They might not be monitoring the call right when you call, but you can bet they keep every recording just in case they want to have their lawyers come after you.
I believe they record calls just in case your lawyer would come after them. They are trying to protect the parties involved, not maliciously attack people when they are bored.
I always thought we should put in a law that ASKS for explicit permision before they are allowed to record you.
Why? You want something from them, not the other way around. I'm sure that any law would include a provision allowing companies to refuse service if you refuse to have your call recorded, thus defeating the purpose, but then again, that's the way it works now.
You would be surprised how many companies do NOT have a procedure to not record.
You mean it's less then 100% of the companies that say they record calls? Then I am surprised.
Oh, and before you whine about telemarketers who call you and record calls I'll share with you my sure-fire, no-hassle, simple way to keep them from recording your call. Hang up.
If at the same time a company which has put me on hold is playing their "this call may be monitored" etc. etc., I play a message that says "I do not consent to this call being monitored, your acceptance of this fact is noted by you not hanging up" what right do they then have to monitor my call?
Huh! You called them, they didn't call you. If they called you, I guess it could be a different story. You could put a OGM on your answering machine and believe that they heard it.
If you don't want you call to be monitored, how about hanging up? That always seems to work for me. I've never had a call monitored any further after I've hung up. So, if you have a problem having your call monitored, try that free, easy, no hassle solution.
If the facts favor one candidate over the other, then reporting those facts is not bias.
But that's different then only talking about facts that support Kerry, and shoving facts that support Bush under the rug. Hiding the facts doesn't mean you don't have to deal with then.
Admit it. Slashdot is a political wart almost attached to the DNC's rear end. But this is a choice, and there is nothing wrong with it if that is what they want.
I'll just get the facts that support Bush from more reputably sources.
The core constituencies have moved little, with a bit more republicans moving democrat than the other way, but still the cores were remarkably static.
Actually, all the polls I've seen show the opposite. Less Democrats support Kerry then Republicans support Bush. I won't say that all the polls say this, but I've seen some polls give Bush a 2:1 margin over switchers.
the real deciding factor is going to be how much voter fraud is going to occur
If the election is going to be decided on voter fraud and electoral fraud the Democrats are far, far ahead. You've just paid attention to those few stories of Republican fraud. But Democrat fraud is much more organized, and much more prevalent. I'd encourage you to have an open mind and research the voter fraud that has been giong on this year.
We didn't invade Iraq to get rid of conventional weapons.
Then why are we concerned that these are missing? The fact is that these missing explosives are needed to complete nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are WMD. Furthermore, the IAEA had these weapons sealed. They are weapons that we needed to control, they were part of Saddams known weapons program, and it is not surprising that Saddam might have moved them someplace else and hid them.
I feel compelled to stop the backhoe, too. And Michael Peroutka would stop it, wouldn't he? It is unfortunate, but understandable, that you are letting fear override conscience as decision maker.
Peroutka won't stop it if Kerry wins. And unless you know something I don't, Peroutka won't win. MN can win the state for President Bush, and that is what I am going to try to work for. Have been working for, in fact.
The PBA ban does nothing to stop abortion. It's like saying it's not OK to steal my car between 12 and 4 AM, but it's fair game the rest of the day.
Right now the analogy is that the police are "looking the other way" all day for car thefts. I've decided that 12 and 4am, being the darkest, are the worst times for car thefts, so I am pushing to have the police patrol during those hours because I know the "car theft" lobby is strong enough to prevent me from patroling all day. You say, to heck with it, if we can't patrol all day, we may as well not bother at all.
A partial birth abortion ban *does* stop abortions. And it is the right direction. We can use it to strengthen the ban in the future. It is a step in the right direction, and like a marathon, if you don't take that first step, the second step, the third step, you never cross the finish line.
Bush campaigned for the pro-abortion Arlen Specter over the more pro-life Pat Toomey during the primaries. Specter will preside over the Judiciary Committee if he wins reelection. Do you really think pro-life judges will make it through this committee?
