So lets just say for the sake of argument that you're right. Slashdot has been infiltrated by government "goons" who spread lying propaganda via comment posts.
What difference does that make?
There's a difference in the way you approach the argument: if you can't figure out why your opponent keeps coming back to a point that's been shot down, there may not be any need to beat your brain against the problem of getting through to the guy.
I think you folks are missing what's being said by not reading past the spin: it's not just about "inaccurate news stories" and "enemy terrorists"; from their point of view anyone who disagrees with them is an enemy, and they're talking about "new media", not just "news stories":
The newly-established unit would use "new media" channels to push its message and "set the record straight", Pentagon press secretary Eric Ruff said.
[...]
"We're looking at being quicker to respond to breaking news," he said.
"Being quicker to respond, frankly, to inaccurate statements.
What we essentially have here is the government admitting in public that they're out to subvert "new media" sites with government hired trolls.
Now let's see, what "new media" sites might they have in mind? How about slashdot?
A case in point: if you followed the discussion that went up the other day about the Sequoia/Venezeula story, you will note that there was a spate of commentators hammering away at the party line: "Hugo Chavez" = "South American dictator" (despite the fact that the guy is a popular, elected figure. Hm, this couldn't have something to do with Chavez insulting Bush at the UN could it? Or maybe with his scheme to raise taxes on foreign oil companies?)
This is not to say that there aren't real human beings hanging around slashdot who happen to be conservative: usually, though not always, I think you can tell the difference if you pay attention.
So some points:
Going crazy trying to root out the sock puppets is probably not a great idea: dragging a group down into in-fighting is a good second-best for any infiltrator.
It is however, a good idea to keep in mind that you're not necessarily talking to someone sincerely presenting a line of argument.
Their goal here is move fast and shape people's attitudes: if this bothers you, you need to move fast to counter the bullshit quickly.
We -- meaning citizen's sincerely interested in discussing important issues -- have some advantages here: the hired trolls tend to be very rigid; the fluid nature of "new media" makes it hard for them to hide from counter-arguments.
For me, it's not the AM/FM limitations so much... It's just the suckiness of the music. If you set this thing up to record each unique song played in a 24 hour period on one particular station, you'd have just 20 different songs. Radio plays the same songs over and over again. Once you've recorded one days' worth of broadcasting, you'd be set for the next month... or whenever the radio station refreshes their playlist.
Your only exaggerating a little bit, but you're essentially describing only commercial radio. In many places around the country there are alternatives to that, college radio stations and non-profits like the Pacifica stations, and you'll hear a wide variety of stuff broadcast there.
Of course, they also all tend to have some form of internet streaming going, so this by itself would not be a reason to do capture of FM signals (possibly you might like to do this to get higher audio quality and to reduce bandwith usage).
It is, by the way, an odd peculiarity about all the buzz about "podcasting" making radio broadcasting more democratic: when I actually listen to amateurs playing DJ, it seems really unimpressive... college stations on the other hand, have something of a tradition of exploration of new music to fall back on, they're pros at the business of being amateurs.
A quick list of stations that might be worth a listen:
If you look a the current babblings of the Deibold Conspiracy gang, you'll find no actual evidence of vote rigging, merely things like donations to political parties, hackable machines, etc.
Not to mention some very strange patterns in the exit-poll discrepancies back in 2004.
I love how these people are already setting themselves up for lower expectations come November 7, by pre-emptively claiming vote rigging, because you know, polls ARE NEVER WRONG.
You know what I love? Continually hearing from Republican sock-puppets that polls are so stilly and stupid in advance of an election.
Call me paranoid, but I keep wondering what you guys are planning on pulling next time, if you're so hyped up on convincing us
that polls are wrong-wrong-wrong.
It certainly looks like, for example, control of the House is a done deal. If there's a sudden upswelling of Republican support on election
day and only on election day, yes indeed, you will have people such as myself speculating about whether the United States can ever be nudged back in the direction of Democracy.
How did I find out about this speech? I watched it at the time, live on C-Span.
You don't mean the address of the U.N. General Assembly, back on, September 24, 2006?
Looking at the full transcript,
I see that it doesn't contain this phrase.
On the other hand, back in March I can find references
to stories with quotes like this:
"I am convinced that in this century we will bury U.S. imperialism, sooner rather than later," Chavez said.
