Doing the right thing and not being evil is a good business decision. For google, I'd say it's vital as a lot of people worry about their potential for evil, which is vast. But a CEO can do practically ANYTHING and justify it as good for the company.
How is attempting to bring unfiltered search to the people of China evil?
Because it's Google. And for some around here, Google can do naught but evil. Because they're a corporation, and managed to make some money, or something like that. I really don't understand the sentiment. I didn't think CmdrTaco was in that crowd, but go figure.
I feel an equivalent fury and rage when people enjoy violence and depictions of death. It's not human. It's like people who watch Saw and torture porn. How can you enjoy that?
I don't. And it was very wrong of you to assume that. I've never actually been to rotten.com, but I've been around. I don't enjoy these things, but I'll defend to the death their right to exist. If people want to host it, let them. I say this because censorship is evil. Plain and simple. There are exceptions, but I'm very very selective about them.
Censorship is obviously the wrong answer because it doesn't work but it would enrage the idiots. People should be self-censoring of this shit. This stuff should have been bred out of us from the days when we enjoyed executions and live brutality.
Well it's good that you had an about-face on censorship. But you're now going down the path of eugenics, which has had it's fair share of problems. Really, your solutions to this problem are worse then the problem.
something needs to be done to help protect children
I think the best way to protect the children is to turn them into adults. It takes time, but it takes more then just time. If a child is on an unfiltered internet, then they should be mature enough not to be scarred for life if they see some porn. If they are not mature enough, they shouldn't be on an unfiltered internet.
I bet you most people see this contents by somehow being tricked into seeing it by others.
Unfortunately, there's no cure for stupid or douchbaggery. I feel no need to cater to the stupid.
believe in freedom of speech, but I do feel that we need some sort of "option" when someone subscribes to a ISP to give them a option to filter out contents like this
Well YEAH. It's called a parental filter. Go buy one. Most can be circumvented by 7 year olds, but that's sort of an arms-race thing.
Please tell me you understand the difference between keeping yourself from needing eye-bleach, and keeping OTHERS from doing what they want to do.
(also, and I too am just pulling statistics out of my ass, but I imagine that 95% of the population isn't interested in slashdot.)
Uh, most people that talk about energy storage for the grid prefer to send the power over the grid to the facility that stores the power. IE, it doesn't have to be part of the wind turbine. Because you don't want to store the energy all the time, sometimes you want to actually use it.
Yes, there is. But it's rare. It's ludicrously rare depending on your location. You can be afraid of lightning strikes and never walk in the rain or fear meteors falling out of the sky and live in a bunker your entire life. And that will help protect you from these events. It's not a guaranteed safety, but it will help.
But doing those things is unreasonable. The chance of the event killing you doesn't warrant the actions to help prevent it.
But this is the really important point I want make sure I'm getting clear: the chances of the event happening are so slim that it doesn't warrant living in fear of the event. You can be armed to the teeth and be a killing machine and still piss your pants when the girl scouts come to sell cookies. You can run naked through the lion pen and be fearless. Neither are healthy states of mind. But most people really don't need to be armed.
Unless you live in the Bronx, or Detroit, in which case keep your head down, don't talk to strangers, pack some heat, and GTFO of there as soon as you can.. But you don't make any mention about that and give some blanket advice to everybody. And that makes the advice bad advice. Because, for the vast majority, you're not really making them safer, you're making them afraid, which really does have a negative effect. I'd say that that that the fear your inflicting on the majority outweighs the caution your imparting on people that actually need it. I guess I'm just pushing for rationality and reason over unreasonable fear and paranoia.
I feel the need to reinforce the tsunami of rage against censoring bastards like you. Despite whatever revulsion you feel about the site, it's your own will to go there or not go there. Keeping others from looking at it is impossible and evil. That is simple a battle that you cannot win, because there are too many good smart people willing to fight you.
And thank god they did. I theorized when they bought YouTube that the entire point was to fight and win this battle. It keeps the internet open and free, a better place for the masses, and Google benefits with having more people doing more online, because they're an internet company. It's a rare day when corporate profits line up with the prosperity of the people, but they still deserve a salute for it.
"It doesn't hurt Linux when people log in and ask for MS Word and get Open Office"
Oblig. FTFY
Really, it doesn't. The people that can tell the difference can figure it out.