If the Democrats control the Senate I know no pro-life judge will make it through. I believe that Specter will feel more pressure from the prolife groups then a Democrat would. President Bush is willing to take the risk that Spector can win the general election better the Toomey and so am I.
Slowing down the decay does not reverse the decay. Voting for Republicans still achieves the overall goals of the Left. They just throw you a bone in hopes of distracting you from the fact that everything else is getting much worse.
You forget that we must slow down before we go in the right direction. One last analogy. You and I are in a car. We're both going down the freeway in the wrong direction and we are not driving. How do you turn around? I convince the driver to go slower, he is still convinced he's going in the right direction but I'm happy, because we need to slow down to a stop before turning around. We might go a 100 miles yet before turning around but I know that slowing down is the first thing that needs to happen.
You try to forciably take control of the car. The driver slows down slightly but doesn't relinquish control. You get mad because your still going in the wrong direction but it now will take longer to get there. You return to your seat frusterated and try unsuccessfuly over and over to get control of the car so that you can slam on the brakes and turn around the car.
This is a democracy. that means that our agenda must take small steps to the right direction, not radical overhauls that make the majority unconmforatble.
"This is a first report. We do not know when -- if those weapons did exist at that facility -- they were last seen, and under whose control they were last in," Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita said.
"It's very possible -- certainly it's plausible -- that it was the Saddam Hussein regime that last had control of these things," he told AFP.
No way! Saddam might have last had control of those weapons? I'm shocked, just shocked. Isn't that why we invaded Iraq? Don't forget the weapons weren't just stacked up waiting for the US to come along and inventory. The US has already destroyed hundreds of tons of weapons. They've got more work to do.
You make it sound like the military was hanging out playing baseball while the terrorists were looting the safe. But that's not what the story seems to be now, does it?
If I don't stand by my principles, then they don't count for much. Bush will not restore the republic, he'll just chip at its foundation with a pick rather than a backhoe like Kerry.
I hope that you'll see this comment eventually. I normally don't reply to comments so old, but I had to point something out now. If there are 2 people coming at my house to destroy the foundation, and one has a pick and the other has a backhoe, what am I going to do? I'm not going to ignore both of them because my foundation is going to be damaged anyways. I'm first going to try to stop the guy with the backhoe. Then when that is dealt with I'll work on improving the damage done with the pitchfork.
I hope you'll understand that although I was a supporter of the CP, right now I feel compelled to stop the backhoe. It doesn't gain us again to increase the rate of depravity.
Furthermore, I would point out that although this is a democracy and some compromise is needed, President Bush has done a lot to start repairing the foundation. Partial Birth Abortion Ban, Halting Mexico City abortion funding, nominating constitutional judges, supporting a constitutional amendment on marraige. I'm just not willing to allow that to be all thrown out just because damage is continuing to be done at a marginal rate instead of an excessive rate.
There's a reason that people bring up WMDs. We were told by the Bush administration that there were WMDs in Iraq.
No, do you realize that before the liberation *every* including Kerry said there was WMD's in Iraq, and that Saddam was a threat. No, there was no WMD found, but no one concedes that that meant there was no threat. Saddam had the capabilities to make WMD, and he was just biding his time unless the pressure was off.
The only one not duped into a false sense of security was President Bush. I'm pretty comfortable with that, especially after seeing Kerry and others quickly drop of their original positions when they were bucking political winds...
Imagine what things might be like if there was one of these in every tenth house in Baghdad
The insurgents would freak out and go away. Of course, that's a pipe dream. More realistically, the insurgents would torch every 10th house they could get away with.
Basically if Kerry was smart, he would have missed the Iraq votes (or abstained), but what I think happened is that he voted for the war before he had hopes of the Presidency, then changed his mind later.
No, actually history will show that he voted against the war before he had hopes of the presidency. When Clinton dropped Kerry for the VP consideration it was because Kerry voted against the war and Clinton, and therefore the Decmorats were looking for a "pro-war" candidate. Gore ended up getting the nomination and remembering it 8 years later selected Leiberman for the VP nomination.
