The word "documentary" refers to a "fair and objective" presentation that gives creedence to all significant sides of an issue, something Moore's does not do. Also, you may not think people are under the illusion that Moore is unbiased, but people who have no idea what constitutes bias, such as the highly impressionable minds of our youth, are being indoctrinated by one-sided half-truths that wouldn't hold an ounce of water in court.
When will you people learn that it isn't the individual, it's the PARTY. Democrats and Republicans alike -- not the individuals, but the parties -- will stop at nothing to prevent a third party from stealing their power.
Bush is all in favor of several libertarian ideals, but some of those things just aren't feasible in today's geopolitical climate. Or, why don't you try to sit in the president's chair and do the libertarian thing? You'll find in two seconds that it's impossible, because not only is Congress responsible for getting the bills to the president's desk that can then be signed into law, but a president who starts withdrawing from UN and NATO, closing foreign bases, and attempting the other reforms that must first go through Congress would be impeached so fast that he wouldn't have a chance to defend himself -- and libertarianism would basically be dead in America for the next 30 years.
When you're trying to join the big players' game, you have to take baby steps and do things their way, work your way in, get accepted, and then take them down from the ground up... playing by their rules until you have enough authority -- not just power -- to affect change.
That was a wasted effort. You apparently didn't read what I wrote. I said that libertarians are more liberal on some issues and less liberal on others, and thus they "tend" (meaning "appear") to even out -- such as to the uninformed person making a snap judgment, which is what most people who don't understand politics do.
I said nothing about Republicans and libertarians being similar. You pulled that from your own bad assumption about what I had written.
The 9/11 commission just declared that there is a connection. The news media jumped the gun when they took an interim report from a very low-ranking official of the commission and took it badly out of context. They have refused to report that the commission has indeed proven the connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda, instead taking a line from the report -- that the collaboration between Saddam and bin Laden was probable, but "innocent until proven guilty", and there still is no proof -- and turning it into "Iraq never linked with al-Qaeda".
Even Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been quite a thorn in Bush's side in the Iraq effort, has supported and reiterated just this week that "officials from Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist attacks in the United States and outside it against the U.S. military".
Also, they have found dozens of WMDs in Iraq, and the commission has backed it up. Sarin gas, mustard gas, and botullinum toxin have all been found as well as the components of devices used to deliver them. They have also proven that Saddam was moving the stuff out of the country just before the inspectors arrived (so nice of them to announce their visit ahead of time).
The news media, on the other hand, has reported none of this, because they have their own agenda. The media doesn't care that Operation Iraqi Freedom was not initiated in response to 9-11, but to prevent another 9-11. The president explained that Saddam, "was a threat because he had terrorist connections- not only al-Qaeda connections, but other connections to terrorist organizations". The media only seem to care that Americans think that was the case.
Why don't you actually get your news from the commission rather than the (mostly left wing) press?
Also, don't make stupid assumptions about my political leanings. I didn't attack Moore. I didn't defend Bush. I've never voted for a Republican in a presidential election. I'm not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination.
(This would have been in the previous reply, but I just noticed your last line.)
I dare you to find ANY SINGLE EXAMPLE of Rush caught in a lie. Just one. If you can find an example, I'll buy you lunch.
The man may be biased, but a liar he is not. The reason why he's risen to the top of talk radio is his amazing fact-checking team. They have access to things you do not. Rush is successful because he doesn't say something until he's sure about it.
Re:We have a free market of ideas in this country.
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Fahrenheit 9/11 Discussion
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Yes, that's obvious. The problem is that so many liberals are failing to do that; they're simply praising the film as truth (which is what I said in my last post) despite that Moore has admitted that it is not all true.
Also, when Moore says the film is a documentary and it is not, and when he makes it clear that his intention with this mockumentary is to hurt the president's chance of re-election, then what he has done by disguising his own biased opinions and even some intentionally hidden satirical mistruths in the film is, as you say, a disgusting concept.
I agree with most of your post, but I don't agree with your opinion that Fox News is "certainly conservative" -- at best, the opinion is debatable; at worst, it's wrong.