There's an argument that if it was available, it would be used. But if you haven't noticed, there's this new thing called youtube. You should check it out, after you let it buffer.
And here I thought it was managing the rights to digital content.
So if a lawyer kicks down your door and takes a shotgun to your infringing computer, that's not DRM? Cause it's the means isn't digital?
But the people we went to go kill in Afghanistan WERE, if only by association and support, responsible for 9/11. Ignore that and I think you need to read the article some more.
Ignore that? I'll call you a fucking imbecile if you believe it.
Alrighty then, here's some truth for you. The CIA and the ISI helped foster the mujaheddin fighter in Afghanistan to fight the Russians. They gave them cash, weapons, and training. These afghans had some scary religious overtones, but fighting the commies trumped that back then. Included in or associated with that group was Osama bin Laden. The Russians left, we won, and some of the mujaheddin became the Taliban, backed by the ISI. Osama bin Laden did stuff elsewhere, but had the support of the Taliban and had camps in Afghanistan.
Now, as far as I know, that's all mostly true. Some details can be debated, but on the whole it's true. If you're going to call me an imbecile for telling you this stuff, please, just look it up.
And so, the Taliban is guilty by association and support of Osama. That said, guilt by association is a pretty shoddy deal. But when we asked for his head on a platter and they refused, well, they incurred our wrath. We were pretty wrathful at the time.
The people of Afghanistan, in general, are no more guilty for OBL and 9/11 than you are for Timothy McVeigh.
This is something else I want to clear up. The afghan populous, "in general", are not the people we went over there to kill. They're civilians stupid. We're not committing genocide. We went there to fuck over the Taliban. If we showed up and the Taliban simply dissolved or whatever, then we wouldn't have had to kill anybody. But that's just wishful thinking.
Did you refuse to pay taxes? Did you drive over a military recruiter? Bomb an army or government building? Sabotage military or industrial equipment?
Well no, I'm not fucking crazy. I did everything I could "within reason". That shouldn't need to be appended there, because we're reasonable people, right? The invasions by the USA, while horrible, don't constitute raising arms against the government. The odds of that turning out well are horrifically small.
Oh indeed, it's a nasty business, this war thing. I'm a peace-monger myself. I fought long and hard with my republican friends, mailed my congressmen, posted my opinions, and in short: got political. But that was Iraq. I was too young and green to really raise a huff going into Afghanistan, and I didn't know anything about it. I trusted that Bush and the military knew what they were doing...
And I want to make this exceptionally clear. Innocent people die in war. That's part of what makes wars suck. But the people we went to go kill in Afghanistan WERE, if only by association and support, responsible for 9/11. Ignore that and I think you need to read the article some more. That said, I'd say there was hardly any reason to invade Iraq. I fought that as hard as I could and it didn't seem to make a damned bit of difference. So I'm sorry if I sound a bit calloused, it's been a rough decade.
I have to disagree. I hate DRM as much as the next guy, but saying that managing the digital content of the game based on who has the rights with a registration code ISN'T DRM is bullshit. Mailed registration codes, code-wheels, codes in manuals, all of these are forms of DRM to keep pirates from casually sharing stuff. This conflict has been around longer then you, and didn't start with Steam and Battle-net. I remember that we were essentially locked out of "Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Simulator" because we lost the booklet somewhere. That's DRM restricting the use of a program I paid for. ok, a program my father paid for.
Without web2.0, the internet, the cloud, dongles, or the latest buzzword, doesn't mean it isn't DRM.
The problem with DRM is that it makes using the content a pain. Finding the booklet is a pain. Running steam is a pain. Registering software on each new peice of hardware is a pain. Submitting to a full body search is a pain.
It DRM was painless, for now and forever, then I really wouldn't have a problem with it. Well... I'd argue that the poor need to be able to steal it easily.
I dunno, I guess I'm more of a realist then you. The Nazis defined what it meant to be Fascists like soviet Russia defined what Communism meant. Karl Marx is spinning in his grave, the ivory towers may disagree, and some french hippies will argue, but Communism is tied to the hip to Stalin.
