, most of them are wildly divergent with very little in common.

Many libertarians has vague definitions of what they think it means, but a lot of those notions break down as soon as you start to ask questions, like "who enforces what", and what central authority or base authority would be used to settle disputes. At that point it all goes pear-shaped and the "solutions" I get frequently devolve into some form of feudalism or "whoever has the most power". Or whoever got their first. Or whoever can claim "ownership", another term that seems to be lacking a common definition.

For example, say you "own" a piece of property (whatever that means)...who or what gives you ownership of that property, and who or what enforces your supposed rights to that property? The answers I get to this question alone range from simplistic to unworkable to downright daffy.

As I said, there has never been a functioning society, country, or government based on libertarian ideals or concepts, because it all falls apart when it comes face-to-face with real people in the real world.

Seriously- I've looked at and read about libertarianism for 35+ years, and in all that time I've never seen even a hint of a practical way to implement it. It's just not a realistic structure for a society to base itself on.

Re:Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback.

[david_thornley]

One problem with libertarianism as a vision is that nobody wants government that's bigger than what they think is needed, so the ideology really isn't convincing. In practice, their ideas don't look good. Last time I read a Libertarian Party platform, it advocated individual lawsuits as a replacement for government regulation, and when you start thinking about that it gets ridiculous.

Consider air pollution: suppose there's a hundred factories in town polluting the air, and that we can establish the damage done to my by the pollution at $30K. Is it practical for me to file a hundred lawsuits asking for $300 each? For each lawsuit, I'd have to have evidence against that particular factory. For this to have a net positive outcome for me, my costs for each lawsuit, including gathering evidence and time spent, would have to be well under $300. Nor will that deter the polluters, unless the other hundred thousand householders in the city also file those hundred lawsuits. At this point, the government has to be able to rapidly process ten million lawsuits, and provide free investigation and representation. It's a LOT less intrusive to pass laws that limit pollution and have the government (at some level or another) enforce them.

Re:Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback.

[KGIII]

We let anyone into the tent - it's kind of like Buddhism or Hinduism in those regards. I don't believe we should have. One of the biggest problems is that people mistake Libertarianism with an economic model, it's not - it's a political ideology. The rights of the people, the rights of the commons, and so on down the line in that order. It's in the title - liberty. However, it's been bastardized all to hell. I blame our own lax standards with allowing anyone to claim they're a Libertarian and Ayn Rand. Well, I blame a few others as well but you get the idea. There are anarcho-capitalists, anarchists, even socialists and neo-cons under the tent. I'm not sure where they fit but they seem happy here. It's not helping. I'm probably best referred to as a Classic Libertarian.

Re:Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback.

[Grishnakh]

I honestly don't see why you consider yourself libertarian at all. Almost everyone who actually uses that label seems to be an Ayn Rand and Objectivism fan. The views you support here are classic left-of-center thinking, exactly what I agree with, and pretty close to what Sanders advocates: liberals have almost always been in favor of "libertarianism" for social issues (gay marriage, etc.), while not so much for economic issues where they believe in a social safety net, strong government services (libraries, roads, etc.), and regulation of corporate behavior, while still supporting (mostly) free enterprise economics, and of course keeping religion far away from government.

Re:Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback.

[KGIII]

I am not fond of Wikipedia but have a gander...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I'm not in the group that also ascribes to laissez-faire capitalism. The start of the fourth paragraph might help too. The whole article isn't bad.

As for you other post, Bernie's not that far away, really. We'd take him under the tent. We'd have to work on his idea of big government. Unfortunately (fortunately, maybe?) there have been a lot of people who've waved the flag. Take a gander at the Wikipedia article.

re: Sanders

[King_TJ]

Yeah..... I actually agree. Though I don't like the idea of Bernie getting elected at ALL, it's also pretty clear he's not paid for by the establishment (corporate interests, military contractors, etc.). He's essentially advocating for the United States to end the political design of its founders and convert to Socialism. That, in itself, separates him from everyone else running for office under the Democratic or Republican ticket.

Carly & Islam

[unixisc]

Note that Carly's undergraduate degree is in medieval history. This (of course) has prepared her for her previous position as CEO of Hewlett-Packard and will surely come in handy should she ever become elected to office.

I worked for HP under Carly's reign. Frankly, she'd sell her mother to get what she wants.