Gore lost and 2 years later with Kerry eyeballing the White House the "Iraqi war" vote miraculously came up again. Not to make the same mistake again that he did 11 years earlier he grabbed his nose and voted for the war. His campaign was off with the right start but fate was not with him. Far from the pro-war party of the '90's Howard Dean blasts into the primary with his anti-war message.
Now the vocal contingent is anti-war and Kerry is trapped with a vote he thought he had to make to get the nomination. Fortunetaly, fate shows up for a while and the $87 billion for troops gets a no vote. This pacifies the pacifists and Kerry gets the nomination after all.
Now, one week from the election Kerry is in a turmultous position of having to not lose the anti-war support while telling Americans that they can trust him to be "like Bush." Will he do it? If he can convince anti-war Americans that he is anti-war, and anti-terrorism Americans that the anti-war folks shouldn't trust him, he will win. If he can't keep on the tightrope however, and one side or the other realize he is just using their positions to get votes, he will lose.
I'm of the impression that he is going to fail to convince americans that the anti-war groups are wrong about Kerry. Hence, President Bush will win again.
What do you think? Did I describe what happened, or am I off the board?
From the Boston Globe:
August 6th, 2000
"But Kerry and Gore remained at odds on some issues. In 1991, in one of the most important votes of Gore's career, the Tennessean voted to support President Bush's request to use force in the Gulf War.
Kerry voted against the resolution. He said he wanted to give economic sanctions more time to work ''before rushing headlong into war.''
By some accounts, Gore's vote helped him secure the vice presidential spot. Bill Clinton had waffled on whether he would have voted for the use of force, and the governor of Arkansas was searching for a running mate with foreign policy experience who had backed the Gulf War.
Kerry's name came up in the initial search for a running mate, but he was not seriously considered, partly because of his voting record and his opposition to the Gulf War resolution. Indeed, Kerry's Gulf War vote has been a sore point with some Gore aides in the current process."
Given a choice between a candidate who wants to kill terrorists and a candidate who supports preemptively invading countries with no ties
Ah, but that's the difference. The 9/11 comission held hearings and determine that there was a tie between Saddam and terrorist groups, which is what Bush said. However, they also said there were no ties between Saddam and 9/11 which is what Democrats claimed the issue was.
Hence, Democrats were wrong about being wrong, but I don't expect them to concede that.
Given a choice between a candidate who wants to kill terrorists and a candidate who supports preemptively invading countries with no tiesAh, but that's the difference. The 9/11 comission held hearings and determine that there was a tie between Saddam and terrorist groups, which is what Bush said. However, they also said there were no ties between Saddam and 9/11 which is what Democrats claimed the issue was.
Hence, Democrats were wrong about being wrong, but I don't expect them to concede that.
On a day that it is reported that despite being warned about the risk of theft the Bush administration let 350 tons of high explosives disappear in Iraq
I thought liberals spent the last 2 years claiming that Saddam didn't have any weapons. Where did these 350 tons of "high explosives" come from? Are the liberals conceding that they were wrong now?
The Bush administration let Osama Bin Laden get away in Tora Bora, then when he had to do damage-control Bush declared that he's not very concerned about where he is.
I don't remember him letting OBL disappear. I do remember something about "allies" and Warlords, and Kerry saying that was a good idea until he said it wasn't. I also remember that there are more troops in Afganistan now then before we invaded Iraq, and that Bush said he wasn't concerned about OBL because we were doing the right things to get him. Oh yeah, and Kerry said it was the "right thing" to do, before he said it wasn't.
And yes, I've tried asking them to turn off the TVs. They won't. I've even written to the airports requesting that they get rid of CNN. No response.
I bet there's a 100 other people waiting for an airplane where ever you are. Why should they not get to see CNN just because you seem to have a personal vendetta against it? I know that I would be pretty unhappy if I had to sit there without CNN just because you, out of dozens of people wanted it turned off. What makes you more important then everyone else?
