I'm one of the people who is not so sure about that. Actually, when it comes to Microsoft embracing Linux, I'm pretty sure it's not a friendly embrace.
Really, so all the patents they released mean nothing? I'm no IBM brown noser, but they have acted in good faith towards the community for the last 6-7 years. Plus, the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all...
Can we stop tagging stories "yes" and "no?" There's a better word: maybe. Besides that, who the hell is going to search for "yes" or "no." For crying out loud, Slashdot gives us a great new tool, says, "Use it however you like," and this is the best we can do?
Yes, you can go ahead and mod me off topic. Or mod me up for saying you can mod me offtopic. Or mod me down for admitting that I only said "mod me off topic" in order to get the sympathy mods. I really don't care, but I like it when people are happy, so go ahead and mod me however is going to make you happy.
Just don't fricken' tag every single story, "yes, no, fud, notfud, itsatrap," m'kay?
Just as in the current system, if the loser does not trust the validity of the count, they can request a recount. If the election isn't close, but the loser still does not trust the electronic count, they can call for a paper ballot count. I'm not sure who currently pays for recounts, but I see no reason this would have to change. Perhaps "harder to defraud" is the best we can hope for, although the cryptographic solution we saw in the story yesterday, which is based on paper ballots, could be used in conjunction with electronic voting.
Thinking about it more, electronic voting with a voter verified paper trail also solves the problems of hanging chads, incomplete or doubly filled in boxes and lines, and butterfly ballot confusion. Is it worth it? I don't think so either, I'm just trying to show the perceived benefits here. Plain old paper ballots work fine.
How is that superior to paper voting with a paper trail?
Quick counting of races that aren't close. If the loser has doubts, they can fall back on hand recounts. Otherwise, counting is near instantaneous. Plus, to carry off a workable fraud, two records (paper and electronic) must be altered.
This is exactly the kind of situation the term "FUD" was invented for. I wonder what the actual impact will be? How many people understand that IBM is on the open source side? How many people know that means that Micosoft will never sue? Here where I work, everyone is getting a kick out of this, as we use only SUSE anyhow.
Undoubtedly, this will help Novell and SUSE. Non-profit distributions like Debian won't be impacted much. It won't hurt IBMs open source initiatives at all: they have the lawyers to defend themselves and the sales force to make sure their customers know that. It will hurt independent Linux vendors like RedHat and Ubuntu the most.
Of course, there is still the "Embrace, Extend, Exterminate" strategy. Unfortunately for Microsoft, that doesn't work on Open Source unless you have a real patent threat to keep the riff-raff out of your extensions. With IBM backing Linux, I don't think Microsoft has a credible patent threat and so the E3 strategy won't work and all they are left with is FUD, which can be countered.
In the end, this seems like more of a stop-loss measure on Microsoft's part. So far, Linux has mostly been eating proprietary Unix's lunch. Now, with a major OS upgrade in the works, Microsoft must be scared that businesses will look at the cost/benefits of upgrading to Vista, then look at the cost/benefits of moving to Linux and decide that Vista isn't worth it. This strategy will allow them to go to existing customers who might be considering Linux over Vista and hopefully scare them into staying with Windows. Even if they don't stay with Windows on the back end, with all this fuzzy wuzzy new interoperability Microsoft can probably convince them not to move to Linux on the desktop, which is likely their real fear.
IBM also has one of the largest patent portfolios ever assembled. Right now, somewhere in Redmond, a Microsoft programmer is infringing on IBM patents. If MS wants to play rough, IBM will play rough. Here's a couple articles on IBM, open source, and patents:
Okay, we've both said it now, but I'll say it one last time: it doesn't matter if the fetus is a person. Doesn't matter one bit. I've tried to explain why, even. I've even done what you cannot, providing a counter argument based on my assumptions. I've also rebutted said counter argument. Apparantly, you can not even hear and process the logic behind our line of reasoning. You insist on framing the debate in terms of personhood. To me, the status of the fetus doesn't matter. Demanding that another person support you is unconscionable.
I don't believe for a second that you are "pro-abortion," to use your loaded terms. The fact that you can't even grasp the basic premise of one side of the debate says to me that you are so blinded by your feelings on the matter that you can't even think straight in regards to this issue.