I find it interesting that she didn't mention any of this or the "flopping fetus" video crap when running for California Senate.

What's really scary is that some people actually believe she'd be a good President.

I guess we're scraping the bottom, given our choices.

And she used that 'knowledge' of hers to include this priceless quote in her speech just weeks after 9/11:

I’ll end by telling a story.

There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world.

It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean, and from northern climes to tropics and deserts. Within its dominion lived hundreds of millions of people, of different creeds and ethnic origins.

One of its languages became the universal language of much of the world, the bridge between the peoples of a hundred lands. Its armies were made up of people of many nationalities, and its military protection allowed a degree of peace and prosperity that had never been known. The reach of this civilization’s commerce extended from Latin America to China, and everywhere in between.

And this civilization was driven more than anything, by invention. Its architects designed buildings that defied gravity. Its mathematicians created the algebra and algorithms that would enable the building of computers, and the creation of encryption. Its doctors examined the human body, and found new cures for disease. Its astronomers looked into the heavens, named the stars, and paved the way for space travel and exploration.

Its writers created thousands of stories. Stories of courage, romance and magic. Its poets wrote of love, when others before them were too steeped in fear to think of such things.

When other nations were afraid of ideas, this civilization thrived on them, and kept them alive. When censors threatened to wipe out knowledge from past civilizations, this civilization kept the knowledge alive, and passed it on to others.

While modern Western civilization shares many of these traits, the civilization I’m talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600, which included the Ottoman Empire and the courts of Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo, and enlightened rulers like Suleiman the Magnificent.

Although we are often unaware of our indebtedness to this other civilization, its gifts are very much a part of our heritage. The technology industry would not exist without the contributions of Arab mathematicians. Sufi poet-philosophers like Rumi challenged our notions of self and truth. Leaders like Suleiman contributed to our notions of tolerance and civic leadership.

And perhaps we can learn a lesson from his example: It was leadership based on meritocracy, not inheritance. It was leadership that harnessed the full capabilities of a very diverse population–that included Christianity, Islamic, and Jewish traditions.

This kind of enlightened leadership — leadership that nurtured culture, sustainability, diversity and courage — led to 800 years of invention and prosperity.

This disgraceful polemic was taken to shreds by an Assyrian who took her speech apart

Dear Madame Fiorina:

It is with great interest that I read your speech delivered on September 26, 2001, titled "Technology, Business and Our way of Life: What's Next" [sic]. I was particularly interested in the story you told at the end of your speech, about the Arab/Muslim civilization. As an Assyrian, a non-Arab, Christian native of the Middle East, whose ancestors reach back to 5000 B.C., I wish to clarify some points you made i

Re:Carly & Islam

[tehcyder]

tl;dr version of the above essay: she is evil because she didn't totally demonize Islam.

Re:Carly & Islam

[unixisc]

... days after 9/11, when Islam was the glaring motivating factor behind the incident

Re:Carly & Islam

[nvm_my_comment]

not quite, the tl;dr is: Those she speak of were Assyrian not Arabs.

Re:Carly & Islam

[Perky_Goth]

Na, I think the point is that she doesn't even know that much within her own area of study.

Move along

[Anonymous Coward]

Enough all ready! George Bush has been out of office for nearly seven years. Folks are still dredging up the past?

Re:Move along

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans are still running against Jimmy Carter, so I don't see why Bush isn't fair game. After all, his brother is running for president, too.

Re:Move along

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans are still running against Jimmy Carter

Worse, they're all trying to use Reagan's ghost as their running mate.

Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad Hillary's email server wasn't an HP. Then we could blame a vast right wing conspiracy for enabling her to break the law

Patriotism vs. Nationalism ?

[King_TJ]

Reminds me of a big discussion we had in history class back in high school .... Supposedly, Nationalism was the blind, "racism without mention of color" that you speak of, as opposed to the good/healthy concept of Patriotism.

Frankly, I was never that convinced the difference was substantial. In theory anyway, Patriotism is simply taking pride in your country without going to the extreme of using it as a reason to put down any other nation.