So it would seem that YOU were paid for by Bush-Cheney '04, Inc.
get it?
now no one said that you are, just that it's ironic that you had that on your webpage.
So it was a coincidence that I'm Republican, I hate voter fraud, and I used my homepage to hold a Republican scroller. And that's an irony to him. OK.
The point is that it is perfectly acceptable to change one's mind if new information is at hand which sets new boundary conditions.
Right, even President Bush made that point in the second debate. That's not what I had an issue with. The question asked for an example of an honest change of opinion on a topic of national importance. Nader only example in his whole answer was a hot dog. At least President Bush had the balls to ignore the question altogether. That's a ton better then giving a hot dog as an example.
The irony lies in the fact that I went to your website expecting to see something about YOU, and the first thing I see is "Paid for by BUSH-CHENEY '04, Inc"
You're right. I still have a link to my domain which only has a scroller for the georgewbush.com debate fact checker. However, no rule says that I must have information about ME on a domain just because I own it. Again, I fail to see the irony just because I have a domain that I still had a link to here, but have only used for personal stuff for months now.
However, just to make you feel better, I will change the link.
I didn't say that it was 'independent. I just said that Democrats should start condemning fraud when it benefits them, just like Republicans condemn a group that tries to commit fraud to help their party.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe they record calls just in case your lawyer would come after them. They are trying to protect the parties involved, not maliciously attack people when they are bored.
I always thought we should put in a law that ASKS for explicit permision before they are allowed to record you.Why? You want something from them, not the other way around. I'm sure that any law would include a provision allowing companies to refuse service if you refuse to have your call recorded, thus defeating the purpose, but then again, that's the way it works now.
You would be surprised how many companies do NOT have a procedure to not record.You mean it's less then 100% of the companies that say they record calls? Then I am surprised.
Oh, and before you whine about telemarketers who call you and record calls I'll share with you my sure-fire, no-hassle, simple way to keep them from recording your call. Hang up.
-BrentHuh! You called them, they didn't call you. If they called you, I guess it could be a different story. You could put a OGM on your answering machine and believe that they heard it.
If you don't want you call to be monitored, how about hanging up? That always seems to work for me. I've never had a call monitored any further after I've hung up. So, if you have a problem having your call monitored, try that free, easy, no hassle solution.
-BrentBut that's different then only talking about facts that support Kerry, and shoving facts that support Bush under the rug. Hiding the facts doesn't mean you don't have to deal with then.
Admit it. Slashdot is a political wart almost attached to the DNC's rear end. But this is a choice, and there is nothing wrong with it if that is what they want.
I'll just get the facts that support Bush from more reputably sources.
-BrentActually, all the polls I've seen show the opposite. Less Democrats support Kerry then Republicans support Bush. I won't say that all the polls say this, but I've seen some polls give Bush a 2:1 margin over switchers.
-BrentIf the election is going to be decided on voter fraud and electoral fraud the Democrats are far, far ahead. You've just paid attention to those few stories of Republican fraud. But Democrat fraud is much more organized, and much more prevalent. I'd encourage you to have an open mind and research the voter fraud that has been giong on this year.
-BrentThen why are we concerned that these are missing? The fact is that these missing explosives are needed to complete nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are WMD. Furthermore, the IAEA had these weapons sealed. They are weapons that we needed to control, they were part of Saddams known weapons program, and it is not surprising that Saddam might have moved them someplace else and hid them.
-BrentPeroutka won't stop it if Kerry wins. And unless you know something I don't, Peroutka won't win. MN can win the state for President Bush, and that is what I am going to try to work for. Have been working for, in fact.
The PBA ban does nothing to stop abortion. It's like saying it's not OK to steal my car between 12 and 4 AM, but it's fair game the rest of the day.
Right now the analogy is that the police are "looking the other way" all day for car thefts. I've decided that 12 and 4am, being the darkest, are the worst times for car thefts, so I am pushing to have the police patrol during those hours because I know the "car theft" lobby is strong enough to prevent me from patroling all day. You say, to heck with it, if we can't patrol all day, we may as well not bother at all.