The US got the hell out of the empire game decades ago.
Well, I wish they'd do it again.
US imperialism does not exist, nor does a US empire.
Let us note for a moment that "imperialism" would be an attempt
at attaining an "empire", it does not presuppose the existance of
an empire.
Call me whacky, but since that Iraq had no direct
connection to the 9/11 attack, I've had the odd thought that
maybe the Bush regime figured that the US needed to
conquer the entire Middle East. You don't have to squint real
hard to call that "imperialism".
Anyway, considering that Chavez was plugging the Noam Chomsky book
Hegemony of Survival,
I think it's a fair guess that he was talking about Chomsky's
notions about US imperial strategy:
... when the bombing began, Arthur Schlesinger, a very
respectable senior American historian, highly respected, one of
Kennedy's advisers, had an article in which he said that the
bombing of Iraq resembles the actions of imperial Japan at Pearl
Harbor on a date, which the President at the time said, the date
that will live in infamy. And he said President Roosevelt was
correct. It's a date that will live in infamy, except that now
it's Americans who live in infamy, and the world knows it.
The freedom of the press is seriously threatened in Venezuela according to various journalism organizations and NGO's. According to the International Press Institute, the Inter-American Press Association and Human Rights Watch, the administration of President Hugo Chávez tightened its grip on the press in 2005, while groups close to the government, including the Bolivarian Circles, hampered journalists' ability to report. President Chávez's government introduced harsher penalties for libel, defamation and insult, which resulted in a growing number of journalists appearing before the courts. The National Assembly approved by a simple majority the controversial Law on the Social Responsibility of Radio and Television, or gag law, which, in effect, makes the private radio and television system part of the state, which controls its schedules, programs and content.[54][55][56][57]
The freedom of the press is secured by two key clauses in Chávez' Constitution of Venezuela of 1999. The right to freedom of expression is set out in Article 57 and Article 58 of the Constitution. The right to express opinions freely without censorship (Article 57) and the right to reply (Article 58) are generally in line with international standards.
Human Rights Watch has repeatedly stated that Venezuelans enjoy ample margins of freedom of expression. It has pointed out that the country's major newspapers and television channels are highly critical of or even opposed to the current government, and do not hesitate to express their views. Nevertheless, Human Rights Watch has also firmly opposed actions or legislation that might restrict this freedom.
In a letter sent to President Hugo Chávez on July 1, for instance, Human Rights Watch criticized the investigations opened by the Ministry of Infrastructure against RCTV, Globovisión, Televen and Venevisión. Such investigations, Human Rights Watch stated, could encourage a climate of self-censorship. In the same letter, Human Rights Watch also expressed its concern about the proposed television and radio law.
If I remain a little skeptical on this issue, it's because I need to know in a little more detail exactly the thrust of this
law: "Law on the Social Responsibility of Radio and Television". The idea of a government "seizing control of the airwaves"
admittedly sounds really terrible... but then, the US government is already supposed to own the airwaves, and supposedly requires
that the TV stations operate "in the public interest".
Also, you might want to consider this kind of information, when pondering the state of the Venezuelan news media:
Reporting on the ongoing issues, such as the protests and Chavez's economic policies in Venezuela have shown similar signs of one-sidedness, from both the mainstream media of western countries such as the U.S. and U.K., and from Venezuela's own elite anti-Chavez media, which "controls 95% of the airwaves and has a near-monopoly over newsprint, and... played a major part in the failed attempt to overthrow the president, Hugo Chavez, in April 2002.... The media is still directly encouraging dissident elements to overthrow the democratically elected president--if necessary by force."
I know the parent will most likely be modded funny, but please do NOT conflate American liberalism with the brand of socialism that Chavez is pandering.
Can you tell me what you're talking about? Taxing oil-companies and spending it on health care doesn't strike most of the lefties I know of as all that outrageous an idea.
American liberalism shouldn't even be called socialism; it's an insult to liberals.
Not to mention to socialists.
American liberals largely respect free markets
Except when they don't. Just like American conservatives.
Socialists are concerned with overthrowing the market and having heavy government involvement in the economy to the point that the government basically runs it.
Uh oh. If someone jumps in and says you're really talking about communism, I'm out of here.