No doubt, it is more conservative (at certain times of the day) than other networks, but that's only because they actually report the news stories that support the president's administration while all the other networks nearly always refuse to run them. But Fox News criticizes the administration and other Republican interests when events warrant it.
As for Fox News personalities: Bill O'Reilly is certainly not conservative (he's all over the place), Alan Colmes is certainly liberal, and Sean Hannity is certainly conservative -- the political leanings of most other hosts are ambiguous at best. Brit Hume and Tony Snow appear to be conservative some days, but their professionalism disguises it well enough that I still can't make a judgment. I don't watch Greta van Susteren, John Gibson, Neal Cavuto, or Shepard Smith, so I have nothing on them.
The biggest problem I have with Fox News is Oliver North's "War Stories", which would be better on the History channel. But that's still better than hearing Dan Rather complain on the air about a Republican unexpectedly being declared the winner of an election.
"The Republican Party has figured out that they can buy votes from the uneducated."
I think you've got it backwards. An uneducated person wouldn't vote Republican unless his only concerns are Jesus and a gun, and that doesn't require being bought.
With their promises for extending benefits, redistributing wealth from rich to poor, etc., Democrats are basically telling the poor not to worry, "we'll take care of you" -- with everyone else's tax dollars. To some extent, this isn't a bad thing, but the extent to which Democrats are willing to use this as a ploy to buy votes is sickening.
(Borrowed the idea of the subject from this comment.)
The American Heritage Dictionary defines "documentary" as A work...presenting political, social, or historical subject matter in a factual and informative manner and often consisting of actual news films or interviews accompanied by narration. Further, it restricts the presentation to "facts" that are presented "objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter, as in a book or film."
According to this definition and Michael Moore's admitting that a significant portion of the documentary is not meant to be taken seriously -- it's only partly true and the rest is meant to be satire, not to mention the lack of objectivity -- then Fahrenheit 9/11 is not a documentary; it is a mockumentary, little more than entertainment with some basis in facts deeply buried beneath the surface of the film (although you wouldn't know it by Moore's presentation) and should be treated as such.
For reasonably objective, reasonably centered reviews from well-respected news organizations (as well as some considered by many to be "left-wing" publications), click the following links:
Washington Post -- "Moore has publicly indicated his goal is to impact this election."
CNN International -- "Of course it isn't a fair and balanced look at its subject matter, but it is good filmmaking."
The Guardian (UK) -- "According to legend, Fahrenheit 9/11 was made to topple George W Bush and thereby save America from the grip of an evil tyrant."
New York Times -- "Mixing sober outrage with mischievous humor and blithely trampling the boundary between documentary and demagoguery, Mr. Moore takes wholesale aim at the Bush administration, whose tenure has been distinguished, in his view, by unparalleled and unmitigated arrogance, mendacity and incompetence."
MTV -- "Are [the facts Moore presents] impenetrable on their own, or are they manicured to fit Moore's own motivations?"
FYI, I have only read the opening paragraphs to each of these reviews, so I have little to no knowledge of any potential direction they may follow. Click at your whim.
Technology is one of many things that matter to "nerds". We also like politics and law, games, music, movies, math, and a variety of random topics that are too random to list.
As the first three words of Slashdot's slogan are "news for nerds", and with movies and politics being among the things that nerds take entirely too seriously, I'd say this discussion is perfectly at home at Slashdot (and it's being taken entirely too seriously).
If you think Fox News is any less truthful than the other news networks, you are sadly mistaken. Also, anyone who thinks Oliver North's "War Stories" is "entertainment" either served under Mr. North or is sadly mistaken... or both.
"Now, if you consider every single news flash regarding, oh say, SCO, more important than a movie that I believe will make a fundamental impact on the future of how politics are played out in America, the fine, avoid this thread."
Actually, I consider every single news flash regarding SCO more importan than a movie that you believe will make a fundamental impact on the future of how politics are played out in America, because I believe Michael Moores Fahrenheit 9/11 is little more than a heavily biased satire with truth buried so deep beneath the surface of the film that it is impossible to know what to trust and what to discard as satire.