But this is why I backed off, because you're technically correct about Fascism and Corporatism and all that. But when you talk about fascists and corporations, you're talking about the technical or philosophical terms. When I hear fascists and corporations, I think about Nazis and Monsanto. But we're really just bickering about semantics here. And remember that this started when I mentioned Republicans calling Obama a socialist Nazi, which we'd both agree is silly.
The next wave of market correction that will hit,
Well sure, the next crisis will always be coming. I'd rather have a job and some cash rather then be on the street and broke when it hits. Now, my government might be broke instead, but it's at least big enough and powerful enough to not worry about collection agencies breaking it's kneecaps.
Isn't Europe having a financial thing with Greece and Ireland right now? Something about borrowing money? hmm?
ok, wow. I'm going to back off on the fascist thing. I had to read WAY too much about Corporatism before it made mention of any actual corporations. As in, you know, businesses. What's it mean to me? I dunno, Nazis, or an arbitrary party that fought the communist party which itself didn't have much to do with communism.
- really, you have a better reason as to why the Afghanistan war is what it is, the longest US war so far? And this reason has nothing to do with the trillions spent on the military industrial complex?
Wow you really are the conspiracy type. You know that drops your believability by about half? But I agreed that Afghanistan would have been enough to justify all the guns we make. Iraq is simply too much.
Ha. I guess it must be U.B.Laden then.
haha, yes. Indeed. It was. Like I just said. hilarious.
Or maybe it's the minerals, the gold, the iron, the lithium that the Soviets found there? Yeah, must be that.
No. Probably not. Or are you trying to make a big distinction between the invasions and the occupation. Now, some people will certainly say that the resources there will make sticking around "worth it". But that's just silly.
You can call it a police action, the people who I know who were fleeing from the country because bombs were exploding around them call it war regardless of how your president's PR machine spins it.
Yeah, DUH! Of course it's fucking warfare! Did you even read anything I wrote about that?
It's your money gone, I don't care.
Well then piss off and stop yapping about others' politics. I don't particularly care if it's bullshit, it WORKED. We're recovering, and now we just have to pay off some of this debt... oh shit!
I would opt for not having ANY of my arms or legs cut off.
Ah, so you're an anarchist then. Good luck with fending off the wasteland road warriors.
What you forgot to mention was that he is still running secret prisons all over the place, still torturing, has not withdrawn from either of the wars started by GWB.
Aye, dick moves all around. BUT, he's not CONDONING torture on TV. The CIA and their friends have been chopping people up since their inception, it's their job to do these things in the dark. But to DEFEND such practices. To rouse the rabble to think that torture is an OK thing? WTF!? And to simply pull out of the occupations would be an upheaval. As far as I know, we're still scheduled to draw down our forces and leave. It'd sure be nice to have some time-tables about such a thing now a days, wouldn't it? yeah...
The police have ever greater powers over normal citizens.
Whoa, what has Obama or his crew done to promote this? Sure, it'd be nice if he cracked down on it, but he's been busy fighting the irrational rage against health-care reform.
There is ever more corruption,
Aye, there probably is more of that what with the bailouts and recovery packages. You push money through politicians and some are going to pocket it. It really would be a good thing to audit this sort of stuff.
with ever more money being sucked out of the real economy and being injected into the banks.
Uh, the "real" economy uses those banks. And they froze up. They held off an econo-pocalypse. That was a crisis that needed fixing. Obama has brought the economy around and we're recovering. Hell, even Bush approved the start of the bailouts, so on this topic, please kindly shove it.
He has created regulations that prevent farmers from hedging against declining prices, and trucking companies from hedging rising fuel prices.
This one I'm not aware of, please elaborate or source it up.
He has repeatedly tried to shut down all drilling operations in the Gulf,
Oh yeah, see me crying a river of tar-balls for the oil barons. Alright, it's a bit overboard and reactionary and might just be to show he's not going soft on oil. But I'm really glad he's not just bending over and licking the oiled boots of BP. The oil drillers aren't going to be hurting for cash, and oil is cheap right now. If this happened 6 years ago, Cheney would probably still be hunting for the eco-terrorists responsible and bailing out BP.
'fascist' - which means ruling by corporations really.
Not really. Don't butcher the history books and dictionaries because it's convenient to your political views.
Are we pre-preemptively invading nations? - why, do you have to invade nations every year and a half, was that actually happening under any republican government,
Well, Bush had Afghanistan and Iraq. Under Obama, nothing so far. Let's hope it stays that way.