Excessive government control over the economy proves dangerous to the livelihood of a nation; look at how well price controls worked in the Soviet Union, for example.
Not to mention how well they worked in the US. (One of the few places where Bush fails the "worse than Nixon" test.)
Aside from economics, liberals fight tooth and nail to preserve civil liberties and natural rights
Um... right. Liberalism: bloody in tooth and claw. I was talking to a Democrat with blood dripping from his fingers just the other day...
Most liberals that I know are just as skeptical, if not, much more skeptical about Hugo Chavez than they are about President Bush.
Most folks I know have run fresh out of skepticism by the time they're finished thinking about Bush.
Disclaimer: I am a libertarian who is somewhat sympathetic to liberalism.
I decided to start calling myself an "independant" the other day so I can stop trying to explain what I am to people.
Every screaming liberal here on Slashdot treats random allegations about Diebold to be indubitably true, unquestionably the reason for their 2004 disappointment
Hi there. I'm a liberal, occasionally screaming, and I don't think that.
Really? Why not?
I do think, however, that the fact that it's impossible for anyone to demonstrate otherwise is a disgrace. How can any election ever be trusted if we can't verify that the results weren't tampered with?
Which is, of course, a good point. You would think it would be a stunningly obvious point.
If you don't think it's a problem, I imagine the issue will be made clearer for you the next time your guy unexpectedly loses an election you thought he was going to win.
Maybe he figures that isn't ever going to happen ever again.
Chavez is the typical Latin American dictator incarnate.
And if Some Guy On Slashdot swears Chavez is a dictator, all those funny news reports I've seen about him being elected a couple of times must be totally off base.
So let's see how our resident liberals react when the shoe is on the other foot. Quick to attack Diebold as "obviously" fixing the election... will we get the same presumption of guilt for Mr Chavez, or will it be dismissed out of hand?
And will the Republican sock-puppets suddenly admit that there's a chance that Diebold machines can be corrupt, now that there are accusations about Sequoia?
What the fuck is the point of calling Bush the Devil?
Oh, you know, he probably wanted to show that he had a sense of humor, and was just one of the boys.
Maybe he should've announced that he'd just signed legislation to outlaw Russia forever.
It's a list of claims that Chavez has lied about this or that.
Some of them sound like reasonably serious issues, most of them
strike me as small beans, and over all I have no sense of why
I should believe what the fellow is saying.
warsql supplies us with political non-sequitor number 999872 (just 128 more for a winner!):
People here complain about the Patriot act, but are happy to support a communist dictator for free gas. Amazing.
The US has been happy to confer "most favored nation" status on the world's largest communist dictatorship,
why shouldn't we deal with a popular elected leader?
Maybe you folks should try reading up a bit on the man:
I don't know what led the OP to conclude that the CIA had made
attempts on Chavez life, but it doesn't take a lot of work to
google up some things that are suggestive:
"You've ignored the possibility that Chavez actually despises the actions of the Bush regime and genuinely would like to see a better US foreign policy."
Actually, he wants to "bury the US". I saw him say this in a live speech. What was really surprising was that he neglected to bang on the podium with his shoe while saying it.
Actually, it is a little surprising he'd skip a joke like that.
But I want to press you for details: what live speech are you referring to? Doing google news searches on this, I turn up nothing. Google web searches turn up some hits on similar phrases, but certainly not identical ones. The line "we can bury US imperialism" comes up in different places, but that's a little different from saying you want to bury the US
(I'm a US citizen myself, and I'd love to see US imperialism buried, nothing would be better for the US than to get the hell out of the empire game).
One of the reasons I'm being fussy about the details here is the US press has already shown a remarkable ability to quote Chavez innaccurately...
e.g. in the famous "devil" routine where he recommended the Chomsky book "Hegemony or Survival", the New York Times claimed that he apparently thought
that Chomsky was dead, but he was actually talking about John Kenneth Galbraith when he said he wished he had had a chance to meet him.
Bullshit! If you can read Spanish, I suggest you read his
statements about what is going on in his country. Read how he has
increased security (increased murders to 10,000 per year in a
country of 25 million), provided money and hospitals for the poor
(while increasing the poverty rate even while reaping record oil
profits), improved the economy (which has >10% inflation and
small growth even while reaping record oil profits), and has
increased personal freedom (by introducing communist style price
controls and jailing reporters).
