The Bush administration and others have publicly chastised Putin for hurting democracy.
Bush also has had this to say about Putin, though:
"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul. He's a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country and I appreciate very much the frank dialogue and that's the beginning of a very constructive relationship."
You've got a good point, and I think there really needs to be an equivalent of anti-SLAPP legislation for these things. Shouldn't a police officer who arrests and/or charges someone when he knows that the charges are phony be subject to disciplinary punishment (at the very least) for it?
It'd be difficult to get things right, of course; proving that the charges were really made against better knowledge, with the intent to disrupt legal political speech and protesting, would be quite tough, and going after those at the top of the chain of command who ultimately ordered these things would be even tougher, but I think it would be a good symbolic gesture to enact a law against this, nevertheless.
At the very least, it would show people that the government is taking these things seriously (well, or pretending to take these things seriously, if you want to be paranoid).
And this is just one example I got from Google after five seconds (the time it took to type "peaceful anti-bush protesters arrested" into the search box), too.
My current/. account is not old enough to tag things yet, but I've got to say that anyone who can't even preview his posts and catch obvious HTML errors like this is simply unsuitable for a site that has millions of users and should be FIRED.
The amusing part is that The Chaser is a comedy company well known to perpetrate exactly this sort of prank.
You mean they lie about whether they're authorised to act on behalf of copyright holders _under penalty of perjury_?
In any case, I think the interesting part is this:
[ABC TV head of arts, entertainment and comedy] Gibson said the removal of the clips was in direct contrast to ABC's policy on content sharing. "[ABC wishes] to get our content out there on as many platforms as possible, run by as many different operators as possible."
Al Sharpton, you are idiot, a stupid clown who deserves to be called by the title n****r. [...] Often you accuse us of being bigoted racist oppressors. The fact is most of us are not.
Maybe "most of us" was not supposed to include you, but I doubt that's what you intended, so I'll go ahead and say you just outed yourself as not just a hate-spewer, but also a bigot.
When confronted with your lies I respond calmly and intelligently to them.
That's ridiculous. Of course Imus is free to say whatever he wants; but of course, people are just as free to disapprove of it, and - and this is important - the station he worked for is just as free to fire him for it.
you like any other group of the society are NOT allowed to discriminate.
Utter rubbish. Of course I'm allowed to discriminate, and so's Imus. The ones who are NOT allowed to discrimate are the government - no matter whether it's the federal, the states', or whatever.
The only exception to this is discrimination by private parties in public places - see e.g. Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States. But to attempt to construe from that that a radio station can't fire a talk show host because the language he used is similar to the language some random other people who happen to be black use... that's ridiculous.
I'm not sure exactly what you're disapproving of, to be honest. Did anyone falsely claim that this was caught by an average Joe Sixpack who just happened to listen to the program by pure coincidence?
I haven't been following the whole thing too closely, so maybe someone did - and I agree that that, assuming it happened, was/would have been bad. But outside of that, I just can't see the problem.
Radio shows like that are meant to be listened to, so the fact that these folks listened to this one can't be the problem. Or is it the fact that political organisations, rather than private individuals, do? But any political organisation will do so - and watchdogs in particular will, since that's the only reason why they exist. Unless you want to argue that no political organisation should be allowed to monitor radio talkshows and the like, I still don't understand your reasoning.
Also, keep in mind that this was not something that he said in private - the entire show was broadcast with the sole intention of reaching as many people as possible. Did he honestly expect people who don't agree with him to not listen to him, or does he honestly expect that he can be outraged when it turns out that they did after all? Does he honestly expect that when HE screws up and makes a remark that's off-colour at best and racist at worst, he can blame those who REPORTED it for his own screw-up?
Of course, as you say if black people use those words in a derogatory manner, society gives them a pass (in fact, popular black culture seems to encourage their use). Either words are ok for everyone to use or they are ok for no one to use. Double standards are bullshit, plain and simple.
You only say that because you aren't and never have been on the receiving end of these things. Case in point: I'm gay, myself. When a gay friend of mine walks up to me and says "hey, what's up, you fag", I won't mind; I know he doesn't intend to hurt me, and neither is he using an insult as if it's just a neutral word, pretending that the intent to hurt that comes with it doesn't exist. What he's doing is different: he's taking a tool of those who want to hurt us from them and turns it around, into a badge of pride, if you will.
Things are different when someone else calls me a "fag". Some people might be out to hurt me; some, like you, might simply say "fuck that, I'm gonna say whatever I want, freedom of speech, dude" and use the word without caring about what it means either way; some might even try to use it in the same way my gay friends might, but it doesn't work in either case.
