Actually, freedom of speech is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, 1689. However, keeping a freedom requires the populace to care about it. In Britain's case everyone's too busy hating Europeans (then going on holiday there), being paranoid about jails full of paedophiles and being scared of terrorists and KnifeCrime(tm) to worry about the finer points of freedom of speech. Obviously these two are a pair of scum bags, so no-one cares to defend them, for what it's worth I believe their freedom of speech should be guaranteed, but try telling that to the populace.
Here are a few ideas of who, and what, might be responsible for this situation.:)
The 1285 Statute of Westminster even gave the English people the right (actually it was a requirement) to bear arms, it was due to this -- and technologically 'advanced' longbows -- that we managed to trounce those ghaslty frogs at Agincourt, but that's another story.
is Orwell's "1984" being used as a policy guide in the UK by her politicians?
No, but Franz Kafka's The Trial is.:)
The people comparing today's Britain to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four are not taking everything into account. For a start the government isn't trying to insert cameras in everyone's bedrooms, they're not that cynical. They actually believe what they're doing is for the benefit of the people.
Also, many of these awful laws are driven by tabloid newspapers (Rupert Murdoch and The Sun). Part of Tony Blair's success was thanks to his schmoozing with Murdoch's and other tabloids, Brown has continued this trend. Now, despite crime rates decreasing, tabloids have been screeching about youth and 'knife-crime' for a while. Now the government are desperate to be seen to be doing something about it (since their popularity is at an all-time low).
So the source of these laws is public hysteria over knife-crime (generated by The Sun et al), pressuring an unpopular government into doing something, anything so they will be seen to be trying to fix a problem that only exists to sell newspapers.
The reason British tabloids have become so sensationalist is they're losing market share to Internet sites. The government are, as are the tabloids, stuck in a pre-Internet mindset where newspapers have more power than they actually do.
This is not Orwellian. The British government have not set out to control the populace, that will just be a purely unintentional side-effect. What they are doing is creating Kafka-esque bureaucracies -- particularly at local level, see: local authorities using anti-terror laws to check whether kids actually live within the catchment area of their schools, for example -- with the power to decide a persons guilt without giving that person an opportunity to defend themselves. Indeed, without that person even realising they're being investigated, or that they're committing a crime. They may not be using The Trial as a reference when doing this, but they certainly seem to think government should be able to determine guilt without any interference from annoying things like defence lawyers and juries.:)
There are many other dissimilarities with Nineteen Eighty Four, but that's the primary one.
There have been large amounts of astroturf around this latest release, Slashdot has certainly played its part in posting many articles fawning over the new operating system.
Personally, I installed the beta on a VM, it's certainly slower than XP (in terms of time to start up and resources used when booted). Once the feeling of wow, this really does look like KDE4! was gone, I was left feeling rather deflated and eventually just went back to my Ubuntu desktop. It looks, feels, and even the feature list reveals, that this is just another minor release of Vista. A Vista SE, if you will.:)
Having said this, it's is just my opinion and I'm not representative of the great computer-using public. Here are my predictions for the release of Windows 7:
sites like ZDnet and Slashdot will continue to hype the release -- Microsoft's PR dollars at work;
GNU/Linux users may try the release, acknowledge it's a minor improvement and go back to their GNOME/KDE desktops;
'power users' will get excited about the release, because sites like ZDnet tell them to (and it is an incremental improvement);
people who like Microsoft stuff, and have been silent during the Vista debacle, will loudly crow about Windows 7 as their sense of shame in Vista diminishes with the promise of a new release;
the general public won't care, but will receive seven when they get a new computer, or because their 'power user' friend gets them a cracked copy;
One more thing: incremental releases, like Windows 7 are a good idea. Ubuntu, Apple, etc. do this themseleves. However, if Microsoft charge the same amount for seven as they did for Vista, they deserve to be mocked.
Instead of asking Slashdot, although I'm happy you did as OpenOffice always generates a good flameware, you should be asking your users.
In particular you should gather the people who're likely to have the biggest problems with migrating: accountants for example, often have massive and complex spreadsheets, not to mention VB macros. Create a focus group, or go around each of these people to see how they're using the software, then create a requirements document and test OpenOffice against it.