A partial birth abortion ban *does* stop abortions. And it is the right direction. We can use it to strengthen the ban in the future. It is a step in the right direction, and like a marathon, if you don't take that first step, the second step, the third step, you never cross the finish line.
Bush campaigned for the pro-abortion Arlen Specter over the more pro-life Pat Toomey during the primaries. Specter will preside over the Judiciary Committee if he wins reelection. Do you really think pro-life judges will make it through this committee?If the Democrats control the Senate I know no pro-life judge will make it through. I believe that Specter will feel more pressure from the prolife groups then a Democrat would. President Bush is willing to take the risk that Spector can win the general election better the Toomey and so am I.
Slowing down the decay does not reverse the decay. Voting for Republicans still achieves the overall goals of the Left. They just throw you a bone in hopes of distracting you from the fact that everything else is getting much worse.You forget that we must slow down before we go in the right direction. One last analogy. You and I are in a car. We're both going down the freeway in the wrong direction and we are not driving. How do you turn around? I convince the driver to go slower, he is still convinced he's going in the right direction but I'm happy, because we need to slow down to a stop before turning around. We might go a 100 miles yet before turning around but I know that slowing down is the first thing that needs to happen.
You try to forciably take control of the car. The driver slows down slightly but doesn't relinquish control. You get mad because your still going in the wrong direction but it now will take longer to get there. You return to your seat frusterated and try unsuccessfuly over and over to get control of the car so that you can slam on the brakes and turn around the car.
This is a democracy. that means that our agenda must take small steps to the right direction, not radical overhauls that make the majority unconmforatble.
-Brenthttp://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=31787
No way! Saddam might have last had control of those weapons? I'm shocked, just shocked. Isn't that why we invaded Iraq? Don't forget the weapons weren't just stacked up waiting for the US to come along and inventory. The US has already destroyed hundreds of tons of weapons. They've got more work to do.
You make it sound like the military was hanging out playing baseball while the terrorists were looting the safe. But that's not what the story seems to be now, does it?
The timeline-Brent
I hope that you'll see this comment eventually. I normally don't reply to comments so old, but I had to point something out now. If there are 2 people coming at my house to destroy the foundation, and one has a pick and the other has a backhoe, what am I going to do? I'm not going to ignore both of them because my foundation is going to be damaged anyways. I'm first going to try to stop the guy with the backhoe. Then when that is dealt with I'll work on improving the damage done with the pitchfork.
I hope you'll understand that although I was a supporter of the CP, right now I feel compelled to stop the backhoe. It doesn't gain us again to increase the rate of depravity.
Furthermore, I would point out that although this is a democracy and some compromise is needed, President Bush has done a lot to start repairing the foundation. Partial Birth Abortion Ban, Halting Mexico City abortion funding, nominating constitutional judges, supporting a constitutional amendment on marraige. I'm just not willing to allow that to be all thrown out just because damage is continuing to be done at a marginal rate instead of an excessive rate.
-BrentNo, do you realize that before the liberation *every* including Kerry said there was WMD's in Iraq, and that Saddam was a threat. No, there was no WMD found, but no one concedes that that meant there was no threat. Saddam had the capabilities to make WMD, and he was just biding his time unless the pressure was off.
The only one not duped into a false sense of security was President Bush. I'm pretty comfortable with that, especially after seeing Kerry and others quickly drop of their original positions when they were bucking political winds...
-BrentNo, I bet it is Clinton you really long for...
-BrentThe insurgents would freak out and go away. Of course, that's a pipe dream. More realistically, the insurgents would torch every 10th house they could get away with.
-BrentNo, actually history will show that he voted against the war before he had hopes of the presidency. When Clinton dropped Kerry for the VP consideration it was because Kerry voted against the war and Clinton, and therefore the Decmorats were looking for a "pro-war" candidate. Gore ended up getting the nomination and remembering it 8 years later selected Leiberman for the VP nomination.