The real reason for that is that it's not the word as such that matters (that is, the collection of letters, or the collection of sounds that make up its pronounciation), it's the meaning - the intent.
I don't know what Imus intended to say, and I don't want to accuse him of racism just because of what he said, just like I don't want to accuse anyone of homophobia based on their use of the word "fag". But to claim that because black people use words like "nigger" it's OK for everyone else to do so as well simply isn't true. Double standards? Maybe, but you're not the one who's been discriminated against, verbally abused, beaten up and sometimes even murdered in cold blood, so who are you to talk?
Maybe you should go to Germany and ask all the people in the Brockdorf area who're suffering from leukaemia whether nuclear power is safe. (The issue there is that there is a statistically significant increase in risk to develop leukaemia around the plants; the state consistently sides with the power companies running those plants and denies that there is any link, but I honestly can't see how a statistically significant increase in cancer rates around a nuclear power plant could reasonably be attributed to coincidence.)
Wikipedia is a good starting point, but it should never be cited in a paper - NO encyclopaedia should. If you want to use information found in Wikipedia in a paper, check out the references cited and use those; if there are none, disregard the article and look for the information you need elsewhere. That's exactly the same way you'd handle stuff in any other encyclopaedia as well, BTW.
I'm honestly not sure what the problem is, or why Wikipedia should be treated differently from Brittanica, Encarta, Brockhaus or any other "traditional" encyclopaedia.
(And if you dislike the fact that it's written by random Joe Schmoes and Suzie Sixpacks, wouldn't it be a better idea to block *all* websites?)
Wait, wait, wait - let me see if I understood that right. Firefox and OpenOffice crash on (some) invalid input, therefore MS is right when they say that a crash is better than to drop the user to the shell.
Err, what?
I'll accept the premise that Firefox and OpenOffice do indeed crash as true based on my personal experience with both, but I have NO idea how your conclusion would follow, or why you'd even think it does. Seriously, you could just as well claim "the sky is blue, therefore..."; it'd make about as much sense.
FWIW, I'm absolutely not convinced that crashing is better than exiting gracefully, either, and I'm ALSO not convinced that it's even necessary to exit gracefully when you can just inform the user and CONTINUE gracefully, but that's just a side issue.
Guess what? There is such a thing as self-sustaining processes that you need a critical mass to overcome and break out of. Thanks for oversimplifying.
Also, thanks for assuming that the trade-offs are worth it without any evidence. Even if I like the Prohibition Party (just to pick a rather unlikely candidate) more than the Democrats, that doesn't mean that it'd make sense for me to vote for them; it depends on exactly how much more I like them than the Democrats, how much more than the Republicans I like the Democrats, how much of a chance I estimate there is for them to actually start playing a political role (or, alternatively, how long I expect them to take to start doing so), and how much of a chance I estimate there is for the Democrats to defeat the Republicans in the election at hand.
It may WELL be that even though I like the Prohibition Party more than the Democrats (again, I don't actually) and that I STILL decide to vote for the Democrats rather than them, simply because I figure that it's more important to keep the Republicans out of office (and/or because I figure there is no chance the Prohibition Party candidate will win, anyway).
The real solution to the current mess is to reform the entire system and get rid of things like the electoral college etc. that are actually responsible for this pseudo-democratic 2-party system. Once THAT is done, you can start voting for other parties, too; until then, the idea that voting for them is going to change anything or that any of them will actually rise up from meaninglessness is just wishful thinking.
If you really think that that shitty little handgun you bought is gonna stop the federal government from having a (metaphorical) party on your lawn if they want to, you're seriously deluded. Your gun may make you feel better, and it may make you feel like you're in control, but you're not: the only reason there isn't a party is that they don't want to have one.
However, if the government wants to cut down on your liberties and your rights, it DOES benefit from a situation where you feel you're still free and in control and everything even though you're not. If you want to steal from people effectively, the best way to do so is to convince them that thieves don't exist and that everything's fine - if you manage to pull it off, they'll continue to believe so even after you rob them blind.
That's exactly what's happening here, too. So face it: the second amendment has become utterly irrelevant as far as its original purpose was concerned. You can either shrug and say "OK" now or you can refuse to accept that and try to find an new solution to the original problem, but simply saying "the problem doesn't exist" won't get you anywhere.
really? what freedom were Hitler's werewolves fighting for?