The advantage of a requirements document is that if OpenOffice doesn't 'fit the bill' at the moment, you'll be able to check newer versions (and even different office suites, such as KOffice) against it in future.
If OpenOffice meets the requirements of your users in theory, test them in practice. Gather anyone who's adventurous enough to try out OpenOffice alongside Microsoft Office and get them to give you feedback. Even if OpenOffice doesn't meet requirements now, check back in a year. Also, check on how other office suites, such as KOffice, are coming along. You may not be able to replace Office immediately, but that doesn't mean you should give up on trying!
So Australia, you voted in a Labour government, thinking you were going to get a moderate, left of centre government? A change from the Neo-Liberal (see Thatcher and Reagan) fiscal policies of the right.
But what you got is a bunch of socially right-wing, authoritarian cock-wads, who think the solution to any social problem is making new laws. As a Brit, I have to say this sounds disturbinglyfamiliar.
I just don't trust these stats (and that's not because they don't say what I want them to), from the Net Applications site:
We use a unique methodology for collecting this data. We collect data from the browsers of site visitors to our exclusive on-demand network of live stats customers. The data is compiled from approximately 160 million visitors per month.
So it's all customers from some analytics service these guys own. But what type of sites use their service? It's hard to believe these figures do not have a built-in bias due to the types of sites providing them.
By far the most popular analytics service is Google Analytics.* If Google were to produce figures like these, I'd be more inclined to believe them, as their analytics software is used on a decent cross-section of sites, including technical ones like Slashdot.
My own data -- with bias due to having a technical audience -- across two sites, says roughly: Windows 75%; Mac 9%; Linux 13% (with 3% AWStats reports as 'Unknown', and other sundry OSs like BSD, OS/2, AmigaOS, BeOS etc.) None of my sites use Net Applications' software, and get around 125,000 visitors a month.
* Sorry I haven't a citation for this, but just look at the source code of almost any site and you'll see a Javascript block from Google Analytics. Also, see this unscientific evidence.
Another interesting aspect of the Munich decision is that it was not driven simply by cost savings, because industry gossip has it that Ballmer offered heavy discounts on Microsoft software to stave off the threat. This was also the case in the Ministry decision to plump for open source. According to a BBC report, Interior Minister Otto Schily said the move was motivated by a desire to improve security in the nation's computer networks as well as to save public money. 'We are raising computer security by avoiding a monoculture,' he said, 'and we are lowering dependence on a single supplier. And so we are a leader in creating more diversity in the computer field.'
(emphasis mine)
And this is why, ladies and gentlemen, we won't be seeing this in many countries outside Germany. They have a politician who knows what he's talking about, and doesn't pander to the whims of industrial lobbyists.
You joke, but what good is the desktop environment to me when I'm playing a game? I liked the days of DOS games much better.
Having a real OS might shave off a few fps, but it allows you to set up your hardware just the once, and have it work in all of your software.
You're confusing a desktop environment with an OS:)
This is why GNU/Linux will -- eventually -- rock for gaming. Imagine being able to run just X and a game. No GNOME/KDE cruft, services or widgets slowing things down. I already drop out of GNOME and use Fluxbox + a terminal to launch Quake Wars or Savage, and it does make a big difference.
I mostly agree with your excellent reply. However:
Phase 5: the whole thing becomes common practise, FOSS starts to develop and lags 5 years behind on everything
I already have a FOSS 'cloud based' OS. It's a Debian server, with no X or desktop environment, accessible over the Web. The applications hosted on it have HTML/Javascript/CSS front ends and use PHP/Python/Perl/MySQL on the back end.
Cloud computing may or may not be a bubble, but whichever way you turn and twist it someone has to start. It'll take baby-steps and corrections along the way, but so far this is the first real attempt at it.
I don't believe you are correct here. Microsoft are producing a me too alternative to to the flexible, FOSS-based, cloud computing from Amazon (note: it's also possible to get Windows from Amazon, at a higher price).
FOSS is in the same place, if not slightly ahead, of Microsoft here.
Bribes are illegal. Elected officials work around this by taking campaign contributions.
Appointed officials don't take campaign contributions. If they take money, in return for introducing or approving legislation, they are committing a crime, and should be charged.