It's not that I don't get what you are saying, it is that what you are saying has no relevance. I understand that one side frames things in terms of personhood. I do not. Personhood doesn't even enter the equation. It doesn't matter if the fetus is or is not a person, my argument is valid in either case.
Just because I don't agree with you does not make me a troll.
Not supporting someone who is incapable of meeting their own biological needs is NOT MURDER. If it were murder, then every time someone dies of hunger, everyone who refused to help that person would be guilty of murder as well. If the right is free to say that capital punishment is not murder, then I am free to say that not supporting a freeloader should not be defined as murder either. It shouldn't matter whether the fetus is part of the mother's body or not. If somone thinks that simply not letting s freeloader have a free ride is murder, then they are communists and should act that way towards everyone. But people who oppose abortion are such hypocrits, not only do most of them think capital punishment is not murder, they think letting a person die of hunger on the street is not murder either.
Note I am taking an anti-socialist stand here to make a point, not because I am actually anti-socialist.
No, I'm seeing it from outside. You are deliberatley not seein what the other poster and I have been trying to tell you. Before you go any further, simply answer whether you think it would be fair to be forced to support me for nine months, even if I would die without your support.
A third poster even came up with a somewhat valid counter to this argument, that if you invited me into a situation where I needed your support for nine months (say, living in a space station) and then threw me out the airlock because you no longer wanted to support me, that would be murder. You can't even argue that well, all you can do is claim, "You don't get it!" No, YOU don't get it. You don't even understand the parameters of the debate well enough to come up with a plausible counter to this line of argumentation.
I would counter that argument by saying people who get abortions obviously didn't intend to invite the baby. In cases of rape, the baby is obviously uninvited. In cases where birth control failed, it is also obvious. When someone was just stupid and didn't use birth control, the argument is more valid, but the fact remains that however stupid they were, they didn't want a baby and forcing the mother to carry it to term against her will is akin to me forcing you to support me for nine months.
If you are willing to feed and house me for nine months, let me know, I'll be right over. Oh, I'll be kicking you in the stomach every few minutes and sitting on your bladder as well. If that's not okay with you, why are you okay with forcing others to support a third party? Are you a communist?
Ignorance OF a contract won't get you out of it, ignorance THAT you agreed to something certainly will. Otherwise anyone could claim that anyone else had agreed to give them all their money, and that would be valid. You need to prove that someone agreed to something, and it sounds as though in this case the company could not prove the employee agreed to something.
Miss the point much? Ignorance of the law is no excuse, that's what the GPP said, ignorance of the LAW. However, ignorance of a CONTRACT is always an excuse. If you didn't know that you broka a law, then you still broke a law, but if you didn't know you agreed to something, then you didn't agree to something.
The Democrats have had no luck being pussies. Now they are fighting back. The right calls us traitors, we say things that actually have merit.
I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for, too. They stand for small minded hatefulness, and it's okay to hate that.
As for the mercenaries in Iraq, I mourn their deaths as much as I mourn the deaths of Iraqi citizens even though the mercenaries did choose to be in the situation and the citizens didn't, but that's just me and I can understand why someone would feel the opposite.
Why would it be unjust for someone who hopes that fags die of AIDS to die of AIDS themselves?
Why would it be unjust for someone who fights funding for minorities to die from the dieases that effect those minorities?
I believe the president does hate many people and secretly rejoices when the people he hates die. Why is it so wrong to speculate on that fact?
The right is far more pernicious, evil and hate filled than these rather mild examples you provide. Perhaps you yourself are not, but the policies the right has enacted has created enormous amounts of human suffering that they mostly seem to revel in. Your response is so indicitive of the debate methods used by the right. They take anything negative that is said about them and turn it back around, as if two wrongs make a right, or as if the fact that a few people in a group doing something means that no one in that group can criticize others for doing so. It avoids the real issue, just like you are. Saying the left is also hate filled does not excuse the right for being so.
No, you are too stupid to understand the paraqmeters of the debate. The other poster was trying to make this clear, and I certainly got it, but it appears you didn't. Here it is, simply put: Say I would die unless I were hooked up to you by a machine. Say my survival would require you to carry me around for nine months and provide me with nutrients. Should you be forced to provide for me?
