Dear Senator Kerry,
In several resent speeches, you have complained about what you term "vicious, unfair, partisan" attacks on your character from supporters of President Bush. In light of that, I was wondering what you thought of the many comparisons made by liberals of President Bush to Adolf Hitler. I am not speaking here of the usual Internet kooks and yahoos, but of several national figures such as cartoonist Ted Rall, billionaire currency trader George Soros, and the liberal activist group MoveOn.org. Do you feel these comparisons are valid? If not, do you feel that they are within the realm of "respectable" political opinion? If not, what statements have you or your running mate made to condemn or discourage such statements?
Why do I have the feeling that the speeds obtained by this solar scooter will rival those of the Slowmobile from the Bureaucracy ("How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back") episode of Futurama?
Bureaucrat: "Oh no, now you've got my slowmobile off course and I'm going to crash!"
Slowmobile moves very, very slowly into a pile of boxes over the next five seconds.
Perhaps it would be better if you actually knew what you were talking about before posting to Slashdot.
Meanwhile, numerous Fox figures referred to the second photo as fake. On Feb. 17, Mara Liasson referred to "doctored photographs of John Kerry and Jane Fonda." (She said nearly the same phrase on March 11). On Feb. 24, Alan Colmes spoke of "phonied up pictures of Fonda and Kerry together." On March 10, Carl Cameron referred to "doctored photos of Kerry with Jane Fonda on the Internet." Indeed, Brit Hume explicitly told Fox viewers that the first photo was "fake" in a Feb. 23 broadcast
Merely repeating a lie doesn't make it true. Fox has said several times the photo was false, as did National Review and several other conservative sources.
There was a time when Andrew Sullivan could have conceivably been labeled a conservative, but it's passed. Sullivan's analysis of the war on terror used to be interesting, but since he become a single interest voter over the issue of gay marriage, it's colored the rest of his thinking and writing. These days he's probably best described as an "angry moderate."
If you really want to read a high-quality conservative blog, here are two from National Review Online:
The Corner, a braided-blog with constributions by many of NR's writers, run by Kathryn Jean Lopez, and
The Kerry Spot, penned by Jim Geraghty, whichs follows Kerry and his campaign closely, as well as related subjects. (The Kerry Spot was one of the best sites to follow for updates on Rathergate.
Speaking of Rathergate, a seminal blogsphere watershed that Slashdot has not chosen to feature on its front page, here are some of the key blogs which helped break open the Rathergate story:
Finally, although I'm less of a regular reader, it was a poster on Free Republic who first broke the story.
Well, that should get you started. in truth, except for the NR blogs, I was only an occasional readers of the others before the Rathergate story broke, but now I'm much more of a regular reader, much to the detriment of my productivity...
Victim does online gambling; shady = vulnerable
on
Fighting Online Extortion
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
It seems that just like in the real world, extortionists like to target operations of dubious legality. I suspect the low-hanging fruit for people looking to carry out this kind of spam are businesses in the gray area of legality and respectability (online gambling, porn sites, "Mexican Drug Stores," etc.). Though profitable, these sites might have more to fear with going to the police than paying the extortionist. This is why, here in the real, non-virtual world, criminals often pray on illegal immigrant businesses for "protection" money. I also wonder whether the firms being targeted are also vulnerable because they're too shady to deal with firms like Akamai.
Now if only cyber-extortionists would target well-known spammers...
No, it wasn't Ethel Mermen, it was Bea Arthur. And yes, it wass horrible.
On the other hand, Carrie Fisher actually sang pretty well, it was just that the song was insipid trash. You don't hear a lot of people celebrating life-day these days...
The reason it will never be released on DVD is that George Lucas would die of shame.
I've seen it. Twice. (Why? Evidence suggests I',m an idiot. No, wait, that wasn't it. I was going to do an article on it for someone, but never got around to it. Anyone out there want to pay me to write and publishthat article? I've just bought a house, so I need the money...)