Moore himself has expressed that the film is a satire and not all of it is true, but he has not told us which parts are and are not meant to be taken seriously. That being the case, how can you take any of it seriously?
Also, your [command? request?] for people who oppose Moore to avoid this thread is rather silly, don't you think? It seems to me that this might be the discussion they've been waiting on.
I also think more than half of our elected Democrats in Congress are also accurately characterized as social democrats. I suppose this isn't a bad thing for people who want the government to be checking up on them every step of the way, but I find the idea of social democratic politics to be largely antithetical to the ideas of classical liberalism that have carried the United States from the 18th to the 21st century.
A paraphrase of a former president: "Democracy is to social democracy what a jacket is to a straight jacket."
(President Reagan actually said, "A republic is to a people's republic...", referring to the communist titles of nations like the People's Republic of China.)
"
On a political scale within the United States, although it may not appear that way to American Citizens, all parties are on the far right as compared with other nations."
Uhhh, other nations' political parties are not "within the United States. Please be consistent.
Within the United States, the political parties, from left to right, are Green, Democrat, Republican/Libertarian.
Putting Libertarian and Republican together there is not meant to suggest that they are the same; rather, the Libertarian party is further right on some issues and further left on others, but in the long run they tend to even out. Neither of the two major parties within the US is "extreme" on either side.
However, if you take the position of the average Democrat (that includes the South, by the way) and compare it to Michael Moore, you find that Democrats advertise themselves to be much more centrist, but behind closed doors they are much in agreement with the more extreme views of Michael Moore.
Also, as a news editor, I can say with some limited authority on the subject that a professional editor of any publication, documentary, or any other work aims to remove bias from the finished work such that the work doesn't appear to take sides. Most editorial pages in serious newspapers are reasonably successful at this. Mr. Moore, in his documentary, is not.
That should be "...little to no real knowledge...":-)
We have a free market of ideas in this country...
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Fahrenheit 9/11 Discussion
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· Score: 4, Insightful
...and that includes the right not to have a film shown if the theatre managers don't want to show it, for whatever reason they choose. It's the same right that allows a newspaper editor not to run a story no matter who wrote it, or allows a newscaster not to air an interview or clip no matter what was said or who said it.
Bias exists in many shapes and forms. Twisting ideas into idealogical talking points is just one, but the most popular (and most people don't even realize it) is leaving out any thing that's true that supports the opposite claim. For instance, Michael Moore has consistently insisted that at least a significant portion of his film is satire and not meant to be taken seriously, but he won't tell us which parts or what makes them untrue. Meanwhile, there are supposedly "intelligent" people in this forum posting comments about how "true" the movie is when they obviously have little to know real knowledge of what comes across the desks and goes through the minds of either Moore or the president.
It doesn't matter which side of the fence any of these people are on. What makes me sick is their incessant whining about rights and truths when neither group understands what they are.
"
ZDNet says users have 'few options' other than alternative browsers or platforms."
Lines like this make me wonder how many of you anti-Windows/.'ers sink low enough to write malware and exploit Windows security holes just to inflate your own egos.:-P With so many savvy users, I'd be willing to bet that among those of you who laugh at Windows users for stories like this, quite a few are partially responsible.
This isn't a conspiracy theory -- more of a conspiracy allegation with no basis in fact.
The correct measure of a meter in inches has many more than four digits, but 39.37 is correct when rounding to four significant digits. Likewise, 39.4 is correct when rounding to three, and 40 is correct when rounding to two or one.
And although it has nothing to do with rounding, 42 is also correct when you're a karma whore who thinks/.'ers will mod up any reference to Douglas Adams.
Yeah, that's just what a bunch of guys creating some of the most violent imagery on earth need: access to really big guns. There's no telling what some of these guys have been through to make them want to create so much artificial death and destruction, but I definitely think it's a good idea for those same people to have access to the weapons that can make their fiction come to life!
(This was written entirely in jest. I enjoy first-person shooters and, um, Grand Theft Auto.)