Many anti-abortionists are also anti welfare, which is the height of hypocrisy. If you are into forcing people to support other people, why does it stop at birth? People should be forced to care for anyone who can't or won't care for themselves. Anyone who would die without aid should be cared for, by that logic. I suppose you support forcing everyone to pay for anyone who can't care for themselves?
It doesn't matter whether a fetus is a person with rights. Other people with rights die all the time because no one is willing to support them. Why should fetuses get special privileges that I don't have? If I am unable to support myself, I will die and no one will be forced to help me. Is this fair?
The dems are stupid, then. It's been shown that the most effective way to fight radicals is with radicals, not centrists, and the current Republican party has drifted so far to the right that only someone like Nancy Pelosi stands a chance of energizing the real Democratic base. The thing is, Republicans have been very successful at redefining the scope of acceptable discourse using nutbags like Anne Coulter to shift the American dialogue to the right. Just thirty years ago someone like Nancy Pelosi would have been considered more of a left-centrist than anything. But the tide is turning, and things will shift back towards the real center of American politcs. People are fed up with the angry, hateful, exclusive tone of the Republicans. They are fed up with Republican's failure to improve the lot of the averge man. In time, people will look back on the day that Nancy became speaker of the house as the day the nation finally started to heal from years of hate filled insanity.
And you character assassinate the people who believe in global warming by saying that they marginalize and villify those who believe differently. Do you have any evidence of scientists acting inappropriately to other scientists due to differences of opinion on global warming, or are you just engaging in personal attacks based on made up evidence?
That clears things up. I'll be clear, too: both sides cheat. Let's not forget that the Democrats had Tammany Hall for, what, around a hundred years? The issue isn't that one side or the other is cheating, nor is the answer that with both sides cheating it will all balance out.
Let's stop trying to place blame or defend "our side." Instead, let's focus on the solution. Fortunately, the solution is sound-bite simple: voter verified paper trail. You vote, it prints out a ballot, you but it in the ballot box. Ballots are counted electronically, if there is an issue, you recount the paper ballots by hand.
Unbelievable. You won't say it, will you? "I don't think we should be using Diebold machines" is a lot different from "I don't like Diebold systems, as bought and deployed." The second statement really leaves it open, doesn't it? I mean, someone who really wanted the election stolen for the Republicans could easily make the second statement and still be telling the truth. It could really mean, "Diebold machines, as bought and deployed, are too easy for anyone to hack, I'd much prefer they be hackable only by my party."
Hehe, not that I think that you want the election stolen, it just seems like you are more concerned about diffusing the appearance of vote fraud by the Republicans than you are about the major flaws in Diebold's machines. If the Republicans aren't stealing votes, what does it matter if a few Democrats think they are? We need to focus on fixing the problem rather than making excuses as to why this isn't the Republican's fault.
I think, to a conspiracy nut liberal, it would be fairly easy to read something into what you are saying that isn't there. Namely, people could look at what you've written in this thread and conclude that you so strongly support the Republicans that you would be willing to overlook vote fraud on their part. That's not true, is it? If it were conclusively proven that Republicans were stealing votes, you would condemn them for it, right?
How does anything you've said negate the hypothesis that Diebold is stealing elections? Perhaps they are also bribing the people in charge of buying the machines. Perhaps they are just good salesmen. Just because someone else okayed the purchase doesn't mean that Diebold isn't rigging the elections. I'm not even sure how one would make that leap of logic.
You seem intent on pushing the idea that ALL that Diebold has done is pitch a less than perfect machine. I know the saying about not ascribing to malice that which can adequetly explained by incompetance, but there seems something quite partisan in your defense of Diebold. I'm quite sure that you are defending them after that last statement. I mean, I asked for a clear statement from you that you think we shouldn't be using Diebold machines, and the best you can do is state that they are "pitching a less-than-perfect system?" Why is it so important to you that people believe that Diebold had no ill intentions?
If you believe it, how about writing this simple statement: I don't think we should be using Diebold machines. You can even cut and paste it. If you aren't willing to make an unambiguous statement like that, then I think everyone here will be forced to conclude that you really DO think we should be using Diebold machines. I leave it as an excercise for the reader to determine WHY you might want us all using a system that has been proven insecure.
