Anyone know where I could pick one up? It could be useful for backing up my phone. I occasionally move my SIM card between phones (or multiple cards between my phone, depending on the need) and some phones drop certain things when they detect a SIM card swap.
Are we still talking about 2008 here, or some other time frame?
Deposed two dictatorships
The current administration did kick out Saddam Hussein, who was more-or-less a dictator (who ran a faux democracy). If we're talking about accomplishments under the current white house, who would dictatorship #2 be? Afghanistan was a theocracy ruled by the Taliban - not really a dictatorship and not really deposed as of this moment.
disarmed one nuclear nation (working on number two)
Would that be North Korea disarmed? There were a lot of other nations brought to the table for those negotiations. We have no right to take full credit for this one - and even questionable right to partial credit considering how little we did.
And would the second be Iran? They could care less about what our administration does - they know we lack the manpower and finances for an invasion (and it would be global political suicide for our country). I'm not sure how one could consider anything the Bush administration is involved in to be "working" on that regard.
saw Syria out of Lebanon
Again, I'd love to know how you figure we had any great role in that happening. Don't get me wrong - it was definitely good that Syria pulled out, but I think you have to stretch the truth to apply US foreign policy as a factor in that happening.
and joined a nation against a new foreign power
That's a little vague - please elaborate on which event this refers to.
Horrible
In a word, yes, I would say that summarizes the Bush administration. There are other words that come to mind as well, and some of them are not polite in mixed company.
A bad economy? Yeah, low unemployment + stock market growth + federal budget surplus = bad economy. Indeed, all that prosperity really sucked.
Hell, I'm even willing to concede that the attacks on 9/11 had a meaningful, detrimental effect on the economy. But if you insist on placing all the blame for the US economy going to hell over the past 8 years squarely on the shoulders of Bill Clinton, then this part of the conversation is over.
Yes, the media in this country swings WAY liberal.
You cannot make this true just by repeating it. I've already told you why this statement is inaccurate, and you have responded only by repeating your claim.
Kindly back up your statement with some facts. Show me one example of one of these networks publishing something that was factually inaccurate about McCain that made him look bad.
After all, this "liberal media" is the same one that propagated the lies that have lead to more than 1 in 10 people in some blue states believing Obama to be Muslim.
There are just too many lies and purposeful deception of the viewer in a Moore film, so yes they are faux documentaries, they don't qualify as real ones.
Care to demonstrate some of these lies, rather than just claiming their existence? Again, you cannot make something true just by repeating it.
And on top of that, the Moore documentaries are all films that people see of their own free will. They haven't even been broadcast on network television. Compare that to the bogus news reporters that GWB's administration has used to propagate bogus news to the world through conventional outlets.
as long as the full weight of the crash is felt after your presidency is over so it can be blamed on the next guy.
Is that what you are trying to accomplish - remove all liability for the economy going to hell from GWB?
The rest of the country will remember him for a new word brought to our sexual lexicon, "to get a lewinsky."
I almost thought you would be capable of discussing Bill Clinton without resorting to the cheap tactic of bringing up the Lewinksi case like so many other conservatives. You have proven me wrong on that one, I see. Nevermind the long list of conservatives that have been brought down on sex charges in just the past two years, or the fact that amongst them are some of the most radical homophobes in this country.
You're funny. I'll call that and on the liberal side raise you CNN,
CNN turns to Glenn Beck for commentary, and gave him a 1-hour evening show. If you still think they are liberal you haven't been paying attention. Frankly they barely even qualify as news, considering how much time they devote to worthless celebrity gossip.
NBC
I'd like to know what about NBC causes you to say they are "liberal".
CBS,
Are you still holding on to the Dan Rather controversy? Aside from the fact that he doesn't work there and they've replaced him over a year ago?
ABC,
ABC, who has ties to Disney - who of course is renowned for wholesome family-values programming? And what part of that is "liberal"? What just because Hannity doesn't read the news there?
In case you need to be reminded,the only documentary from Moore that won an academy award was Bowling for Columbine. Others have been nominated, but your stating that more than one won an award is simply not true.
chock-full-of-lies faux documentaries from Michael Moore.