As God is my witness, The Star Wars Holiday Special is worse than Manos, the Hands of Fate. SEE! Bea Arthur sing a Kurt Weil-esque ditty in the Cantina! SEE! Wookies speak incomprehensibly to each other for ten minutes. SEE! Jefferson Starship perform! (Actually, that's one of the higlights, not because its particularly good, but because it's a blessed relief from the show itself.) SEE! Mark Hamil wearing enough mascara and eyeliner to play the MC in a Fire Island production of Cabaret! SEE! Harvey Korman play three roles! SEE! Grandpa Wookie watching human psuedo-porn! SEE! An embalmed Art Carney! SEE! Carrie Fisher sing! SEE! The lowlight of careers for every single peraon involved!
He only appropriate way to release it on DVD would be with an extra track that consisted of nothing but everyone involved aplogizing for the entire length of the film. ("I'm really, really sorry. It was the 70s and they gave me an awful lot of coke before I signed the contract...")
Forbidden Planet should have replaced The Day the Earth Stood Still on this list. Both are somewhat dated, but I think Forbidden Planet is unquestionably the superior of the two, and also the one that holds up better today. For sheer sense of wonder at the scale, the Krell interiors are still awesome, and for sheer tension the attack of the Monster from the Id (both times) wasn't surpassed in an SF film until the attack on the Death Star.
In fact, thre's a law in France making it a crime to "attack the character of the French President." That, combined with communist control of many of the French journalist's unions, means that many stories (such as all the members of the French government, past and present, who had their hands in the ELF bribery scandal, or, for that matter, the UN Oil-for-food scandel) never get adequately reported in the French press.
At that's to say nothing of the French journalist who got fired for pointing out that the French press were so incompetently pro-Saddam that the were talking about "terrible" American casualties and "fierce" Iraqi resistence right up until Saddam's statue was toppled.
I am given to understand that the name came not firsthand from the epic poem, but second-hand via Niven, Pournelle & Barnes' SF novel The Legacy of Hereot. In it were some big, nasty monsters they dubbed "grendels," which they then proceeded to wipe, only to find out that the adult form was what was keeping the numbers of the immature form under control, resulting in a massed attacked by thousands of "baby grendels." I remember reading that this was what inspired the Beowulf name in a FAQ several years ago. Anyone know if it's true?
At every opportunity, the Eurocrats in Brussels have shown that they are far more interested in increasing their own powers than in representing the citizens of the nation-states which make up the EU. In every case, whenever EU rules override existing national law, the flow of power has been away from elected regional or national governments and toward unelected EU bureaucrats, the very opposite of federalism. Every bureaucracy seeks to increase and enlarge its own powers, but the EU bureaucracy, being doubly-insulated from possible electoral outrage, has done so far more than most. This has resulted in an EU bureaucracy that is far more autocratic, insular, centralizing, self-interested, and socialist than the vast majority of both EU nation states and their citizens. That's why you will see ever-more votes like this one, increasing the power of Brussels' bureaucrats and their special interest allies at the expense of the citizenry of the nations making up the EU.
It's not surprising that venture capitalists are following blogs. Despite the vast amount of kibble out there only of interest to the blogger's friends ("I took my Snookypums to the vet today..."), the best of them are frequently scooping major media on important stories.
Shanghai Knights is probably the best (that is to say, least stupid) of all the films Jackie Chan has done in Hollywood. Sure, it's not a patch on his best Hong Kong work, but it has a complete, blessed, 100% absence of Chris Tucker.
in the same way that "Kaypro" says "FM receiver," "DEC Alpha" means "high quality headphones," and "TRS-80 ColorComputer" means "DVD player." But that's still less than "Cromeco" says "brick" or "Timex Sinclair" says "Doorstop."
Locus, the professional news and reviews monthly of written science fiction.
Asimov's Science Fiction, the science fiction's premiere fiction magazine (also where I've sold most of my stories). F&SF would be the runner-up.
I used to read The Weekly Standard as well as National Review, but let my subscription lapse when I found myself falling rurther and further behind. Reason is also worth looking at.
Up-tempo, feel good music. Music that puts a smile on your face and a spring in your step. Music that uplifts the human spirit. But, most of all, what the public really wants is more songs about serial killers and Satan.