You've beaten this point into the ground. We get it, election officials shouldn't buy Diebold. That is what you're saying, right? That election officials are at fault because they bought Diebold? That's really what everyone else is saying, too. I don't see why this has devolved into a dozen+ post, back and forth argument. Everyone is saying the same thing: Diebold sucks, don't buy their equipment, don't use thier equipment. The only difference is that some people are blaming Diebold while you are blaming the people who buy Diebold. Whatever, let's move on. We all agree that we shouldn't be buying or using Diebold, and we should put pressure on the officials to not buy Diebold.
Right? Perhaps it would help end this pointless back and forth if you, ScentCone, would clearly state that you don't think we should be using Diebold equipment. I think that's where the confusion is coming from. By focusing (rightfully) on placing the blame on the officials who buy the equipment, it looks a little like you are trying to excuse Diebold. You aren't, are you?
Um, yeah, whatever. But you would have airports that were owned by private individuals who could set whatever restrictions they damn well pleased on their tenants. Those tenants would be free to not fly into that airport is they didn't like the terms. But eventually, all the land would be owned by someone and there would be no more room to put in airports and people wanting to fly would have to do what the air travel oligarchy told them to do. Anyone wanting to enter the air travel market would be screwed, as the best airport spots would be taken, and the air travel oligarchy would undercut any new player until they went bankrupt in order to keep out competition. And everyone would be happy, at least as far as anyone could tell because everyone would only have the freedom of speech on their own property and none of the owning class fat cats would let anyone say anything critical on any of their property.
Not from my reading. Massport put language in the lease saying, "No wireless." The FCC says they can't do that. They actively prohibit a landlord from putting any sort of clause in a lease that they see as infringing on their regulatory domain. The FCC is basically saying landlords can't restrict broadcast or reception via the public airwaves, only the FC can do that. In a Libertarian society, landlords would be free to put any kind of restriction they like into a lease. I think the FCC did the right thing here, but this is definitely a case of nose-poking.
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I'm one of the people who is not so sure about that. Actually, when it comes to Microsoft embracing Linux, I'm pretty sure it's not a friendly embrace.
Really, so all the patents they released mean nothing? I'm no IBM brown noser, but they have acted in good faith towards the community for the last 6-7 years. Plus, the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all...
Can we stop tagging stories "yes" and "no?" There's a better word: maybe. Besides that, who the hell is going to search for "yes" or "no." For crying out loud, Slashdot gives us a great new tool, says, "Use it however you like," and this is the best we can do?
Yes, you can go ahead and mod me off topic. Or mod me up for saying you can mod me offtopic. Or mod me down for admitting that I only said "mod me off topic" in order to get the sympathy mods. I really don't care, but I like it when people are happy, so go ahead and mod me however is going to make you happy.
Just don't fricken' tag every single story, "yes, no, fud, notfud, itsatrap," m'kay?
Just as in the current system, if the loser does not trust the validity of the count, they can request a recount. If the election isn't close, but the loser still does not trust the electronic count, they can call for a paper ballot count. I'm not sure who currently pays for recounts, but I see no reason this would have to change. Perhaps "harder to defraud" is the best we can hope for, although the cryptographic solution we saw in the story yesterday, which is based on paper ballots, could be used in conjunction with electronic voting.
Thinking about it more, electronic voting with a voter verified paper trail also solves the problems of hanging chads, incomplete or doubly filled in boxes and lines, and butterfly ballot confusion. Is it worth it? I don't think so either, I'm just trying to show the perceived benefits here. Plain old paper ballots work fine.
How is that superior to paper voting with a paper trail?
Quick counting of races that aren't close. If the loser has doubts, they can fall back on hand recounts. Otherwise, counting is near instantaneous. Plus, to carry off a workable fraud, two records (paper and electronic) must be altered.
This is exactly the kind of situation the term "FUD" was invented for. I wonder what the actual impact will be? How many people understand that IBM is on the open source side? How many people know that means that Micosoft will never sue? Here where I work, everyone is getting a kick out of this, as we use only SUSE anyhow.
Undoubtedly, this will help Novell and SUSE. Non-profit distributions like Debian won't be impacted much. It won't hurt IBMs open source initiatives at all: they have the lawyers to defend themselves and the sales force to make sure their customers know that. It will hurt independent Linux vendors like RedHat and Ubuntu the most.