I would say the truth-to-BS ratio in his documentaries has been much better than that in any news releases from the current administration. And his documentaries have caused significantly less loss of life than the outright lies from GWB and company.
Though your statement of "faux documentaries" is simply spin. He shot a documentary. Anyone is free to do the same. He edited the movie in such a way to make a statement - which is what documentaries are about. There are conservatives who have produced and released documentaries as well (some targeting Moore). It is not Michael Moore's fault that conservatives haven't used documentaries as effective tools for their message.
Earlier this afternoon my post was rated "+4, interesting". It now sits at "+1, interesting". That means that 3 people with moderator points felt that the "overrated" tag was the appropriate way to voice disagreement with a post.
Of course, if the overrated tag were subject to meta-moderation, then perhaps it wouldn't be so poorly applied for these purposes.
Though even better still would be for these cowardly members with moderator points to just fess up and state their opinions against my post, rather than cowardly applying the "overrated" tag.
Though seeing how few responses (zero so far) have been moderated up, we can see that hiding behind the "overrated" tag has more impact here.
And yes, I'm complaining. I've drifted off topic. But really, I challenge you to show how I could be wrong on my critique of this moderation.
Free-flowing credit fueled the dot com bubble. The government controls the credit.
But if the Clinton administration is placing all these terrible controls on the market, why would credit be so "free-flowing"? Isn't that counter to the evil socialist aims of the Democratic party? Don't they seek to add additional controls to everything? Why would credit be so free-flowing under tight controls?
Damn, Democrats know how to rewrite history.
Its a good thing that the GOP has such a profound moral high-ground to stand on with this issue. Because of course its not like the conservative has a massivemediapresence or anything. And they've never wanted us to forgetaboutthings they've done or anything.
And your polls and data sets are better and more relevant than mine, of course.
Hey there are plenty of polls out there for anyone to read as they see fit. You seem to be insisting that you have the only true polls with your conclusions...
It has to better for someone or some kind of purpose.
Is there a purpose that is served by not voting? You haven't demonstrated one. How would not voting ever lead to any sort of improvement in the system? Do you expect the government to read your mind and just adapt to your wishes? You are doing nothing to indicate what you want from the system.
Unless you can convince me I don't know what my own interests are
I'll agree with you that I don't know what your interests are. I never claimed to know them, either.
More importantly, the system doesn't know your interests, either. You are choosing to not be active in the system that we have in this country. You are choosing therefore to be ignored.
Are you happy with everything the government does? Unless you live completely "off the grid" and "off the land", you do make some use of government services. And unless you are committing acts of tax evasion, you are paying for government services as well. And as long as you choose to not partake in elections, you will choose to not make a difference in how things are done.
But of course, that is a choice you have. You are free to choose to not partake in the system. Just don't choose to complain that it isn't doing what you want - you've already given up that choice.
I don't think there were very many voters in the Clinton camp that would be swayed to vote for McCain and his hard-core anti-abortion VP, even if she happens to be female.
As far as I can tell, current polling has Obama and McCain in a statistical dead heat (and that was the case 8 and 4 years ago with Gore/Bush and Kerry/Bush). How do you translate that into "no chance" again?
Your conclusions are all based on which polls you read, and which data sets they refer to. If you look at the swing states you'll find no good news for McCain. And with the electoral college system still in effect, you have to review the results on a state-by-state basis.
After all, GWB already demonstrated that you can lose the popular vote by 6 figures or more and still land at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Once the Clinton administration let the dot com bubble get out of control
Let it get out of control? But weren't we told that the Democratic Party placed undo restraints on the market, and that the invisible hand of the market could lead only to good things happening to the world?
How could the Clinton administration have possibly allowed the dot com bubble to get out of control while simultaneously placing strict controls on the market that stifled innovation and hampered American progress?
I've heard discussions that Gov. Palin has had some difficulties with mainstream conservatives. Considering that McCain has almost no chance of winning this election, could picking Palin have been more about taking her out of the picture?