Let's face it, if you're the type of geek that likes playing with multiple distributions, you're exactly NOT the type of geek likely to pay for them. (For that matter, you probably want to compile all your kernals from source code anyway.) As far as I can see, the only real market for this might be:
1. Hardcore geeks on dialup, a set that's getting smaller all the time, or
2. A corporate IT center who wants to elvaluate multiple distros for a production environment, and it's just easier to buy three distros from a single source.
Moreover, this would seem to be exactly the opposite of Lindows/Linspire's current target market, i.e. people who want a computer that sorta/kinda works like Windows, but is cheaper than paying the Microsoft tax. Joe Blow picking up his $299 Lindows box at Walmart is the last person who needs multiple distros (or, for that matter, even knows what a "distro" is).
What am I missing? Who's the market for this package?
In Capitalism: The Unknown Idea, Ayn Rand had an interesting idea: Let anyone who wanted to "homestead" frequencies. After a few years of chaos, those using the frequencies inefficiently wou;d go out of business; those that were still around would receive the "homestead rights" to use that particular frequency.
It's an intriguing idea, and it would be interesting to see how it might work on a new frequency being opened up for commercial use. Some wild startup might come up with a use far more compelling than any bigger potential competitor. I think it would be an experiment worth running.
If you had invaded a country, committed genocide against it's people, done all you can to stamp out their indigenous culture (one commentator put it "Imagine if the Nazis upon invading France had pulled down every church except Norte Dame, and burned and looted every museum except the Louvre. That's what China did in Tibet."), colonized it and incorported it into your own nation, I'm sure you'd want to repress all mention of it as well.
Unfortunately, I don't have good hard figures on the death toll from China's genocide in Tibet (as opposed to the genocide committed against ethnic Chinese during the great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, estimates for which range between 30-60 million), and Rummel doesn't have an seperate index entry for Tibet in Death by Goverment. Here's a protest poster that claims 1.2 million Tibetans have died as the results of China's occupation. We probably won't know the real number until (like the Soviet Union) after China is liberated from Communism at some future date.
Slashdot Mirror
In several resent speeches, you have complained about what you term "vicious, unfair, partisan" attacks on your character from supporters of President Bush. In light of that, I was wondering what you thought of the many comparisons made by liberals of President Bush to Adolf Hitler. I am not speaking here of the usual Internet kooks and yahoos, but of several national figures such as cartoonist Ted Rall, billionaire currency trader George Soros, and the liberal activist group MoveOn.org. Do you feel these comparisons are valid? If not, do you feel that they are within the realm of "respectable" political opinion? If not, what statements have you or your running mate made to condemn or discourage such statements?
Why do I have the feeling that the speeds obtained by this solar scooter will rival those of the Slowmobile from the Bureaucracy ("How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back") episode of Futurama?
Bureaucrat: "Oh no, now you've got my slowmobile off course and I'm going to crash!"
Slowmobile moves very, very slowly into a pile of boxes over the next five seconds.
Bureaucrat (in mock fear): "Ahhhhhh."
Merely repeating a lie doesn't make it true. Fox has said several times the photo was false, as did National Review and several other conservative sources.
If you really want to read a high-quality conservative blog, here are two from National Review Online:
- The Corner, a braided-blog with constributions by many of NR's writers, run by Kathryn Jean Lopez, and
- The Kerry Spot, penned by Jim Geraghty, whichs follows Kerry and his campaign closely, as well as related subjects. (The Kerry Spot was one of the best sites to follow for updates on Rathergate.
Speaking of Rathergate, a seminal blogsphere watershed that Slashdot has not chosen to feature on its front page, here are some of the key blogs which helped break open the Rathergate story:Well, that should get you started. in truth, except for the NR blogs, I was only an occasional readers of the others before the Rathergate story broke, but now I'm much more of a regular reader, much to the detriment of my productivity...
Now if only cyber-extortionists would target well-known spammers...
On the other hand, Carrie Fisher actually sang pretty well, it was just that the song was insipid trash. You don't hear a lot of people celebrating life-day these days...
I've seen it. Twice. (Why? Evidence suggests I',m an idiot. No, wait, that wasn't it. I was going to do an article on it for someone, but never got around to it. Anyone out there want to pay me to write and publishthat article? I've just bought a house, so I need the money...)