Of course, there is still the "Embrace, Extend, Exterminate" strategy. Unfortunately for Microsoft, that doesn't work on Open Source unless you have a real patent threat to keep the riff-raff out of your extensions. With IBM backing Linux, I don't think Microsoft has a credible patent threat and so the E3 strategy won't work and all they are left with is FUD, which can be countered.
In the end, this seems like more of a stop-loss measure on Microsoft's part. So far, Linux has mostly been eating proprietary Unix's lunch. Now, with a major OS upgrade in the works, Microsoft must be scared that businesses will look at the cost/benefits of upgrading to Vista, then look at the cost/benefits of moving to Linux and decide that Vista isn't worth it. This strategy will allow them to go to existing customers who might be considering Linux over Vista and hopefully scare them into staying with Windows. Even if they don't stay with Windows on the back end, with all this fuzzy wuzzy new interoperability Microsoft can probably convince them not to move to Linux on the desktop, which is likely their real fear.
IBM also has one of the largest patent portfolios ever assembled. Right now, somewhere in Redmond, a Microsoft programmer is infringing on IBM patents. If MS wants to play rough, IBM will play rough. Here's a couple articles on IBM, open source, and patents:
1 01.wsse n-source+use/2100-7344_3-5524680.html
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/19
http://news.com.com/IBM+offers+500+patents+for+op
Okay, we've both said it now, but I'll say it one last time: it doesn't matter if the fetus is a person. Doesn't matter one bit. I've tried to explain why, even. I've even done what you cannot, providing a counter argument based on my assumptions. I've also rebutted said counter argument. Apparantly, you can not even hear and process the logic behind our line of reasoning. You insist on framing the debate in terms of personhood. To me, the status of the fetus doesn't matter. Demanding that another person support you is unconscionable.
I don't believe for a second that you are "pro-abortion," to use your loaded terms. The fact that you can't even grasp the basic premise of one side of the debate says to me that you are so blinded by your feelings on the matter that you can't even think straight in regards to this issue.
It's not that I don't get what you are saying, it is that what you are saying has no relevance. I understand that one side frames things in terms of personhood. I do not. Personhood doesn't even enter the equation. It doesn't matter if the fetus is or is not a person, my argument is valid in either case.
Just because I don't agree with you does not make me a troll.
Not supporting someone who is incapable of meeting their own biological needs is NOT MURDER. If it were murder, then every time someone dies of hunger, everyone who refused to help that person would be guilty of murder as well. If the right is free to say that capital punishment is not murder, then I am free to say that not supporting a freeloader should not be defined as murder either. It shouldn't matter whether the fetus is part of the mother's body or not. If somone thinks that simply not letting s freeloader have a free ride is murder, then they are communists and should act that way towards everyone. But people who oppose abortion are such hypocrits, not only do most of them think capital punishment is not murder, they think letting a person die of hunger on the street is not murder either.
Note I am taking an anti-socialist stand here to make a point, not because I am actually anti-socialist.
No, I'm seeing it from outside. You are deliberatley not seein what the other poster and I have been trying to tell you. Before you go any further, simply answer whether you think it would be fair to be forced to support me for nine months, even if I would die without your support.
A third poster even came up with a somewhat valid counter to this argument, that if you invited me into a situation where I needed your support for nine months (say, living in a space station) and then threw me out the airlock because you no longer wanted to support me, that would be murder. You can't even argue that well, all you can do is claim, "You don't get it!" No, YOU don't get it. You don't even understand the parameters of the debate well enough to come up with a plausible counter to this line of argumentation.
I would counter that argument by saying people who get abortions obviously didn't intend to invite the baby. In cases of rape, the baby is obviously uninvited. In cases where birth control failed, it is also obvious. When someone was just stupid and didn't use birth control, the argument is more valid, but the fact remains that however stupid they were, they didn't want a baby and forcing the mother to carry it to term against her will is akin to me forcing you to support me for nine months.
If you are willing to feed and house me for nine months, let me know, I'll be right over. Oh, I'll be kicking you in the stomach every few minutes and sitting on your bladder as well. If that's not okay with you, why are you okay with forcing others to support a third party? Are you a communist?