After all, how many candidates from losing presidential tickets - presidential or veep - have been endorsed for office by their parties afterwards?
This could be the GOP's way of holding on for Pawlenty and Romney to run at later times when there is a chance of the republicans winning the white house.
Third faction: mathematicians. People who know the odds are too low to swing a state election to bother with voting.
That is only valid if they believe that they are completely unique in their belief and that nobody else would come to the same conclusion.
While one single un-cast ballot isn't significant, it becomes very significant when you look at how large the fraction of the voting-age public is that never casts ballots.
For example, some of the recent data shows voter turn-out for presidential elections at around 60% in this country. The elections have been very close to evenly split, so we could say that each of the two candidates pulled 30% of the voting-age public.
But then when you realize that over 40% didn't actually bother to cast a vote at all, you see that they could have out-polled the two candidates who did receive votes.
So no, they are absolutely not irrelevant. They just choose to not be part of the system.
Were you trying to respond to some other post? I said nothing about Rock The Vote, and frankly I don't give a damn about what MTV says or does.
you're proposing that casting meaningless ballots is better (for whom/what purpose?) than not voting
Yes, I am saying that casting a meaningless ballot is better than not voting. You did get that part right.
Ballots that are never cast are subsequently never counted. And if your vote isn't counted you give the politicians no incentive to care about your point of view.
Conversely, if you vote for someone (or something) other than the main candidates, your vote is at least recorded under "other". As much as I did not like what Ralph Nader's decisions ended up doing to our country in the 2000 presidential election cycle, he did make a point. He showed that people can bring attention to issues by voting for "none of the above".
And there is a huge difference between voting for "none of the above" and not voting at all. Even casting a blank ballot with no votes on it at all will still send a message that you at least care enough to get off your ass and go make your voice heard. If you instead opt to complain about lack of choices and choose to not vote, then you are only feeding the system that you are complaining about.
What makes you think it would be a good idea to have unmotivated people vote when they obviously have no interest and, more than likely, no understanding, of the issues involved?
I see the lack of participation as having two factions - the unmotivated and the disenfranchised.
The first group likely wouldn't vote even if you told them they could win a free car by going to the voting booth. They might not even know the names of the candidates and may very well have never voted for anything other than American Idol.
The second group consists of people who are more likely to vote if they could be convinced that either their vote will make a difference, or that there is a candidate that reflects their ideas better than another. Unfortunately a lot of these people make their decisions (or chose to not decide) based on faulty or incomplete information. These people could be informed voters but often have chosen not to be. It is up to the campaign workers to find these people and help them to learn about the candidates and the issues.
Of course, we don't know how many people are in each category. But as we've seen, our polling results are still dismal. Another post in this thread shows that we aren't even voting at the rates we were in the 1960's.
As long as elections in the US are a choice between fascism (Republicans) and socialism (Democrats), I will vote for NONE OF THE ABOVE by abstaining.
I would call that terrible short-sightedness. You are showing really nothing beyond total lack of concern. Have you even looked at a ballot? Ever looked at the other names that are listed?
Sure we hear almost exclusively about the candidates of the two major parties. And the third parties currently active are minor at best. But if you aren't even showing the initiative to cast a vote, then you are just allowing the system to continue un-checked.
You could do better by going and casting an empty ballot. Or even putting down your own name for president. Or Crusty the Clown or Mickey Mouse. Or even a damned ficus tree would be a better action than choosing to not vote. The two party system is defeating you when you choose to be so apathetic as to not bother going to the voting booth at all.
And if you honestly believe that there is no difference between the Democratic party and socialism, then you don't know squat about what the parties are actually proposing.
Good luck getting anyone to vote in this country. We've had some of the lowest rates of voter turnout of any democracy for many, many election cycles now.
Besides, it is much easier to say "I didn't vote because there was no candidate that was running on [insert favorite cause here]". And as long as the non-voters continue to not vote (or just complain), we'll continue to have this same system.
I saw a similar email back in March of this year (and I mentioned it on my web page). Just for amusement I tried to contact the sender - both through the from address and the address they asked I reply to - and act a little concerned. I never heard back from them (I'm guessing the email was shut down).