Um, could you please spreading FUD about (were)wolves? Real wolves are a threatened species that's already being vilified and demonised more than enough (undeservedly so, too); describe Hitler and his henchmen as the insane, sadistic, sick (mass) murderers they were, but please don't use animals for comparison, especially ones that are as affectionate, intelligent, curious and (for the most part) peaceful as wolves[1]. (Yeah, I know, you were talking about werewolves, but statements like yours still reinforce the notion that wolves are violent blood-thirsty killers, when in reality, nothing could be further from the truth.)
Yes, I said "peaceful", and I mean it. Sure, wolves hunt and eat other animals, but... big deal; so do frogs. The only other time when they're not peaceful is when one pack member becomes a scapegoat and is chased out of the pack, but even then, real injuries etc. are pretty rare. For the most part, wolves treat each other very well, and unless they're rabid, they also treat humans very well, for example.
Yes, I'm certainly with you there. I'm just a whitebread myself, and I only ever knew one Tamil in my life (and only in passing, too), but what the GP is alleging is really just xenophobic and racist. I'm going to give him some credit insofar as that I'll say I'm not sure whether he realises it is, but he certainly should start thinking before opening his mouth. Guilt by association is never nice, and when you base it on nationality/ethnicity/..., it's downright vile.
So, GP: don't go there. If you have concrete evidence and/or a reasonable belief that your co-worker is doing something illegal, report it to the relevant authorities; if not, leave the man alone.
Communications satellites normally have no protection at all, if you know the right frequency, have a powerful enough transmitter and antenna, and know where to point your signal, you can do it.
Interesting! Gives a whole new meaning to "hacking" (as in "Sri Lankan terrorists hack satellite"), too...
And don't forget the Sedition Act of 1798 (!). Yes, it certainly is true that shit's been going for a long time, but that doesn't mean we should just sit back today and say "it's not worse than it's always been, no need to do anything".
Even more so, YOU have been conned, too, because you have swallowed the idea that security and liberty are, basically, unreconcilable, and that things that makes you more secure automatically make you less free - and that things that make you more free automatically make you less secure.
In reality, that's simply not true; from the perspective of an average citizen, police states are both less free *and* less secure. Of course, that's just yet another reason to try to turn the tides.
Your accuser is the state, actually, not the box, the guy who calibrates it or the manufacturer - just like when you get pulled over for speeding and go to court. Your accuser, in that case, is not the cop; it's the state, and the cop is acting as a witness. Same here.
I think this is a great description of the situation..
Funny, I remember people saying the same things about XP when it came out... it's interesting to see how the perception of it has shifted to something that is genuinely comfortable (a comfy seat) in just a few years.
Might be just me, but I predict that the same thing will happen with Vista, too. There's lots of reasons why Vista is bad (and I don't just mean buggy), just like there were (and are) lots of reasons why XP is bad, but many folks who decry Vista now and want to stay with XP are really just suffering from an aversion to something new and unfamiliar replacing what they already know, I think. (Heavens, the comic even *says* "it's familiar", as if that is in and on itself a positive trait.)
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Bush also has had this to say about Putin, though:
As reported by the Beeb in 2001...
You've got a good point, and I think there really needs to be an equivalent of anti-SLAPP legislation for these things. Shouldn't a police officer who arrests and/or charges someone when he knows that the charges are phony be subject to disciplinary punishment (at the very least) for it?
It'd be difficult to get things right, of course; proving that the charges were really made against better knowledge, with the intent to disrupt legal political speech and protesting, would be quite tough, and going after those at the top of the chain of command who ultimately ordered these things would be even tougher, but I think it would be a good symbolic gesture to enact a law against this, nevertheless.
At the very least, it would show people that the government is taking these things seriously (well, or pretending to take these things seriously, if you want to be paranoid).
Oh, really?
And this is just one example I got from Google after five seconds (the time it took to type "peaceful anti-bush protesters arrested" into the search box), too.
The three full-size cabinet arcade games were probably the reason he didn't even have so much as a quarter left in his pocket...
Hear, hear!
/. account is not old enough to tag things yet, but I've got to say that anyone who can't even preview his posts and catch obvious HTML errors like this is simply unsuitable for a site that has millions of users and should be FIRED.
My current
You mean they lie about whether they're authorised to act on behalf of copyright holders _under penalty of perjury_?
In any case, I think the interesting part is this:
Maybe "most of us" was not supposed to include you, but I doubt that's what you intended, so I'll go ahead and say you just outed yourself as not just a hate-spewer, but also a bigot.
I think there's nothing I can add to that.
That's ridiculous. Of course Imus is free to say whatever he wants; but of course, people are just as free to disapprove of it, and - and this is important - the station he worked for is just as free to fire him for it.