I would also refrain from describing the Canadian Senate or the Lords as 'Leaders'. They are really a check and balance against the lower chamber, who're the ones responsible to the public.
The British House of Lords can certainly introduce legislative bills
Yes, you're right, I messed that up a bit. Lord Norton puts it better than I can:
I develop the case that ensuring democratic accountability of government to the people requires maintaining a system in which there is one body - the party in government - that is chosen through elections to the House of Commons and is answerable to the people at the next election. There is no divided responsibility: the people know who to hold responsible.
So, if we had two equal elected chambers, accountability would be split between them. Currently the Lords can raise legislation, but it still has to be supported by the people's representatives in the Commons. And it is basically the Commons' fault if unpopular legislation is passed.
So you mean the system in Iran isn't as bad as the US Gov is painting it?
It probably isn't as bad, since some in the US government were itching to invade Iran until recently. However, the Iranian second chamber is full of Islamic scholars, who're basically there to elect a president and then ensure that he remains 'Muslim enough'. They also have zero transparency (quite unlike the Lords or Canadian Senate). Also they only meet once or twice a year, whereas the House of Lords is one of the busiest chambers in the world. If you look at those debates, you'll see many of them go on late into the night, debates lasting until 10 or 11pm are not uncommon.
In short: just because one unelected chamber is full of Islamic scholars, it doesn't mean they all are.:)
She was firmly against the idea of an elected senate, and her reasons were something along the lines of (paraphrased) "if we go to an elected senate, it will take less than a decade for every seat to fill up with rich white men with large campaign chests".
She's absolutely correct. I'll support her argument with one from the UK, where the House of Lords is in essentially the same situation as the Canadian Senate, see: The 'Democratic' Option by Lord Norton.
An un-elected upper chamber (Senate or House of Lords in a bicameral system) is a check on power. The idea is to stop stupid legislation, like Secret Inquests, for example. Or, more importantly, use their expertise to help government get legislation right the first time.
However, an elected upper chamber will rightly want the power to create legislation themselves. This is the biggest issue with such a system: dilution of accountability.
What this means: currently, when things go wrong federally, we all look at the House of Commons. But with an elected Senate, it is not clear who is to blame for creating or supporting a piece of legislation.* We already have to think in terms of Provincial vs. Federal, imagine what politics will be like when it's Provincial vs. Federal vs. Senate.
The next issue: lack of debate. An elected upper chamber gives us two elected chambers, with no substantial differences between the them. Like local councils (in Britain, I forget what they're called in Canada: municiple govt. perhaps?) people don't vote for the best candidate, they vote for whatever party they're voting for nationally. So the Senate becomes the same as the Commons, and in this case, who is there to stop the stupid legislation? What's the point in having a bicameral legislature, if they're both the same. They may as well be re-factored (to use coding parlance) into one house, but then the check-and-balance of an upper chamber is lost.
The last, but still important, issue: lack of representation. No seriously, as Lord Norton puts it: 'people vote for white haired, middle-aged men.' Typically the ones with enough cash to mount FUD campaigns against their opponents. Women, ethnic minorities, even average people are under-represented in our legislature. The political system is filling with career politicians, with little-to-no experience of real life, and this is reflected in the quality of legislation. An elected upper-chamber will only make this worse.
Side-note: what is meant by 'average people' are IT workers, plumbers, electricians, doctors & nurses, basically everyone in the real world, who're affected by legislation squeezed out by the government. The House of Lords is an instructive example, as patronage is slowly being phased out, to be replaced by nominations of members based on 'conspicuous merit' and decided by an impartial committee. Just look at the list of authors on that Lords blog alone, there are professors, teachers, lawyers and scientists.
So, for what it's worth, I would like to see the Canadian Senate change from a system of patronage (Senators appointed by the PM). To one where the public may nominate Senators, who're then appointed by an impartial committee based on conspicuous merit.
* Note: the US system is completely different to Canada or the UK, so please don't think I'm casting aspersions on your own elected Senate. They may have the same name, but the purposes are different.
The Lords also got the government to back down over secret inquests. Which are just as evil, if not moreso, than the 42 days detention (the idea is certainly straight out of Kafka's The Trial).