Ignorance OF a contract won't get you out of it, ignorance THAT you agreed to something certainly will. Otherwise anyone could claim that anyone else had agreed to give them all their money, and that would be valid. You need to prove that someone agreed to something, and it sounds as though in this case the company could not prove the employee agreed to something.
Miss the point much? Ignorance of the law is no excuse, that's what the GPP said, ignorance of the LAW. However, ignorance of a CONTRACT is always an excuse. If you didn't know that you broka a law, then you still broke a law, but if you didn't know you agreed to something, then you didn't agree to something.
The Democrats have had no luck being pussies. Now they are fighting back. The right calls us traitors, we say things that actually have merit.
I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for, too. They stand for small minded hatefulness, and it's okay to hate that.
As for the mercenaries in Iraq, I mourn their deaths as much as I mourn the deaths of Iraqi citizens even though the mercenaries did choose to be in the situation and the citizens didn't, but that's just me and I can understand why someone would feel the opposite.
Why would it be unjust for someone who hopes that fags die of AIDS to die of AIDS themselves?
Why would it be unjust for someone who fights funding for minorities to die from the dieases that effect those minorities?
I believe the president does hate many people and secretly rejoices when the people he hates die. Why is it so wrong to speculate on that fact?
The right is far more pernicious, evil and hate filled than these rather mild examples you provide. Perhaps you yourself are not, but the policies the right has enacted has created enormous amounts of human suffering that they mostly seem to revel in. Your response is so indicitive of the debate methods used by the right. They take anything negative that is said about them and turn it back around, as if two wrongs make a right, or as if the fact that a few people in a group doing something means that no one in that group can criticize others for doing so. It avoids the real issue, just like you are. Saying the left is also hate filled does not excuse the right for being so.
No, you are too stupid to understand the paraqmeters of the debate. The other poster was trying to make this clear, and I certainly got it, but it appears you didn't. Here it is, simply put: Say I would die unless I were hooked up to you by a machine. Say my survival would require you to carry me around for nine months and provide me with nutrients. Should you be forced to provide for me?
Many anti-abortionists are also anti welfare, which is the height of hypocrisy. If you are into forcing people to support other people, why does it stop at birth? People should be forced to care for anyone who can't or won't care for themselves. Anyone who would die without aid should be cared for, by that logic. I suppose you support forcing everyone to pay for anyone who can't care for themselves?
It doesn't matter whether a fetus is a person with rights. Other people with rights die all the time because no one is willing to support them. Why should fetuses get special privileges that I don't have? If I am unable to support myself, I will die and no one will be forced to help me. Is this fair?
The dems are stupid, then. It's been shown that the most effective way to fight radicals is with radicals, not centrists, and the current Republican party has drifted so far to the right that only someone like Nancy Pelosi stands a chance of energizing the real Democratic base. The thing is, Republicans have been very successful at redefining the scope of acceptable discourse using nutbags like Anne Coulter to shift the American dialogue to the right. Just thirty years ago someone like Nancy Pelosi would have been considered more of a left-centrist than anything. But the tide is turning, and things will shift back towards the real center of American politcs. People are fed up with the angry, hateful, exclusive tone of the Republicans. They are fed up with Republican's failure to improve the lot of the averge man. In time, people will look back on the day that Nancy became speaker of the house as the day the nation finally started to heal from years of hate filled insanity.
And you character assassinate the people who believe in global warming by saying that they marginalize and villify those who believe differently. Do you have any evidence of scientists acting inappropriately to other scientists due to differences of opinion on global warming, or are you just engaging in personal attacks based on made up evidence?
That clears things up. I'll be clear, too: both sides cheat. Let's not forget that the Democrats had Tammany Hall for, what, around a hundred years? The issue isn't that one side or the other is cheating, nor is the answer that with both sides cheating it will all balance out.
Let's stop trying to place blame or defend "our side." Instead, let's focus on the solution. Fortunately, the solution is sound-bite simple: voter verified paper trail. You vote, it prints out a ballot, you but it in the ballot box. Ballots are counted electronically, if there is an issue, you recount the paper ballots by hand.
No, not really. I don't favor any particular console.
P.S. I picked this nick over ten years ago just so I could make that joke and this is the first time I've been able to do it...