But really, the email was so vague it could have been sent to anyone. They didn't even mention me by name or location. I wasn't really the least bit concerned as it was sent to an old email address of mine anyways.
This comment was tagged "overrated". Yesterday a comment I made was tagged "flamebait". And not long prior another of mine was tagged "overrated" as well (without having been moderated up at all).
Or perhaps someone with something against me has pulled moderator points once or twice in the past two weeks?
And yes, I acknowledge this comment deserves to be tagged "offtopic". But it had to be said.
Considering how obnoxiously ubiquitous Flash has become on the web - and how many sites you can't view without the sexiest version of Flash - it is no surprise that people are angry that the iPhone doesn't do Flash.
But on the other hand, there are plenty of other configurations that don't do Flash, either. Really most Linux distros don't do Flash to the satisfaction of plenty of Flash-only sites. And of course Flash doesn't care about people using Lynx or anyone with impairments that makes it difficult to use a mouse.
However, as much as I'm not an Apple fan myself, I would say really the fault likely belongs more to Adobe. They have chosen to develop Flash in a way that allows third-rate web designers to use it instead of genuine code, while simultaneously giving a big middle finger to those of us who don't meet the compatibility requirements for the newest version.
Perhaps with some luck, some significant good could come from the iPhone - people will start writing more non-flash sites (or at least non-flash versions for those of us who cannot or will not use flash).
I thought the first thing you learned with SQL was creating and deleting databases. I've never met anyone who learned the former, but not the latter. You must have a TON of databases on your system.
That may be a philosophical choice for the DBA to make regarding the SQL noobs in question. Couldn't an argument be made that each SQL noob should have the ability to create and delete tables, not databases, within an instance?
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone know where I could pick one up? It could be useful for backing up my phone. I occasionally move my SIM card between phones (or multiple cards between my phone, depending on the need) and some phones drop certain things when they detect a SIM card swap.
Deposed two dictatorships
The current administration did kick out Saddam Hussein, who was more-or-less a dictator (who ran a faux democracy). If we're talking about accomplishments under the current white house, who would dictatorship #2 be? Afghanistan was a theocracy ruled by the Taliban - not really a dictatorship and not really deposed as of this moment.
disarmed one nuclear nation (working on number two)
Would that be North Korea disarmed? There were a lot of other nations brought to the table for those negotiations. We have no right to take full credit for this one - and even questionable right to partial credit considering how little we did.
And would the second be Iran? They could care less about what our administration does - they know we lack the manpower and finances for an invasion (and it would be global political suicide for our country). I'm not sure how one could consider anything the Bush administration is involved in to be "working" on that regard.
saw Syria out of Lebanon
Again, I'd love to know how you figure we had any great role in that happening. Don't get me wrong - it was definitely good that Syria pulled out, but I think you have to stretch the truth to apply US foreign policy as a factor in that happening.
and joined a nation against a new foreign power
That's a little vague - please elaborate on which event this refers to.
Horrible
In a word, yes, I would say that summarizes the Bush administration. There are other words that come to mind as well, and some of them are not polite in mixed company.
Bush inherited a bad economy,
A bad economy? Yeah, low unemployment + stock market growth + federal budget surplus = bad economy. Indeed, all that prosperity really sucked.
Hell, I'm even willing to concede that the attacks on 9/11 had a meaningful, detrimental effect on the economy. But if you insist on placing all the blame for the US economy going to hell over the past 8 years squarely on the shoulders of Bill Clinton, then this part of the conversation is over.
Yes, the media in this country swings WAY liberal.
You cannot make this true just by repeating it. I've already told you why this statement is inaccurate, and you have responded only by repeating your claim.
Kindly back up your statement with some facts. Show me one example of one of these networks publishing something that was factually inaccurate about McCain that made him look bad.
After all, this "liberal media" is the same one that propagated the lies that have lead to more than 1 in 10 people in some blue states believing Obama to be Muslim.
There are just too many lies and purposeful deception of the viewer in a Moore film, so yes they are faux documentaries, they don't qualify as real ones.