People whinge about the Lords being unelected, but from where I'm sitting the score is: Meritocracy 2 - Democracy 0. I believe the Lords would also smack-down something as stupid as this Australian Internet filtering too, on cost and futility grounds alone.
Laugh at all the British who say such a thing is unnecessary.
This is the problem with US. Smug people thinking nothing bad could happen to them, because they have 'the best system in the world'. It's truly sad that you're taught that, because it makes you apathetic (until someone tries to critique your system that is).
Here's news for you chap: we have a Bill of Rights, it was made law a full 100 years before yours was. Your Bill of Rights is based on ours.
But instead of the consumer respecting the desires of the creator, they're ripping that away and screaming "Mine!" like a toddler.
Wow, welcome to the RIAA distortion field. I'd say it's more like the "consumer" (a word I find repulsive when used in conjunction with the arts) is paying for one copy of the work, then kindly giving away copies to their virtual neighbours.
They're promoting the artists and the cause of the arts at their own expense! How kind of them, and how wonderfully human of people, to want to share a good thing with others. It somewhat restores my hope for humanity when people share artistic works.
That kind of behavior doesn't get much respect from me. Let the creators choose.
Why? When you utter an idea, you don't own it, nor can you levy a charge on people repeating it. Do you know why? Because there's no scarcity! It costs as much to reproduce an idea as it does a song on the Internet.
I am not sorry that I am capable of critical thought and not just the consuming drone you'd like me to be.
I'll pay a premium for concert tickets though. And I'll pay a premium for special boxed sets of artists work. Books are worth paying for too. These things are scarce, so cost. Electronic copies are not scarce, so do not cost. Pretty simple really.
Let the wingnuts in Kansas and other red states teach creationism or any other loony idea they want and let those of us who are in the blue states teach real science and math and critical thinking skills and let's see which population is more successful in our knowledge based economy 10 - 20 years down the road.
I'm a Brit, and used to think like this too. What does it matter if a bunch of them crazy Yanks believe the world was created 6,000 years ago? Unfortunately for us critical thinkers, daftideasspread . And now we have the Internet, stupid ideas can travel like wildfire.
One thing we need to learn: no state, province, county or country has a monopoly on stupidity. Being an idiot really is a game the whole family can play!:)
Acquantance of mine owns a light manufacturing business. When he first wrote-up his business plan he went to see his bank manager (yeah, no shit Sherlock). This bloke looked at his figures, in particular at the throughput estimates. This is roughly how the conversation went:
Bank manager: why have you based your throughput on 7.5 hours of work per employee?
Entrepreneur: because they work 8-5, with one hour for lunch and two 15 minute breaks.
Bank manager: well you can cut that in half for a start.
Entrepreneur: Why?
Bank manager: employees only work productively for 50% of the time.
(my apologies if any of my manufacturing parlance is off)
The bank manager was spot-on with his prediction too. It doesn't matter if it's on Slashdot or pissing around on the shop floor, employees will always waste time.
I'd bet money the kind of micro-managers that like to complain about this are sneaking onto Yahoo! Finance, to look at their personal stocks, when they think no-one is looking though.
Also, there's a fault with the article:
Quarter of Workers' Time Online Is Personal
What if a worker only goes online during their allocated break time? Surely we need an accurate percentage of worker's total time at work is spent on personal Internet surfing. That wouldn't draw enough sensationalist headlines though!:)
Well, of course the excuse they are using is factually correct. We have to look deeper, at what they're really intending to achieve by doing this. It doesn't take a tinfoil hat wearing loon to see that eBay are trying to shoe-horn everyone into paying by Paypal. They've already tried it once recently!
There's also one point the summary missed:
eBay ran into trouble earlier this year for trying to restrict payment options.
The thing is, they ran into trouble in Australia. Will the US DOJ take an interest? Am guessing, but I doubt it.
This is a case where the course of action for the DOJ is clear however. eBay and Paypal should be split into two separate companies, that would stop this -- and any future -- nefarious deals between the two. Returning competition to the market.
Exactly, if the law were balanced in this area the case will probably be thrown out (if it even reached court) and the student let-off. I bet he gets a prison sentence, or harsh fine and community service. Worst of all he'll have a criminal record, meaning he might not be able to get a job. Is one other person on the dole -- when their crime is nothing more than curiosity and a desire to help -- useful to society?