I mean aren't the current wars enough for now to satisfy the need for blood by the military industrial complex?
Ah, the conspiracy angle. The answer is yes. But then again, Afghanistan would have been enough.
Did you leave Iraq? How about Afghanistan? You think you are leaving any time soon?
No, no, and probably not. And yeah, that's kind of sad. It's like I specifically mentioned that. Why thank you for pointing that out again. That's so very kind.
You think the Afghanistan mission has anything to do with actual terrorism? curious.
Well tangentially at first. Al-queada does have it's roots there and had support from the Taliban. And we needed to smack someone up alongside the head after 9/11. Actually hunting down a connected and funded terrorist cell is difficult, and destroying the nation that they hide under is a lot easier. It's arguable that disposing of the Taliban reduces the capabilities of Al-queada, but if we really wanted Al-queada, we'd infiltrate rather then invade. And we'd do the same to the ISI in Pakistan, but who said we aren't?
Are we declaring war without congress? - why, did any democrat declare a war with congress? Did Bill Clinton declare a war with congress before bombing former Yugoslavia?
Well I was pretty young, but I'm pretty sure he didn't call it a war, despite however wikipedia refers to it. And this is a nitpicky American thing, but it's kind of important. "Police action" or "military action" are the bullshit terms that get used in the USA, because the president DOES have the power to go bomb the fuck out of whoever he wants. But he doesn't have the power to pay for it, or to officially declare war. That's in da rules. That's why Vietnam wasn't really a "war", even though it was obviously warfare.
Bush, however, ignored that detail. He called it a war, and called himself a war president. Which is very much truthful, but technically illegal. And nothing really going to come of it.
Ah, and you got me with the bailout thing. When I think about it, it's functionally the same thing, but there's kind of an important difference. That whole "holding-off-Armageddon" thing.
Are we legitimizing young earth creationists? - I really don't know.
Well allow me to inform you. No, Obama isn't supporting the YECs nor does he want to "teach the debate".
It's a democracy, we get what we deserve. But I have to agree with good ol' George W: political parties should only be formed to oust dictators, and then disband. When there are only two choices, then we're always going to be getting the lesser evil.
Slashdot Mirror
If you had read any of the +5 insightfuls up above you'd realize how full of shit you just sounded.
Doing the right thing and not being evil is a good business decision. For google, I'd say it's vital as a lot of people worry about their potential for evil, which is vast. But a CEO can do practically ANYTHING and justify it as good for the company.
How is attempting to bring unfiltered search to the people of China evil?
Because it's Google. And for some around here, Google can do naught but evil. Because they're a corporation, and managed to make some money, or something like that. I really don't understand the sentiment. I didn't think CmdrTaco was in that crowd, but go figure.
Man the laser-harpoons!
I feel an equivalent fury and rage when people enjoy violence and depictions of death. It's not human. It's like people who watch Saw and torture porn. How can you enjoy that?
I don't. And it was very wrong of you to assume that. I've never actually been to rotten.com, but I've been around. I don't enjoy these things, but I'll defend to the death their right to exist. If people want to host it, let them. I say this because censorship is evil. Plain and simple. There are exceptions, but I'm very very selective about them.
Censorship is obviously the wrong answer because it doesn't work but it would enrage the idiots. People should be self-censoring of this shit. This stuff should have been bred out of us from the days when we enjoyed executions and live brutality.
Well it's good that you had an about-face on censorship. But you're now going down the path of eugenics, which has had it's fair share of problems. Really, your solutions to this problem are worse then the problem.
something needs to be done to help protect children
I think the best way to protect the children is to turn them into adults. It takes time, but it takes more then just time. If a child is on an unfiltered internet, then they should be mature enough not to be scarred for life if they see some porn. If they are not mature enough, they shouldn't be on an unfiltered internet.
I bet you most people see this contents by somehow being tricked into seeing it by others.
Unfortunately, there's no cure for stupid or douchbaggery. I feel no need to cater to the stupid.
believe in freedom of speech, but I do feel that we need some sort of "option" when someone subscribes to a ISP to give them a option to filter out contents like this
Well YEAH. It's called a parental filter. Go buy one. Most can be circumvented by 7 year olds, but that's sort of an arms-race thing.