Wow... and all of those accusations have occured in the local
Venezuelan press? That's pretty cool, considering we've got
US pundits trying to claim that Chavez is
censoring the press.
I don't know much about it myself, but one of those silly
leftist writers, Tariq Ali,
is going around saying things like this about Chavez:
And what people do not seem to understand, within the
establishment in the United States and its state media hacks,
is that you can have political leaders today in parts of the
world who are extremely popular because they give the people
what they promised to give them. And politics elsewhere has
become so isolated and alienating from the population that
people just don't expect this anymore. And I think this is
what explains the popularity of Chavez. And, of course, using
oil money to push through mega-spending on health, on
education, on building homes for the poor, free universities
for the poor, this is not permitted in this world. He does it,
and at the same time he challenges U.S. foreign policy in a
very sharp way.
What's even stranger is that once one of the voting-machine companies might be controlled by a leftist, the leftist conspiracy theorists have nothing to say about it.
BorgCopyeditor wrote:
Maybe it's because, in this case, there's no evidence of
fraud. But go ahead and pretend your tit-for-tat thinking
represents some kind of objective "balance."
Free clue: It wasn't Sequoia who contributed massively to one
side's campaign and publicly guaranteed to "deliver" the election
to their client.
No, actually there have already been complaints about Sequoia's
voting machines. Try a web search on terms like "sequoia vote
irregularity", you'll get quite a few hits (of course, I can't
swear that the author's of these pages are all leftists).
You don't hear about Sequoia as much as Diebold and ES&S because
Sequoia doesn't handle as much of the US vote by percentage, though if
remember right they've got a chunk of precincts in some key states
like Florida.
What really baffles me is that I can't and never have been able to see the huge memory usage that has been mentioned so many times. Granted I usually use less than 10 tabs at a time and have only 2 extensions installed (the download bar thing and text encoding in right menu thing) but still I run up to 6-7 hours before shutting down
You're a relatively light-weight user. I rarely intentionally exit from the browser on my desktop machine, and after a week or so I may have a half dozen windows with twenty tabs each. Mozilla rarely made it to two weeks without crashing on my old 512Mb linux box.
The Mozilla team is a bit windows-centric on occasion, and I'm afraid they ship with default parameters that really only make sense for people in that culture (unix people aren't in the habit of powering down unless something is seriously wrong).
Who do you vote for ? In the UK there is no one I want to vote for
If you live in:
California -- vote for Debra Bowen for Secretary of State. The Republican SoS has a "nice old guy" image, but he's evil (e.g. re-approved Diebold machines, after the last SoS ruled against them).
New Jersey -- a tight senate race where the Republicans are spending on ads like crazy: vote Democrat; with the Democrats in control of the house we'll have a check on the Bush regime
Missouri -- another tight Senate race.
Virgina -- another tight Senate race.
Tennessee -- another tight Senate race.
The Democrats are far from perfect, but it's not like you don't have a clear choice (i.e. between incompetence and evil).
Check out the official website [webvastu.com]. Wonderful isn't it?
Not the best site I've ever seen but in general light text on a dark background like this makes a lot more sense to me than the black-on-white fad that the Macintosh foisted on us (computer screens are not
actually made of paper: maybe they shouldn't look like paper, eh?).
Someday it would be cool if someone would actually do studies of this stuff instead of trying to elevate their personal taste to a "design principle": my bet is that people can look at screens longer if there's less light coming out of them.
Instead, more often than not, I use the Firefox feature to change the colors:
Edit/Preferences/Content/Colors.
You know what burns me up... The whole reason we switched to CDs from records and cassettes was supposedly the higher fidelity of CD audio. Now we all listen to crappy mp3s that sound like cassette tapes. wtf?
Ah yes. You've discovered that people don't really care about music, they care about being up on the latest fads.
You might add that most people don't even bother to set-up a stereo with decent speakers, amp, etc, and just toss a box on their dresser (presuming they don't just listen on earbuds all the time).
Slashdot Mirror
There's a difference in the way you approach the argument: if you can't figure out why your opponent keeps coming back to a point that's been shot down, there may not be any need to beat your brain against the problem of getting through to the guy.
Maybe he meant the scientologists.
What we essentially have here is the government admitting in public that they're out to subvert "new media" sites with government hired trolls.