Care to demonstrate some of these lies, rather than just claiming their existence? Again, you cannot make something true just by repeating it.
And on top of that, the Moore documentaries are all films that people see of their own free will. They haven't even been broadcast on network television. Compare that to the bogus news reporters that GWB's administration has used to propagate bogus news to the world through conventional outlets.
as long as the full weight of the crash is felt after your presidency is over so it can be blamed on the next guy.
Is that what you are trying to accomplish - remove all liability for the economy going to hell from GWB?
The rest of the country will remember him for a new word brought to our sexual lexicon, "to get a lewinsky."
I almost thought you would be capable of discussing Bill Clinton without resorting to the cheap tactic of bringing up the Lewinksi case like so many other conservatives. You have proven me wrong on that one, I see. Nevermind the long list of conservatives that have been brought down on sex charges in just the past two years, or the fact that amongst them are some of the most radical homophobes in this country.
You're funny. I'll call that and on the liberal side raise you CNN,
CNN turns to Glenn Beck for commentary, and gave him a 1-hour evening show. If you still think they are liberal you haven't been paying attention. Frankly they barely even qualify as news, considering how much time they devote to worthless celebrity gossip.
NBC
I'd like to know what about NBC causes you to say they are "liberal".
CBS,
Are you still holding on to the Dan Rather controversy? Aside from the fact that he doesn't work there and they've replaced him over a year ago?
ABC,
ABC, who has ties to Disney - who of course is renowned for wholesome family-values programming? And what part of that is "liberal"? What just because Hannity doesn't read the news there?
Daily Kos
Yeah, because there aren't any prominent conservative blogs
Academy Award-winning
In case you need to be reminded,the only documentary from Moore that won an academy award was Bowling for Columbine. Others have been nominated, but your stating that more than one won an award is simply not true.
chock-full-of-lies faux documentaries from Michael Moore.
I would say the truth-to-BS ratio in his documentaries has been much better than that in any news releases from the current administration. And his documentaries have caused significantly less loss of life than the outright lies from GWB and company.
Though your statement of "faux documentaries" is simply spin. He shot a documentary. Anyone is free to do the same. He edited the movie in such a way to make a statement - which is what documentaries are about. There are conservatives who have produced and released documentaries as well (some targeting Moore). It is not Michael Moore's fault that conservatives haven't used documentaries as effective tools for their message.
Earlier this afternoon my post was rated "+4, interesting". It now sits at "+1, interesting". That means that 3 people with moderator points felt that the "overrated" tag was the appropriate way to voice disagreement with a post.
Of course, if the overrated tag were subject to meta-moderation, then perhaps it wouldn't be so poorly applied for these purposes.
Though even better still would be for these cowardly members with moderator points to just fess up and state their opinions against my post, rather than cowardly applying the "overrated" tag.
Though seeing how few responses (zero so far) have been moderated up, we can see that hiding behind the "overrated" tag has more impact here.
And yes, I'm complaining. I've drifted off topic. But really, I challenge you to show how I could be wrong on my critique of this moderation.
Free-flowing credit fueled the dot com bubble. The government controls the credit.
But if the Clinton administration is placing all these terrible controls on the market, why would credit be so "free-flowing"? Isn't that counter to the evil socialist aims of the Democratic party? Don't they seek to add additional controls to everything? Why would credit be so free-flowing under tight controls?
Damn, Democrats know how to rewrite history.
Its a good thing that the GOP has such a profound moral high-ground to stand on with this issue. Because of course its not like the conservative has a massive media presence or anything. And they've never wanted us to forget about things they've done or anything.
And your polls and data sets are better and more relevant than mine, of course.
Hey there are plenty of polls out there for anyone to read as they see fit. You seem to be insisting that you have the only true polls with your conclusions...
It has to better for someone or some kind of purpose.
Is there a purpose that is served by not voting? You haven't demonstrated one. How would not voting ever lead to any sort of improvement in the system? Do you expect the government to read your mind and just adapt to your wishes? You are doing nothing to indicate what you want from the system.