With the recent slew of stories about newWiFihotspots, it looks like it's becoming a pissing contest among the Slashdot faithful to find the next biggest hotspot and report it to millions of readers who won't be going there anyway.
I used Quick-To-Do Pro for about six months, ending a little more than a year ago. It's a great program and it did all the things I wanted it to do:
1. Kept track of upcoming events or tasks
2. Allowed me to prioritize them by user-defined categories 3. Allowed me to set recurring events (daily, weekly, etc.) 4. And allowed me to set how the software reminded me of a task
There were two problems with Quick-To-Do: (1) the way it embedded itself in my system (WinXP Home then, now I use WinXP Pro), which was only a nuisance; (2) it erased all my tasks on more than one occasion, and I never figured out why.
I can barely remember using the software now, because I found actually using to-do list software was much more annoying and less productive than actually keeping track of daily tasks myself. Sure, I forget something every now and then, but at least I place the blame where it should be -- on me -- instead of on a piece of software that has no emotional attachment to my daily life anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
The word "documentary" refers to a "fair and objective" presentation that gives creedence to all significant sides of an issue, something Moore's does not do. Also, you may not think people are under the illusion that Moore is unbiased, but people who have no idea what constitutes bias, such as the highly impressionable minds of our youth, are being indoctrinated by one-sided half-truths that wouldn't hold an ounce of water in court.
When will you people learn that it isn't the individual, it's the PARTY. Democrats and Republicans alike -- not the individuals, but the parties -- will stop at nothing to prevent a third party from stealing their power.
Bush is all in favor of several libertarian ideals, but some of those things just aren't feasible in today's geopolitical climate. Or, why don't you try to sit in the president's chair and do the libertarian thing? You'll find in two seconds that it's impossible, because not only is Congress responsible for getting the bills to the president's desk that can then be signed into law, but a president who starts withdrawing from UN and NATO, closing foreign bases, and attempting the other reforms that must first go through Congress would be impeached so fast that he wouldn't have a chance to defend himself -- and libertarianism would basically be dead in America for the next 30 years.
When you're trying to join the big players' game, you have to take baby steps and do things their way, work your way in, get accepted, and then take them down from the ground up... playing by their rules until you have enough authority -- not just power -- to affect change.
That was a wasted effort. You apparently didn't read what I wrote. I said that libertarians are more liberal on some issues and less liberal on others, and thus they "tend" (meaning "appear") to even out -- such as to the uninformed person making a snap judgment, which is what most people who don't understand politics do.
I said nothing about Republicans and libertarians being similar. You pulled that from your own bad assumption about what I had written.
The 9/11 commission just declared that there is a connection. The news media jumped the gun when they took an interim report from a very low-ranking official of the commission and took it badly out of context. They have refused to report that the commission has indeed proven the connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda, instead taking a line from the report -- that the collaboration between Saddam and bin Laden was probable, but "innocent until proven guilty", and there still is no proof -- and turning it into "Iraq never linked with al-Qaeda".
Even Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been quite a thorn in Bush's side in the Iraq effort, has supported and reiterated just this week that "officials from Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist attacks in the United States and outside it against the U.S. military".
Also, they have found dozens of WMDs in Iraq, and the commission has backed it up. Sarin gas, mustard gas, and botullinum toxin have all been found as well as the components of devices used to deliver them. They have also proven that Saddam was moving the stuff out of the country just before the inspectors arrived (so nice of them to announce their visit ahead of time).
The news media, on the other hand, has reported none of this, because they have their own agenda. The media doesn't care that Operation Iraqi Freedom was not initiated in response to 9-11, but to prevent another 9-11. The president explained that Saddam, "was a threat because he had terrorist connections- not only al-Qaeda connections, but other connections to terrorist organizations". The media only seem to care that Americans think that was the case.
Why don't you actually get your news from the commission rather than the (mostly left wing) press?
Also, don't make stupid assumptions about my political leanings. I didn't attack Moore. I didn't defend Bush. I've never voted for a Republican in a presidential election. I'm not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination.
(This would have been in the previous reply, but I just noticed your last line.)