Gore lost and 2 years later with Kerry eyeballing the White House the "Iraqi war" vote miraculously came up again. Not to make the same mistake again that he did 11 years earlier he grabbed his nose and voted for the war. His campaign was off with the right start but fate was not with him. Far from the pro-war party of the '90's Howard Dean blasts into the primary with his anti-war message.
Now the vocal contingent is anti-war and Kerry is trapped with a vote he thought he had to make to get the nomination. Fortunetaly, fate shows up for a while and the $87 billion for troops gets a no vote. This pacifies the pacifists and Kerry gets the nomination after all.
Now, one week from the election Kerry is in a turmultous position of having to not lose the anti-war support while telling Americans that they can trust him to be "like Bush." Will he do it? If he can convince anti-war Americans that he is anti-war, and anti-terrorism Americans that the anti-war folks shouldn't trust him, he will win. If he can't keep on the tightrope however, and one side or the other realize he is just using their positions to get votes, he will lose.
I'm of the impression that he is going to fail to convince americans that the anti-war groups are wrong about Kerry. Hence, President Bush will win again.
What do you think? Did I describe what happened, or am I off the board?
Ah, but that's the difference. The 9/11 comission held hearings and determine that there was a tie between Saddam and terrorist groups, which is what Bush said. However, they also said there were no ties between Saddam and 9/11 which is what Democrats claimed the issue was.
Hence, Democrats were wrong about being wrong, but I don't expect them to concede that.
-BrentHuh? Oh wait, I didn't say anything about WMD's in my post. It's only liberals that bring up WMD. I wonder why?
-BrentHence, Democrats were wrong about being wrong, but I don't expect them to concede that.
-BrentActually, Kerry did promise to kill terrorists. I bet that made the anti-war pacifists proud!
From time.com: "but it put Edwards on the defensive, forcing him to promise that John Kerry would hunt down and kill terrorists before they could hurt America. (Would that it were that simple.)"
-BrentI thought liberals spent the last 2 years claiming that Saddam didn't have any weapons. Where did these 350 tons of "high explosives" come from? Are the liberals conceding that they were wrong now?
The Bush administration let Osama Bin Laden get away in Tora Bora, then when he had to do damage-control Bush declared that he's not very concerned about where he is.I don't remember him letting OBL disappear. I do remember something about "allies" and Warlords, and Kerry saying that was a good idea until he said it wasn't. I also remember that there are more troops in Afganistan now then before we invaded Iraq, and that Bush said he wasn't concerned about OBL because we were doing the right things to get him. Oh yeah, and Kerry said it was the "right thing" to do, before he said it wasn't.
-BrentI bet there's a 100 other people waiting for an airplane where ever you are. Why should they not get to see CNN just because you seem to have a personal vendetta against it? I know that I would be pretty unhappy if I had to sit there without CNN just because you, out of dozens of people wanted it turned off. What makes you more important then everyone else?
-BrentRobert Byrd
-BrentSo it was a coincidence that I'm Republican, I hate voter fraud, and I used my homepage to hold a Republican scroller. And that's an irony to him. OK.
-BrentRight, even President Bush made that point in the second debate. That's not what I had an issue with. The question asked for an example of an honest change of opinion on a topic of national importance. Nader only example in his whole answer was a hot dog. At least President Bush had the balls to ignore the question altogether. That's a ton better then giving a hot dog as an example.
-BrentYou're right. I still have a link to my domain which only has a scroller for the georgewbush.com debate fact checker. However, no rule says that I must have information about ME on a domain just because I own it. Again, I fail to see the irony just because I have a domain that I still had a link to here, but have only used for personal stuff for months now.
However, just to make you feel better, I will change the link.
-BrentI didn't say that it was 'independent. I just said that Democrats should start condemning fraud when it benefits them, just like Republicans condemn a group that tries to commit fraud to help their party.
-BrentI thought only /. we all disapproved of electronic voting. Or was that only on Tuesdays?
-Brent