Unbelievable. You won't say it, will you? "I don't think we should be using Diebold machines" is a lot different from "I don't like Diebold systems, as bought and deployed." The second statement really leaves it open, doesn't it? I mean, someone who really wanted the election stolen for the Republicans could easily make the second statement and still be telling the truth. It could really mean, "Diebold machines, as bought and deployed, are too easy for anyone to hack, I'd much prefer they be hackable only by my party."
Hehe, not that I think that you want the election stolen, it just seems like you are more concerned about diffusing the appearance of vote fraud by the Republicans than you are about the major flaws in Diebold's machines. If the Republicans aren't stealing votes, what does it matter if a few Democrats think they are? We need to focus on fixing the problem rather than making excuses as to why this isn't the Republican's fault.
I think, to a conspiracy nut liberal, it would be fairly easy to read something into what you are saying that isn't there. Namely, people could look at what you've written in this thread and conclude that you so strongly support the Republicans that you would be willing to overlook vote fraud on their part. That's not true, is it? If it were conclusively proven that Republicans were stealing votes, you would condemn them for it, right?
How does anything you've said negate the hypothesis that Diebold is stealing elections? Perhaps they are also bribing the people in charge of buying the machines. Perhaps they are just good salesmen. Just because someone else okayed the purchase doesn't mean that Diebold isn't rigging the elections. I'm not even sure how one would make that leap of logic.
You seem intent on pushing the idea that ALL that Diebold has done is pitch a less than perfect machine. I know the saying about not ascribing to malice that which can adequetly explained by incompetance, but there seems something quite partisan in your defense of Diebold. I'm quite sure that you are defending them after that last statement. I mean, I asked for a clear statement from you that you think we shouldn't be using Diebold machines, and the best you can do is state that they are "pitching a less-than-perfect system?" Why is it so important to you that people believe that Diebold had no ill intentions?
If you believe it, how about writing this simple statement: I don't think we should be using Diebold machines. You can even cut and paste it. If you aren't willing to make an unambiguous statement like that, then I think everyone here will be forced to conclude that you really DO think we should be using Diebold machines. I leave it as an excercise for the reader to determine WHY you might want us all using a system that has been proven insecure.
You've beaten this point into the ground. We get it, election officials shouldn't buy Diebold. That is what you're saying, right? That election officials are at fault because they bought Diebold? That's really what everyone else is saying, too. I don't see why this has devolved into a dozen+ post, back and forth argument. Everyone is saying the same thing: Diebold sucks, don't buy their equipment, don't use thier equipment. The only difference is that some people are blaming Diebold while you are blaming the people who buy Diebold. Whatever, let's move on. We all agree that we shouldn't be buying or using Diebold, and we should put pressure on the officials to not buy Diebold.
Right? Perhaps it would help end this pointless back and forth if you, ScentCone, would clearly state that you don't think we should be using Diebold equipment. I think that's where the confusion is coming from. By focusing (rightfully) on placing the blame on the officials who buy the equipment, it looks a little like you are trying to excuse Diebold. You aren't, are you?
Um, yeah, whatever. But you would have airports that were owned by private individuals who could set whatever restrictions they damn well pleased on their tenants. Those tenants would be free to not fly into that airport is they didn't like the terms. But eventually, all the land would be owned by someone and there would be no more room to put in airports and people wanting to fly would have to do what the air travel oligarchy told them to do. Anyone wanting to enter the air travel market would be screwed, as the best airport spots would be taken, and the air travel oligarchy would undercut any new player until they went bankrupt in order to keep out competition. And everyone would be happy, at least as far as anyone could tell because everyone would only have the freedom of speech on their own property and none of the owning class fat cats would let anyone say anything critical on any of their property.
Welcome to Libertopia.
Not from my reading. Massport put language in the lease saying, "No wireless." The FCC says they can't do that. They actively prohibit a landlord from putting any sort of clause in a lease that they see as infringing on their regulatory domain. The FCC is basically saying landlords can't restrict broadcast or reception via the public airwaves, only the FC can do that. In a Libertarian society, landlords would be free to put any kind of restriction they like into a lease. I think the FCC did the right thing here, but this is definitely a case of nose-poking.
Later, Microsoft's lawyers will claim that they promised not to charge for pants-tents, not patents.