Utter rubbish. Of course I'm allowed to discriminate, and so's Imus. The ones who are NOT allowed to discrimate are the government - no matter whether it's the federal, the states', or whatever.
The only exception to this is discrimination by private parties in public places - see e.g. Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States. But to attempt to construe from that that a radio station can't fire a talk show host because the language he used is similar to the language some random other people who happen to be black use... that's ridiculous.
I'm not sure exactly what you're disapproving of, to be honest. Did anyone falsely claim that this was caught by an average Joe Sixpack who just happened to listen to the program by pure coincidence?
I haven't been following the whole thing too closely, so maybe someone did - and I agree that that, assuming it happened, was/would have been bad. But outside of that, I just can't see the problem.
Radio shows like that are meant to be listened to, so the fact that these folks listened to this one can't be the problem. Or is it the fact that political organisations, rather than private individuals, do? But any political organisation will do so - and watchdogs in particular will, since that's the only reason why they exist. Unless you want to argue that no political organisation should be allowed to monitor radio talkshows and the like, I still don't understand your reasoning.
Also, keep in mind that this was not something that he said in private - the entire show was broadcast with the sole intention of reaching as many people as possible. Did he honestly expect people who don't agree with him to not listen to him, or does he honestly expect that he can be outraged when it turns out that they did after all? Does he honestly expect that when HE screws up and makes a remark that's off-colour at best and racist at worst, he can blame those who REPORTED it for his own screw-up?
Do you?
You only say that because you aren't and never have been on the receiving end of these things. Case in point: I'm gay, myself. When a gay friend of mine walks up to me and says "hey, what's up, you fag", I won't mind; I know he doesn't intend to hurt me, and neither is he using an insult as if it's just a neutral word, pretending that the intent to hurt that comes with it doesn't exist. What he's doing is different: he's taking a tool of those who want to hurt us from them and turns it around, into a badge of pride, if you will.
Things are different when someone else calls me a "fag". Some people might be out to hurt me; some, like you, might simply say "fuck that, I'm gonna say whatever I want, freedom of speech, dude" and use the word without caring about what it means either way; some might even try to use it in the same way my gay friends might, but it doesn't work in either case.
The real reason for that is that it's not the word as such that matters (that is, the collection of letters, or the collection of sounds that make up its pronounciation), it's the meaning - the intent.
I don't know what Imus intended to say, and I don't want to accuse him of racism just because of what he said, just like I don't want to accuse anyone of homophobia based on their use of the word "fag". But to claim that because black people use words like "nigger" it's OK for everyone else to do so as well simply isn't true. Double standards? Maybe, but you're not the one who's been discriminated against, verbally abused, beaten up and sometimes even murdered in cold blood, so who are you to talk?
Maybe you should go to Germany and ask all the people in the Brockdorf area who're suffering from leukaemia whether nuclear power is safe. (The issue there is that there is a statistically significant increase in risk to develop leukaemia around the plants; the state consistently sides with the power companies running those plants and denies that there is any link, but I honestly can't see how a statistically significant increase in cancer rates around a nuclear power plant could reasonably be attributed to coincidence.)
Wikipedia is a good starting point, but it should never be cited in a paper - NO encyclopaedia should. If you want to use information found in Wikipedia in a paper, check out the references cited and use those; if there are none, disregard the article and look for the information you need elsewhere. That's exactly the same way you'd handle stuff in any other encyclopaedia as well, BTW.
I'm honestly not sure what the problem is, or why Wikipedia should be treated differently from Brittanica, Encarta, Brockhaus or any other "traditional" encyclopaedia.
(And if you dislike the fact that it's written by random Joe Schmoes and Suzie Sixpacks, wouldn't it be a better idea to block *all* websites?)
Wait, wait, wait - let me see if I understood that right. Firefox and OpenOffice crash on (some) invalid input, therefore MS is right when they say that a crash is better than to drop the user to the shell.
Err, what?
I'll accept the premise that Firefox and OpenOffice do indeed crash as true based on my personal experience with both, but I have NO idea how your conclusion would follow, or why you'd even think it does. Seriously, you could just as well claim "the sky is blue, therefore..."; it'd make about as much sense.
FWIW, I'm absolutely not convinced that crashing is better than exiting gracefully, either, and I'm ALSO not convinced that it's even necessary to exit gracefully when you can just inform the user and CONTINUE gracefully, but that's just a side issue.
Guess what? There is such a thing as self-sustaining processes that you need a critical mass to overcome and break out of. Thanks for oversimplifying.