It's not just the university admins who have a bad attitude, it's all society that have been conditioned to believe the hacking == terrrism meme.
I would suggest that any prospective students reading this politely contact this university and explain why you will not be choosing them. Same for any parents who's kids might be thinking of going to Carleton.
Do have some pity for those admins though: they're probably just MCSE's.
Well, if you don't mind running bleeding edge software (there may be some bugs), you can enable the backports software repository:
System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager
*enter password*
Settings -> Repositories
select the Updates tab
check the Unsupported updates check box
Close
click past the Repositories changed message
Reload
Mark All Upgrades
Apply
OR there's the easy way, using the terminal:
echo 'deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-backports main universe multiverse restricted' | sudo tee -a/etc/apt/sources.list sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
This will download the new beta of Flash for Linux (among other things). It's a big improvement over the previous version. Here's the documentation for the Back ports repository.
Now, if only the creationists would adjust their fucking theory...
As soon as it is disproved/adjusted/strenghtened due to new findings.
Creationism is not a theory. Two properties of a theory are: must be possible to disprove; and must be able to predict results of a test. Creationism is capable of neither of these things.
It is impossible to test or disprove that an invisible man is living in the sky, therefore this is the realm of philosophy and spirituality. These things that have their place, but should not be interfering, aiming to replace, or masquerade as good science.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, freedom of speech is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, 1689. However, keeping a freedom requires the populace to care about it. In Britain's case everyone's too busy hating Europeans (then going on holiday there), being paranoid about jails full of paedophiles and being scared of terrorists and KnifeCrime(tm) to worry about the finer points of freedom of speech. Obviously these two are a pair of scum bags, so no-one cares to defend them, for what it's worth I believe their freedom of speech should be guaranteed, but try telling that to the populace.
Here are a few ideas of w h o, and wh at, might be responsible for this situation. :)
The 1285 Statute of Westminster even gave the English people the right (actually it was a requirement) to bear arms, it was due to this -- and technologically 'advanced' longbows -- that we managed to trounce those ghaslty frogs at Agincourt, but that's another story.
No, but Franz Kafka's The Trial is. :)
The people comparing today's Britain to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four are not taking everything into account. For a start the government isn't trying to insert cameras in everyone's bedrooms, they're not that cynical. They actually believe what they're doing is for the benefit of the people.
Also, many of these awful laws are driven by tabloid newspapers (Rupert Murdoch and The Sun). Part of Tony Blair's success was thanks to his schmoozing with Murdoch's and other tabloids, Brown has continued this trend. Now, despite crime rates decreasing, tabloids have been screeching about youth and 'knife-crime' for a while. Now the government are desperate to be seen to be doing something about it (since their popularity is at an all-time low).
So the source of these laws is public hysteria over knife-crime (generated by The Sun et al), pressuring an unpopular government into doing something, anything so they will be seen to be trying to fix a problem that only exists to sell newspapers.
The reason British tabloids have become so sensationalist is they're losing market share to Internet sites. The government are, as are the tabloids, stuck in a pre-Internet mindset where newspapers have more power than they actually do.
This is not Orwellian. The British government have not set out to control the populace, that will just be a purely unintentional side-effect. What they are doing is creating Kafka-esque bureaucracies -- particularly at local level, see: local authorities using anti-terror laws to check whether kids actually live within the catchment area of their schools, for example -- with the power to decide a persons guilt without giving that person an opportunity to defend themselves. Indeed, without that person even realising they're being investigated, or that they're committing a crime. They may not be using The Trial as a reference when doing this, but they certainly seem to think government should be able to determine guilt without any interference from annoying things like defence lawyers and juries. :)
There are many other dissimilarities with Nineteen Eighty Four, but that's the primary one.
Drupal aint like that. You can theme anything in Drupal.
http://drupal.org/node/305743
There have been large amounts of astroturf around this latest release, Slashdot has certainly played its part in posting many articles fawning over the new operating system.