As you point out though? In practice, I think the difference amounts to splitting hairs, because the place you're born into is just a structured organization full of rules and regulations. Chances are, some of them are ones you agree with and others you take issue with. There's never a valid reason to declare something "right" or "better/superior" just because it comes from the nation you were born in or live in. Even if all you do is wave the flag and put a big one in your front yard, you're probably accomplishing almost nothing. (What message are you trying to send with those flags? Letting people know you're one of their citizens? So what? Most people probably figure that out with the need to fly a flag to let them know.)

Re:Patriotism vs. Nationalism ?

[dbIII]

The thing that did it for me is when Oliver North wrapped himself in a flag to get his photo taken, then had "Patriot" written over it after selling weapons to Iran and Hezbolla while embezzling a bit on the side for a convertible and airconditioning for his house. For a while that was the definition of "Patriot" for one wing of the Republican party despite it looking a hell of a lot like treason and theft to me.
So when it's laid on really thick it can mean an utterly evil prick wrapped up in a flag to hide how disgusting he is.

Itanic servers?

[unixisc]

This would have been a good opportunity for her to sell Itanium servers to the NSA, locking them in w/ HP/UX for almost ever

Re:what a stupid cunt

[Anonymous Coward]

You can see it in her face!

love this line...

[Anonymous Coward]

"is but one episode in a long-running and close relationship between the GOP presidential hopeful and U.S. intelligence agencies"

Yeah, because its only the GOP that enables this. Its only the GOP that allows it to continue going on after everyone in the country screams for the NSA to stop. Its ONLY the GOP that infringes upon our constitutionally protected rights. Sure.

wow

[WindBourne]

So many ppl miss the fact that you being sarcastic.

give me a fucking break

[WindBourne]

This did NOT have ANYTHING to do with murdering anybody. All that happened is that the NSA listened in on terrorists, as well as other nations. ALL NATIONS have spy agencies that listen in on others. China has one of the most active spy ring going in the world.
To fucking compare this to the death camps of Hitler shows how disgusting you really are.

Re:give me a fucking break

[Jeremi]

All that happened is that the NSA listened in on terrorists, as well as other nations

If that was "all that happened", there wouldn't be much controversy. But in addition that, the NSA was also extralegally collecting the phone records of tens of millions of Americans, despite repeated assurances to the public that they were not doing that.

Re:give me a fucking break

[KGIII]

I believe their point was that comparing it with the holocaust is silly. You're still doing that.

Re:give me a fucking break

[Anonymous Coward]

But in addition that, the NSA is also extralegally collecting all phone records from everyone, despite repeated assurances to the public that they are not still doing that.

FTFY

Re:give me a fucking break

[tehcyder]

I believe their point was that comparing it with the holocaust is silly. You're still doing that.

It's a rhetorical device, not a statement of mathematically exact moral equivalence.

Re:give me a fucking break

[david_thornley]

It's a bad rhetorical device as used, because the disparity in the magnitude of the things claimed to be similar is too large. If I were to say, "She held the door open for someone to sneak into the movie theater, much like IBM facilitated the Holocaust", it'd be more obvious.

Bring it on

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck people who wants to harm others. Cry me a river

Her presidential run is effectively over

[Anonymous Coward]

Stick a fork in it... another win for Trump. Thanks, Carly.

ROFL.

[Anonymous Coward]

That ship has sailed.

Thanks for the info

[Anonymous Coward]

1 less candidate I need to bother to vote for. And 1 less company I need to purchase our districts systems from.

Patriotic ?????

[nult]

When did ratting out the American public become patriotic ? Does she have no morals ? She should be ashamed of her actions.

Re:Patriotic ?????

[EthanDemurs]

If one were to be "ratted out" then that implies that they're in fact up to no good. Instead, she directly endorsed the spying and mass collection of data on innocent (until proven guilty) citizens. Police agencies seem to have no problem proving guilt without even disclosing the tactics they use to gain the information and the courts don't seem to mind either.

Re:Patriotic ?????

[dbIII]

When did ratting out the American public become patriotic ? Does she have no morals ?

A couple of decades after selling weapons to Iran and Hezbolla were patriotic.
Declarations of patriotism are frequently about wrapping up filth in a flag.

Re:Patriotic ?????

[Anonymous Coward]

When did a space before a question mark become the correct style?

OMG!

[kenh]

A tier-1 vendor supplied servers to the NSA! OMG! We need to boycott that vendor!

Wait, what? Other Tier-1 vendors ALSO wanted to win the NSA procurement contract? We must boycott them also!