Unless you can convince me I don't know what my own interests are
I'll agree with you that I don't know what your interests are. I never claimed to know them, either.
More importantly, the system doesn't know your interests, either. You are choosing to not be active in the system that we have in this country. You are choosing therefore to be ignored.
Are you happy with everything the government does? Unless you live completely "off the grid" and "off the land", you do make some use of government services. And unless you are committing acts of tax evasion, you are paying for government services as well. And as long as you choose to not partake in elections, you will choose to not make a difference in how things are done.
But of course, that is a choice you have. You are free to choose to not partake in the system. Just don't choose to complain that it isn't doing what you want - you've already given up that choice.
I don't think there were very many voters in the Clinton camp that would be swayed to vote for McCain and his hard-core anti-abortion VP, even if she happens to be female.
As far as I can tell, current polling has Obama and McCain in a statistical dead heat (and that was the case 8 and 4 years ago with Gore/Bush and Kerry/Bush). How do you translate that into "no chance" again?
Your conclusions are all based on which polls you read, and which data sets they refer to. If you look at the swing states you'll find no good news for McCain. And with the electoral college system still in effect, you have to review the results on a state-by-state basis.
After all, GWB already demonstrated that you can lose the popular vote by 6 figures or more and still land at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Once the Clinton administration let the dot com bubble get out of control
Let it get out of control? But weren't we told that the Democratic Party placed undo restraints on the market, and that the invisible hand of the market could lead only to good things happening to the world?
How could the Clinton administration have possibly allowed the dot com bubble to get out of control while simultaneously placing strict controls on the market that stifled innovation and hampered American progress?
not much time to undo two terms of Clinton damage
Yeah, all that economic prosperity that we saw under Clinton really sucked. I'm glad we were able to find a way to undo it.
I've heard discussions that Gov. Palin has had some difficulties with mainstream conservatives. Considering that McCain has almost no chance of winning this election, could picking Palin have been more about taking her out of the picture?
After all, how many candidates from losing presidential tickets - presidential or veep - have been endorsed for office by their parties afterwards?
This could be the GOP's way of holding on for Pawlenty and Romney to run at later times when there is a chance of the republicans winning the white house.
Third faction: mathematicians. People who know the odds are too low to swing a state election to bother with voting.
That is only valid if they believe that they are completely unique in their belief and that nobody else would come to the same conclusion.
While one single un-cast ballot isn't significant, it becomes very significant when you look at how large the fraction of the voting-age public is that never casts ballots.
For example, some of the recent data shows voter turn-out for presidential elections at around 60% in this country. The elections have been very close to evenly split, so we could say that each of the two candidates pulled 30% of the voting-age public.
But then when you realize that over 40% didn't actually bother to cast a vote at all, you see that they could have out-polled the two candidates who did receive votes.
So no, they are absolutely not irrelevant. They just choose to not be part of the system.
Yes, you're right; American tyranny is rather gentle compared to the tyranny of Red China or Saudi Arabia, but it is still tyranny by my standards.
So then what will you do to stop the tyranny? Willingly choosing to abstain from voting doesn't seem like a very effective choice.
your Rock The Vote rhetoric
Were you trying to respond to some other post? I said nothing about Rock The Vote, and frankly I don't give a damn about what MTV says or does.
you're proposing that casting meaningless ballots is better (for whom/what purpose?) than not voting
Yes, I am saying that casting a meaningless ballot is better than not voting. You did get that part right.
Ballots that are never cast are subsequently never counted. And if your vote isn't counted you give the politicians no incentive to care about your point of view.
Conversely, if you vote for someone (or something) other than the main candidates, your vote is at least recorded under "other". As much as I did not like what Ralph Nader's decisions ended up doing to our country in the 2000 presidential election cycle, he did make a point. He showed that people can bring attention to issues by voting for "none of the above".
And there is a huge difference between voting for "none of the above" and not voting at all. Even casting a blank ballot with no votes on it at all will still send a message that you at least care enough to get off your ass and go make your voice heard. If you instead opt to complain about lack of choices and choose to not vote, then you are only feeding the system that you are complaining about.