Now let's see, what "new media" sites might they have in mind? How about slashdot?
A case in point: if you followed the discussion that went up the other day about the Sequoia/Venezeula story, you will note that there was a spate of commentators hammering away at the party line: "Hugo Chavez" = "South American dictator" (despite the fact that the guy is a popular, elected figure. Hm, this couldn't have something to do with Chavez insulting Bush at the UN could it? Or maybe with his scheme to raise taxes on foreign oil companies?)
This is not to say that there aren't real human beings hanging around slashdot who happen to be conservative: usually, though not always, I think you can tell the difference if you pay attention.
So some points:
Your only exaggerating a little bit, but you're essentially describing only commercial radio. In many places around the country there are alternatives to that, college radio stations and non-profits like the Pacifica stations, and you'll hear a wide variety of stuff broadcast there.
Of course, they also all tend to have some form of internet streaming going, so this by itself would not be a reason to do capture of FM signals (possibly you might like to do this to get higher audio quality and to reduce bandwith usage).
It is, by the way, an odd peculiarity about all the buzz about "podcasting" making radio broadcasting more democratic: when I actually listen to amateurs playing DJ, it seems really unimpressive... college stations on the other hand, have something of a tradition of exploration of new music to fall back on, they're pros at the business of being amateurs.
A quick list of stations that might be worth a listen:
Not to mention some very strange patterns in the exit-poll discrepancies back in 2004.
You know what I love? Continually hearing from Republican sock-puppets that polls are so stilly and stupid in advance of an election. Call me paranoid, but I keep wondering what you guys are planning on pulling next time, if you're so hyped up on convincing us that polls are wrong-wrong-wrong.
It certainly looks like, for example, control of the House is a done deal. If there's a sudden upswelling of Republican support on election day and only on election day, yes indeed, you will have people such as myself speculating about whether the United States can ever be nudged back in the direction of Democracy.
You don't mean the address of the U.N. General Assembly, back on, September 24, 2006? Looking at the full transcript, I see that it doesn't contain this phrase.
On the other hand, back in March I can find references to stories with quotes like this: "I am convinced that in this century we will bury U.S. imperialism, sooner rather than later," Chavez said.
Well, I wish they'd do it again.
Let us note for a moment that "imperialism" would be an attempt at attaining an "empire", it does not presuppose the existance of an empire.
Call me whacky, but since that Iraq had no direct connection to the 9/11 attack, I've had the odd thought that maybe the Bush regime figured that the US needed to conquer the entire Middle East. You don't have to squint real hard to call that "imperialism".
Anyway, considering that Chavez was plugging the Noam Chomsky book Hegemony of Survival, I think it's a fair guess that he was talking about Chomsky's notions about US imperial strategy:
Noam Chomsky on Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest For Global Dominance:
Using the wrong words. A nice trick.
It's certainly of interest that the Human Rights Watch is concerned about this. Venezuela: Official Press Agency Distorts Human Rights Watch's Position:
If I remain a little skeptical on this issue, it's because I need to know in a little more detail exactly the thrust of this law: "Law on the Social Responsibility of Radio and Television". The idea of a government "seizing control of the airwaves" admittedly sounds really terrible... but then, the US government is already supposed to own the airwaves, and supposedly requires that the TV stations operate "in the public interest".
Also, you might want to consider this kind of information, when pondering the state of the Venezuelan news media:
Media, Propaganda and Venezuela:
Can you tell me what you're talking about? Taxing oil-companies and spending it on health care doesn't strike most of the lefties I know of as all that outrageous an idea.
Not to mention to socialists.
Except when they don't. Just like American conservatives.
Uh oh. If someone jumps in and says you're really talking about communism, I'm out of here.
Not to mention how well they worked in the US. (One of the few places where Bush fails the "worse than Nixon" test.)
Um... right. Liberalism: bloody in tooth and claw. I was talking to a Democrat with blood dripping from his fingers just the other day...
Most folks I know have run fresh out of skepticism by the time they're finished thinking about Bush.
I decided to start calling myself an "independant" the other day so I can stop trying to explain what I am to people.
Really? Why not?
Which is, of course, a good point. You would think it would be a stunningly obvious point.
Maybe he figures that isn't ever going to happen ever again.