Please tell me you understand the difference between keeping yourself from needing eye-bleach, and keeping OTHERS from doing what they want to do.
(also, and I too am just pulling statistics out of my ass, but I imagine that 95% of the population isn't interested in slashdot.)
Uh, most people that talk about energy storage for the grid prefer to send the power over the grid to the facility that stores the power. IE, it doesn't have to be part of the wind turbine. Because you don't want to store the energy all the time, sometimes you want to actually use it.
Yes, there is. But it's rare. It's ludicrously rare depending on your location. You can be afraid of lightning strikes and never walk in the rain or fear meteors falling out of the sky and live in a bunker your entire life. And that will help protect you from these events. It's not a guaranteed safety, but it will help.
But doing those things is unreasonable. The chance of the event killing you doesn't warrant the actions to help prevent it.
But this is the really important point I want make sure I'm getting clear: the chances of the event happening are so slim that it doesn't warrant living in fear of the event. You can be armed to the teeth and be a killing machine and still piss your pants when the girl scouts come to sell cookies. You can run naked through the lion pen and be fearless. Neither are healthy states of mind. But most people really don't need to be armed.
Unless you live in the Bronx, or Detroit, in which case keep your head down, don't talk to strangers, pack some heat, and GTFO of there as soon as you can.. But you don't make any mention about that and give some blanket advice to everybody. And that makes the advice bad advice. Because, for the vast majority, you're not really making them safer, you're making them afraid, which really does have a negative effect. I'd say that that that the fear your inflicting on the majority outweighs the caution your imparting on people that actually need it. I guess I'm just pushing for rationality and reason over unreasonable fear and paranoia.
I feel the need to reinforce the tsunami of rage against censoring bastards like you. Despite whatever revulsion you feel about the site, it's your own will to go there or not go there. Keeping others from looking at it is impossible and evil. That is simple a battle that you cannot win, because there are too many good smart people willing to fight you.
And thank god they did. I theorized when they bought YouTube that the entire point was to fight and win this battle. It keeps the internet open and free, a better place for the masses, and Google benefits with having more people doing more online, because they're an internet company. It's a rare day when corporate profits line up with the prosperity of the people, but they still deserve a salute for it.
"It doesn't hurt Linux when people log in and ask for MS Word and get Open Office"
Oblig. FTFY
Really, it doesn't. The people that can tell the difference can figure it out.
no, the system of tubes boils up.
Yeah, but the neighbors are a pain in the ass.
There's an argument that if it was available, it would be used. But if you haven't noticed, there's this new thing called youtube. You should check it out, after you let it buffer.
Could you define fascism for us? I seems to have various meaning to different people.
And here I thought it was managing the rights to digital content.
So if a lawyer kicks down your door and takes a shotgun to your infringing computer, that's not DRM? Cause it's the means isn't digital?
But the people we went to go kill in Afghanistan WERE, if only by association and support, responsible for 9/11. Ignore that and I think you need to read the article some more.
Ignore that? I'll call you a fucking imbecile if you believe it.
Alrighty then, here's some truth for you. The CIA and the ISI helped foster the mujaheddin fighter in Afghanistan to fight the Russians. They gave them cash, weapons, and training. These afghans had some scary religious overtones, but fighting the commies trumped that back then. Included in or associated with that group was Osama bin Laden. The Russians left, we won, and some of the mujaheddin became the Taliban, backed by the ISI. Osama bin Laden did stuff elsewhere, but had the support of the Taliban and had camps in Afghanistan.
Now, as far as I know, that's all mostly true. Some details can be debated, but on the whole it's true. If you're going to call me an imbecile for telling you this stuff, please, just look it up.
And so, the Taliban is guilty by association and support of Osama. That said, guilt by association is a pretty shoddy deal. But when we asked for his head on a platter and they refused, well, they incurred our wrath. We were pretty wrathful at the time.
The people of Afghanistan, in general, are no more guilty for OBL and 9/11 than you are for Timothy McVeigh.
This is something else I want to clear up. The afghan populous, "in general", are not the people we went over there to kill. They're civilians stupid. We're not committing genocide. We went there to fuck over the Taliban. If we showed up and the Taliban simply dissolved or whatever, then we wouldn't have had to kill anybody. But that's just wishful thinking.