I dare you to find ANY SINGLE EXAMPLE of Rush caught in a lie. Just one. If you can find an example, I'll buy you lunch.
The man may be biased, but a liar he is not. The reason why he's risen to the top of talk radio is his amazing fact-checking team. They have access to things you do not. Rush is successful because he doesn't say something until he's sure about it.
Yes, that's obvious. The problem is that so many liberals are failing to do that; they're simply praising the film as truth (which is what I said in my last post) despite that Moore has admitted that it is not all true.
Also, when Moore says the film is a documentary and it is not, and when he makes it clear that his intention with this mockumentary is to hurt the president's chance of re-election, then what he has done by disguising his own biased opinions and even some intentionally hidden satirical mistruths in the film is, as you say, a disgusting concept.
I agree with most of your post, but I don't agree with your opinion that Fox News is "certainly conservative" -- at best, the opinion is debatable; at worst, it's wrong.
No doubt, it is more conservative (at certain times of the day) than other networks, but that's only because they actually report the news stories that support the president's administration while all the other networks nearly always refuse to run them. But Fox News criticizes the administration and other Republican interests when events warrant it.
As for Fox News personalities: Bill O'Reilly is certainly not conservative (he's all over the place), Alan Colmes is certainly liberal, and Sean Hannity is certainly conservative -- the political leanings of most other hosts are ambiguous at best. Brit Hume and Tony Snow appear to be conservative some days, but their professionalism disguises it well enough that I still can't make a judgment. I don't watch Greta van Susteren, John Gibson, Neal Cavuto, or Shepard Smith, so I have nothing on them.
The biggest problem I have with Fox News is Oliver North's "War Stories", which would be better on the History channel. But that's still better than hearing Dan Rather complain on the air about a Republican unexpectedly being declared the winner of an election.
"The Republican Party has figured out that they can buy votes from the uneducated."
I think you've got it backwards. An uneducated person wouldn't vote Republican unless his only concerns are Jesus and a gun, and that doesn't require being bought.
With their promises for extending benefits, redistributing wealth from rich to poor, etc., Democrats are basically telling the poor not to worry, "we'll take care of you" -- with everyone else's tax dollars. To some extent, this isn't a bad thing, but the extent to which Democrats are willing to use this as a ploy to buy votes is sickening.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines "documentary" as A work...presenting political, social, or historical subject matter in a factual and informative manner and often consisting of actual news films or interviews accompanied by narration. Further, it restricts the presentation to "facts" that are presented " objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter , as in a book or film."
According to this definition and Michael Moore's admitting that a significant portion of the documentary is not meant to be taken seriously -- it's only partly true and the rest is meant to be satire, not to mention the lack of objectivity -- then Fahrenheit 9/11 is not a documentary; it is a mockumentary, little more than entertainment with some basis in facts deeply buried beneath the surface of the film (although you wouldn't know it by Moore's presentation) and should be treated as such.
For reasonably objective, reasonably centered reviews from well-respected news organizations (as well as some considered by many to be "left-wing" publications), click the following links:FYI, I have only read the opening paragraphs to each of these reviews, so I have little to no knowledge of any potential direction they may follow. Click at your whim.
Technology is one of many things that matter to "nerds". We also like politics and law, games, music, movies, math, and a variety of random topics that are too random to list.
As the first three words of Slashdot's slogan are "news for nerds", and with movies and politics being among the things that nerds take entirely too seriously, I'd say this discussion is perfectly at home at Slashdot (and it's being taken entirely too seriously).
If you think Fox News is any less truthful than the other news networks, you are sadly mistaken. Also, anyone who thinks Oliver North's "War Stories" is "entertainment" either served under Mr. North or is sadly mistaken... or both.
"Now, if you consider every single news flash regarding, oh say, SCO, more important than a movie that I believe will make a fundamental impact on the future of how politics are played out in America, the fine, avoid this thread."
Actually, I consider every single news flash regarding SCO more importan than a movie that you believe will make a fundamental impact on the future of how politics are played out in America, because I believe Michael Moores Fahrenheit 9/11 is little more than a heavily biased satire with truth buried so deep beneath the surface of the film that it is impossible to know what to trust and what to discard as satire.