Personally, I installed the beta on a VM, it's certainly slower than XP (in terms of time to start up and resources used when booted). Once the feeling of wow, this really does look like KDE4! was gone, I was left feeling rather deflated and eventually just went back to my Ubuntu desktop. It looks, feels, and even the feature list reveals, that this is just another minor release of Vista. A Vista SE, if you will. :)
Having said this, it's is just my opinion and I'm not representative of the great computer-using public. Here are my predictions for the release of Windows 7:
One more thing: incremental releases, like Windows 7 are a good idea. Ubuntu, Apple, etc. do this themseleves. However, if Microsoft charge the same amount for seven as they did for Vista, they deserve to be mocked.
Instead of asking Slashdot, although I'm happy you did as OpenOffice always generates a good flameware, you should be asking your users.
In particular you should gather the people who're likely to have the biggest problems with migrating: accountants for example, often have massive and complex spreadsheets, not to mention VB macros. Create a focus group, or go around each of these people to see how they're using the software, then create a requirements document and test OpenOffice against it.
The advantage of a requirements document is that if OpenOffice doesn't 'fit the bill' at the moment, you'll be able to check newer versions (and even different office suites, such as KOffice) against it in future.
If OpenOffice meets the requirements of your users in theory, test them in practice. Gather anyone who's adventurous enough to try out OpenOffice alongside Microsoft Office and get them to give you feedback. Even if OpenOffice doesn't meet requirements now, check back in a year. Also, check on how other office suites, such as KOffice, are coming along. You may not be able to replace Office immediately, but that doesn't mean you should give up on trying!
'Whilst' is still widely used in the UK.
So Australia, you voted in a Labour government, thinking you were going to get a moderate, left of centre government? A change from the Neo-Liberal (see Thatcher and Reagan) fiscal policies of the right.
But what you got is a bunch of socially right-wing, authoritarian cock-wads, who think the solution to any social problem is making new laws. As a Brit, I have to say this sounds disturbingly familiar.
If it's not Stephane Dion declaring that he's "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime," Australians electing a Tony Blair clone, or the Canadian Prime Minister ripping-off speeches from John Howard; it continues to amaze me how the Commonwealth leaders copy each other.
I just don't trust these stats (and that's not because they don't say what I want them to), from the Net Applications site:
So it's all customers from some analytics service these guys own. But what type of sites use their service? It's hard to believe these figures do not have a built-in bias due to the types of sites providing them.
By far the most popular analytics service is Google Analytics.* If Google were to produce figures like these, I'd be more inclined to believe them, as their analytics software is used on a decent cross-section of sites, including technical ones like Slashdot.
My own data -- with bias due to having a technical audience -- across two sites, says roughly: Windows 75%; Mac 9%; Linux 13% (with 3% AWStats reports as 'Unknown', and other sundry OSs like BSD, OS/2, AmigaOS, BeOS etc.) None of my sites use Net Applications' software, and get around 125,000 visitors a month.
* Sorry I haven't a citation for this, but just look at the source code of almost any site and you'll see a Javascript block from Google Analytics. Also, see this unscientific evidence.
From the Guardian article:
(emphasis mine)
And this is why, ladies and gentlemen, we won't be seeing this in many countries outside Germany. They have a politician who knows what he's talking about, and doesn't pander to the whims of industrial lobbyists.
You joke, but what good is the desktop environment to me when I'm playing a game? I liked the days of DOS games much better.
Having a real OS might shave off a few fps, but it allows you to set up your hardware just the once, and have it work in all of your software.
You're confusing a desktop environment with an OS :)
This is why GNU/Linux will -- eventually -- rock for gaming. Imagine being able to run just X and a game. No GNOME/KDE cruft, services or widgets slowing things down. I already drop out of GNOME and use Fluxbox + a terminal to launch Quake Wars or Savage, and it does make a big difference.
I mostly agree with your excellent reply. However:
I already have a FOSS 'cloud based' OS. It's a Debian server, with no X or desktop environment, accessible over the Web. The applications hosted on it have HTML/Javascript/CSS front ends and use PHP/Python/Perl/MySQL on the back end.
I don't believe you are correct here. Microsoft are producing a me too alternative to to the flexible, FOSS-based, cloud computing from Amazon (note: it's also possible to get Windows from Amazon, at a higher price).
FOSS is in the same place, if not slightly ahead, of Microsoft here.
Bribes are illegal. Elected officials work around this by taking campaign contributions.