Did you refuse to pay taxes? Did you drive over a military recruiter? Bomb an army or government building? Sabotage military or industrial equipment?
Well no, I'm not fucking crazy. I did everything I could "within reason". That shouldn't need to be appended there, because we're reasonable people, right? The invasions by the USA, while horrible, don't constitute raising arms against the government. The odds of that turning out well are horrifically small.
Oh indeed, it's a nasty business, this war thing. I'm a peace-monger myself. I fought long and hard with my republican friends, mailed my congressmen, posted my opinions, and in short: got political. But that was Iraq. I was too young and green to really raise a huff going into Afghanistan, and I didn't know anything about it. I trusted that Bush and the military knew what they were doing...
And I want to make this exceptionally clear. Innocent people die in war. That's part of what makes wars suck. But the people we went to go kill in Afghanistan WERE, if only by association and support, responsible for 9/11. Ignore that and I think you need to read the article some more. That said, I'd say there was hardly any reason to invade Iraq. I fought that as hard as I could and it didn't seem to make a damned bit of difference. So I'm sorry if I sound a bit calloused, it's been a rough decade.
I have to disagree. I hate DRM as much as the next guy, but saying that managing the digital content of the game based on who has the rights with a registration code ISN'T DRM is bullshit. Mailed registration codes, code-wheels, codes in manuals, all of these are forms of DRM to keep pirates from casually sharing stuff. This conflict has been around longer then you, and didn't start with Steam and Battle-net. I remember that we were essentially locked out of "Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Simulator" because we lost the booklet somewhere. That's DRM restricting the use of a program I paid for. ok, a program my father paid for.
Without web2.0, the internet, the cloud, dongles, or the latest buzzword, doesn't mean it isn't DRM.
The problem with DRM is that it makes using the content a pain. Finding the booklet is a pain. Running steam is a pain. Registering software on each new peice of hardware is a pain. Submitting to a full body search is a pain.
It DRM was painless, for now and forever, then I really wouldn't have a problem with it. Well... I'd argue that the poor need to be able to steal it easily.
But this is why I backed off, because you're technically correct about Fascism and Corporatism and all that. But when you talk about fascists and corporations, you're talking about the technical or philosophical terms. When I hear fascists and corporations, I think about Nazis and Monsanto. But we're really just bickering about semantics here. And remember that this started when I mentioned Republicans calling Obama a socialist Nazi, which we'd both agree is silly.
The next wave of market correction that will hit,
Well sure, the next crisis will always be coming. I'd rather have a job and some cash rather then be on the street and broke when it hits. Now, my government might be broke instead, but it's at least big enough and powerful enough to not worry about collection agencies breaking it's kneecaps.
Isn't Europe having a financial thing with Greece and Ireland right now? Something about borrowing money? hmm?
What, so we should keep funding the wars just because poor people are paid to go fuck shit up over there?
- really, you have a better reason as to why the Afghanistan war is what it is, the longest US war so far? And this reason has nothing to do with the trillions spent on the military industrial complex?
Wow you really are the conspiracy type. You know that drops your believability by about half? But I agreed that Afghanistan would have been enough to justify all the guns we make. Iraq is simply too much.
Ha. I guess it must be U.B.Laden then.
haha, yes. Indeed. It was. Like I just said. hilarious.
Or maybe it's the minerals, the gold, the iron, the lithium that the Soviets found there? Yeah, must be that.
No. Probably not. Or are you trying to make a big distinction between the invasions and the occupation. Now, some people will certainly say that the resources there will make sticking around "worth it". But that's just silly.
You can call it a police action, the people who I know who were fleeing from the country because bombs were exploding around them call it war regardless of how your president's PR machine spins it.
Yeah, DUH! Of course it's fucking warfare! Did you even read anything I wrote about that?
It's your money gone, I don't care.
Well then piss off and stop yapping about others' politics. I don't particularly care if it's bullshit, it WORKED. We're recovering, and now we just have to pay off some of this debt... oh shit!
I would opt for not having ANY of my arms or legs cut off.
Ah, so you're an anarchist then. Good luck with fending off the wasteland road warriors.
What you forgot to mention was that he is still running secret prisons all over the place, still torturing, has not withdrawn from either of the wars started by GWB.