Moore himself has expressed that the film is a satire and not all of it is true, but he has not told us which parts are and are not meant to be taken seriously. That being the case, how can you take any of it seriously?
Also, your [command? request?] for people who oppose Moore to avoid this thread is rather silly, don't you think? It seems to me that this might be the discussion they've been waiting on.
I meant "titles of communist nations", not "communist titles of nations". I don't think a title can practice communism. :-)
I also think more than half of our elected Democrats in Congress are also accurately characterized as social democrats. I suppose this isn't a bad thing for people who want the government to be checking up on them every step of the way, but I find the idea of social democratic politics to be largely antithetical to the ideas of classical liberalism that have carried the United States from the 18th to the 21st century.
A paraphrase of a former president: " Democracy is to social democracy what a jacket is to a straight jacket. "
(President Reagan actually said, "A republic is to a people's republic...", referring to the communist titles of nations like the People's Republic of China.)
Within the United States, the political parties, from left to right, are Green, Democrat, Republican/Libertarian.
Putting Libertarian and Republican together there is not meant to suggest that they are the same; rather, the Libertarian party is further right on some issues and further left on others, but in the long run they tend to even out. Neither of the two major parties within the US is "extreme" on either side.
However, if you take the position of the average Democrat (that includes the South, by the way) and compare it to Michael Moore, you find that Democrats advertise themselves to be much more centrist, but behind closed doors they are much in agreement with the more extreme views of Michael Moore.
Also, as a news editor, I can say with some limited authority on the subject that a professional editor of any publication, documentary, or any other work aims to remove bias from the finished work such that the work doesn't appear to take sides. Most editorial pages in serious newspapers are reasonably successful at this. Mr. Moore, in his documentary, is not.
That should be "...little to no real knowledge..." :-)
...and that includes the right not to have a film shown if the theatre managers don't want to show it, for whatever reason they choose. It's the same right that allows a newspaper editor not to run a story no matter who wrote it, or allows a newscaster not to air an interview or clip no matter what was said or who said it.
Bias exists in many shapes and forms. Twisting ideas into idealogical talking points is just one, but the most popular (and most people don't even realize it) is leaving out any thing that's true that supports the opposite claim. For instance, Michael Moore has consistently insisted that at least a significant portion of his film is satire and not meant to be taken seriously, but he won't tell us which parts or what makes them untrue. Meanwhile, there are supposedly "intelligent" people in this forum posting comments about how "true" the movie is when they obviously have little to know real knowledge of what comes across the desks and goes through the minds of either Moore or the president.
It doesn't matter which side of the fence any of these people are on. What makes me sick is their incessant whining about rights and truths when neither group understands what they are.
This isn't a conspiracy theory -- more of a conspiracy allegation with no basis in fact.
The correct measure of a meter in inches has many more than four digits, but 39.37 is correct when rounding to four significant digits. Likewise, 39.4 is correct when rounding to three, and 40 is correct when rounding to two or one.
/.'ers will mod up any reference to Douglas Adams.
And although it has nothing to do with rounding, 42 is also correct when you're a karma whore who thinks
Yeah, that's just what a bunch of guys creating some of the most violent imagery on earth need: access to really big guns. There's no telling what some of these guys have been through to make them want to create so much artificial death and destruction, but I definitely think it's a good idea for those same people to have access to the weapons that can make their fiction come to life!
(This was written entirely in jest. I enjoy first-person shooters and, um, Grand Theft Auto.)
...if only I were smart enough to say, "I see your hotspot is as big as mine."
Alas. Hindsight is 20/20.
With the recent slew of stories about new WiFi hotspots, it looks like it's becoming a pissing contest among the Slashdot faithful to find the next biggest hotspot and report it to millions of readers who won't be going there anyway.
I can barely remember using the software now, because I found actually using to-do list software was much more annoying and less productive than actually keeping track of daily tasks myself. Sure, I forget something every now and then, but at least I place the blame where it should be -- on me -- instead of on a piece of software that has no emotional attachment to my daily life anyway.