And if Some Guy On Slashdot swears Chavez is a dictator, all those funny news reports I've seen about him being elected a couple of times must be totally off base.
And will the Republican sock-puppets suddenly admit that there's a chance that Diebold machines can be corrupt, now that there are accusations about Sequoia?
Anyway, there have already been many complaints about Sequoia, I don't see why they should change now: Bev Harris: Inside Sequoia's Vote Counting Program
Oh, you know, he probably wanted to show that he had a sense of humor, and was just one of the boys. Maybe he should've announced that he'd just signed legislation to outlaw Russia forever.
It's a list of claims that Chavez has lied about this or that. Some of them sound like reasonably serious issues, most of them strike me as small beans, and over all I have no sense of why I should believe what the fellow is saying.
He apparently used to work for the New York Times, but then quit to focus on more partisan writing: Financial Times Reporter "Can't Possibly Be Neutral"
As you might expect, there are people who are critical of his writing:
The US has been happy to confer "most favored nation" status on the world's largest communist dictatorship, why shouldn't we deal with a popular elected leader?
Maybe you folks should try reading up a bit on the man:
(And what could this possibly have to do with fears about the Bush regime's power grabs?)
- Former CIA Agent Affirms Possibility of Chavez's Assassination in Venezuela
- Venezuela's 'Anti-Bush' Fears Assassination
- Declassified CIA Documents Show United States Had Detailed Information Regarding The April 2002 Coup In Venezuela
This looks like a nice summary of what's been going on from the left-wing point of view:Actually, it is a little surprising he'd skip a joke like that.
But I want to press you for details: what live speech are you referring to? Doing google news searches on this, I turn up nothing. Google web searches turn up some hits on similar phrases, but certainly not identical ones. The line "we can bury US imperialism" comes up in different places, but that's a little different from saying you want to bury the US (I'm a US citizen myself, and I'd love to see US imperialism buried, nothing would be better for the US than to get the hell out of the empire game).
One of the reasons I'm being fussy about the details here is the US press has already shown a remarkable ability to quote Chavez innaccurately... e.g. in the famous "devil" routine where he recommended the Chomsky book "Hegemony or Survival", the New York Times claimed that he apparently thought that Chomsky was dead, but he was actually talking about John Kenneth Galbraith when he said he wished he had had a chance to meet him.
Wow... and all of those accusations have occured in the local Venezuelan press? That's pretty cool, considering we've got US pundits trying to claim that Chavez is censoring the press.
I don't know much about it myself, but one of those silly leftist writers, Tariq Ali, is going around saying things like this about Chavez:
You don't hear about Sequoia as much as Diebold and ES&S because Sequoia doesn't handle as much of the US vote by percentage, though if remember right they've got a chunk of precincts in some key states like Florida.
You're a relatively light-weight user. I rarely intentionally exit from the browser on my desktop machine, and after a week or so I may have a half dozen windows with twenty tabs each. Mozilla rarely made it to two weeks without crashing on my old 512Mb linux box.
The Mozilla team is a bit windows-centric on occasion, and I'm afraid they ship with default parameters that really only make sense for people in that culture (unix people aren't in the habit of powering down unless something is seriously wrong).
If you live in:
- California -- vote for Debra Bowen for Secretary of State. The Republican SoS has a "nice old guy" image, but he's evil (e.g. re-approved Diebold machines, after the last SoS ruled against them).
- New Jersey -- a tight senate race where the Republicans are spending on ads like crazy: vote Democrat; with the Democrats in control of the house we'll have a check on the Bush regime
- Missouri -- another tight Senate race.
- Virgina -- another tight Senate race.
- Tennessee -- another tight Senate race.
The Democrats are far from perfect, but it's not like you don't have a clear choice (i.e. between incompetence and evil).Someday it would be cool if someone would actually do studies of this stuff instead of trying to elevate their personal taste to a "design principle": my bet is that people can look at screens longer if there's less light coming out of them.
Instead, more often than not, I use the Firefox feature to change the colors: Edit/Preferences/Content/Colors.
And all the crap goes away. Except for the stories like this one.
Ah yes. You've discovered that people don't really care about music, they care about being up on the latest fads.
You might add that most people don't even bother to set-up a stereo with decent speakers, amp, etc, and just toss a box on their dresser (presuming they don't just listen on earbuds all the time).