Aye, dick moves all around. BUT, he's not CONDONING torture on TV. The CIA and their friends have been chopping people up since their inception, it's their job to do these things in the dark. But to DEFEND such practices. To rouse the rabble to think that torture is an OK thing? WTF!? And to simply pull out of the occupations would be an upheaval. As far as I know, we're still scheduled to draw down our forces and leave. It'd sure be nice to have some time-tables about such a thing now a days, wouldn't it? yeah...
The police have ever greater powers over normal citizens.
Whoa, what has Obama or his crew done to promote this? Sure, it'd be nice if he cracked down on it, but he's been busy fighting the irrational rage against health-care reform.
There is ever more corruption,
Aye, there probably is more of that what with the bailouts and recovery packages. You push money through politicians and some are going to pocket it. It really would be a good thing to audit this sort of stuff.
with ever more money being sucked out of the real economy and being injected into the banks.
Uh, the "real" economy uses those banks. And they froze up. They held off an econo-pocalypse. That was a crisis that needed fixing. Obama has brought the economy around and we're recovering. Hell, even Bush approved the start of the bailouts, so on this topic, please kindly shove it.
He has created regulations that prevent farmers from hedging against declining prices, and trucking companies from hedging rising fuel prices.
This one I'm not aware of, please elaborate or source it up.
He has repeatedly tried to shut down all drilling operations in the Gulf,
Oh yeah, see me crying a river of tar-balls for the oil barons. Alright, it's a bit overboard and reactionary and might just be to show he's not going soft on oil. But I'm really glad he's not just bending over and licking the oiled boots of BP. The oil drillers aren't going to be hurting for cash, and oil is cheap right now. If this happened 6 years ago, Cheney would probably still be hunting for the eco-terrorists responsible and bailing out BP.
'fascist' - which means ruling by corporations really.
Not really. Don't butcher the history books and dictionaries because it's convenient to your political views.
Are we pre-preemptively invading nations? - why, do you have to invade nations every year and a half, was that actually happening under any republican government,
Well, Bush had Afghanistan and Iraq. Under Obama, nothing so far. Let's hope it stays that way.
I mean aren't the current wars enough for now to satisfy the need for blood by the military industrial complex?
Ah, the conspiracy angle. The answer is yes. But then again, Afghanistan would have been enough.
Did you leave Iraq? How about Afghanistan? You think you are leaving any time soon?
No, no, and probably not. And yeah, that's kind of sad. It's like I specifically mentioned that. Why thank you for pointing that out again. That's so very kind.
You think the Afghanistan mission has anything to do with actual terrorism? curious.
Well tangentially at first. Al-queada does have it's roots there and had support from the Taliban. And we needed to smack someone up alongside the head after 9/11. Actually hunting down a connected and funded terrorist cell is difficult, and destroying the nation that they hide under is a lot easier. It's arguable that disposing of the Taliban reduces the capabilities of Al-queada, but if we really wanted Al-queada, we'd infiltrate rather then invade. And we'd do the same to the ISI in Pakistan, but who said we aren't?
Are we declaring war without congress? - why, did any democrat declare a war with congress? Did Bill Clinton declare a war with congress before bombing former Yugoslavia?
Well I was pretty young, but I'm pretty sure he didn't call it a war, despite however wikipedia refers to it. And this is a nitpicky American thing, but it's kind of important. "Police action" or "military action" are the bullshit terms that get used in the USA, because the president DOES have the power to go bomb the fuck out of whoever he wants. But he doesn't have the power to pay for it, or to officially declare war. That's in da rules. That's why Vietnam wasn't really a "war", even though it was obviously warfare.
Bush, however, ignored that detail. He called it a war, and called himself a war president. Which is very much truthful, but technically illegal. And nothing really going to come of it.
Ah, and you got me with the bailout thing. When I think about it, it's functionally the same thing, but there's kind of an important difference. That whole "holding-off-Armageddon" thing.
Are we legitimizing young earth creationists? - I really don't know.
Well allow me to inform you. No, Obama isn't supporting the YECs nor does he want to "teach the debate".
It's a democracy, we get what we deserve.
But I have to agree with good ol' George W: political parties should only be formed to oust dictators, and then disband. When there are only two choices, then we're always going to be getting the lesser evil.