As God is my witness, The Star Wars Holiday Special is worse than Manos, the Hands of Fate. SEE! Bea Arthur sing a Kurt Weil-esque ditty in the Cantina! SEE! Wookies speak incomprehensibly to each other for ten minutes. SEE! Jefferson Starship perform! (Actually, that's one of the higlights, not because its particularly good, but because it's a blessed relief from the show itself.) SEE! Mark Hamil wearing enough mascara and eyeliner to play the MC in a Fire Island production of Cabaret! SEE! Harvey Korman play three roles! SEE! Grandpa Wookie watching human psuedo-porn! SEE! An embalmed Art Carney! SEE! Carrie Fisher sing! SEE! The lowlight of careers for every single peraon involved!
He only appropriate way to release it on DVD would be with an extra track that consisted of nothing but everyone involved aplogizing for the entire length of the film. ("I'm really, really sorry. It was the 70s and they gave me an awful lot of coke before I signed the contract...")
Geek wants company he works for to pay for it.
Geek submits request for "40 GB external Apple FireWire HD"
Accounting rejects request. "Apple not on approved vendor list."
Geek submits new request for "40 GB external HP FireWire HD.
Purchase request approved.
Result: Apple sells another 100,000 iPods they wouldn't have been able to Geeks gaming the system in PC-centric corporate environments.
Step 2: Insert comment about text messaging from your parent's basement.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Karma!
Step 5: CowboyNeal
In fact, thre's a law in France making it a crime to "attack the character of the French President." That, combined with communist control of many of the French journalist's unions, means that many stories (such as all the members of the French government, past and present, who had their hands in the ELF bribery scandal, or, for that matter, the UN Oil-for-food scandel) never get adequately reported in the French press.
At that's to say nothing of the French journalist who got fired for pointing out that the French press were so incompetently pro-Saddam that the were talking about "terrible" American casualties and "fierce" Iraqi resistence right up until Saddam's statue was toppled.
Maybe he should have gone with something more powerful than an 80 MIP RISC processor. I mean, they give those away in CrackerJacks now, don't they?
> I would happily switch to a job that paid the same, but wouldn't require me to work.
Ah, so you're voting for Kerry, then...
Lawrence Person (Who is actually in the process of packing 3000 hardback books...really!)
For example, it was a blog that first broke the story that MoveOn.org was Astroturfing on behalf of Michael Moore's Farenheit 911 . Likewise, I read about it first on a metablog, National Review Online's The Corner. I haven't seen any of the major media pick up this story yet (though many have already been fooled by Astroturfed letters).
Though an immature medium, it will be interesting to see where Blogs go next.
Locus , the professional news and reviews monthly of written science fiction.
Asimov's Science Fiction , the science fiction's premiere fiction magazine (also where I've sold most of my stories). F&SF would be the runner-up.
I used to read The Weekly Standard as well as National Review, but let my subscription lapse when I found myself falling rurther and further behind. Reason is also worth looking at.
Really, it's all there in the market research...
1. Hardcore geeks on dialup, a set that's getting smaller all the time, or
2. A corporate IT center who wants to elvaluate multiple distros for a production environment, and it's just easier to buy three distros from a single source.
Moreover, this would seem to be exactly the opposite of Lindows/Linspire's current target market, i.e. people who want a computer that sorta/kinda works like Windows, but is cheaper than paying the Microsoft tax. Joe Blow picking up his $299 Lindows box at Walmart is the last person who needs multiple distros (or, for that matter, even knows what a "distro" is).
What am I missing? Who's the market for this package?
It's an intriguing idea, and it would be interesting to see how it might work on a new frequency being opened up for commercial use. Some wild startup might come up with a use far more compelling than any bigger potential competitor. I think it would be an experiment worth running.
Unfortunately, I don't have good hard figures on the death toll from China's genocide in Tibet (as opposed to the genocide committed against ethnic Chinese during the great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, estimates for which range between 30-60 million), and Rummel doesn't have an seperate index entry for Tibet in Death by Goverment. Here's a protest poster that claims 1.2 million Tibetans have died as the results of China's occupation. We probably won't know the real number until (like the Soviet Union) after China is liberated from Communism at some future date.