Also, thanks for assuming that the trade-offs are worth it without any evidence. Even if I like the Prohibition Party (just to pick a rather unlikely candidate) more than the Democrats, that doesn't mean that it'd make sense for me to vote for them; it depends on exactly how much more I like them than the Democrats, how much more than the Republicans I like the Democrats, how much of a chance I estimate there is for them to actually start playing a political role (or, alternatively, how long I expect them to take to start doing so), and how much of a chance I estimate there is for the Democrats to defeat the Republicans in the election at hand.
It may WELL be that even though I like the Prohibition Party more than the Democrats (again, I don't actually) and that I STILL decide to vote for the Democrats rather than them, simply because I figure that it's more important to keep the Republicans out of office (and/or because I figure there is no chance the Prohibition Party candidate will win, anyway).
The real solution to the current mess is to reform the entire system and get rid of things like the electoral college etc. that are actually responsible for this pseudo-democratic 2-party system. Once THAT is done, you can start voting for other parties, too; until then, the idea that voting for them is going to change anything or that any of them will actually rise up from meaninglessness is just wishful thinking.
If you really think that that shitty little handgun you bought is gonna stop the federal government from having a (metaphorical) party on your lawn if they want to, you're seriously deluded. Your gun may make you feel better, and it may make you feel like you're in control, but you're not: the only reason there isn't a party is that they don't want to have one.
However, if the government wants to cut down on your liberties and your rights, it DOES benefit from a situation where you feel you're still free and in control and everything even though you're not. If you want to steal from people effectively, the best way to do so is to convince them that thieves don't exist and that everything's fine - if you manage to pull it off, they'll continue to believe so even after you rob them blind.
That's exactly what's happening here, too. So face it: the second amendment has become utterly irrelevant as far as its original purpose was concerned. You can either shrug and say "OK" now or you can refuse to accept that and try to find an new solution to the original problem, but simply saying "the problem doesn't exist" won't get you anywhere.
Naw, just mod them "-1, Ignorant". :P
(And seriously: I know that such a moderation does not exist, but maybe it should. The opposite of "+1, Informative", maybe?)
Um, could you please spreading FUD about (were)wolves? Real wolves are a threatened species that's already being vilified and demonised more than enough (undeservedly so, too); describe Hitler and his henchmen as the insane, sadistic, sick (mass) murderers they were, but please don't use animals for comparison, especially ones that are as affectionate, intelligent, curious and (for the most part) peaceful as wolves[1]. (Yeah, I know, you were talking about werewolves, but statements like yours still reinforce the notion that wolves are violent blood-thirsty killers, when in reality, nothing could be further from the truth.)
Yes, I'm certainly with you there. I'm just a whitebread myself, and I only ever knew one Tamil in my life (and only in passing, too), but what the GP is alleging is really just xenophobic and racist. I'm going to give him some credit insofar as that I'll say I'm not sure whether he realises it is, but he certainly should start thinking before opening his mouth. Guilt by association is never nice, and when you base it on nationality/ethnicity/..., it's downright vile.
So, GP: don't go there. If you have concrete evidence and/or a reasonable belief that your co-worker is doing something illegal, report it to the relevant authorities; if not, leave the man alone.
Interesting! Gives a whole new meaning to "hacking" (as in "Sri Lankan terrorists hack satellite"), too...
And don't forget the Sedition Act of 1798 (!). Yes, it certainly is true that shit's been going for a long time, but that doesn't mean we should just sit back today and say "it's not worse than it's always been, no need to do anything".
Wow, just picture that! :)
Even more so, YOU have been conned, too, because you have swallowed the idea that security and liberty are, basically, unreconcilable, and that things that makes you more secure automatically make you less free - and that things that make you more free automatically make you less secure.
In reality, that's simply not true; from the perspective of an average citizen, police states are both less free *and* less secure. Of course, that's just yet another reason to try to turn the tides.
Your accuser is the state, actually, not the box, the guy who calibrates it or the manufacturer - just like when you get pulled over for speeding and go to court. Your accuser, in that case, is not the cop; it's the state, and the cop is acting as a witness. Same here.
Crybabies, all of them.
Funny, I remember people saying the same things about XP when it came out... it's interesting to see how the perception of it has shifted to something that is genuinely comfortable (a comfy seat) in just a few years.
Might be just me, but I predict that the same thing will happen with Vista, too. There's lots of reasons why Vista is bad (and I don't just mean buggy), just like there were (and are) lots of reasons why XP is bad, but many folks who decry Vista now and want to stay with XP are really just suffering from an aversion to something new and unfamiliar replacing what they already know, I think. (Heavens, the comic even *says* "it's familiar", as if that is in and on itself a positive trait.)