Appointed officials don't take campaign contributions. If they take money, in return for introducing or approving legislation, they are committing a crime, and should be charged.
I would also refrain from describing the Canadian Senate or the Lords as 'Leaders'. They are really a check and balance against the lower chamber, who're the ones responsible to the public.
Yes, you're right, I messed that up a bit. Lord Norton puts it better than I can:
So, if we had two equal elected chambers, accountability would be split between them. Currently the Lords can raise legislation, but it still has to be supported by the people's representatives in the Commons. And it is basically the Commons' fault if unpopular legislation is passed.
It probably isn't as bad, since some in the US government were itching to invade Iran until recently. However, the Iranian second chamber is full of Islamic scholars, who're basically there to elect a president and then ensure that he remains 'Muslim enough'. They also have zero transparency (quite unlike the Lords or Canadian Senate). Also they only meet once or twice a year, whereas the House of Lords is one of the busiest chambers in the world. If you look at those debates, you'll see many of them go on late into the night, debates lasting until 10 or 11pm are not uncommon.
In short: just because one unelected chamber is full of Islamic scholars, it doesn't mean they all are. :)
She's absolutely correct. I'll support her argument with one from the UK, where the House of Lords is in essentially the same situation as the Canadian Senate, see: The 'Democratic' Option by Lord Norton.
An un-elected upper chamber (Senate or House of Lords in a bicameral system) is a check on power. The idea is to stop stupid legislation, like Secret Inquests, for example. Or, more importantly, use their expertise to help government get legislation right the first time.
However, an elected upper chamber will rightly want the power to create legislation themselves. This is the biggest issue with such a system: dilution of accountability.
What this means: currently, when things go wrong federally, we all look at the House of Commons. But with an elected Senate, it is not clear who is to blame for creating or supporting a piece of legislation.* We already have to think in terms of Provincial vs. Federal, imagine what politics will be like when it's Provincial vs. Federal vs. Senate.
The next issue: lack of debate. An elected upper chamber gives us two elected chambers, with no substantial differences between the them. Like local councils (in Britain, I forget what they're called in Canada: municiple govt. perhaps?) people don't vote for the best candidate, they vote for whatever party they're voting for nationally. So the Senate becomes the same as the Commons, and in this case, who is there to stop the stupid legislation? What's the point in having a bicameral legislature, if they're both the same. They may as well be re-factored (to use coding parlance) into one house, but then the check-and-balance of an upper chamber is lost.
The last, but still important, issue: lack of representation. No seriously, as Lord Norton puts it: 'people vote for white haired, middle-aged men.' Typically the ones with enough cash to mount FUD campaigns against their opponents. Women, ethnic minorities, even average people are under-represented in our legislature. The political system is filling with career politicians, with little-to-no experience of real life, and this is reflected in the quality of legislation. An elected upper-chamber will only make this worse.
Side-note: what is meant by 'average people' are IT workers, plumbers, electricians, doctors & nurses, basically everyone in the real world, who're affected by legislation squeezed out by the government. The House of Lords is an instructive example, as patronage is slowly being phased out, to be replaced by nominations of members based on 'conspicuous merit' and decided by an impartial committee. Just look at the list of authors on that Lords blog alone, there are professors, teachers, lawyers and scientists.
So, for what it's worth, I would like to see the Canadian Senate change from a system of patronage (Senators appointed by the PM). To one where the public may nominate Senators, who're then appointed by an impartial committee based on conspicuous merit.
* Note: the US system is completely different to Canada or the UK, so please don't think I'm casting aspersions on your own elected Senate. They may have the same name, but the purposes are different.
Britain has had two suddenoutbreaksofcommonsense recently. Remember the -- incorrectly reported on Slashdot -- 42 days detention? The House of Lords bitch-slapped the government down over it. Worst defeat in the Lords in living memory, according to that BBC article.
The Lords also got the government to back down over secret inquests. Which are just as evil, if not moreso, than the 42 days detention (the idea is certainly straight out of Kafka's The Trial).
People whinge about the Lords being unelected, but from where I'm sitting the score is: Meritocracy 2 - Democracy 0. I believe the Lords would also smack-down something as stupid as this Australian Internet filtering too, on cost and futility grounds alone.