What makes you think it would be a good idea to have unmotivated people vote when they obviously have no interest and, more than likely, no understanding, of the issues involved?
I see the lack of participation as having two factions - the unmotivated and the disenfranchised.
The first group likely wouldn't vote even if you told them they could win a free car by going to the voting booth. They might not even know the names of the candidates and may very well have never voted for anything other than American Idol.
The second group consists of people who are more likely to vote if they could be convinced that either their vote will make a difference, or that there is a candidate that reflects their ideas better than another. Unfortunately a lot of these people make their decisions (or chose to not decide) based on faulty or incomplete information. These people could be informed voters but often have chosen not to be. It is up to the campaign workers to find these people and help them to learn about the candidates and the issues.
Of course, we don't know how many people are in each category. But as we've seen, our polling results are still dismal. Another post in this thread shows that we aren't even voting at the rates we were in the 1960's.
As long as elections in the US are a choice between fascism (Republicans) and socialism (Democrats), I will vote for NONE OF THE ABOVE by abstaining.
I would call that terrible short-sightedness. You are showing really nothing beyond total lack of concern. Have you even looked at a ballot? Ever looked at the other names that are listed?
Sure we hear almost exclusively about the candidates of the two major parties. And the third parties currently active are minor at best. But if you aren't even showing the initiative to cast a vote, then you are just allowing the system to continue un-checked.
You could do better by going and casting an empty ballot. Or even putting down your own name for president. Or Crusty the Clown or Mickey Mouse. Or even a damned ficus tree would be a better action than choosing to not vote. The two party system is defeating you when you choose to be so apathetic as to not bother going to the voting booth at all.
And if you honestly believe that there is no difference between the Democratic party and socialism, then you don't know squat about what the parties are actually proposing.
Good luck getting anyone to vote in this country. We've had some of the lowest rates of voter turnout of any democracy for many, many election cycles now.
Besides, it is much easier to say "I didn't vote because there was no candidate that was running on [insert favorite cause here]". And as long as the non-voters continue to not vote (or just complain), we'll continue to have this same system.
I saw a similar email back in March of this year (and I mentioned it on my web page). Just for amusement I tried to contact the sender - both through the from address and the address they asked I reply to - and act a little concerned. I never heard back from them (I'm guessing the email was shut down).
But really, the email was so vague it could have been sent to anyone. They didn't even mention me by name or location. I wasn't really the least bit concerned as it was sent to an old email address of mine anyways.
Another site I read on occasion has a page where they post and respond to incoherent and often inflammatory mail.
This comment was tagged "overrated". Yesterday a comment I made was tagged "flamebait". And not long prior another of mine was tagged "overrated" as well (without having been moderated up at all).
Or perhaps someone with something against me has pulled moderator points once or twice in the past two weeks?
And yes, I acknowledge this comment deserves to be tagged "offtopic". But it had to be said.
Considering how obnoxiously ubiquitous Flash has become on the web - and how many sites you can't view without the sexiest version of Flash - it is no surprise that people are angry that the iPhone doesn't do Flash.
But on the other hand, there are plenty of other configurations that don't do Flash, either. Really most Linux distros don't do Flash to the satisfaction of plenty of Flash-only sites. And of course Flash doesn't care about people using Lynx or anyone with impairments that makes it difficult to use a mouse.
However, as much as I'm not an Apple fan myself, I would say really the fault likely belongs more to Adobe. They have chosen to develop Flash in a way that allows third-rate web designers to use it instead of genuine code, while simultaneously giving a big middle finger to those of us who don't meet the compatibility requirements for the newest version.
Perhaps with some luck, some significant good could come from the iPhone - people will start writing more non-flash sites (or at least non-flash versions for those of us who cannot or will not use flash).
I thought the first thing you learned with SQL was creating and deleting databases. I've never met anyone who learned the former, but not the latter. You must have a TON of databases on your system.
That may be a philosophical choice for the DBA to make regarding the SQL noobs in question. Couldn't an argument be made that each SQL noob should have the ability to create and delete tables, not databases, within an instance?