And you know what? I hear they have Coca-Cola machines at the NSA! I bet their employees drank countless caffeinated sodas from Coca-Cola as they were violating the civil rights of countless millions of Americsns - we need to boycott Coca-Cola as well!

You know what? I bet all the government cars in the NSA fleet come from GM - we need to boycott all GM cars for their support of warrantless wiretaps!

Wow, it's amazing how many corporations secretly support the NSA's warrantless wiretapping! /sarcasm

Re:OMG!

[Anonymous Coward]

If Coca-Cola tainted batches of their product at the bidding of the NSA, then, yeah, I'd never drink Coke again the rest of my life.

Re:OMG!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, I wasn't going to buy from HP anyway!

Carly knows a lot about torture

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask anyone who worked for her at HP

Great! Fiorina Implicates Herself In Treason

[Anonymous Coward]

The HP servers of the day were a bone-yard of hacked code, SYS V et al, with load of back-doors for the selling, $$$$$$. So Pakistan Ops got a smooth sailing with Fionia and HP to infiltrate every US Department and Agency! Thank you Ms. Pervert Fionia.

Ha ha not

Re: Sanders

[Anonymous Coward]

Convert to socialism? We the people? Didn't realize we the people promoting the general welfare and removing the indebted servitude we've come to accept as normal is against the political design of the USA.

You've been watching too much Fox News.

What is patriotism?

[GrantRobertson]

A country consists of its land and its people. NOT its government. Patriotism means supporting the land and the people. NOT necessarily the government. Especially NOT supporting the government AGAINST the people!

Nothing to brag about.

[nospam007]

Thank god, Fiorina. Better if they use crappy HPs than if they used real good servers.

Carly pwns Hillary

[Hognoxious]

One server is an embarrassment. A truckload of servers is a statistic.

I wouldn't vote for her

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry, no vote for her from me.

Who wants a pre-corrupted president?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is enough time for corruption on the job.

It would have been illegal for her not to

[Anonymous Coward]

The executive board of a company has a fiduciary duty to the shareholders to maximize the value of their shares. It is a criminal act to knowingly breach this duty, as she would have done had she turned away a purchase order worth millions of dollars from a willing customer.

She is a terrible example of a human being

[ThatsNotPudding]

Thus, she is a Republican.

Re: Sanders

[silentcoder]

If you think the socialism Bernie Sanders supports was not EXACTLY what your Founding Fathers ACTUALLY had in mind, you don't know jack shit about your founding fathers.
Practically every policy proposal Bernie Sanders has on anything economics related can be found in Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith - who basically wrote the textbook for the founding father's economic ideas.

It's only in America that his ideas would be deemed "socialist" anyway, every else on earth it would be center-left welfare state capitalism.

Re: Sanders

[dave420]

You apparently don't know of the masses of socialized systems in place in the US. "Convert to socialism" he says. Wow.

Business as usual ...

[Anonymous Coward]

She was just doing her job, there's nothing really patriotic or even philosophical about it.
What she should explain is how she merged two of the most promising technology companies in the world and reduced them to virtually nothing.

Dave420 "eats his words"

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & "read em' & weep" Dave420 http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

* "EATING YOUR WORDS" != GOOD NUTRITION fool!

APK

P.S.=> How'd they taste, Dave420? Flavored with the "bitter taste of SELF-defeat", & washed down with your FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH ramming them down?? LMAO @ U, fool... apk

Dave420 "eats his words"

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & "read em' & weep" Dave420 http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

* "EATING YOUR WORDS" != GOOD NUTRITION fool!

APK

P.S.=> How'd they taste, Dave420? Flavored with the "bitter taste of SELF-defeat", & washed down with your FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH ramming them down?? LMAO @ U, fool... apk

Dave420 "eats his words"

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & "read em' & weep" Dave420 http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

* "EATING YOUR WORDS" != GOOD NUTRITION fool!

APK

P.S.=> How'd they taste, Dave420? Flavored with the "bitter taste of SELF-defeat", & washed down with your FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH ramming them down?? LMAO @ U, fool... apk

Dave420 "eats his words"

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & "read em' & weep" Dave420 http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

* "EATING YOUR WORDS" != GOOD NUTRITION fool!