This is the problem with US. Smug people thinking nothing bad could happen to them, because they have 'the best system in the world'. It's truly sad that you're taught that, because it makes you apathetic (until someone tries to critique your system that is).
Here's news for you chap: we have a Bill of Rights, it was made law a full 100 years before yours was. Your Bill of Rights is based on ours.
Wow, welcome to the RIAA distortion field. I'd say it's more like the "consumer" (a word I find repulsive when used in conjunction with the arts) is paying for one copy of the work, then kindly giving away copies to their virtual neighbours.
They're promoting the artists and the cause of the arts at their own expense! How kind of them, and how wonderfully human of people, to want to share a good thing with others. It somewhat restores my hope for humanity when people share artistic works.
Why? When you utter an idea, you don't own it, nor can you levy a charge on people repeating it. Do you know why? Because there's no scarcity! It costs as much to reproduce an idea as it does a song on the Internet.
I am not sorry that I am capable of critical thought and not just the consuming drone you'd like me to be.
I'll pay a premium for concert tickets though. And I'll pay a premium for special boxed sets of artists work. Books are worth paying for too. These things are scarce, so cost. Electronic copies are not scarce, so do not cost. Pretty simple really.
The problem with that is, people don't believe the refutations! :)
Perhaps I should have said that stupid ideologies can travel like wildfire.
I'm a Brit, and used to think like this too. What does it matter if a bunch of them crazy Yanks believe the world was created 6,000 years ago? Unfortunately for us critical thinkers, daft ideas spread . And now we have the Internet, stupid ideas can travel like wildfire.
One thing we need to learn: no state, province, county or country has a monopoly on stupidity. Being an idiot really is a game the whole family can play! :)
Acquantance of mine owns a light manufacturing business. When he first wrote-up his business plan he went to see his bank manager (yeah, no shit Sherlock). This bloke looked at his figures, in particular at the throughput estimates. This is roughly how the conversation went:
(my apologies if any of my manufacturing parlance is off)
The bank manager was spot-on with his prediction too. It doesn't matter if it's on Slashdot or pissing around on the shop floor, employees will always waste time.
I'd bet money the kind of micro-managers that like to complain about this are sneaking onto Yahoo! Finance, to look at their personal stocks, when they think no-one is looking though.
Also, there's a fault with the article:
What if a worker only goes online during their allocated break time? Surely we need an accurate percentage of worker's total time at work is spent on personal Internet surfing. That wouldn't draw enough sensationalist headlines though! :)
Well, of course the excuse they are using is factually correct. We have to look deeper, at what they're really intending to achieve by doing this. It doesn't take a tinfoil hat wearing loon to see that eBay are trying to shoe-horn everyone into paying by Paypal. They've already tried it once recently!
There's also one point the summary missed:
The thing is, they ran into trouble in Australia. Will the US DOJ take an interest? Am guessing, but I doubt it.
This is a case where the course of action for the DOJ is clear however. eBay and Paypal should be split into two separate companies, that would stop this -- and any future -- nefarious deals between the two. Returning competition to the market.
Exactly, if the law were balanced in this area the case will probably be thrown out (if it even reached court) and the student let-off. I bet he gets a prison sentence, or harsh fine and community service. Worst of all he'll have a criminal record, meaning he might not be able to get a job. Is one other person on the dole -- when their crime is nothing more than curiosity and a desire to help -- useful to society?
It's not just the university admins who have a bad attitude, it's all society that have been conditioned to believe the hacking == terrrism meme.
I would suggest that any prospective students reading this politely contact this university and explain why you will not be choosing them. Same for any parents who's kids might be thinking of going to Carleton.
Do have some pity for those admins though: they're probably just MCSE's.
Well, if you don't mind running bleeding edge software (there may be some bugs), you can enable the backports software repository:
OR there's the easy way, using the terminal:
This will download the new beta of Flash for Linux (among other things). It's a big improvement over the previous version. Here's the documentation for the Back ports repository.
Creationism is not a theory. Two properties of a theory are: must be possible to disprove; and must be able to predict results of a test. Creationism is capable of neither of these things.
It is impossible to test or disprove that an invisible man is living in the sky, therefore this is the realm of philosophy and spirituality. These things that have their place, but should not be interfering, aiming to replace, or masquerade as good science.