APK

P.S.=> How'd they taste, Dave420? Flavored with the "bitter taste of SELF-defeat", & washed down with your FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH ramming them down?? LMAO @ U, fool... apk

*Ahem* Rand Paul filibuster?

[Anonymous Coward]

I may not agree with everything he says or does, but it seemed like that filibuster was an honest attempt at pushback.

Failing all the way way up

[Anonymous Coward]

We really don't need articles on Slashdot that demonize people like this.

People like this... Yes we do.

Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

As if she was even in a position to comprehend anything that HP was actually selling. Are you kidding me?

So what...

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet Dell, Apple, and all other computer hardware manufacturer would or did the same.
The only reason why Sam Gustin is pointing this out because he is a bias Democrat.
4 article on the first page are about Republicans.
http://motherboard.vice.com/author/SamGustin

Sam Gustin needs to change title to "Bias Democrat, Business, technology, public policy."

Re: Sanders

[silentcoder]

I know that "socialized systems" is a meaningless term and has nothing to do with socialism either.

Check a dictionary. Socialism is defined as a system of economics where the workers own the means of production.

That's the ENTIRE definition, within Marxist philosophy it gets a rider attached - which basically comes down to "not good enough".

But that, broad, definition is all of it.
Please note that NOWHERE in the definition of socialism does the word "state" or "government" occur, it has nothing to do with them. And thus you get, for example, anarchist forms of socialism which has no government - yet make perfect logical sense (and, unlike libertarianism, an anarcho-socialist industrialized society HAS in fact existed, Andalusia in the early 20th century was exactly that).

So the following things which are commonly called "Socialist" in the USA are clearly NOT in fact socialist: public libraries, welfare states and entitlements, government services, the civil service and beaurocracies, taxation, universal healthcare -even Canadian style, big government or authoritarianism.

None of those things bear any resemblance to the definition of socialism -and neither does any significant European country today.

Now here are some things which *are* in fact socialist - and which no American would ever call that: cab drivers who own their cabs, that worker-owned, democratically managed robotics factory in Texas (coincidentally - the largest robotics factory in the USA). Co-ops, Mutual Funds, Fair Deal coffee suppliers, lawyers and doctors with their own practice, most plumbers, most electricians - in fact absolutely every one-man-business, and every partnership too (at least, until they hire staff - but if they make the staff partners then they are back to being socialist).

It rather affects your perspective on things, when you use words to mean what they ACTUALLY mean don't you ?
This is also why I say that, as much as I respect Sanders he is decidedly NOT a socialist, his policies are not in any way intended to make more businesses be owned by workers and no other policies except ONLY such policies can fairly be called "socialist" policies. And I know the man is smart enough to know that, so I presume that in calling himself a socialist he is, in fact, actively trolling the American people and their inability to open dictionaries and swallow propaganda even when that propaganda completely redefines words.
To quote Sir Terry Pratchett: If you want to find snakes, look for them behind the words that have changed their meanings.

Allowing politicians to define your terms for you is basically ASKING to get deceived.

The answer was right - the presentation horrible.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The Q was: Should the children of illegal aliens get government funded emergency treatment at hospitals.

As I hear it, Ron got tongue-tied because he was trying to provide a multi-part answer under pressure.

The answer (as I heard it) was:

  - Government shouldn't force hospitals to give emergency care to ANYone, legal, illegal, kids of illegals, etc.

  - Government should ALSO not put roadblocks in front of those (such as the Catholic Church) who do want to operate emergency rooms and give care to all comers, and historically have done so (but have to a large extent been driven out by these government interventions).

  - We should get government out regulating (screwing up) and (under) funding emergency room and other medicine, go back to what we had before they meddled, which did a much better job providing emergency care, and move on from there.

The answer was pretty clear to me, but I can easily see how it would be misheard as "the kids of illegals should not get medical care".

I note that the anti-Ron Paul propagandists tried really hard to paint him as an anti-black racist, too. That ground to a halt after the husband of a patient came forward and started campaigning for him.

Seems his wife was at a hospital E-room, bleeding out from pregnancy complications, and on infinite wait, getting no service. He tried to bring her condition to the attention of the medical staff and they had called security, which was about to take them away. Then Ron (a gynecologist on duty) walked in, saw what was happening, and intervened, getting the wife the immediate emergency care needed to save her and the baby's lives, and getting the security off the husband's case.